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loteriart · 4 years

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Ten Tips For Launching Your Real Estate Investing Career

Eight Approaches for Getting Started in Real Estate Investing Introduction This article is just the fundamentals for getting started in real estate investing. This is not a how to content but an article that gives you some information about things to do begin. Everything in this article is tools that can be applied to helping any individual get started in real estate investing. I am going to give you my seven keys to getting started. Nothing is right or wrong though reflects the point of view of the author. Laws and legal practices vary from state to state, and laws can change over time. The author does not vouch for the legality of the opinions, nor is there any intent to supply legal advice. The author strongly encourages the reader to consult with professionals together with an attorney prior to entering in any real estate transaction or written agreement. The author is not a writer but he is a real residence investor. There will be grammar mistakes and errors, so do not be too critical of the grammar but focus your energy of what is being said. With that said prepare yourself to think a little differently and additionally expand your mind. Let's get started on an amazing adventure. The Seven Tips are as follows 1 . Desire 2 . Goal Setting 3. Learning What To Do 4. Attending a Real Estate Investing Seminar 5. The Billings Montana Market 6. Finding a Trainer 7. Your Real Estate Team 8. Just Do IT 1 ) Desire Before we get in to the bolts and finger nails of real estate investing in I want to talk to you about hope. If you are going to be successful at anything in life as well as real estate investing you have to have the desire to do it. Desire is defined as longing or craving, as for something that brings satisfaction and / or enjoyment. Desire stresses the strength of feeling and often implies powerful intention or aim. In real estate investing if you don't have a good desire to learn and grow as a human being and genuinely get satisfaction out of it, then real estate investing is going to be difficult to do. When I go out and look at a property it brings my family a lot of enjoyment. Every aspect brings me joy from speaking to home owners, figuring out how I can make a deal work, to purchasing the house and to finding a good homeowner or tenant for those house. Real estate investing may not be for everyone but real estate wasting can offer anyone the financial freedom we all crave pertaining to. If you do not have the desire for real estate investing that is ok, it could possibly still help you to live your dreams and help you to receive where you want to go in the future. Why is real estate investing an excellent avenue for anyone to live out all of their dreams? Let me consult you a few questions. Do you have enough money to do anything you want? Do you have everything you want? No debt? A nice house hold? Great Marriage? The freedom to do anything regardless of how significantly it costs and the time it takes? If you have all of these matters then you are one of the few people in America who does. Most people may be doing the job fifty hours a week and making just enough to pay his or her bills. In today's day and age most people are living pay check to repay check never really knowing if they will make enough paying the bills that just keep piling up. If you cannot match your monthly bills how are you going to plan for retirement or transmit your kids to college or have time to enjoy life. The response to all of these questions is becoming financially free. Now it will not be easy everyone will have to get off the couch in addition to out of their comfort zone. Real estate is proven to be one of the simplest ways to get your out of the rat race of the nine to all 5 and begin living the life you deserve to live. Everyone desires something different out of their life. Some dream of traveling the whole world, spending more time with family, volunteering, golfing, laying about the beach, giving back to the community, or anything that will make these folks happy. There are thousands of things that make people happy. Rendering it in real estate takes a person who has a strong desire to adjust their lives for the better and think big. Any individual can become a great real estate investor. It is going to take a lot of do the job and can be a struggle at times but in the end it will be the most amazing feeling ever. The people that make it in real estate investing most of have a few things in common. First they run the real estate investing business like any other business out there. Subsequently they get out there and network with anyone along with everyone. Some people might be like me and have a hard time actually talking to other people. If you are that is ok, anyone can learn how to become a people person, it just takes hard daily perform. You have to push yourself past your comfort zone. The third problem is that you cannot be afraid to fail. Everyone features failed at something but the most successful people outside their learn from their failures. The fourth thing might be that you have to put a good team together. I will go into adding a team together in a later chapter. The concept of positioning a team together is so that when you don't know one thing you have team members that know what to do and can help you utilizing questions. The can also make sure that you are not working yourself to demise. You do not want to be the person doing everything in your business. Going through everything is a receipt for failure. You have to put together decent people who you can trust and rely on. The fifth detail is that you need a mentor. Sixth and final will be desire to do it. No one can become successful at something if they won't want to do it and don't get satisfaction out of what there're doing. 2 . Setting Goals Having goals is one of the most prominent aspects of achieving what you want in life. You don't want to just simply have your goals up in your head you want to write them all down and past what you have wrote on the structure somewhere or in the bathroom mirror. You want to review the goals daily and read them out loud to your self. This way you remind yourself everyday why you are establishing your business. How should you start to write down you goals? First of all you should think big, and by big I mean BIG. If your goals are too small you will easily reach them and have nothing else to look forward too. You might want to start off by asking yourself the question if I had the money and time in the world what would I do, whatever would I buy, how would I spend the time, and how would I spend my energy levels. Are you starting to write these down? Well you should be. Take into account what you want, spending time with family, traveling the world, the best passenger cars, a castle, owning a small country, running for web design manager, having the biggest real estate investing business in your area or near you. Whatever your dreams and what you want out of your life, prepare it down. Some of my goals are becoming free, touring the world, having a Ferrari, having 10 vacation homes across the globe. Right now I am just trying to get you out of your comfort zone for thinking and let your imagination run. There are several methods of set goals. I have learned a lot of ways you can set you will goals and there is no right or wrong way. The perfect ways that I have found to set your goals is to break these products up into two categories. First your short term desired goals. This should be goals from a month out to all-around a year. The second is your long term goals these goals presently think big goals and what you see for your foreseeable future. For year one I like to first make a list of exactly what I want to achieve this year and I will give you an example of easy methods to do that. For year one you want to be very precise first you want to list what you want your income to be at the end of your year, next how much cash in the bank you want (this is certainly money in your checking account, not assets). Next you want to number how much you are going to give. Giving is a very important, this can be supplying to charity, giving of gifts to friends and family, presenting to your school or anything you can dream of. As long as anything you give brings joy to others who need it well over you. Next list what bad habits you have that you'll want to eliminate. Weather is be quitting smoking, spending a lot on junk, drinking too much, working too much, not paying out enough time with family, too much TV, not exercising and many more. We all have bad habits that need to be changed for use to grow as human beings. Under each of these bad practices list out some steps that you can take in order to give up them. If you bad habit is being lazy and not working out enough what can you do to change that. Well you can get a new gym membership or a home work out program. Commit your body you following through with a plan to work out 3-5 months a week. For you to change these bad habits you have to be fully committed and follow through with a detailed plan you place for yourself. After you have your plans in place you should start list of several things you want to achieve or do in the next year. It is start a successful business, spend time with family, travel to 2-5 places and so on. Now under each of these you should also write find plan on what you need and what you need to do in order to achieve these dreams. Finally you should take all of this information you have a write for page on what you see your life being over the next time. Doing this is a great exercise to really see what you want out of daily life. Goals Year One This is what I am going To Do This Year Source of income: $500, 000 Cash: $100, 000 Give: $20, 000 Bad Habits that will be changes: Over Sleeping 1 . Retire for the night at 11 p. m. 2 . Use a timer and even set it for 8 hours 3. Set typically the timer on the other side of the room Buying things that you don't need: - Going out shopping less 2 . If you have the urge to obtain something think to yourself is thing item going to guidance me to achieve my goals of becoming financially free? 3. Tell friends what you are doing, so they can help to eliminate you. What I want to Achieve: Start a successful Real Estate Shelling out Business: (you should write a detailed step by step plan in everything you need in order to achieve your goal) Travel: Where do I would like to visit? 1 . Gators football game (what I need to complete the work, money, etc) And last your own page about what you prefer to achieve using words like I will and only positive sayings. For long term goals you don't need to be as specific at this time, but you should list them and under them record a few steps or smaller goals that need to be completed before you are able to achieve them. With the long term goals normally think big. Another good exercise for long term aims is to make a collage of you goals. Put pics of the house you want on it, places you want to travel, a picture of this family, a number of what income you want in or everything else you can think of. 3. Learn Knowledge builds confidence not to mention destroys fear. If you are starting any kind of business you need to find out the ins and outs of that business. The best way I have found to learn regarding real estate investing is to read all about it. But knowing it you have to apply what you have learned. Learning and checking is just one step to take. There are thousands of books that can be found about real estate investing and everyone has something you possibly can learn from. You don't just want to read real estate investing books nonetheless. You also want to fill yourself with motivational and authority books. Every successful person that I know if a reader they usually all spend at least thirty minutes a day reading something that will probably teach them about improving their business or supporting themselves to become a better person. Some of the best books that I would certainly recommend reading are listed below. 1 . Rich Dad Very poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki (read this first as well as ready everything in the rick dad poor dad collection, great books to start with and will expand you mind) second . Be a Real Estate Millionaire by Dean Graziosi 3. Utilize your way to financial freedom by Preston Ely (this is an E-Book) 4. Four hour work week through Timothy Ferriss 5. The Attractor Factor 6. Quite short Sale Pre-foreclosure Investing by Dwan Bent-twyford and Sharon Sestrepo 7. Keys to success, by Napoleon Mountain 8. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Huge batch 9. How to win friends and influence people 10. Any Book by John C. Maxwell (he seems to have tons of amazing leadership books) 11. Getting Started in Realty Day Trading by Larry Goins 12. The E Myth by Michael Gerber 13. How to be a quick go real estate millionaire by Ron Legrand 14. The Power regarding Full Engagement 15. The It Factor 16. Things by Anthony Robins There are tons more you can read and yet these will give you a great start. You should also read books in negotiating, sales, motivation, and biographies on American internet marketers. I hope this list gives you the knowledge it has given me personally. If you learn and apply what you have learned from all these books there is no reason that you should not become very thriving. 4. Attend a Real Estate Investing Seminar Attending a genuine Estate Investing Seminar can be one of the best places to learn in relation to real estate investing from some very well known experts. There are certain seminars going on all over the country every weekend. If you live in an enormous city it will be very easy to find one. If you live in any town like Billings Montana you might need to travel a little solutions to find one. Now most of the best meeting cost dollars to attend them. Some range from five hundred dollars for two to three days and some can be up to $20, 000. There are a few i would recommend. Than Merrill is a great speaker to go take note of. I have learned a ton from him. You can find his enterprise online by Google searching him. Also rich pop poor dad has seminars all over the country. I attended one among their seminars in Billings Montana for only $500 dollars and learned a ton from it. There is also Preston Ely, Larry Goins, and hundreds of speakers out there. If you find an amazing book that you really enjoyed, then just simple seek that person online and see if they are speaking somewhere or perhaps offer a seminar close to you. Another reason I recommend going to a fabulous seminar is because they get you pumped up and encouraged. I have not yet found anything else that just becomes you feeling like you can do anything. When you get back collected from one of of these seminars you will have tons of energy and knowledge. Each and every time I get back from one all I want to do is going through and do a deal or ten. These seminars might also provide you with several opportunities to purchase amazing real estate investing devices, software or learning material at a fraction of the price tag. Believe me when I tell you all of the low priced seminars sell you something. But a lot of times what they are trying to sell is without a doubt some really good stuff. Another reason to attend a seminar is to network with other investors and build interactions with them. You can meet other investors who you can mate with on a deal, sell a deal too, individuals will provide you with deals and so on. You should have hundreds of business cards fabricated and try to give them all out. You never know how a whole lot one business card you hand out can make you. 5. Learn About the real estate market in your area Most real estate traders start their career off my investing around their current address. This is why I do my real estate investing in Billings Montana. You possibly can venture out when you have more experience. The reason behind this is because we experience more comfortable with the areas and know the areas healthier. It is also easier to get local real estate information that we demand. Investing in your local market is also cheaper to start out, there is much less travel costs, you can see what you are buying and it can provide you a feeling a comfort. First you have to decide which will part of town is the best place to invest in. This can be determined by particular real estate investing you choose to do. I have not gone over the forms of real estate investing but some include rehabbing (fixing up and also selling), wholesaling (finding deals and selling them to other sorts of investors), buying to rent, and there are a few others. They're the real estate strategies that I use for the most part. When viewing the market you need to see where other investors are shopping for their houses. Most of the best deals will be found in minimal to middle class neighbors hoods. By low When i don't mean drug infested war zones, what I mean will be blue collar safe neighbor hoods that might have rather older houses and houses that are not on the more expensive price side. Now you can find deals in the higher priced next door neighbor hoods but most will be in the low to mid income neighborhoods. When looking where others are selecting ask local realtors, other investors or appraisers. Once talking with investors ask them several questions such as the things neighborhoods they prefer, what type of houses they buy (3 bed 2 bath), and what they do (rehab, rent, wholesale). You should not look at other investors as contest but try and work with them. There are different types of markets which includes appreciating markets, flat markets, and deprecating markets. Appreciating markets are markets that there is no enough houses or perhaps very high demand for houses which causes the price of houses to move into. The reason there is a high demand for housing can be because of project growth, a very appealing area, or several reason. Even markets are markets that have no or very little development. This means that there is not a lot of demand; buy just enough to occupy every ones needs. Depreciating markets are where there is also a lot more houses than people to fill those house. The causes house prices to start going down. This can be because of a substantial employer leaving the area, a natural disaster or just over making. There is an old saying buy in a bust and market in a boom. In depreciating markets you can pick up numerous deals, while in appreciating the house prices are going to be much higher plus harder to find great deals. The deal will still be out there you just must know where to find them. Learning your market is another primary to becoming successful. Real estate Brokers and experts in your area could possibly be the best source of information for you. Learn to use them to find out how much market you are in. If you are in Billings Montana our company is in a pretty stable market. Billings Montana has not personally seen the ups and downs that other markets have experienced. I will really need to say that I have been noticing a little bit of a downward development but not much. Once the first time home buyer credit has ended with we might see a little more decline. Every market may vary by neighborhood, so make sure you know you market most certainly. I have seen the same houses just one mile apart reselling for totally different prices. 6. Find a Mentor Having a instructor to help you can be your biggest learning experience. Mentors can help you through any questions you may have, walk you step by step through the committing process, give you moral support, you learn from their verified system, and also network you with others in the business. Each successful real estate investor that I know says they will owe a lot of their success to the mentors they have and received in their lives. I have had one of the best mentors around, my dad. He is teaching me something new every day and forcing me to become successful. When trying to find a mentor I would suggest network with the investors at your local real estate investors golf iron meeting. There is a real estate investing club in Billings Montana that meets once a month. You can find information about real estate investing night clubs in your area by searching for REA or real estate investors team then your area in Google. When you go to the meetings check with who the biggest investors are. Then ask if you may get together with them sometime and discuss real estate investing. Question them if they would consider working with you to get their career looking. Offer your services as a bird dog. Bird puppies are people who go out find deals or leads with regards to deals and give them to other investors. A bird doggie gets from $500 to $3000 dollars depending on the put up. Make sure that you have a bird dog contract signed with the purchasers saying that if you find them and deal and they order it that you get paid a certain amount of money. Being a bird canine helps you to build credibility with the investor and they are more likely to trainer you if you have something to offer them. If you would like to contact others with a question go to my web site Big Sky Place Solutions LLC. 7. Your Real Estate Team Building a simple yet effective team can make your life as a real estate investor a lot easier. You may be only one person and cannot do everything or possibly be an expert in every aspect of real estate investing. Going at a venture alone can become one of the most frustrating experiences you will ever come across. Many people have become frustrated and quite real estate investing as they quite simply try and juggle too many things. Make sure that when putting an important team together you provide everyone with win-win chances. When someone knows that working with you is going to make individuals money they will put you as a higher priority on the list. But you have to prove it to them that you are bona fide. People to have on your real estate investing team include o Real Estate Agents ( find the top agent for volume of revenues in your area and other agents who work with real estate investors) u Real Estate appraisers (find an appraiser that has done a handful of hundred jobs or more and make sure they carry flaws and omissions insurance) o Real estate contractors (good rehabilitation crews that can get the job done in a timely manner, have 3-5 crews as well as on every deal get 3 estimates done. Wish for referrals from them and make sure they are licensed) o Real estate attorneys (every investor needs an attorney, they can help to protect your own assets, make sure you find one that works with investors) o A home management company (can manage your properties and will grant you leads on property they are managing that might come up just for sale) o Title companies (take care of the legalised process and make sure there are no liens against the place you are buying, choose one that does hundreds of closings the year) o Home inspectors(charge about $400 but will give a great inspection and could save you thousands in the long run) o And your Mentor All of these people can help you in various aspects of real estate investing. You might find that there are a couple others that are ideas to your business but this is just a list of a few. 8. Just Do it There is no better phrase out there then JUST SIMPLY DO IT! Once you have learned all you can networked with buyers in Billings and learned real estate investing strategies nothing left to do but get your feet wet. There is no more effective learning tool out there then doing a deal. Once you have accomplished that first deal you will know what to expect and find out that should be not as hard as you thought it would be. You will have learned everything you did right and what was frustrating. Take that feel and ask yourself what would have made it run smoother. Put on that to your next deal. Then the next deal could be easier and it keeps getting easier as you go. I'm going to say that every deal is different from the last but who what makes this business fun. You have to be creative and always keep regarding learning and growing with your business. The average person never purposes what they learn. Don't be average apply your understanding. When going out and doing your first deal act like you will have done 1000's of deals. The fastest way to transformation a habit is to act like it is true. Five house keys for success 1 . Specialized Knowledge 2 . Tools of any professional 3. Have the mindset of a winner 4. Guides 5. Money and the knowledge of leveraging it (you do not have to have millions to invest in real estate, there are many strategies out there to try other people's money, or no money at all) It is going to conclude this article about getting started in real estate shelling out. I hope this gave you some ideas about how you can get began. I didn't give you any strategies at this point but seek some in upcoming articles. These are simple steps you can use to start learning. If you read this article thank you for listening.

