You’r Life will get Better August 31, 2009
Posted by mrlater in Life.Tags: career, finances, health, inspiration, Life, opportunity, people, relationships, success, temporary
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1. Bouncing Back from Tough Times with Self-Encouragement, Part 2 by Jim Rohn
This is the second installment in a 3-part series of articles.
Where the Miracle Begins
Sometimes, defeat is the best beginning. Why? Well for one thing, if you’re at the very
bottom, there’s only one way to go’up. But more important, if you’re flat on your back,
mentally and financially, you’ll usually become sufficiently disgusted to reach way deep
down inside yourself and pull out miracles. Pull out talents and pull out abilities and
pull out your desires and determination. When you’re flat broke or flat miserable, you’ll
eventually become so disgusted that you’ll pull out the basic essentials required to make
everything better.
It’s in the face of adversity that things begin to change, that you begin to change. With
enough disgust, desire and determination to change your life, you’ll start saying, I’ve
had it. Enough of this. No more. Never again!
Here’s where the miracle begins. I’ve had it. Enough. No more. Never again. These words
and these thoughts really rattle the power of time and fate and circumstances. And these
three things, time and fate and circumstances, all get together and say, Okay. Okay. We
can see that we have no power here; we’re facing some major resolve! This guy’s not going
to give up. He’s had it. He’s done with all this nonsense. We’d better step aside and let
this guy get by! Inspiration through disgust.
A lot of people don’t change themselves. They wait for change. These poor unfortunate
folks accept their defeats and wallow in their self-pity. Why? Because they refuse to take
control of the situation. They refuse to take control of their life, their career, their
health, their relationships, their finances. They refuse to take responsibility and get
sufficiently disgusted to change it.
If you are disgusted, if you are in need of some change, if this book finds you in the
middle of your own personal slump, then I have some words to offer. Your present failure
is a temporary condition. It is only a temporary condition. You will rebound from failure,
just as surely as you gravitated into failure.
One time, when I was in the midst of a bout of failure, somebody suggested that I should
tell myself, This too shall pass. I firmly believe that you’re only given as much as you
can handle, as much negativity, as much failure, as much disappointment. This too shall
pass, if you grasp for a new beginning. You need to pull yourself up and move back into
the world with a plan.
As foolish as it might sound, you should be thankful for your current limitations or
failures. They are the building blocks from which to create greatness. You can go where
you want to go. You can do what you want to do. You can become what you want to become.
You can do it all, starting now, right where you are.
A father talks about his daughter. She’s gone through some pretty tough times, and as he
tells it, she’s a pretty tough person. He has a unique way of describing his daughter’s
situation, though. While most parents would be frantic, even for their kids who are grown
and gone, this man just smiles and says that his daughter is like a frog in a jar of
cream: She keeps kicking and kicking and kicking, and pretty soon the milk will turn into
a lump of butter and she’ll be able to jump out. That’s an interesting illustration of
tenacity, because that’s how it really works. You’ve got to keep trying and trying and
trying. You’ve got to have enough resolve to do it until.
Some of the most inspiring success stories have started with failure. Longfellow started
in failure. Michelangelo started in failure. Lincoln started in failure. Rod Serling wrote
40 stories before he had one that was accepted. Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper that
felt he had no talent. Richard Byrd crashed his plane on his first solo trip before he
became one of the world’s greatest explorers. And the success stories continue.
Be grateful for your adversity. At the same time, make sure that it’s working for your
future, not against you. Make your failures give birth to great opportunity, not prolonged
agony. Make your disgust lead to inspiration, not depression. The world will willingly sit
by and let you wallow in your sorrows
until you die broke and alone. And here’s what else
the world will do. The world will step aside and let you by, once you decide that your
present situation is only temporary. The doors will open once you decide to get back on
your feet and make your mark.
You have to care. In your own enlightened self-interest, give a run at adventure. Keep
your eyes firmly set on achievement. Don’t settle for mere existence and self-pity. Make a
commitment to excellence. And remember, it is your challenge, your own personal challenge,
to use all your gifts and skills and talents and knowledge to survive and succeed.
To Your Success,
Jim Rohn
One Life To Live October 2, 2008
Posted by mrlater in Life.Tags: family, how to make money, Life, live, live forever, successful
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My friend Jon sent me this email,and it really hit home.
I was sitting in Yoga and it’s just been
an emotional past few days and many
things have been going on and I simply
couldn’t stop thinking of writing this
email.
