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The Joy of Giving, and Giving, and Giving, and….

In a film that deserved much more fanfare than it got, About Schmidt, tells the story of a man who seems to have lost his way in the world.  One of the things that brings his life meaning is giving money to an orphan boy “Ndugu.”  From this film came two great quotes: “I suppose the [...]

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The Joy of Giving, and Giving, and Giving, and….

By Joe Marchelewski ⋅August 27, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

In a film that deserved much more fanfare than it got, About Schmidt, tells the story of a man who seems to have lost his way in the world.  One of the things that brings his life meaning is giving money to an orphan boy “Ndugu.”  From this film came two great quotes:

“I suppose the most you can hope for is to make some kind of difference, but what kind of difference have I made? What in the world is better because of me?”

and

“Relatively soon, I will die. Maybe in 20 years, maybe tomorrow, it doesn’t matter. Once I am dead and everyone who knew me dies too, it will be as though I never existed. What difference has my life made to anyone. None that I can think of. None at all.”

It’s never to early to think about a legacy, to think about how one’s own life can make an impact far exceeding the years one can live.  An a vital link must be made between personal development and legacy, because that is one of the things that brings true joy.  Knowing that you’re becoming a good person, or becoming a better person and knowing that your development is a blessing to others is a feeling that can’t be bought.  While none of us may be able to reach the heights of Mother Teresa, we can change the lives of others by sacrificing of ourselves simply to allow others the opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Here are some tips and thoughts on how giving can improve your own life, and how to figure out ways to give:

• Scientific research has shown that bringing joy to others actually benefits one’s own mind and heart.  In fact, they found that the biblical proverb “it is better to give than to receive” was extremely true.  When people gave, it satisfied certain parts of their brains more than when they won money.
• Make sure you know where your money goes.  A recent article revealed that barely 10% of the $248 billion donated last year by Americans went towards helping the poor.  That’s not very much obviously, and one way to become discouraged in your giving is to become hardened by corruption and inefficiency.  So, before you start giving, research the organization you are giving to, make sure a significant percentage of the money given goes towards the cause, and make sure you keep tabs on the people within the organization as much as you’re able to.
• Research at Johns Hopkins University showed that devoting time to causes improves a person’s health, in part because it gives them more of a purpose, more of a reason to live.
• Find a cause you have a personal connection to.  Has a loved one died of cancer, then donating to a cancer fund or cancer treatment might be a good idea.  Were you abused as a child or as an adult?  Then giving to a battered women’s shelter or donating time to Big Brothers/Big Sisters could be the way to go.  If all your charitable billing becomes is a bill, then you’ll miss the blessing.

Losing Weight Takes Guts

By Joe Marchelewski ⋅August 11, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

Losing weight is way more complicated that it should be, because it involves many more elements than it should. In a perfect world, losing weight would be tied to the amount you eat or how often you exercise. However, it’s tied to emotions, misconceptions, how you were raised, and so many other factors and attitudes, that it becomes a headache to even try. For example:

• Some people eat when they’re happy, some when they’re sad.
• Some people cope with grief by pigging out.
• Some people have chronic pains that make exercise difficult.
• Some people exercise too much, and then binge on food.

Here are five tips to personally develop your weight loss:

1. Keep a daily list of what you eat for one week. When you have to sit down at the end of that week to see how many donuts, candy bars and pizza slices you’ve eaten, you’ll be extra motivated to get in shape.

2. Leave your debit card at home. Working at an office can mean afternoon trips to the deli to get something sweet. Without any way to pay for it, you’ll save money and calories.

3. Don’t start too hard. Sometimes motivation/shame get the best of us, and our first work out in months makes everything too sore to continue. Keep it simple and build.

4. Stay away from Chuck Norris. Infomercials make their money convincing you that a c-level celeb got totally fit by stepping up for 20 minutes, doing ab work for 8 minutes, taking a magic pill or some other silly idea. Jogging for 30 minutes a day and making one meal entirely fruits and veggies will keep your weight down more than some tonic.

5. Any progress, even slow progress, is progress. Sure, losing 20 lbs in two weeks sounds great but it’s: a. not healthy; b. not sustainable; and c. not realistic. Lose one pound a week for twenty weeks and that weight will be easier to keep off.

Hulk Hogan and Personal Development

By Joe Marchelewski ⋅July 30, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

Current family circumstances notwithstanding, Hulk Hogan is one of the ultimate personal development examples in America.  Growing up, he was not just a pop culture icon, but he was the guy everyone at school would love to be friends with, and for good reason.  It wasn’t just the hyped up red and yellow fury he would unleash on his opponents, but the character that Terry Bollea created lived out the best examples of how to develop yourself as a human being.