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comparativeessay688 · 4 years

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deeeknows · 7 years

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Wowwwwo im honored and excited for you to read this blog. This one was hard for me to write so dont hate me if it is less easy to understand. Id love to discuss anything you guys hate/love in the comments. See you on the other side.

June 28

today was a big day for me as i was looking forward to taking my math assessment all day. i should have studied but hindsight is 20/20. what i will note is my trip with Uesin. he selflessly gave up his afternoon to drive me to my house, to get food, and then to lanham. What i appreciate about him is how thoughtful all of his actions are. not even just the ones that place me on the receiving end but rather how he places purpose in every decision he makes. i want my relationship with God to mirror how his looks in these ways one day. but after we the assessment i drive back and there is a group meeting centered around Vaughn and he was telling us about his relocation story. a very humbling experience but it seems like God does that to many people that being give them a task they cannot complete on their own. Important Part There is no way for me to claim i trust God with my life and then not my child’s life. so when i feel called to move into the city and education for my child comes up i dont think I want the best for my children. i want what God has for my family and i trust that following his will we do the rest. secondly i learned there is no way to do this alone. no matter how much i tell myself i hate people and want to be alone community is neeeeeeded for relocation. not only will God get you plugged into the city but he will plant you in community with folks with the same mission as you. your church should represent where you live and the values of Christ. make the sacrifices needed to do Gods work if youre going to go there you might as well all the way do it. Important Part people call tell when youre just moving in as compared to bringing Jesus into their Community.

June 29

without much change in my day to day this week i was eager to see where my life would be challenged. my first adventure came when i went further out of the city with Megan and Lestle to the bank. our walk confused me slightly because of what i anticipated to be true about the city was just not lining up to be true at all. everyone thinks the city is the worst part of baltimore but Important Part i am starting to believe i have reason to believe that the people who live outside the city before they are in the county technically that have the most strenuous places. ostracized from the county because they arent good enough and without the “resources” of the city. its a hard life out here. fastforward to dinner time im walking to hiphop chicken and a woman starts screaming to me if i want to buy any movies. its in my nature to stop and talk because i just cant pretend like i cant hear someone speaking directly to me or keep walking when someone is trying to get my attention. so tell her i dont have any interest in any DVDs or console games or perfume but that also wasnt good enough for her. so she crosses the street to better communicate her need for a dollar just have something to drink. the thing that was catching me was we were on our way to eat dinner and i had already decided i wasnt going to spend my money because i wasnt to hungry. so i told her i didn’t have any singles but she can have and i assured her that if i did she would be in luck. shortly after i ended up giving her the 5 to her surprise and she starts crying. i ask her name and then she tells me and i say i will be praying for her but my family group was standing a ways off and were waiting for me to go to dinner. as i tried to walk away she reaches out for me and asks for me to pray for her now. by the time im finished she is in full blown tears and i just gotta go because i cant be out here crying in these streets. i tell this story because i think for me and her it was more than about the mere 5. Important Part while the 5 would get her something to drink it wasnt going to meet all of her needs and we both knew that. the immediacy she wanted her interaction with her Savior right then. and it just teaches me not walk past anyone again because besides “costing me” 5 dollars which was only mine for all of 5 minutes i was able to be with her in her interaction which i believe she will remember way longer than she will remember the 5 i dont even remember what it looked like.