And the reason why is because I feel
like SO MANY OF US just live our lives
in this ‘Illusion’ that we aren’t going to
die one day.
In fact, it almost baffles me how we
can say we want something SO BAD.
We want this house.
We want to be successful.
We want this new car, and recognition,
and we want to walk across our companies
stage, and we want 50,000+ per month
in income yet damn near barely ANYONE…
LIVES THEIR LIFE LIKE THEY ACTUALLY MEAN IT.
We all walk around acting as if we’ve got
freaking FOREVER to live our lives.
We get easily upset with our family and
we never take the time to figure out why
because we act like we’ve got forever to
live…
We bumble through our jobs not really
knowing what our purpose is and just
getting complacent more and more each
day because we act like we’ve got forever
to live…
We half ass our way through challenges,
we avoid pain and we seek pleasure because
we act like we’ve got forever to live.
Well… I want to introduce an idea to
you today and ask you to take it very
seriously.
What if RIGHT NOW, you came into
the sudden awareness and realization
that you DO NOT have forever to live.
In fact, you have NO CLUE how long
you’re going to be alive on this planet.
What if you came into the sudden
realization that this very email you’re
reading might be the LAST one you
ever read.
Do you think you would appreciate
life more? Do you think you would
appreciate the people you love more?
Would you appreciate what the sun
looks like when its setting over a beautiful
scene where you live more?
Do you think we might half ass our
way through our lives if we really grasped
that we DON’T have forever to live and
we stopped acting like it?
You want to know the real reason I’m
writing this email…
It’s because I am not here to show
people how to make money. In fact,
I could care less about that.
I want you to succeed INCREDIBLY
and create your DREAMS in life… but
showing people how to make money
is not my purpose in life.
I am here to show people who they are.
I am here to WAKE people up.
I’m here to help you remember just
how powerful you are and motivate
you to really QUESTION what your
specific purpose is here in life.
There’s really not much I want more
than that. I already have a bunch
of money and I don’t even spend it.
I want everyone who reads this email
right now to genuinely sit down, and
take into consideration, the fact that
we will NOT live forever.
We’ve got ONE SHOT. You do not
get to repeat today.
It’s done. And you will not get to
repeat tomorrow. That’s done to.
So why not live this life with our
full BEING. Why not live this life
with as much love, as much care,
as much passion, and COMPASSION
as we possible can?
Why not discover what our purpose
is while we are on this planet?
Why not figure out how we fit into
this giant cosmic picture and what
we can do to contribute to the whole
while we are here?
Why not go after OUR GOALS and
OUR DREAMS in life like we will NOT
get a second chance tomorrow?
I ask you… why not?
Can any one give me one good reason?
The only reason is FEAR, laziness, and
plain apathy.
The only reason we humans don’t live
our lives like that every day is because
we’ve allowed ourselves to be hollowed
out…and widdled down from boredom.
We’ve spent to long complacent, and I’m
merely inviting us ALL, myself included,
to take action steps tonight to STOP it.
I’m saying goodbye to one of the people
I love the most in the world tomorrow
if I get to her in time.
Many of you might have already said
good bye to some of the people you
love the most in the world.
Yet we easily forget that ‘We won’t
live forever’. We easily slip back into
the frame of mind… where it’s ‘ok’
to half ass our way through things
because we got the rest of our lives
to figure it out.
The funny thing is… most of the time
the rest of our lives comes and goes
and we still never figured it out.
Today we all can make a simple choice,
to let it be known we won’t live forever
and live our lives like we really mean it.
I don’t know what’s in store for you
if you do that Lindsey…
But I know its more than you could
ever ask for.
I know its pure greatness.
And I’d love nothing more for you
than to see you do it.
So… with that my friends. I leave
you just saying I hope you see where
this message comes from tonight.
I don’t want to tell anyone how to
live their life…
I just want them to actually live it.
I see so much beauty in the world,
in people, in our human race…
Yet most of the times everyone wants
to pretend its not there.
Lets stop pretending. Lets be the beauty.
Lets live our lives. Lets not act like we’ve
got forever… because we don’t.
I hope you wake up tomorrow and you
go out there and you build your business,
and go for your DREAMS, and treat it
like its the last shot you get.
Because if we live life like that… we’re
already 10 steps ahead of everyone else.
Much love to you all, we’ll speak soon.
