Don't sweat the small stuff, but choose the small stuff wisely...

In my last post I wrote about making choices. I have been thinking about the power of making choices and have noticed just how many choices that I make in a day. It starts before I ever get out of bed. Do I sleep for another 5 minutes, or do I get up a and get a jump on my day? Will I exercise today, or will I take the day off? Once I get up choices continues to rule my life. Simple, but powerful choices that have a major impact on what I accomplish during the day and how I ultimately live my life. Many of the choices seem relatively small and unimportant, but they ultimately dictate my life. Do I eat cereal, or do I have a pop tart? Do I read email first, or do I plan my day first? Do I work on the task that I like to work on, or do I work on that pesky project that has a looming deadline? Do I blog today, or do I skip? Do I call my mom to say hi, or do I put that off until later? So many choices. I make them without thinking, but making wrong choices or taking the path of least resistance can eat up the most important resource I have. ME! Make smart choices. To learn more on the power of choice make sure you read Monday Morning Choices: 12 Powerful Ways to Go from Everyday to Extraordinary by David Cottrell.

The power of choice...

I learned a long time ago that life is about choices. We can choose to act or we can choose to be the victim. Such a simple concept with extremely powerful results. If we do nothing, then we choose to do nothing and we have nobody to blame for the results of our inaction. If we don't like our job, we can choose to do nothing, or we can choose to look for a new one. If we are over weight, we can choose to eat less, or choose to exercise, or choose to get help from a doctor, or ... Choice is what makes the world go round, or not! If you find yourself feeling sorry for yourself, then look around. There are choices that you can make to change that situation. Or maybe you have already made a choice. Maybe you want to feel sorry for yourself.

I have recently been on a reading binge and stumbled upon another gem of a book, Monday Morning Choices: 12 Powerful Ways to Go from Everyday to Extraordinary by David Cottrell. This is another easy read that discusses the power of choice and how choices can change your life. I highly recommend this book. It might be a good choice for you to read it!

How to be a Mega Rock Star...

Saturday my wife and I took a trip to Cleveland to see the Blue Man Group. I had never really seen anything they had done other than a couple of commercials so I didn't really know what to expect. My wife was pretty excited, as she has wanted to see them for quite sometime. We had a great time! It was a high energy performance from start to finish. They kept the crowd engaged the entire show. The theme of "How to be a Mega Rock Star" gave them plenty of material to work with. A great blend of what I would call "mild" comedy, great music, and creative use of percussion instruments. Some of the instrument were quite unlikely, but very effective. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend the show! Now I am a "Mega Rock Star"! Well, at least in my dreams!

Do you want to be rich?

I just finished a book that I received from my financial planner. My eyes are wide open now. If you want to get to the promised land without question, then you must get this book and follow the plan. It is an easy read that is simple and to the point. Here is just one piece of advice from the author that is both powerful and relevant to the current financial environment. "Don't panic: The secret to wealth in equities is not getting scared out of them". Want to find out why? Get this book, Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth: How You and Your Financial Advisor Can Grow Your Fortune in Stock Mutual Funds by Nick Murray. You will be glad you did.


Click here for a step by step guide to financial empowerment!

The sky is falling...

It looks like the sky is falling in the financial world with the news on Bear Stearns we have all been reading the last couple of days. The Fed is trying to ride their horse to the rescue. Who knows how that story will end. Now is the time when your financial adviser should be earning his money. His job is to keep you from doing something stupid. Bailing now is probably the absolute worst thing one could do if their portfolio is properly diversified. Now is the time when most folks who are going it alone get scared and start selling. Your adviser should be holding your hand and helping you stay the course. It is counter intuitive for most of us to feel like there is a huge sale going on. If you are adding to you portfolio routinely, you are getting a lot more for your money in this faltering market. Stick to your plan. This too shall pass!

Click here for a step by step guide to financial empowerment!

Man's Best Friend...

 

Whoever said that dogs were man's best friend was right on the money. My dog's name is EveeAussie, but we call her Aussie for short. You don't want to know where EveeAussie came from, but understand that when you have kids that can't agree, compromise is a powerful thing. Aussie is a Jack Russell. Everything you have ever heard about how Jack Russells are extremely smart is right on the money. This dog is scary smart. I think sometimes she knows what I am thinking before I think it. She is also a ferocious hunter. There is no chipmonk on earth safe when she catches their scent. She actually took on a ground hog last year and although it was quite a battle, the ground hog lost the bloody war.

