September 12th, 2016 Update on my current situation.
Just a small update on what I'm going through right now.
September 9th, 2016 How do you eat a Banana?
Today I learned that the way I eat a banana says a lot about me.
No the title is not a joke. This simple question has helped change my outlook on life. Hopefully by listening to this audio, you will also have your mindset changed.
August 17th, 2016 Today I learned a life lesson from a flip phone
Yes the title is true, I did learn something worth while from a flipphone.
August 16th 2016, Just a Random talk
Today was a good day learned a couple of things. Listen in and see what I learned...
August 11th, 2016 Break away from the herd
Today I actually want to touch upon breaking what is know as the social norm. I call it breaking away from the herd.
August 10th, 2016 Fear not the person who...
Today I decided to tackle another one of Bruce Lee's sayings. So let me know in the comments what you think.
August 9th, 2016 The person who chases two rabbits catches neither
Today I was turned down by a fiduciary, instead of wallowing in self pity I turned to Confucius. So here is another audio only post, be sure to leave some feedback in the comments.
August 6th, 2016 Motivation Rant
Today I decided to do an audio only on the subject of motivation. Feel free to let me know how you like it.
August 3rd 2016, Don't focus on the dot
Today's vlog is about making sure we that we don't get tunnel vision. So sit back and enjoy today's vlog.
August 2nd, 2016 Success isn't over night
Just yesterday I decided to walk to the beach, to get some exercise. The entire walk was a little over 6 miles. Just because I exercised one time, I can not expect to instantly get into shape. Success is the same you can not expect it to come over night. Yes that is the topic of today's post.
Recently I picked up the book "Bounce" by Matthew Syed. The book goes over the ten thousand hour principle. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this principle, it basically means that to become a master at something takes a minimum of ten thousand hours. It goes in depth about many professional athletes and musicians, describing all the hard work they did to achieve their greatness. Everyone believes that they were naturally gifted but in reality they put in the hours. Think about the thoughts that go through your mind when you see someone successful. You think to yourself that the person is either lucky or it was easy for them.
If you are currently not succeeding at a certain aspect of your life, give it time. People usually give up right before they find success. Failure is a major part of success because we can learn from it. When we were learning to walk as babies we often fell, yet we all learned how to walk. Just look at J K Rowling, she never gave up and she achieved success. I highly recommend picking up the book, it is a great read
July 30th, 2016. Received some great tips today
Today I was fortunate enough to receive a couple of tips at work. They were not monetary tips, no they were greater than that. I received a book and a good review. Might not sound like a lot but it made my day.
The book was given to me by a professor of plasma physics from Columnist University. Like I stated many times before, my job allows me to meet interesting people. The professor comes in from time to time to have talks with me. The book was an unexpected gift, it is a book about math. We had a conversation yesterday and I spoke of my past as a mathematical athlete. I never expected him to take note of it and get me a book to further my learning on the subject. Out of the kindness of his heart he took it upon himself to give me a gift that would help me better myself. As many readers of this site know, I love reading so this is a perfect gift for me.
The second gift was from a lady who works in realestate. Just like the professor she is in her 70s, so they both have a wealth of knowledge. She wrote a nice note for my boss. Just that little token of appreciation shows that what I do is appreciated. Remember it's the little things that count. Before you guys go off saying that money tips are better, stop. Money will only last for so long, but these gifts will stay with me till the end.
July 28th 2016, Knowledge is only potential power
I know everyone says knowledge is power, but it is only potential power. Execution trumps knowledge any day of the week. Do you know who said this Tony Robbins, before you go knocking him just stick with me until the end of this post. So sit back and get ready to learn.
Most of you reading this post might not know this but I am very knowledgeable when it comes to weight training, yet my physique tells a different story. I have all this knowledge on weight training but I'm doing nothing with it. If I were to apply the knowledge on myself then I can better my health. If i was to post the knowledge on this site or YouTube I can help may other people better their health. Just by having the knowledge does not grant me power it just gives me a little more leverage than the average person starting out. At the same time a person who starts a journey to get in shape with no knowledge on working out has power. The power to change their life.
Another example of knowledge being only potential power and execution trumping knowledge can be seen in the financial world. Lets take a little look at financial advisers and economic professors/teachers. The advisers give you advice on where to invest yet they do not invest in the same funds. Isn't that weird they say how good it is based on their years of expertise but they do not invest in the same fund. Now look at economic teachers and professors, they teach students about the economic world but they are drowning in debt. How can they teach from a book when they have no real world experience in the subject. If a financial adviser is living from paycheck to paycheck and giving financial advise then something is definitely wrong.
This is one of the main reason I started this blog was to practice expressing myself to my audience, while at the same time becoming a teacher. Let me know in the comments what you thought about this post. Also let me know if you agree or disagree with me, there is no right or wrong when it comes to opinions.
July 26th 2016, We can not only drink from one river
Earlier today, I was talking to a friend of mine about entrepreneur based audios on YouTube. We both have certain people who audios help with our mindsets. The only problem with the audio's that we listen to is that they are limited by the sources. What that basically means in layman's terms is that the information is limited to the knowledge of the person teaching. So because of that we need to constantly gain access to a multitude of teachers. That is how I came up with " We can not only drink from one river."