Yours In Knowledge,
Jonathan Budd
Secret Keeping Business September 7, 2008
Posted by mrlater in Life.Tags: liers, mind control., rewards, secrets, truth
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I’ve always been proud of the fact that my friends consider me as a guy who can keep secrets. But after reading psychologist Dr. David Wenger’s White Bears and Other Unwanted Things, I’ve decided to retire from the secret-keeping business.
Mind Control
Wenger, who has outlined the science of keeping secrets, declares that doing so just upsets your mental processes.
He begins by explaining that the mind uses two processes to help control thought. There’s the intentional operating process or the “operator” and the ironic monitoring process or the “monitor.”
The operator functions on a conscious level, helping us grasp concepts and strengthening our mental grip on our beliefs. The monitor, on the other hand, serves as the checks-and-balances center, making sure that we stay consistent by weeding out factors that contradict or hinder our mental resolve.
Managing “Closet Skeletons”
To give you an idea how it works, let us examine how the operator and monitor deal with a secret:
Say, you’re on a high fiber diet and you go into a restaurant knowing that you should only order high-fiber food. As you read the menu, the operator tells you to focus on the salad selections.
Simultaneously, the monitor stops you from looking at the photo of the buttered chicken and tells you that it’s not the right choice.
The operator and the monitor work the same way when we want to avoid thinking of something.
For instance, your friend confides, “I let people think I’m a vegetarian but I snack on steak late at night. Don’t tell anyone what I told you.” Since your immediate response would be to avoid thinking of the secret you’re made to keep, your operator begins to prompt you to look for “distracters,” such as TV shows, songs, work, and just about anything that would keep your mind off the secret.
Meanwhile, the monitor complicates things as it actively sifts through all the information that your brain gets, looking for any hints of the secret so that it could tell you to put your guard up.
Unfortunately, this mechanism only makes you think of the secret even more.
Endless Agony
Thus, you begin to have thoughts that are secret-centered such as, “I’m not talking to X because he knows Y and he might want to ask if Y told me a secret” or “I don’t want to watch the documentary about vegetarians because I might commit a Freudian slip about Y’s secret.”
And so on. You’ll be on this treadmill of secret torment day after day.
Secret-keeping involves work and effort. Naturally, it takes its toll on your body. According to Dr. Norman Anderson, co-author of Emotional Longevity, people who keep secrets usually “vacillate between being agitated and irritable,” get tension headaches, develop vague body aches, and have nightmares.
False Rewards
Thus, Wenger observes that lying would be a less stressful undertaking: “On the face of it, it might appear that maintaining a running fabrication would be harder than carrying a secret. But, psychologically speaking, just the opposite is true. With lying, the lie serves as an effective distracter for the concealed truth.”
Further analyzing why lying is less of a chore, Wenger lists down three reasons:
1. It’s part of an alternate universe. The fabricated story allows one to construct a reality that takes the mind into a world where the secret doesn’t exist.2. It’s a “game.” While the secret keeper paints himself into a corner by not being able to create distracters at will, liars sometimes dare to make a game out of fibbing. They’re often curious how tall their tales can grow before being found out.
3. It’s practically worry-free. Liars relieve tension regularly each time they create a new story or add yet another fake detail as distractions.
In the end though, the truth always has a way of coming out. Besides, the longer you keep a “cat” in the bag, the more you run the risk of being mauled by a “tiger” when things beyond your control eventually destroy the said bag. Bottom line: Let out that “cat” while it’s still in the meowing stage.
For me, Lindsey, the truth is still your best bet–no matter how terrible it may be.
Brush your teeth September 4, 2008
Posted by mrlater in Life.Tags: clean, kids, parenting, teeth, tooth brush
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When my daughter graduated high school, I noticed her tooth brush was not with the rest of the family’s on the bathroom sink,I did not say anything about it.We have a hang on coated wire rack in the shower for conditioners,shampoos, ect. While taking a shower, I noticed a tooth brush laying in the rack inside a plastic holder.After my shower, I asked whose tooth brush is in the shower rack.My wife replied, I think it belongs to our daughter.I tracked my daughter down,and asked ,is that your tooth brush in the shower,yes she replied ,I say what is it doing in the shower.She replies,I brush my teeth while I’m showering WHAT!,yea It saves me time,now I’ve heard it all,you kids I don’t know. So I get to thinking about it,you turn the tap on,apply the paste,start scrubbing,look in the mirror,can’t believe how you look,rinse your mouth,throw a little water on your face to rid the foam around your mouth,look in the mirror again you don’t look much better.Ok I have to give this a try,guess what?, I now bush my teeth in the shower every day,and it does save me some time. Now,when when I look in the mirror,after I get out of the shower ,I look nice and fresh and my teeth sparkle.you Learn something new every day.