June 30

Who am I. Question I’ve found in all of my conversations since Sunday. Looking for ways I could define myself without telling people what I’m not. Today’s thought provoking comments came by the brilliant minds of Feitian and Lestle. After I was taking notes on my Asian culture 101 class I started to realize my questions weren’t specific to myself and that many other people groups go through the very same things I do. Seeking to find ones self. Feitian communicated to me the exact thing that I knew I couldn’t have been the only other person thinking. That people don’t want to know you, they’d rather skip all the time it would take to get to know each person and use what they have gathered previously through most times skewed lens to contextualize you. Important Part Who you are and who you aren’t are two different people trapped in one body. And most times we are stuck in between looking for someone else to shine some light on us to help determine where our strengths and almost-strengths lie. But I didn’t come to this until the 3 of us went around and spoke about how we were having such immense difficulty communicating who we were to the next person or how hard it was without describing what we weren’t. I believe we live in our pursuit for purpose in our lives and we start with figuring out who we are and what we like. Most times we never make it to the second part without placing our identity in Christ. Important Part It sounds super corny but I have been thinking all week and those are the only concrete things I can describe myself with that others cannot change the definitions to. Who knows. Maybe one day I won’t be afraid of someone knowing me better than I do. But I can’t call it as of yet.

July 1

Writing this a day after wasn’t my smartest idea yet. But we didn’t do as much. It was comprised of a seminar on racial reconciliation. while this seems like a super broad topic and it is. the main parts of what we were doing were focused around a couple steps that really broke down the process into knowing who you are racially and ethnically and what that means for our society and how can we knowing our differences work to create heaven on earth. this whole seminar was a challenge as to what i thought heaven was going to look like. i can see now what a real working definition of unity looks like. unity is fully realized in diversity. as a puzzle works there are many many pieces and they are all shaped through cultures and experiences they have been in. Important Part we needed more than 1 uniqueshape to complete the image of God and thats what unity is about. accepting people who are different from you and working with them because we all together reflect God

After the seminar we went on a trip to the National Blacks in Wax museum. While it was a learning experience i would have enjoyed maybe another hour or 7 to properly pace myself to get to really digest the museum. The worst part about this whole thing for me is in the idea that many of the atrocious acts that were used to oppress black people in the past were not only “based” out of christian beliefs but also done by christian people. So to think about reconciliation for me is to attach myself to an agent that was used to divide people in the past didnt sound appealing at all. Important Part But i realize i serve a God that is big enough to take what some people manipulated to hurt and dehumanize my people and redeem not only what was taken but Christ’s name. This is so important to me because the more broken the more we can see God’s grace cover many times over.

July 2

as practicing sabbath becomes more and more a thing im getting used to im thankful for the time im putting aside to be alone. lol and be with

God. i went over to the Zubeks home and there i met so many new friends. these people im starting to see work together to get your will done and i say the way teamwork looks. vision casting and group work does more and helps to create a community that is dependent on each other. every part of me hates being dependent on someone else but im trying my best to do more than just isolate myself and grow to work with people towards a common goal. but today i went to worship at a mass. it was so new and short i didnt even realize it was over when it was. a different pace but not something i dont think id do long team. i dont see enough variability for myself. i like the experience. id want to get to understand why they do all of what they do for their practices.

July 3

monday was a day that we began to get back into everything with brother Jeff. as a starter we spent about 30 minutes in prayer interceding on behalf of the kids who were just coming back from camp, playing in the league, and the coaches. This is so valuable to me because of what the kids experienced while they were at summers best 2 weeks. This christian camp was a structure and environment that many different kids have in. Brother Jeff took these 7 kids and they all took MAJOR steps in their walk with Christ. And this is great to see but everyone isnt going to be at the best 2 weeks forever and the situations these kids are coming back to isnt one that would accidentally foster them to continue to grow. Important Part Which is why we were fighting in prayer for these kids to meet us halfway so we can continue to pour into them while they are around. becoming an intercessor is exciting me more and more because im becoming like my momma and i see the importance and value of what she does so well. pray for others. i might have to get me one of those closets that dont have a door since i feel like id get locked in and die. but thats besides the point. we then went shopping for the 4th and the weekend for him before coming back home and doing more admin things. then my favorite part of it all. spending time with the youth came. we took timmy*** to the park to hoop for quite some time. seeing and getting these kids to be themselves and slowly begin to look up to myself and lestle and begin to ASK us questions just shows how willing and eager they are to learn. cant wait for more times.

July 4

Writing this blog now I’m still experiencing the 4th in the city and so the nonstop fireworks kept me awake enough to write this entry. To begin my 4th I went to brother Jeffs home and had a cookout with the kids and some of his closest mentees. Over a couple games of uno, burgers, and corn we discussed among many other things honor. While it might seem like a little thing to you guys honor for these kids is VERY VERY important. As I believe it should be for everyone but in biased. Honor and respect is given to those who earn it and something you would never give up on your own accord without a fight. While I know this to be true in my life it didn’t settle in how serious this was until asked point blank where put in a situation you had to Choose walking away with your life or dying with your pride that some would choose to die. Not only did this seem almost ludicrous to me but it wasn’t until shortly after that “death before dishonor” really held any weight. Not only were these kids being put in these situations but they were being forced to make these decisions and would rather die and be known as a real one that held to their values than to flake even when your life is on the line. I love it when someone teaches me something new about myself and this was definitely a time i could realize who i was and where i could grow, Because just putting it in my Blog doesnt mean id be willing to give up my life for anything. Important Part These soldiers would be rocking it in the army of God but until we can get them to stand on the solid rock of Jesus things prolly not gon stay too bright.

My second part of my day I want to compare firework experiences. While they aren’t entertaining to me I enjoy seeing others amused by them. To start off we went to the Zubek Home to watch then after our crab feast. People start to filter onto the roof of their rowhome in SOWEBO and lean up pretty much with their significant others. As people all around the city shoot of their fireworks the thing that stuck out most to me in this situation was how people were celebrating. The laid back privileged group of christians versus the constant street show that we watched for close to an hour as they blocked off stricker less than 50 meters from our home opens my eyes to so many things and actually visible comfort zones. Important Part I want to remember to that the people in Baltimore are not here to put on a show for me on my rooftop but rather that im challenged to learn, experience, and love on the people to try and better understand them. Connections work wonders as we watched and listened to the fireworks go off from 9-2 am non stop.

