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Category Archives: Financial Freedom

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All on the Table

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What are we really doing when we “put all our cards on the table?” What cards? What table?

There was a fad not so long ago … maybe it’s still going on today … but Texas Hold ‘Em Poker was the rage. Who knew the difference between a “River” and a “Flop” before about 2003?

In Poker there’s predictably a point in the game where you’re holding what you think is a killer hand. You might have to “up the ante” because somebody else is thinking the same thing, then those who haven’t folded put their cards on the table and let the chips fall where they may.

The expressions that come from card games serve as reminders on strategy, guessing, “Fake it ‘til you make it,” when not to push your luck and when to say, “What the hell, I’m all in!”  Going after those things that we want means taking risks without really knowing how the game will turn out.

But seriously, there’s nothing worse than playing a game of poker, getting a great hand, then upping the ante only to find out somebody else has an Ace to your King, or a Straight Flush to your Full House. But will a big loss be enough to keep you from throwing your cards on the table again? I mean a real kind of loss, like an investment gone sour or a business that took a big hit in the recession?

Your cards are going to change from game to game, as will the amount of chips you win and lose. But when we’re talking about laying our cards on the table, we gotta think about that table too.

If you’re playing on a three-legged table, well … you may still win from time to time, but ultimately that table isn’t gonna hold up over the long run, yes or yes? Your table’s got to be as strong as the cards you’re holding.

Play your cards if that’s what makes sense, but you have to be playing from a strong foundation to begin with—your table has to be sturdy enough to support a great hand to play when its time to play it. That support comes from the belief you have in yourself as well as your ability to play your cards to maximum effect. Those beliefs end up being the table’s legs, as my good friend Tony Robbins used in a metaphor. The more support you have in your legs, the stronger the table. In other words, start the game with self-supporting beliefs.

We can develop beliefs around anything if we find enough references to support it, yes? If we’re talking about financial success, you have to believe that you can or deserve to be a financial success. You have to visualize being there, like you belong there. The roots of our beliefs go deep.

What do the legs of your table look like right about now? What support can you honestly give yourself that—no matter what cards you happen to be holding at the time—you can lay them out with pride and confidence that you actually stand a chance of winning? Is one of your legs ‘persistence,’ or ‘willing to try new things’; or creativity, leadership, influencing? Whatever these legs are, they need to be true for you, and only you know that. If you don’t, asked trusted loved ones for support—then stand up!

You have to know when to hold ‘em, fold ‘em, go for it and call it a day, but know what legs you’re standing on, too.

What Juice Are You Running On?

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iStock_000014498652XSmallConditioning, conditioning, conditioning. It’s not just a mantra for athletes. To have a Millionaire Mind, we must train for a marathon—for the distance of our lives — not just a short race to a million. It’s not something to train for occasionally. It’s something we must consistently live and breathe, yes?

Even if we’re not always at peak level—there will be times when we’re not—there’s something that’s motivating us, something that’s fueling us. What we’re fueling up with will determine whether or not we go the distance.

The juice that fuels us is our motivations—why we’re doing what we do. And there’s really only two ways to go here. You’re either doing what you do based on a positive energy juice or negative energy. Both can be extremely effective. Both can get you far, but the difference in the end: are you going to arrive where you intended to go, and what kind of condition are you going to be in when you get there?

People who run on negative energy juice do things like make pretty decent amount money but get rid of it because it was angry energy that got them there; they were rebelling against something, or someone (usually a parent). Except when they get rid of it now they’re BROKE and angry! They got rid of the wrong one.

Others are so fearful that there will never be enough money—or they will never be enough—that the insecurity shifts their focus away from the other areas of life. Their insecurity erodes their physical, mental, and emotional condition.

Fear can be useful when it comes to getting our butts in gear when we know we have to get it done. But when we’re acting on imaginary pain—pain based on negative conditioning that fuels negative motivations—that kind of fear acts more like an obstacle to our happiness rather than an efficient fuel source.