1. Hulk Fought Giants - In Wrestlemania III, Hulk Hogan body slammed Andre the Giant.  How many of us have giants we’re facing in our own lives?  Addictions, bad relationships, horrible personal finances and dead-end careers are the giants which keep us trembling in fear far too often.  Like the Hulkster, standing toe-to-toe with such giants is hard, but the only way to free ourselves from the headaches of mediocrity.
   
2. Saying Your Prayers and Eating Your Vitamins - Hogan’s persona was pure good guy (with the exception of his strange reversion to Hollywood Hogan for a few years).  Far too often we see ourselves in complex fashion, trying to compromise our ethics to move forward.  But we’ve all felt the emptiness inside of ourselves that can only be cured with purity and good.  It’s a complex world we live in today, with wars we may not agree with and corporations we despise.  Being a good guy is the only path to truth.
   
3. Transparency and Vulnerability - Cat Stevens sang a song that basically said he wouldn’t have known love if it weren’t for pain and hurt.  Pretty much every guy Hulk Hogan befriended turned on him (Andre the Giant, Randy Savage, Scott Hall) yet he was always willing to make friends.  Pursuing relationships is the richness of life, and while they will turn on us occasionally, that’s no reason to reject them.
   
4. Consistency - From 1983 through today, Hogan is Hogan.  He puts himself out there, and after decades of wrestling and public appearances (and some terrible movies) he was fans, friends and fortune.  He has his ups and downs, but he’s consistent.

Thrift - Tips on Saving, Scrimping and Being Thrifty

By Joe Marchelewski ⋅July 21, 2008 ⋅ One comment

Thrift is not a four letter word, although some people treat it as such.  Thrift is a way to maximize your dollar and have more wealth stored up for tomorrow.  Rarely do Americans these days put the proper amount of stock in being thrifty.  The idea of it is almost repulsive, because being thrifty means not leasing a car, not buying a new MP3 player every year and not eating out every week.

Wealth is not defined by how many toys an individual has, rather it is defined by how much control an individual has over his/her economic freedom.  A person could have a great house, great car, take vacations every year, and own a boat, but if they’re mortgaged to the hilt and can’t retired until they’re 130, then they aren’t wealthy.

Here are some basic tips on how to be thrifty with your dollars:

• Find places to save - Why buy underwear at Macy’s when you can buy it at Marshalls?  Why buy cans of soda when drink mixes are available?  Little tricks such as these can save you hundreds of dollars a year.  Think of items that don’t need to be new and shiny, these are the easiest places to cut back spending.
• Restaurants or Fast Food, pick one! - Do you like eating a nice steak at a French restaurant or a hamburger at McDonalds?  Take a three month test and forgo happy meals for fine wine, or vice versa.  Find out which you like more and ignore the other.  This can teach you to choose where and when to spend money.
• Why buy from Pottery Barn? - Label whore is a strong term, but we all have a little label whore in us.  We want labels to show people our status, but status and wealth are often complete opposites.  Status is fleeting, wealth is long term.  If you shop at Ross or Marshalls for dishes or home furnishings, you could save tons.
• Put Down the Latte - $5/day X 5 days/week X 52 weeks = 1300.  That means if you buy a latte and a cookie every weekday for a year, you’ll spend $1,300 on shoving around 700 calories down your through.  That makes no sense for your diet or your budget.  Make the latte at home and burn some calories steaming the milk; make yourself a regular cup of coffee at home and eat a piece of toast; or, drink tea.  The idea that five dollar latte’s are normal or a right is false, they are a privilege.  Your are not responsible for making sure Howard Schultz’s stock stays in the black.
• Leave your wallet at home -  Don’t take your debit card with you, it’ll only help you spend extra dollars every day.  Try leaving your debit card in your dresser and give yourself $20 in cash for the week.
• Don’t try cold turkey - Failure can lead us to give up, to quit.  Setting ourselves up to fail is like trying to learn Japanese without a teacher.  Learn bit by bit, start small, make a budget, look for ways to cut back and then move forward.  Trying to end years of learned behavior all at once is foolish, but unlearning it bit by bit will lead you down the right path.

Treat Your Savings Like a Plant and Watch It Grow

By Joe Marchelewski ⋅July 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

Your savings account, your IRA, your 401k and your savings in general should be treated the way a farmer treats his crops.  Farming is the perfect analogy when it comes to developing healthy savings, because it takes time, dedication, patience, persistence, discipline and sacrifice to make crops and savings grow to maturity.

Here are a few tips on how to farm your savings:

1. Early to Bed, Early to Rise Makes an Account Healthy, Wealthy and Wise



Start your savings yesterday, if not sooner!  The earlier you start putting money away, the better.  Don’t think that you can just start when you’re 40, the older you get the harder it is to save.  Just like the later you plant crops, the less your harvest will be.  The older you get, marriage, kids, buying a house, medical bills, etc. pile up.