When I am working at home, Aussie spends her time in the rocker next to my desk. She listens to every conference call, and occasionally offers her two cents worth. If she could talk, I am sure that she would ad plenty of value to the calls. If she could write, she probably would have her own blog. I think she has asperations of retirement too, but she has no intentions of turning over the management of her portfolio to a financial planner. She makes no "bones" about that!

Click here for a step by step guide to financial empowerment!

To be a Rock and not to Roll...

Today I was truly humbled. My son who is home for spring break fired up his XBox 360 and plugged in Guitar Hero. I am watching him play and listening to the music. Alice Cooper, Heart, Kiss, Blue Oyster Cult... Hey, I know that music! "Wanna try Dad?" my son asked with a smirk on his face. How hard could it be I thought. Like a sucker, I took the bait. I can't play a plastic guitar like a rock star. I can't even play like a fifth grader. All I got out of 10 minutes trying to show up my son was a good start on carpal tunnel! He on the other hand got a good laugh. I think I will remain a spectator from now on. I know my place. Long live the king and he ain't me! Check out this 9 year old on youtube. I can't even thumb my nose that fast.

Click here for a step by step guide to financial empowerment!

Laughter is the best medicine!

Why is it that people that retire and finally get connected to the Internet turn into electronic "Jedi's"? If we disallowed email as a means of communication to people over 65, then cyberspace would stand a good chance of imploding! It is amazing the number of emails that can be generated in a 24 hour period by the seniors of our nation. Where do they find all of the jokes that they circulate? We know where they find the time. I feel particularly honored that I am on the receiving end of the "smile a day" link that email has created. That someone thinks enough of me to put me on their list is pretty special. I received some particularly funny content from my favorite Uncle today that is worth sharing. You gotta love these bumper stickers. Enjoy and be sure to visit the site that provided this very funny content, P&M Home Care Services, Inc.

Hertz has a better idea?

This week was the travel week from hell. The weather in the Midwest has been horrible. More snow than I have seen in years. Trying to fly from the east coast to Ohio was impossible. My flight was cancelled twice on Friday due to the closing of my destination airport, CMH. Although Southwest re-booked me on a flight for Saturday, there was no guarantee that it would fly either.

I decided to rent a car and drive rather than risk being stuck away from home all weekend and leaving my wife at home to shovel snow by herself. I normally rent from Enterprise, but even though they have been promising the addition of one way rentals to their portfolio of services for quite some time, they still don't offer that option. I checked out National, and they had a car, but their price for a one way rent... $1000 for one day! I am guessing that would have outfitted me with a gold plated tank. I nearly fell on the floor. Talk about holding a traveler hostage! I find it hard to understand how Southwest can charge only $55 to fly me from BWI to CMH with some of the most friendly people I have ever been around, but National wanted 18 times that much and I was going to be all by myself.

My next stop was Hertz. After all, I did have a "Gold" card. The only thing gold was the rate. Their price was $228 for a one day, one way rental. Still very spicy, and again, I felt like I was being taken advantage of due to the weather situation, but I did not want to spend the weekend in Baltimore. I took the bait, rented the car, and embarked on the eight hour drive home. Fortunately, I beat the heaviest of the snow and rolled into my driveway at 2 o'clock in the morning.

When I woke up this morning, mother nature had obviously been busy the rest of the night and she had spread well over a foot of snow across the Ohio valley. She also had the wind whipping it into drifts across the area roads causing most of the counties in Ohio to issue either level two or level three snow emergencies. My rental car was pretty well entrenched in my driveway from all of the blowing snow. The airport where it needed to be returned was 25 miles away. Evaluating the situation, I felt it was best to contact Hertz to see what allowances they would make for returning the car late due to the severe weather conditions.

In calling the service number on the back of my "Gold" Hertz card, I was told that I would need to talk to their "extensions" department. They transferred me to that department, and they told me that I would need to talk to the folks in Columbus where I was returning the car. They provided me with the number, and I called the Hertz rental desk at the Columbus airport. The rental desk in Columbus informed me that since I rented the car BWI in Baltimore, that they could not access my information. They told me that the contract was with Baltimore and that I would need to contact them. I proceeded to call Baltimore and they didn't have much empathy for my plight since they didn't have any snow in Baltimore and really didn't have a clue about what was going on in Ohio. After much bantering with the fine folks at Hertz in Baltimore, they were able to offer me a gracious rate of $110 per day for each additional day that I held the car. That was a discount of 50% off of the wonderful $220 they charged me for the one day one way rental! I finally relented as I was wearing down after an hour on the phone being passed around. I sure am glad I have that "Gold" card. I am sure that it saved me loads of time. After getting off of the phone and calming down to a mild rage, I decided that come hell or high water, I was going to risk life and limb to get the car back to the Columbus airport.