How about these for motivations: joy and purpose! Loving what you do! Contributing to something beyond yourself and the money is the result. Good or good?

If you’re not juiced by joy and purpose, it ain’t gonna work, not for the distance anyway. You can get short burst of success based on anger or fear, but these create stress. You might win the game financially for a short period of time, but you won’t be rich on a spiritual, emotional and mental level.

You cannot have enough money to not be angry anymore. No amount of money will lessen fear because fear is the habitual fuel and money is the prop. You can never alleviate the fear with more money or more of anything. What you have to alleviate is the fear itself. Change your fuel! We want money and happiness. The only way that can happen is if you’re running on supportive juice, not fuel that’s going to lead to a crash and burn.

If you’re going to make money, come up with a couple of motivations that are supportive. There’s always family, obligation, more toys or material things—but what are some motivations that really touch the core of our greatest joys in life? What are some different types of juice that relate to happiness beyond “I have to do this” or material comforts? We want to hear from you!

Get the Ball Rolling

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Take action

I believe we are spiritual beings living physical lives, and to make the most of this life we have to take care of, nurture, and more importantly listen to the clues that spirit gives us, mostly through gut intuition and feelings we have.

At some point, though, we have to honor the physical side of our lives as well, and that means taking action. To hell if conditions aren’t perfect, or if this circumstance isn’t quite ideal or that person isn’t following through the way they said they would. We’ve got to take all these spiritual principles and put them into action.

That’s exactly where a lot of people get stuck, even those with greater awareness and knowledge. You know you want to work out, need to get into better shape for the sake of generating more energy to work your mission. But what step is often the hardest to take? That first one.

Depending how long you had been in your last cycle, getting the ball rolling can feel like pushing a boulder uphill, metaphorically speaking. You need to build the next muscle and final spiritual muscle that separates the successful from those still waiting at the gate: momentum.

Momentum is that force that makes it easier for someone who’s successful to do what’s right than to do what’s wrong. Momentum is that process of getting that snowball moving. The hardest part about working out is getting to the gym.  Once you get there, it’s not that hard to do.

When you’re in motion, that’s when things begin to line up, not before (that goes for you perfectionist!). When in doubt, act. What did everyone else tell you? When in doubt, stop and think about it. No! That’s why I say thinking is dangerous to your wealth!

Most people who I know that got rich didn’t think too much. They saw a piece of property: ‘This looks good. Anything structurally wrong? Environmentally? No? Good, I’ll buy it.’ Twenty years later they’re very rich. They really planned that one out, huh?

Just as an aside, if you’re really “smart,” chances are you’re not going to be really rich. You’re going to get in your way, a real momentum killer. Those who aren’t too “smart” are open to knowing (A) They don’t know everything the need to know to be rich (B) Will learn how to be rich, even if it temporarily hurt’s their pride to know exactly how far off they were to begin with.

A body in motion will remain in motion and a body at rest will remain at rest. What do we want to do? Get into motion! Once you’re there, it gets easier. We already know that. Now we gotta just do it.

What in your life do you just need to get started and adjust as you go? What have you been waiting for? What’s the fear? Is that true or did you just make it up?

You will make it. Trust yourself. Love yourself and know that you make it all up. It’s your freaking story!

Now we want to hear from you! What are some positive momentum-changers that have worked for you?


https://bit.ly/NewMMI

One Thing at a Time

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Goals Concept

Over the last couple of weeks there has been some amazing feedback to my blogs about the power of our intentions, and how that affects what we go after in life. I wanted to follow up a bit on intention and talk about how we go about implementing our intentions.

I’m sure at least some of you have heard this before, but imagine you’re either looking to buy or sell a home, as a consumer or as an agent. What are the three most important words in real estate? Location, location, location! It takes skill and experience to negotiate, and knowledge to get a good deal done, but in the end the most important aspect of real estate is simple. Location determines a bunch, yes or yes?

