Financial literacy is an issue that should command our attention because many Americans are not adequately organizing finances for their education, healthcare and retirement. -Ron Lewis (1946-), 7 term member of the US House of Representatives.
Okay everyone…hold on to your hats while I give you a few staggering Federal Reserve Statistics about what is really going on with average Joe and Jane consumer:
Consumer debt in the United States is approximately $2.6 trillion or $8,500 for every man, woman and child that lives in the U.S.!! By the way, that does not even include mortgage debt!
37% of consumer debt is revolving/credit card debt, 63% is non revolving/car loans/boat loans/student loans!
The Federal Reserve’s financial obligations ratio, a measure of how much after tax disposable income goes to paying off mandatory financial obligations, as of June 2008, stood at 17.82% for homeowners and 25.98% for renters!
The number of credit card holders is projected to grow to 176 million by 2010!
Americans own approximately 1.4 billion credit cards or 9 cards per cardholder!
Credit Card debt is expected to grow to 1,091 billion by 2010!
All right enough! I can’t even take it as I’m writing this…it’s completely staggering and unnerving and I’ll tell you why! Our Gross Domestic Product is comprised primarily of consumer activity! I know I have written about this before (See: http://freethinkingtools.com/?s=Sharpen+Your+teeth) but we have only scratched the surface! While talking to a local business owner the other day it hit me! Forget about the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme! What about the big one being perpetuated by our whole economy! Like Bernie’s victims, we have fallen completely under the ether with all of our financial thinking! Our desire to consume leads us to clamor for more credit availability…how will we be able to start our businesses without a loan we cry?! How will the underprivileged and uneducated survive without a loan?! If we don’t bail out the financial institutions that helped us get out of control then all of this credit will be gone and we’ll stop consuming…then what? Or how about just printing a whole bunch of paper money and putting more of it on the street so we can keep on spending!
There is no persuasiveness more effectual than the transparency of a single heart, of a sincere life. -Joseph B. Lightfoot (1828-1889), English theologian, known for his absence of partisanship and sobriety of expression.
If you really want to go through a cleanse then sell your house and make a move! Really, I’m serious about this one! We are in the middle of building a new house and after 8 years in the same place we had to pack up and get out…even funnier, we had to make two moves…with five kids in tow! Why? Well at least I was smart enough to take my own advice and lowered my price until I sold the house and was able to negotiate a rent back agreement until after the holidays. Of course with delays the new house will not be completed until early spring so we had to rent another house. Well, being from a close knit family we decided to move into my parents house to give them a mortgage break…yes I’m back with mom and dad…the only difference is now I have a wolf pack with me! I understand that most of you are cringing at the thought of being anywhere close to your bloodline, but I have to say that this whole experience has been eye opening!
First of all, the move itself made me aware of how much “junk” you can accumulate over time almost to the point where my own consumerism was personally embarrassing! I could not believe the overflow of clothes, books, toys and other stuff we had packed away into the tiniest of corners…ironically I always remind our coaching students to be careful not to become “lead squirrels” and fill the tree so full that they forget to leave room to get back in the tree and freeze out in the cold! Well here I am, GUILTY! There is a silver lining because the discovery lead to getting together as a family to coordinate yard sales and giveaways, which turned out to be great lessons for the kids: sales and charity…good stuff and we all had a blast!
If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking. -Lyndon Johnson (1908-1973), 36th president of the United States, known for legislation that included civil rights, Medicare (government funded health care for the elderly) and Medicaid (government funded health care for the poor).
So now I’m in pursuit of an understanding of neuro-linguistic programming; I know it sounds scary but it’s actually pretty simple stuff. Broken into pieces: neuro=what’s going on in your head; linguistic=what you’re saying and how you say it; and programming=your behavior patterns! Over and over again we hear how all of this is intimately connected and clearly it is, it’s just that most of us never really care to look into it because it sounds like work. I mean really…why take time to understand how we are actually wired when it’s just easier to be lazy, repeat our painful behavior patterns and continue not getting what we want (WARNING: For those of you white knuckled drivers…that was a joke!). But even for those of you who want a quick fix, this NLP stuff in its essence has just that: behavior modification!Now not to undermine all the hard work that Richard Bandler and John Grinder did with respect to putting the information in order that comprises NLP, but is this really anything new and complicated that is inaccessible for the majority? Of course not! It’s just that often times we do things out of common sense or instinct but just can’t seem to label it or name it…then along comes somebody who puts the info in order, calls it something catchy and BANG, we think they hung the moon!But think about it…master communicators have done this stuff since we have walked the earth!
You don’t have to be a person of influence to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they have taught me. -Scott Adams, (1957-), cartoonist and creator of the Dilbert comic strip.
For the past couple of weeks I have indulged myself in “social networking”; Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn! It’s just amazing how quickly we are all able to connect with anybody and everybody we know! Not only can you have some fun and laughs catching up, but you can also get the word out in an instant about what you are doing with your business and pick up prospects and clients in a no pressure manner…the way most people like to buy! However, is this “connecting” really anything new?Absolutely not! Furthermore the thing that is really interesting to watch is that even in a technological social network, you can still figure out very quickly which people really do care about helping others and which ones are just trying to build a list! At the end of the day, the real “helpers” have the greatest following! This made me think about the real people of influence in life. Ironically, I had started a Facebook album that includes several people that I have heard speak that were very moving and influential, but it actually took the recent untimely death of a friend and business associate to put in perspective what a real inlfuence some people can be!