2. “We Don’t Eat the Sweetest Corn”

An old pastor told me a story once about a farmer who used all the tallest ears of corn (tallest = best) as the seeds for the following year’s crops.  This farmer never ate the best corn, and so his crops were the best.  Translation?  The first part of your check goes to savings; make putting money away THE priority.  Not getting dinner, not buying a nice shirt, not even buying season tickets.

3. You’re Going to Have to Sacrifice

If you insist upon eating out every other night, you might be eating cat food when you’re 70.  Keep in mind that no one who is poor and old intends on being that way, they find themselves there by lack of foresight.  This means limiting your restaurant trips, cutting down on Starbucks, washing your own car, buying socks at Marshalls and so on.  Look for easy places to cut back though, this will make sacrificing easier.

4. “Through discipline, the repetition, you become free.” - Pete Carrol

Okay, Carrol’s a football coach, but farmers wake up and do the same thing over and over and over.  Each little thing has a purpose, a reason, and even if they aren’t “feeling it” they do what is necessary to make sure their corn, soy beans, wheat or whatever is harvested on time.  Saving isn’t something you do once in a while, it’s not a “feeling” it’s a discipline.

5. Oil and Water Don’t Mix

Banks may give you savings and check accounts together, but they are vastly different animals.  Money should flow in and out of checking accounts like a river in order to cover bills, food, utilities and all your other needs.  Savings accounts should be lakes, money should only go in.  Barring medical tragedy or ransom demands, your savings account should only grow, never shrink.

6. You Reap What you Sew

Okay, that’s more Biblical than farming, but true in both.  Sew/plant/save once in a while without learning about the market, then don’t expect much when you’re older.

7. Know Your Soil

Seeds are planted in dirt, good dirt brings good crops, bad dirt brings bad crops.  Know your market, know stocks, bonds, interest rates, inflation, and taxation rules; if you know your soil then you’ll know what seeds to plant when.  Corn is brutal on soil, so planting corn constantly, season after season will eventually wear down the dirt’s natural nutrients and minerals.  Similarly, the stock market is brutal on money and your nerves.  Living and dying by stocks will wear you out, and unless you have millions, and really hundreds of millions, your life will be hell.  Know when to buy, when to sell, when to diversify, and so on.  Take courses, buy books and read them, ask your financial planner for advice, read the business section on Monday, Wednesday and Friday every week to get a sense of the market.

8. Don’t Eat Your Seed

Your money isn’t what empowers you to buy food; in fact if you read the fine print, all your money represents is debt.  Treat your money like you would a seed, that it should be planted in order to bring forth food.  Plant your dollars in places where it will grow, savings accounts with high interest rates (HSBC, E-Trade, WaMu, ING), in stocks that will yield long term growth, in mutual funds that will bring back a conservative but trustworthy return on your investment and in bonds that are government backed.

Truth About Bottled Water

By Joe Marchelewski ⋅July 2, 2008 ⋅ One comment

Part of the search for personal development is a search for the truth.  As the saying goes, “The truth shall set you free.”  When it comes to bottled water, the truth will set your wallet, your mind and the environment free.

Here are some truths and some tips on bottled water:

• In 2003, Americans spent $7 billion on bottled water.  If you spent $10 a week on bottled water, that’s over $500 a year.  Put that into a high-yield savings account or a 401k and you can save yourself a bundle.
• In a study done on bottled water, it turns out 25% or more of the water in each bottle is actually just tap water.
• In a blind taste test done in New York, 75% of people preferred tap water taste to bottled water.
• In another test of 1,000 bottles of water, 33% of those bottles turned out to be contaminated with bacteria, synthetic organic chemicals and/or inorganic contaminants such as arsenic.
• The plastic bottle your water comes in can actually decompose over time and contaminate your water.  The longer the water has been in the bottle, the greater the risk of decomposition and contamination.

How’s that Aquafina taste now?

The Wizard of Oz and 3 Tips on Personal Finance

By Joe Marchelewski ⋅June 16, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

When it comes to money and investing, there are a million challenges to properly securing your financial future.  Most of these things you have no control over, such as inflation.  However, the cinematic masterpiece “The Wizard of Oz” has a few nuggets of truth that can be followed in the financial world.

1. Follow the Yellow Brick Road - Gold is always a sound investment, if for no other reason than it is a physical element.  Investing in a company, mutual fund or bond is investing in an idea essentially.  Gold exists and in times when economies can go batty, gold is always there.

2. Lions and Tigers and Bears - Oh My! - The market is going to scare you, incredibly, but that doesn’t mean the market should be feared.   It’s unstable, but if you leave your money invested long term, your individual wealth will increase.