While this blog was harder for me to write i think there were less Important Parts as well and i dont want yah to hate me for it. Hopefully the ones ive pointed out in this last week add help with anything you might have experienced once upon a time. My last impressions would be to find 3 things you can tell me about yourself without telling me who you arent. My challenge would be to try a vegetarian lifestyle for a week. And my question would be where would you put yourself on the death before dishonor scale?

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taijispearman · 7 years

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Quitting time

Since there has been a lot of talk about what black belt, shodan or what have you means, I thought I would defer to someone that has over half a century worth of experience in the various arts that he has studied. Kim Taylor is a great guy and has demonstrated superb skill time and time again. Currently the highest ranking individual in the Canadian Kendo Federation in terms of Iaido and Jojutsu. Not to mention the fact that he is an excellent woodworker as well. Quitting Time My Aikido sensei used to say that one of the most popular times to quit a martial art was on getting shodan. Part of that would be a bit of “getting your black belt” which does seem like a goal achieved. I think we can leave the “shodan as goal” right now, it’s pretty obvious. Similarly, the big dropout rates at a couple days (it’s not for me), a couple of months (the semester is over, this stuff isn’t getting any more interesting), and a couple of years (I found a girlfriend) are pretty clear. The other part of the shodan bump (dip?) was what shodan meant back then in the Aikido federation. It was the level at which you could open your own dojo, rank your students to ikkyu (one step below that black belt) and put your students forward for the dan gradings. The shodan was typically around 6 years if I remember right. To award dan grades you were a 6dan which at that time was automatically a Shihan. So there were two “real” ranks and a bunch of mile-markers. Shodan was teaching rank and some grading and Rokudan (6) was grading rank. That has changed over the years, Shodans can’t award any grades any more and things like Shidoin and Fukushidoin have appeared. I have no idea what they are because I haven’t kept up. We’ll come back to this. In the Kendo federation the closest “on paper” equivalent to that shodan of 30 years ago is Godan (5) which takes about 10 or 11 years. At godan you can put your own students up for gradings of ikkyu and above. Any kyu gradings below that are up to the country to define and in the CKF they are club grades, so a teacher can rank their students to nikyu. Around here they tend to be treated as kid grades since there’s a minimum age attached to shodan and you have to keep the kids interested so you add in kyu grades. This can happen at the adult levels too, if an organization can’t obtain examiners for upper grades. You delay the inevitable by adding in grades at the lower end and hope the situation changes at the upper end by the time you have to face it. It often does due to sheer weight of numbers pushing up from below. Makes for some pretty strong shodan levels when they finally get there. So what is the deal with quitting just when you get to open your own dojo and grade your students? I suspect it’s having to open your own dojo and grade your students. This will come as no shock to anyone, but not all students in an art want to become sensei. Ten or eleven years in (I took 11 years to get my shodan because of a six year gap between ikkyu and a shodan grading seminar in my dojo) you have more or less learned the curriculum and there’s a pretty good chance you or your sensei have moved on. You’re not in your dojo any more. If your sensei has retired, you may have inherited his dojo, or more often, you have moved away for reasons of family or job. So now you’re no longer the student, now you’re the teacher. This is a big transition for most people, especially those who were not “frogs in a pot” who started “teaching” just to have some people to practice with. Those slow-boiled frogs may have started as “leaders of a study group” which, to me, always sounded like a way of pretending you aren’t teaching, or a sort of under the table way for an organization to let people teach without having the paper to teach. If you don’t get slow-boiled into it, moving from student to teacher can be a wrench. This is the time when you, as a student, start to ask some real important questions. Like, “how am I going to keep learning if my sensei isn’t around any more”. “What in the world did I just do for the last ten years of my life, why didn’t I travel more, take better care of my family, spend all that dojo time making some money instead”. When you ask those questions you are often going to get the answer “quitting time”. Especially if you’re no longer seeing your sensei every day, which can make quitting the art seem like quitting him. Now, some people like teaching or think they would like teaching (those are two very different things but we’ll ignore that at the moment). Curiously, teachers (those who make their living as a teacher) tend not to want to teach the martial arts. Who wants to make a job of their hobby? You’re supposed to make your hobby your job instead, right? Wait what? Those who like teaching tend to end up teaching ahead of time. I keep hearing from odd angles that the kendo federation now considers 3 or 4dan as “teaching ranks” which is why the requirements keep getting cranked up for those ranks. I figure that’s a bad idea, if you’re going to tell them they are teachers, give them the rank and the priviledges to go along with the responsibilities. The only way they should be teaching is if they’re the only person in town (and they want to keep practicing), otherwise you’re going to chase them away. Unless of course you’re just slowing down the whole grading system by passing fewer people along. In that case, be honest about it and change the time requirements, don’t tell juniors they are seniors in the responsibilities but not the perks. Still, being honest and open about things isn’t always the way is it? To do that means you have to rewrite the rules and doing that means discussions and arguments and who wants that? Which brings me back to another big “qutting moment”. That moment when you realize the rules have changed without that discussion and announcement. It happened in the Aikido federation when some folks reached six dan only to be told that the Shihan title (and priviledges) were not automatic. This was a bit of a shock to the system and only after a large chunk of students were on the way out the door did it get discussed and argued and agreed upon. This happens mostly at the higher ranks where an organization may feel it is losing control, so nobody we know right? Any time you see the reality diverging from the written, you’ll get this problem and it gets solved one way or another. Actually, that’s not so much a quitting moment (quitting the art) as a leaving moment (leaving the organization) now that I think about it. There are places where the student to teacher shift doesn’t happen as suddenly as others. There are dojo where you will find lots of high ranking students hanging around still being students. This delays the shock for those students who remain students and they may stick around for decades longer because nothing has changed. Unfortunately, that’s not good for an organization that wants to grow, you need those new dojo, but at least, when they do finally fly the nest, they won’t quit. Call it the opposite of the slow-boiling, the long-simmering. Kim Taylor Jan 14, 2017 http://sdksupplies.com/

#budoblr

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cloudvelundr · 7 years

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With The Sun At His Back

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Revived from the dead… It’s not often I pick up things untouched for over half a year. :P

SOLDIER Thirds were a gil a dozen, or at least it felt that way.

Being the easiest enhancement level to implement it was used – possibly to excess, but the Thirds needed to cover a lot of ground. They formed the backbone of any regions monster control measures, ever more important as monster incidents mounted higher higher and higher – important enough to warrant company implemented training schedules, a step up from the Second Army’s local programs just as those were up from the Fifth’s self motivated work.

Unlike the infantry, however, SOLDIERs came out of their adjustment period combat ready and could be shipped out immediately without the addition training, which was preferred but not strictly necessary as had been the case during the worst of the war. Those who survived could always do the required work later and sign up for extras as they wished. The courses were useful and taken one or two at a time as scheduling permitted, covering things like higher tactics, practical science, and the like. Cloud didn’t mind them per se, but the seminars were far more useful. They were technically part of the SOLDIER Seconds’ training as they rarely had the time to dedicate for a regular class, and even if they did the Seconds were usually already too specialized for a course to be worthwhile. Others could sign up if space allowed, or might be forced to if they had a particular talent worth cultivating.

