Wasted?

DOWNLOAD AUDIO-Wasted?-Freethinkingtools.com

Lack of money is the root of all evil. -George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish playwright, winner of both an Oscar and the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Have you ever worked your tail off and really felt like you accomplished something and then felt like you were due a big reward…primarily a bunch of cash…but when you went to count the spoils there was a lot less there than you thought there should be? You know that dejected feeling that you get when you look in your bank account and after paying all the bills there is really nothing left?!

How does this seem to happen all the time? Even though we say it won’t EVER happen again, it seems to pull us right back into the trap over and over again! Certainly money is NOT the essence of life, but man oh man when you don’t have enough to show for your efforts,  it can certainly suck the wind out of your sails and make life miserable. So we have to be very careful not to rationalize away the fact that we have to deal directly with money retention…but of course once again it requires a head exam!

Well what is really at work here? Why does this seem to happen to the majority of us? Certainly there are those that seem to have money flow freely to them and attach itself like Velcro, but the rest of us seem to be in a constant oil wrestling match with the elusive dollar…why?

I have given this a lot of thought lately and I think I’m starting to get it!  I have always been able to generate plenty in terms of sales and subsequently dollars, but making it stick has always challenged me and I have had to work at that more diligently than anything in my life.  My simple conclusion for my personal frustration is that I’m just not naturally wired to measure everything.  You see,  I was born to sell…particularly when I believe in something I can get behind it with unbridled passion and conviction and bring it to those in need. These skills have always served me well and provided me an excellent standard of living…but for me, it’s NEVER enough!

I believe there is always more in anything and everything and I’m designed to pursue the tiny distinctions that drive the biggest changes! I’m convinced that the answers are always simple and usually so close to our noses that the only reason we don’t see them is because we don’t stop to think enough!

So back to dollar retention!  One of the biggest problems is that we never give enough thought as to exactly how much we want. You hear people say all the time “I want to be rich”…”I want to be financially independent”…but what does all of this mean? It’s so general and really says nothing at all if you think about it. Why not…”I need one million dollars in cash or cash equivalents to retire comfortably”…”I need passive income of 10K, 20K per month to live financially independent”.  Maybe those thoughts are too low or high depending on who is reading this but the point is, those are specific goals!

But how do you make money stick?  Well first of all, you need to think in terms of basic math.  Not rocket science, rather elementary subtraction.  In other words, what you take in minus what you pay out equals what you stuff in the tree as yours to keep.  So where does it get so complicated?  Well, it doesn’t really!  We just never do enough math! Why?  Because deep inside we know the truth…we know we are spending way too much on frivilous expenditures. We rationalize all the time…”it’s my money and I’ll live my life the way I want to”…”what’s the big deal with eating out?”…you see the truth is, there is nothing wrong with those comments unless they are being used to justify why you are broke!

So how do you finally stop it?! Really it’s quite simple…measure EVERYTHING!  Measure what you really make and measure what you really spend. I know this exercise might be painful for most of us, but you have to do it! It’s the best thing I have done for my businesses in a long time!  And yes, it has been very painful at times…as I discussed, I’d rather be out selling something; but if I don’t know what I need to sell to turn a profit, then I might as well be lost in the forest with all the potential in the world but no compass!

Ultimately, what measuring has done for me is reveal the incredible waste that goes on in life. Many of you are well tuned in to how we as humans are very wasteful with our natural resources because there is always somebody jamming that in our face…but what about your own personal waste? How much time do you waste each day doing things that don’t do anything for you and your goals? How much money do you waste on things that are nothing more than distractions? How much life do you waste pretending that you’re working on something important instead of being with the people you care about?

So take action and get tuned in to waste! What does it mean to you? There is absolutely never going to be enough time to do everything in life so start focusing on what is the most important stuff you need to do to make more money, decrease expenses and net more cash…this in turn, will save you enormous amounts of time which will give you the opportunity to really pursue your heart’s desires…not someday down the road…I mean now! So join me in being fed up about our own waste and let’s measure together…who cares how “far behind” we are right now…remember we can’t get out of the hole until we stop digging! Let’s declare war on waste!