Little amounts can make a large difference to your finances. May 28, 2008
Posted by mrlater in Life.Tags: interest, millions, savings, spend, your money
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Monday, May 5, 2008provided by
As gasoline and food prices continue to rise, the squeeze to make family budgets balance each month becomes more of a struggle. After the big savings have been found and taken, smaller savings have to be found to make ends meet.
This can be frustrating as it can feel like everyone is being nickled and dimed to death. That’s why it’s important to realize how these small amounts can make a huge difference in your overall financial health.
You’ve likely heard about the little ways to save money a million times. Money-saving advice includes standards like packing your lunch instead of buying it at work, skipping the Starbucks and making your coffee at home and watching videos at home instead of going out to the movies. While you may have grown tired of hearing them, they are still as true as ever and even more important when the economy is struggling.
Saving small amounts of money is good advice for everyone, it’s not as essential for people that are currently living well below their means. If you spend $5 on a cup of coffee each day, but you’re still able to put away five times that amount toward your savings, that coffee splurge isn’t going to hurt as much as for someone who isn’t saving anything. For those that are barely making ends meet, spending small amounts of money can be the difference between deep debt and a nice retirement account.
When you are faced with a budget that isn’t balancing, you have two main choices: earn more money or cut more expenses. Unfortunately, many turn to a third alternative. When they can’t seem to make their budget balance, they decide that it’s acceptable to place the difference onto a credit card. Even though the monthly shortfall in the budget is small, placing it onto credit cards is one of the worst financial moves that a person can make. The result will be a downward cycle that will not only keep you in debt, but also create a tremendous amount of stress.
There is often a false assumption that saving $10 and spending $10, although opposite, are relatively the same. For example, if a person saves $10 a day, after a month their account will have $300 while if a person spends $10 a day, that will result in a debt of $300. While on the surface this makes perfect sense, the problem lies in that these numbers fail to take into account the interest that can be gained or charged on this money. It is this failure to understand the concept of compound interest and the dramatic effect it can have that greatly changes these results.
It’s important to understand that it takes very little to start sinking into debt. For most people, spending $10 a day would not be considered extravagant spending by any means, but $10 can result in tens of thousands of dollar of debt. It’s simple to see when you compare the results of what happens when one person saves $10 a day while the other spends $10 a day that he doesn’t have.
If a person were to save $300 a month (approx. $10 a day) and invest it to get a 5% yearly return, that person would have $20,402 in the bank after five years. On the other hand, if a person ends up spending $300 a month more than he has and puts it onto a credit card that he doesn’t pay off over the same 5 year period, that person will owe $36,259, assuming a 26% credit card interest rate. After five years, the difference between saving $10 and spending $10 each day results in a $56,661 gap in net worth between the two.
Add another five years to the same patterns, and the results are even more dramatic. After 10 years, the person who saved $10 a day would have $46,585 in the bank, whereas the person whop spent the $10 he didn’t have would be $167,470 in debt, resulting in a net worth difference of over $210,000.
Of course, there are many other factors that could alter these calculations. The interest you can earn and what your credit card interest rates are will vary from this example. There is a minimum amount that the person would need to pay on a credit card each month. If debt to this extent began to occur, the person would have their credit cut off long before this amount accumulated and would likely need to declare bankruptcy. The point is that over time, small amounts added to debt can result in far more debt than most people realize.
Once you learn that saving a small amount and overspending a small amount aren’t simple opposites, you understand the importance of having a budget and strictly sticking with it. If you are able to fight through the hard times and keep your budget balanced, then you set yourself to reap great financial rewards when the economy finally turns around.
Gas Prices April 25, 2008
Posted by mrlater in Life.Tags: 76, chevron, diesel, fuel, gas, prices
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Those of you that have been around,know the drill,fuel is BIG BIG business,it’s traded on the stock market.So basically you have people with money playing with your life,but you already know that.But thats not what this post is about,well not really,it’s about the people that pump the gold into your tank,yea that would be me for one.In Oregon you can not pump your own gas,don’t ask, it’s some kind of law here.so lets set the stage here,pop 2,000,yea right.Two stations in this town a Chevron and a 76,I work at the 76(to be cont.)