Cloud learned this when he was (finally) sent to Midgar for two such ones – all higher magic courses, large and small, took place there on account of the poor demand and better facilities. His first was more of an exploratory thing, stress tests, that took up most of his time as his limit breaks had apparently raised a few eyebrows. Summoning space rocks he’d figured was weird but weather related things was a surprise, and both were enough to try and see if he had anything else hiding up his sleeves. He didn’t see anything but the instructors and evaluators made interested noises so what did he know.

The other was just a one time practical that summed up as ‘10 More Fun Things You Didn’t Know Sense Could Do!’ after which the little group – the Seconds had been seeing more restrictions – was set free to use the knowledge as they would.

The main take away was that with higher mako and more refined skills he could now find less concrete things, like ‘something fun to do’ – this one worked by the spell picking up on emotional imprints on the thing in question, the echoes of the emotions humans radiated and how some things just felt loved, but this gave him the worst sort of headache. ‘Something I forgot’ was tetchier but could also worked by both the same method looking for his own touch on things or by scavenging his own subconscious for the most relevant memory. This led vaguely downward. After a halfhearted attempt to ping his list shortlist for his possible soul mate, in theory possible but failed (whether by distance as he was feeling fine or by lacking the right name or just not being possible he couldn’t know) he decided to track down the forgotten thing.

After lunch. Magic made a body hungry.

In Sector Four he found a streetcar owned by a woman from the lowlands back home who was serving up variations on their traditional foods. She served him up extra (“None of that dear – you’re the first Nebel child I’ve seen in months!”) and they chatted for a bit about home and the changes in their fare. The food was good and nostalgic, but they both lamented that no spice could ever make up for the kick of a real dragon stew while her other patrons listened in in fascinated horror.

“It’s not actually dragon… is it?” one asked with a worried furrow in his brow.

“Oh it is,” Cloud replied with contained glee, licking his spoon; he’d missed this stuff more than he’d thought. “There’s a trick to bringing them down of course. It’s hard, but I nearly managed it with a friend before I enlisted, and they make fantastic jerky.”

“Ah- I see,” he said, but he clearly didn’t see and edged away in strategic retreat muttering something about country folk under his breath.

Rude, Cloud thought, and finished his dish.

He snapped a picture of the truck before he left, making note of the streets – he’d have to keep an eye out whenever he came back – and continued on his way.

The forgotten thing was still somewhere below.

The stairs to the slums were long and a tedious climb, but there was a ring network of public walkways below the initial few flights – sparse and like everything under the plate filthy and in need of maintenance, but they let him circle and narrow down his course lest he spend hours roaming the narrow twists and turns of the warrens that wound between all the main roads. Whatever it was was in sector five so he slid on his shades and descended the rest of the way.

Some of the under Plate sectors were better off than others. Sector Four was probably the best of them with most of it’s infrastructure intact – a mostly civilian project with neighbourhood associations banding together to keep everything working after Shinra left them behind. Seven was likely in the best straights after it, with it’s assorted gang connections keeping their territories in shape. Sector Six was dark and mostly abandoned – buildings derelict and condemnable outside of Wall Market – a few well trodden paths between Sectors were all that saw much life. Sector five was closer to this than the first two though it had more life and some of the Slums brightest areas were found there too – it was to one of these that Cloud, heart aching, followed his magic’s nudge.

He wandered through the settlement and came to a stop a shot ways away from it where the feeling was strongest outside of a house with actual flowers. And not just a few; it was bursting with them.

Oh, Cloud thought, suddenly worried that he should have dressed better

The nameplate read Gainsborough.

A woman, greying brown hair in a loose bun, was up on one of the terrace plots tending to it.

“Pardon!” Cloud called and thought as she turned that, yes, she did look like the pictures, “Are you Elmyra?”

“Depends,” she leaned on the railing and frowned eyeing his standard issue boots and cargo pants – he’d decided the tunic wouldn’t be worth the hassle down below. “Who’s asking?”

“My name’s Cloud – Cloud Strife? I’m Claudia’s son.”

“Cl-?” Elmyra peered down then jumped up: “Oh! Oh, you wait there just a tick, I’ll be right down!”

And that was how Cloud met his mother’s soulmate.

Elmyra puttered about her kitchen gathering tea and snacks:

“She’s doing well in Costa she said – I don’t think she really wanted to admit it.”

“She really didn’t,” Cloud agreed, “She loves the mountains too much, but she’s a jeweller and the market dried up back home. We weren’t doing well and if she wanted to get back to it…” Cloud sighed. “I’m just glad she’s happier.”

“And she just wants you happy,” she plunked down a heavily laden tray and catching his eye explained, “My daughter’s due home soon. If she brings that boy of hers we’ll need all of this. But that’s neither here nor there. So. Are you? Happy, with this I mean,” she said waving at him – his eyes and uniform.

“Mostly? I’m glad I tried and I’m glad I got in, but I don’t think I’ll stay. I’ve been with the company for four years now – I’ve got four more on my contract and then…” He turned his cup about in his hands. “I don’t know. We’ll see – but I know while there are good parts of the company there’s some things they do that I can’t- I just can’t support it.”

When he looked up Elmyra was watching him with all too knowing eyes. She pat his hands in approval.

“Well, dear, we agree on that much.”

They sipped their tea in silence for a minute or two until laughing voices outside caught their attention.

“Ah, I was right then.”

The door opened with a singsong “Mooo-ooom! I’m hooo-” a young woman started at the sight of Cloud holding one of their better cups, “-ome? Mom?”

“It’s alright dear, this is Cloud, Claudia’s boy.” Cloud stood with a little wave. “Cloud, this is my daughter Aerith.”

A SOLDIER stuck his head in behind her, “And me!”

“And the guy she keeps dragging home,” Elmyra amended with a mischievous grin.

“Hey!” The man laughed wide and bright, and Cloud thought he might have seen him before though he couldn’t say where, “It’s Zack. Zack Fair.”

“Not Hewley’s student?” asked Cloud, shaking his hand.

“That’s the one! You know him?”

“We talk whenever he’s at the JMA.”

“Junon?” Fair blinked, “Well that explains why I haven’t seen your hair around.”

Cloud shrugged. “Yeah. I’ve only been to Midgar once before, and that was only two days on base when I was in the infantry. As it is I’m only here for courses.”

“What are you taking?” This was Aerith, settling but still unsettled next to her mother.

“There was a seminar today for Sensing stuff – that’s actually what brought me here. I forgot I could visit.” He scratched his head embarrassed. “There may be more once they’ve gone over the skills test results.”

“Oh man,” burst Zack, all enthusiasm and gossip, “I heard that was going on this week. Somebody said some guy blew out a wall – like, with a tornado. Is that crazy or what?”

“I…” Cloud bit his lip. “I didn’t do it on purpose?”

There was a moment of silence around the table, but it lasted only a breathe.