3. There’s No Place Like Home - Your house might be your best investment.  Again, it’s a physical thing, not a stock in a company that you can’t see.

Life After Failure

By Joe Marchelewski ⋅June 4, 2008 ⋅ 2 comments

The hardest part of life is failure, other than death of course. Failure is something that has plagued mankind since the beginning. Even in the Bible, Adam had to deal with his own failings while still protecting and caring for his family.

George Bernard Shaw, the great Irish playwright, once said “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.”

It’s easy to give up on an endeavor, a person or a situation as failure, or failures, mount. But, if we allow failures to stop us then we should completely throw away any notion of success, development and hope.

Failures are our learning opportunities, even if it’s a major failure. Failed marriages can teach us things about ourselves and our desires that we didn’t know before. Failed attempts at losing weight can allow us to figure out how our bodies work. And in truth, history is filled with people who achieved great things in part because they failed so much.

• J. Paul Getty was an extremely wealthy and successful man, yet was married and divorced more than five times. His business success and acumen wasn’t something he could bring into his personal life.
• Abraham Lincoln lost multiple elections and was often berated for his stances against slavery.
• Jim Plunkett, who led two Raiders teams to victories in the Super Bowl was considered a failure during his days as a quarterback with the New England Patriots and San Francisco 49ers.

Dealing with failure is hard, it’s not easy to look into the mirror after a terrible loss and try and believe that success is possible. It’s easy to use all sorts of cheesy sounding sayings and terms and then let failure sit in your belly. What’s difficult is taking time to examine your failure, learn from it and fight to get over your fear of it.

We’ve all been dumped, fired, yelled at, fallen down during a big event, allowed a bad habit to get the better of us and simply failed at something that seemed easy. However, if we’re going to succeed in life, achieve our goals and do anything of merit, than we have to allow these things to make us stronger.

Success and the New York Yankees: Emulating the Bronx Bombers

By Joe Marchelewski ⋅May 27, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

You may not be a fan of the New York Yankees, but it’s hard to deny their success over the decades in building perennial playoff contenders and championship teams. Here are some of the ways the Yankees have defined baseball with their success over the last 100 years or so:

1. Confidence - Granted, it’s easy for a team with such historic players as Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson and Alex Rodriguez to be confident, but even in the lean years the Yankees always acted like the first place team was simply keeping it warm for them.

2. Create History - Sometimes children who didn’t know their parents, or who didn’t want to know them, have a hard time being successful because there is no history of success. History begins now, and starting your own legacy will hold you responsible to a cause and a goal.

3. Know When to Spend Money - Whether it’s buying a stock, a new home or signing a big free agent, you have to know when it’s important to spend money and when it’s not.

4. Collect Monuments - In Yankee Stadium there are monuments of the great Yankees of the past, and that helps the new guys know what is expected of them. Keep pictures, sayings and other monuments of great people around you to keep in your memory what it takes to be successful.

5. Dress for Success - The Yankees invented pinstripes in Major League Baseball. You’ve got to invent a successful you, so ditch the sweat pants and dirty t-shirts and start to look successful. Don’t break the bank, but remember that image is vital.

Personal Development: The Truth About Being Your Own Boss

By Joe Marchelewski ⋅May 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

Many movies often include a major character beginning their own business after years of frustration with their boss or company, and many Americans fantasize with the life they could lead if they only were their own bosses.

If becoming your own boss is your goal, or even the next step in your life, here are some tips that’ll help you both get off the ground and to keep in mind, given by a small business owner:

A. Don’t have a business partner

It’s easy to think that having a partner can minimize risk and bring a variety of ideas, but it can also bring headaches, failure and lawsuits. Ownership is a tricky issue, parents often butt heads about how to raise kids, and they’re in love. Imagine owning a store with someone you violently disagree with?

B. Get payment before delivery

Trust is a tricky thing. It’s important to trust your customers, but you can only trust them so far. Everyone has their priorities, and no one’s priority is to make sure you get your money. If a client has needs at home, or if their business is going under, they probably aren’t going to make sure you get paid. Keep that in mind as you deal with individuals.

C. Don’t be afraid to fire clients

Desperate times make for desperate people. Whether you’re a web designer with a large client or a t-shirt maker with a few small clients, even the most annoying and obnoxious client can look attractive when the checks roll in. However, headaches, stomach aches, lack of sleep and more aren’t worth one idiot’s money. My father actually had a client call on Christmas Eve to complain about something, something that could have waited two days. He was too desperate to fire the client, but he should have cut the chord right then and there.

D. Word of mouth is king

Buying marketing materials, advertising space and web designers is all fine, well and good, but when it comes down to it, a suggestion from a friend outweighs them all. Whether you’re starting your own medical practice or law firm, relationships are vital and referals are the mother’s milk of a successful business.