I loaded up my snow shovel (my personal car was sitting in long term parking at the airport and was probably snowed in), and began the driving the 2o treacherous miles across town to the airport. Upon arriving at Port Columbus still in one piece, I was feeling pretty good that I wasn't going to have to pay for an extra day of rental at the "generously discounted rate" and I was pretty sure my ordeal was over. The guy checking me in even gave me a chance to vent about how I felt about Hertz which allowed me to bite my lip until it bled. Gosh I felt good! Then he gave me my receipt. Game over! The final damage... Approximately $330!

What! They had charged me for the original day AND the extra day that I didn't use. Of course the nice young man was unable to help me, but informed me that the manager was inside and I could talk to her. Lucky me. I will give credit where credit is due and say that this lady genuinely tried to help me. The problem was she had to call Baltimore to fix the problem. Remember? My contract was with them? After several minutes on the phone, she was told that they would have to generate the receipt in Baltimore and that they would fax it over to her when they finished getting the paperwork processed. The young lady in Columbus, realizing that I was very near "melt down" offered me a bottle of water to cool me off while I waited. I calmly declined and waited... and waited... and waited... Anybody ever read "Waiting for Godot"? Finally, I reached my limit and gave up. I told my new found friend behind the counter that I was done and would just wait for my credit card statement to show up. She assured me that I could go to Hertz.com in a "few days" to see my bill. She also informed me that my bill would be approximately $125... TOTAL!

The moral of the story: Give your customers a "Gold" card; treat them like crap and call it service; gouge them for every nickel you can when they are in a bind; make their request seem unreasonable; add insult to injury when the customer's experience is in the final mile; and finally, give them in the end what you should have given them at the start! Yes! Hertz has a better idea!

Plan for tomorrow, but live for today...

Planning for retirement is a journey, not a task. It is a dynamic process. It isn't over till the "fat lady sings". There are many things to plan for and many things to think about. When you think you have it all figured out, you think of something else. Is there a perfect plan? Nope! Do the best that you can. Educate yourself. Information is abundant. We have lots of resources to educate ourselves. The internet, books, our parents, relatives, friends, financial planners, and on, and on. You are not going to be perfect, but you can get on the sunny side of the moon if you don't keep your head buried in the sand. Open your eyes. Ask questions. Read. Learn. Act on what you know. The fact that you are thinking about it and talking about it and asking questions about it and most importantly, doing something about it, is what will make it the best that it can be. This process is not about perfection. It is about taking advantage of the resources that are available all around us and making the best decisions that we can with the information that we have. Live for today because there might not be a tomorrow. Plan for tomorrow because there might be one!

Blog - Make Money - Retire... Really?

Over the past several weeks I have become increasingly obsessed with blogging and the notion that one could actually earn a living from sharing their thoughts. I have read over and over the claims of other bloggers that they are making money hand over foot from blogging. I have perused the blogs relating experiences of bloggers quitting their day jobs because they are making so much money from blogging. I have not experienced any monetary success to date and it certainly is not due to lack of effort. I have tried AdSense, Project Wonderful, ClickBank, EntreCard, etc., etc. I have seen an increase in site visits over the past couple of weeks. That is probably due to the incessant dropping I have been doing on the EntreCard site and reciprocal drops I am receiving from other users. I know that people have to visit your site in order to generate any revenue. It is pretty bad when the last thing you do at night and the first thing you do each morning is to check to see if any of the tools being used have generated a revenue stream. It is an extremely addictive cycle and also very demoralizing when you see nothing but goose eggs in the total columns. I need to be careful that my blog's original purpose isn't compromised by the lure of the almighty dollar. I guess trying to earn a buck from blogging is okay as long as what you are blogging adds value to those that read it. I just wish I could find the secret combination that generates the best of both worlds. Making money by blogging would certainly be something that I could see myself doing to fill some of my free time when I retire. Is that a realistic goal? Are the claims I read about true? I am still trying to paint the vision in my minds eye. Any suggestions out there fellow bloggers / readers? I am all ears.