Cloud was pretty sure Zack’s laughter, wholly unnecessary, could be heard from the Plate. Aerith gave a snort behind her hand and joined him. Elmyra looked bemused.

“Did you really?”

“I. Yes. I did.” He frowned at the other two, “It’s a limit break, you don’t get to pick yours. And I told them I shouldn’t do that one inside!” He paused. “Or the meteor one.”

“That was you too?!” Zack guffawed. “That’s fantastic. You have got to show me how to do that.“

Elmyra grimaced. "Please don’t show him how to do that.”

“… I don’t think it works that way? But I don’t think I should be showing anyone who’s that excited about summoning fiery space rocks how to summon fiery space rocks anyway.”

“Oh good. Because he’s a blue mage you know- he could do it.”

“Man, ruin my fun.”

“Just stick to Aerith’s for now, dear. For my peace of mind if nothing else.”

“Aw, fine, I’ll be good. But we’re still keeping him, right?”

Cloud suspected he didn’t get a say in this.

He wasn’t wrong.

#velundr writes #strifesodos #ffvii #cloud strife #elmyra gainsborough #zack fair #aerith gainsborough #with the sun at his back

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imaginaireradical · 7 years

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Why Capitalism Creates Pointless Jobs

It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working.

By David Graeber

In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that technology would have advanced sufficiently by century’s end that countries like Great Britain or the United States would achieve a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.

Why did Keynes’ promised utopia – still being eagerly awaited in the ‘60s – never materialise? The standard line today is that he didn’t figure in the massive increase in consumerism. Given the choice between less hours and more toys and pleasures, we’ve collectively chosen the latter. This presents a nice morality tale, but even a moment’s reflection shows it can’t really be true. Yes, we have witnessed the creation of an endless variety of new jobs and industries since the ‘20s, but very few have anything to do with the production and distribution of sushi, iPhones, or fancy sneakers.

So what are these new jobs, precisely? A recent report comparing employment in the US between 1910 and 2000 gives us a clear picture (and I note, one pretty much exactly echoed in the UK). Over the course of the last century, the number of workers employed as domestic servants, in industry, and in the farm sector has collapsed dramatically. At the same time, “professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers” tripled, growing “from one-quarter to three-quarters of total employment.” In other words, productive jobs have, just as predicted, been largely automated away (even if you count industrial workers globally, including the toiling masses in India and China, such workers are still not nearly so large a percentage of the world population as they used to be).

But rather than allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world’s population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas, we have seen the ballooning not even so much of the “service” sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries like financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical, or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza deliverymen) that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones.

These are what I propose to call “bullshit jobs.”

It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here, precisely, lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is exactly what is not supposed to happen. Sure, in the old inefficient socialist states like the Soviet Union, where employment was considered both a right and a sacred duty, the system made up as many jobs as they had to (this is why in Soviet department stores it took three clerks to sell a piece of meat). But, of course, this is the very sort of problem market competition is supposed to fix. According to economic theory, at least, the last thing a profit-seeking firm is going to do is shell out money to workers they don’t really need to employ. Still, somehow, it happens.

While corporations may engage in ruthless downsizing, the layoffs and speed-ups invariably fall on that class of people who are actually making, moving, fixing and maintaining things; through some strange alchemy no one can quite explain, the number of salaried paper-pushers ultimately seems to expand, and more and more employees find themselves, not unlike Soviet workers actually, working 40 or even 50 hour weeks on paper, but effectively working 15 hours just as Keynes predicted, since the rest of their time is spent organising or attending motivational seminars, updating their facebook profiles or downloading TV box-sets.

The answer clearly isn’t economic: it’s moral and political. The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the ‘60s). And, on the other hand, the feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them.

Once, when contemplating the apparently endless growth of administrative responsibilities in British academic departments, I came up with one possible vision of hell. Hell is a collection of individuals who are spending the bulk of their time working on a task they don’t like and are not especially good at. Say they were hired because they were excellent cabinet-makers, and then discover they are expected to spend a great deal of their time frying fish. Neither does the task really need to be done – at least, there’s only a very limited number of fish that need to be fried. Yet somehow, they all become so obsessed with resentment at the thought that some of their co-workers might be spending more time making cabinets, and not doing their fair share of the fish-frying responsibilities, that before long there’s endless piles of useless badly cooked fish piling up all over the workshop and it’s all that anyone really does.

I think this is actually a pretty accurate description of the moral dynamics of our own economy.

Now, I realise any such argument is going to run into immediate objections: “who are you to say what jobs are really ‘necessary’? What’s necessary anyway? You’re an anthropology professor, what’s the ‘need’ for that?” (And indeed a lot of tabloid readers would take the existence of my job as the very definition of wasteful social expenditure.) And on one level, this is obviously true. There can be no objective measure of social value.

I would not presume to tell someone who is convinced they are making a meaningful contribution to the world that, really, they are not. But what about those people who are themselves convinced their jobs are meaningless? Not long ago I got back in touch with a school friend who I hadn’t seen since I was 12. I was amazed to discover that in the interim, he had become first a poet, then the front man in an indie rock band. I’d heard some of his songs on the radio having no idea the singer was someone I actually knew. He was obviously brilliant, innovative, and his work had unquestionably brightened and improved the lives of people all over the world. Yet, after a couple of unsuccessful albums, he’d lost his contract, and plagued with debts and a newborn daughter, ended up, as he put it, “taking the default choice of so many directionless folk: law school.” Now he’s a corporate lawyer working in a prominent New York firm. He was the first to admit that his job was utterly meaningless, contributed nothing to the world, and, in his own estimation, should not really exist.

There’s a lot of questions one could ask here, starting with, what does it say about our society that it seems to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians, but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law? (Answer: if 1% of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call “the market” reflects what they think is useful or important, not anybody else.) But even more, it shows that most people in these jobs are ultimately aware of it. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a corporate lawyer who didn’t think their job was bullshit. The same goes for almost all the new industries outlined above. There is a whole class of salaried professionals that, should you meet them at parties and admit that you do something that might be considered interesting (an anthropologist, for example), will want to avoid even discussing their line of work entirely. Give them a few drinks, and they will launch into tirades about how pointless and stupid their job really is.

This is a profound psychological violence here. How can one even begin to speak of dignity in labour when one secretly feels one’s job should not exist? How can it not create a sense of deep rage and resentment. Yet it is the peculiar genius of our society that its rulers have figured out a way, as in the case of the fish-fryers, to ensure that rage is directed precisely against those who actually do get to do meaningful work. For instance: in our society, there seems a general rule that, the more obviously one’s work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it. Again, an objective measure is hard to find, but one easy way to get a sense is to ask: what would happen were this entire class of people to simply disappear? Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it’s obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble, and even one without science fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It’s not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.) Yet apart from a handful of well-touted exceptions (doctors), the rule holds surprisingly well.