Think back to when you were a child, think about who your teachers were. I'm not talking about our kinder-garden teacher, I'm talking about the people who raised us. We learned many things from them, both good and bad. Have any of you seen the movie The Water Boy? The main character goes to school because of a football scholarship, but he does bad at first in his classes because he had only one teacher throughout his life (his mother). During the course of the movie, he has many individuals to learn from and evolved as a character. If he would have only lived by his mother's teaching then he would have not gone to college, been able to play football and he wouldn't have been able to get married at the end of the film. He learned that in order to survive he would have to learn from many teachers.
This post actually ties into my vlog the other day about having an empty cup. We have to keep our minds open to any learning opportunities. In the subject of money I have many teachers, some you know others you have never heard of. I listen to Dave Ramsey any time I take a shower, he talks about getting out of debt and doing safe investments. At the same time I listen to Robert Kiyosaki who recommends using debt to build wealth. Two completely different views on acquiring wealth, but I do not follow the teachings to a tee. Its all about acquiring one or two golden nuggets from each teacher. For those of you who do not know what a golden nugget, it is a wealth of knowledge in a small package. These two financial moguls are not my only teachers, I also learn from Tony Robbins, Warren Buffet, Jack Bogle, and many more that range from some of my customers to some of my close friends. You don't need to learn every single thing that each person knows you would close the door on the wealth of knowledge from the other teachers.
In closing I want to ask you each and everyone of you a question. How do you find your favorite book, song, band, movie, food or etc? You try multiple things don't you. You hate some of the items along the journey, like some of the items and totally love other items. Basically you can not knock something until you try it. So I want you to find a couple of experts in one of your favorite subject matters and try to pick up some golden nuggets from them. Let me know in the comments what you learned.
July 24th, 2016. Having an empty cup
Today is an amazing day, because I am able to share something that I learned from Bruce Lee. Yes that is right Bruce Lee, he was not only an amazing martial artist but a great philosopher. So sit back and enjoy today's video.
July 21,2016 Are you prepared for war?
Just the other day my brother sent me the above image and I could not help but fall in love with it. This conversation can be applied to almost every aspect of our life. It is essentially saying it is better to be over prepared than under prepared.
One way that we can make sure we are over prepared for life is having an emergency fund. Approximately 62% of Americans have less than a thousand dollars in savings. That basically means that only 38% of people are prepared for a minor emergency. Without an emergency fund we are one paycheck away from being homeless. If you don't have an existing emergency fund, start one today and get it up to a thousand dollars first. The goal is to get it high enough to cover three to six months of expenses.
Another aspect of life that we need to be over prepared in is life insurance. Approximately 38% do not have life insurance. Death is inevitable and we have to prepare accordingly. A funeral is expensive, there is the cost of the plot, the wake, the casket and the headstone. A basic term life policy for twenty years can be as low as twenty a month. There are many options for life insurance, I'm no expert in on insurance so I'm not going to compare term life vs whole life insurance.
This was a small post but it is food for thought. So make sure you stay prepared in life.
July 19th 2016, Are your friends real?
Today I decided to talk about real friends vs associates. Let me know down below in the comments what you think. Also if you want to get our weekly news letter feel free to click on the subscribe/support us tab
July 18th 2016, New Day, New me
As the title states, today is a new day in my life. Today is the day that I take my first step towards the life I want. I have mapped out a plan of action and will do my best to stick to it. This action plan is in conjunction with my work schedule. Before you say that you don;t have anytime, I work 54 hrs a week in 6 days. This is not including my commute time which is two to three hrs each way. So don't think it's impossible and read on.
The action plan I have developed is no walk in the park. If I follow it to a T then success should be guaranteed. The downside is for the next year or two I will not have a "life". When I say that I will have no "life" means that I will have little to no leisure time. This is a concept that I learned from listening to Dave Ramsey and his proverbial "living on beans and rice". He uses this analogy to tell his listeners to cut unnecessary expenditures and save money to tackle debt. The "living on beans and rice" concept relates to my time management, I need to cut out the time wasters. I need to budget my time wisely, because lost time can never be regained. Not everyone is born with the same amount of riches, yet we all are born with the same number of hours in a day.
After reading the previous chapter, you might be asking yourself why I don't just do a little more instead of jumping head first. Whenever you are fully immersed in something you tend to pick it up faster. By fully immersing myself in my action plan I will pick up ways to get more done in the allocated time. You also need to realize that you have to think big, you have to value and believe in yourself. By doing only the minimum how can you expect to get the same returns as someone who works their tail off. It's the same as attempting to pay a credit card off by only paying the minimum. Success is like an iceberg, everyone sees the success (the tip) but fail to see the hard work
July 12th 2016, We are spoiled
Today’s post is going to be about an interaction I had today with a customer. The customer came in and spoke with me about a documentary they were working on, it was actually pretty interesting. The star of the film was a young boy from South Africa that loved to dance. After hearing the boy's story, I realized how good we have it as Americans.