Now take this approach toward success. What would be the three most important words when it comes to getting what you want? What’s the simplest thing we need to know?

Focus, focus, focus!

Intention is powerful—it’s the fuel that gets us going and moving, but without direction, we could end up going the wrong way! So in addition to intention we need concentration. We need to focus our energy in a single, unified direction. That’s what allows us to use our full power versus scattering it.

Another one of those no-brainers, right? But it’s another one of those things that’s easy to know yet easy to forget, and harder to make into a solid principle of action. I know because I was there.

Back in the day I had a wholesale jewelry business that was doing okay—not great—but not too bad for that stage in my life. Then I got offered to sell hats wholesale.  Then T-shirts. Then something else. I figured I already had a client base from the first business, so why not? “Sell more, make more!” Guess how that turned out?

My income went all the way from about $700 or $800 a week to losing about $500 a week. I couldn’t understand why. I didn’t get it. So you know what I did? I went and got a job!

See where loss of concentration can take us? It’s the classic case of jack of all trades, master of none. You get all these irons going in the fire, but it’s mostly because of fear that you’re not going to make it if you just focus on one of those. If you were to put 100% energy in to one thing, though, there’s a real good chance you would make it.

Successful people are good at aligning all of their energy toward a single direction. Think of it like a rocket at takeoff. It takes much more energy getting off the ground than to get to where it’s going. Same with us. Once you’re well into the journey and you’re doing very well, thank you, that’s when you diversify!

So at the beginning of any business, you need to trust yourself. You need every single ounce of energy focused on the same spot in the same direction going where you’re going.

If you know what I’m talking about, please share your story with the community. What are some of your revelations and discovers about the power of focus? How did you go from ‘Duh!’ to ‘Aha!”? We want to hear from you!

K.I.S.S. Yourself and Get More Done

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Call it a symptom of our culture, society, our brain that gets too big for itself sometimes—call it whatever you want. The truth is people have a tendency to make things way harder on themselves than they have to. They overcomplicate things. Or it’s the complete opposite—we want things fast and easy.

No matter what we intend or what we’re going after in life, it’s going to take some energy, some effort—maybe even lots of it! That’s the Law of Maintenance. Everything that you have in your life takes some form of energy to keep, keep up, or keep at.

For example, know anybody that owns a boat? Ever dreamed of owning one yourself? Boating is awesome, but do most people stop to think about getting the boating license, then the docking fees, then having the right vehicle to tow that thing around, then figuring out where you’re going to keep that sucker when you’re not boating or off-season in places that get really cold …

Not trying to turn anybody off their boating dreams, but I just wanted to illustrate the notion that when you choose a track, you better be looking ahead at the big picture, or all the focus and intention in the world may take you way far from where you really want to be.

Wherever you’re spending your energy, for heaven’s sake keep it simple! This is what K.I.S.S. means. But not just simple—also smart! Keep It Simple and Smart.

How many of you have realized that sometimes your best moves are to not make any more moves? We can have these “brilliant” ideas, but they can take us away from what is actually working right now in life and our current focus. Trying to take on other things means you’ve got to figure out how to get them done, and then you’re off to the Scatter Brain Races.

If you want to be successful, sometimes you’re going to have to work a little harder. Yes or no? That’s just the way it is. But when something is working for you, that’s when you start pressing on the gas. If you are working in areas that you’re not good at, you better recreate what you’re doing in such a way that allows you to work with your strengths and only those strengths.

Off course, lots of people have difficulty finding that something that works. One of the biggest problems most people have—our whole society has—is that we tend to focus on our weaknesses. Every one of us was born with very specific talents and strengths to use. Are you using your talents? Are you using them day to day? What are you doing with your time?

So here’s an exercise to think about. What percentage of your time do you spend on your strengths, whether it’s in business or out in the world with family, friends, activities, etc.?

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