In today's society, the average American whines and complains about any little thing. We as American's are spoiled and we have spoiled our children. There is no reason that kids should be posting “FML!!! My parent's got me the wrong colored IPhone for Christmas. I'm going to break it so they have to buy me the right one.” This is an actual post that a child made and there's thousands more just like it. This little boy from South Africa has never owned a cellphone or even an ipod. He was given a cracked iPhone 4 ( a device that is 6 years old) and cherishes it. He is not complaining about the color or the fact that it is cracked because he knows that it is not a necessity but merely a luxury. It's not only in technology that we are spoiled, think of fashion. I hate it when I see someone wearing a pair of “designer” jeans that have holes in them. Someone taking a pair of jeans and cutting holes in them does not justify it costing a couple of hundred dollars. I was shown pictures of this boy wearing normal jeans, his expression was priceless. It was his first time wearing blue jeans and he was modeling them in the mirror. The jeans did not cost much and didn't have any big branding or holes in them, yet they brought joy to this child.
Before you go off saying that we can't compare American kids to this child from a third world country, stop just stop. Where he lives there is no electricity and his grandmother has to buy prepaid electricity cards. Most people lose their minds when there is no wifi, imagine what they would do if they didn't have any electricity. This young boy is forced to live with his five other sibling in his grandmother's two bedroom house because his mother is a drug addict. His grandma sells homemade donuts to make ends meet. One day a woman purchase from her and seconds later a drug dealer who was waiting in line picks up this women and uses her as a human shield. Why you might ask, it’s because a rival drug dealer decided to do a drive by shooting to try and kill the man on the line. These are the conditions that this boy lives in, yet he is still able to smile and chase his dream. What's your excuse?
The reason I wrote this post today is not to make anyone feel bad for this boy. Don't pity him, instead learn from him. His situation is much worse than most of ours and he doesn't complain about it. There has been many cases of police killing civilians and instead of peaceful protesting, people are killing cops. Stop trying to justify your actions with wrongs that are happening elsewhere. Look at the Trayvon Martin riots, people decoded to use his case to riot and loot. Two wrongs don't make a right!!!
July 9th, Let's Start Reading Again
These past couple of days have made me question society. You might be thinking what is making me lose faith in society. Mobile phone games, everywhere I turn someone is on their phone playing a game. The reason that this is grinding my gears, is due to the fact that no one is reading anymore.
As a little experiment I want you the reader to ask ten people a question. Ask them when was the last time they read a book. Some of the people that I have asked have stated that the last billion they read was in college. When I hear that people don't read, my heart skips a beat. Knowledge is power, if we are not learning then we are not growing. After we graduate from school, we have no one to teach us about the many trials life puts us through. That's where good come in, there is almost one book per subject. There's even books that teach a craft, like all the for dummy books.
Listen, I’m not trying to say that you can't enjoy your commute. All that I am saying is we are throwing away valuable time. So many people spend their work down time on social media and games that it outweighs the time they spend actually working. Everyone always says they hate their job or they want more pay yet, they don't attempt to aquire a new skill set. I'm not saying that reading will solve all your problems, but it can help in many ways. People sometimes turn to alcohol or drugs to escape reality and these substances can have bad side effects or even cause death. You can read a nice fiction book and escape reality that way, worst case scenario you dislike the book or it leaves you craving more. So read a book and feel free to let me know how it went.
July 7, 2016 Ambition
Beginning of July and the weather is already bad. As I sit here typing this post, it is over 90 degrees outside. For the next five days the weather will stay like hot. !right sound like a dream come true for many of you, but that's not the case for me because I am stuck inside working. So today I want to talk about ambition.
Ambition is a strong desire to achieve something. When I hear the word ambition, a voice asks me how bad do I want it. How badly you want something, is the true definition of ambition (in my opinion). For most big decisions in our lives, we make a decision based on a want. Think about the reason some people get married, to fill a void, to not be lonely, because they want to spend the rest of their lives with the person and many more. These are all wants, all our decisions are fueled by a want/desire. Ambition is one of the few things that can help us to change the direction of our lives (in a good way).
The reason that I brought up the weather is because I am unable to enjoy it. The only way that I can enjoy the weather on a consistent basis is by changing my current situation. I would need to be able to live without the need of employment. To many of you reading this post, the concept of living without the need of employment sounds insane. The concept is actually quite freezable, that is if you have enough ambition. What is it that drives you to make you want to do more in life. What drives me is time. I want to be able to enjoy what little time I have left on this planet. Through society we are taught that we need to work for forty or fifty years until we are able to retire. Why do I have to wait until I'm seventy years old to buy a nice sports car and drive it through town mid day. So whenever I commute to work and see men over forty going to work, I tell myself that won't be me.
Ambitions don’t have to only be for “big” things. Years ago I wanted a pair of headphones that cost $250. To get the headphones I didn't buy any food at work for a month and just ate cup of noodles. So whatever your ambition is let it drive you to success.