Even more perverse, there seems to be a broad sense that this is the way things should be. This is one of the secret strengths of right-wing populism. You can see it when tabloids whip up resentment against tube workers for paralysing London during contract disputes: the very fact that tube workers can paralyse London shows that their work is actually necessary, but this seems to be precisely what annoys people. It’s even clearer in the US, where Republicans have had remarkable success mobilizing resentment against school teachers, or auto workers (and not, significantly, against the school administrators or auto industry managers who actually cause the problems) for their supposedly bloated wages and benefits. It’s as if they are being told “but you get to teach children! Or make cars! You get to have real jobs! And on top of that you have the nerve to also expect middle-class pensions and health care?”

If someone had designed a work regime perfectly suited to maintaining the power of finance capital, it’s hard to see how they could have done a better job. Real, productive workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited. The remainder are divided between a terrorised stratum of the – universally reviled – unemployed and a larger stratum who are basically paid to do nothing, in positions designed to make them identify with the perspectives and sensibilities of the ruling class (managers, administrators, etc) – and particularly its financial avatars – but, at the same time, foster a simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value. Clearly, the system was never consciously designed. It emerged from almost a century of trial and error. But it is the only explanation for why, despite our technological capacities, we are not all working 3-4 hour days.

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ddrkirbyisq · 4 years

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There are a LOT of voices shouting things about the ongoing blacklivesmatter movement and so far I've mostly avoided saying anything of my own because I prefer to find quieter spaces to speak rather than enter a discourse that is already so "noisy". It's been a few weeks since I've started diving into this stuff though, so it's about time for an initial post.

I've always hoped that my blog can provide a journaling of my own thoughts and experiences that others can connect to in a more personal way. In the same vein, I'll be attempting to reflect upon and provide some updates with my experiences with blacklivesmatter. My intent is not to tell you that you should follow the same models and patterns as I have (though you are welcome to do so if you wish), but simply to give you personal thoughts of what it might look like to incorporate this movement into day-to-day life. I can't claim to be the best at this, nor the most knowledgable...far from it. But amongst all the call to actions I've seen, I haven't heard any stories about personal everyday people things, so here we are.

Well, that's already more than enough of a foreward...let's get into it, then. I'll try to start with the more abstract stuff and then narrow in on concrete things later.

For brevity, I'll simply use "BLM" to refer to the blacklivesmatter movement as a whole (which of curse is not to be confused with the "Black Lives Matter Foundation", which is an entirely different thing).

BLM as a class

My basic model for incorporating BLM into my day to day life has been to treat it as a sort of class. Classes require you to do readings, listen to lectures, complete homework assignments, and do research projects. And yes, every once in a blue moon, you might get a pop quiz. BLM is much the same way for me, and the number one thing that I would tell anyone hoping to get involved in the movement is simply to DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Let me drill down into some of the various ways in which the "BLM is like a class" analogy makes sense to/for me. BLM takes time Deconstructing systemic racism is a project that takes time, even if we are talking about the small bubble that is your own daily life. If you don't feel like you can fit an extra 3-unit class into your current daily schedule, you might want to evaluate just how effective you can be and what your level of commitment is here. On the plus side, you're in charge of your own course curriculum. If this movement is important enough to you that you really want to dive deep and are prepared to do a lot of work (you need to do the homework!) for it, then by all means, give yourself a larger workload and bump your unit count up to 5. If you feel like all of your free time is eaten up by this other "Surviving in a world of Covid-19" course that you're struggling to pass, then maybe you can think about taking BLM as an introductory seminar instead. Sure, you won't come out on the other end with as much knowledge and training, but sometimes that's all you have the space for. And hey, there's always next semester. You're "behind" There are a lot of people (including myself) who are just now starting to realize that BLM (and various associated issues) are important to them. Qualms about herd mentality aside, that's a great thing, it really is. But one of the first things you have to realize is that these issues are....really not new, not by any stretch of the imagination. So yes, you're showing up for this new class and you're really eager to learn but...unfortunately, you registered a bit late. And by "a bit late" I mean many of your peers have been enrolled in this class since they were born. You've really got some catching up to do. This could just be me, but in my personal opinion, being late to the party isn't really something that is particularly worth advertising. "Hey guys! I know you've been working hard for months to learn all the material in this class, but guess what, I'M HERE NOW!" Now, if you put in the effort (do the homework!), I'm fully confident that you'll be able to pass the class with no problems. But let's just not get carried away here. Asking for help I think a lot of people's first instinct upon thrusting themselves into #hashtag blacklivesmatter might be to ask others to give them a rundown. "Can you help teach me about racism?" "I really want to help, what are some things I can do?" Yeah, about that......so like, imagine that you've just stepped into a class that's been going on all quarter and you turn to your neighbor and say "Hey! So...I know we've got this midterm coming up, but I just signed up for this class yesterday. Can you quickly teach me what we've gone over in the past 2 months?" Do. Your. Homework. Asking other people to educate you feels disrespectful of their time, and of the course itself. There's an entire syllabus for this, you can't just skip all of the work and suddenly go from zero to hero. Now, that doesn't mean you can't ask others for help. But there's a big difference between "The homework is too hard...tell me how to do it..." and "So I read the textbook, but I'm really confused about this problem. I think you need to use recursion, but I'm stuck trying to figure out a recurrence relation because..." People will always be much, much happier to engage with you after you've put in the effort. That applies across all subjects, not just this one. It's OK to ask for help when you're stuck. It's not okay to ask for handholding before you've tried. Cheating I really want to encourage everyone interested in this BLM "class" to try to be effective students of learning. Yes, it's perfectly possible to scrape a passing grade by copying your friends' notes and by having them do all the work on the group projects while you simply show up for the presentation. But if you do that, I feel like you're really missing the point of this class. There are going to be students that are in this class just because they felt like it was "required". If you want to treat this class as "just another general education requirement" and are taking it simply to prove that you're "BLM certified", then go ahead, do whatever you want. Skip the homework, cheat on the tests, sure. But I really hope that you're better than that. (You're also going to need this knowledge if you ever hope to continue on to the higher-level versions of this course, etc.) Keep in mind that copying your neighbor's answers or looking up the homework questions on stackoverflow is not a foolproof strategy. I mentioned earlier that the "Black Lives Matter Foundation" is entirely separate from the BLM movement. The "Black Lives Matter Foundation" is in fact an organization that's unrelated to the Black Lives Matter Global Network. It's got a single paid employee whose goal is to "bring the community and police closer together". A ton of folks (I'm talking $4 million dollars worth) have mistakenly donated to one thinking that it was the other. Why? Because they didn't do the homework. I'm not here to tell you whether you should donate to or shouldn't donate to. I'm just saying that if you want to "hashtag defundthepolice" you probably ought to do a little research before you donate to an org that "brings the community and police closer together". Learning styles Okay, let's face it. Not all of us are go-to-lecture people (case in point....myself). That's totally fine -- one of the things that we've hopefully learned through our education is that everyone has different effective learning styles. It's on you to figure out how to work best in this class. Do you want to.... "Watch speakers and lectures" -- There are numerous talks and videos on BLM subjects that you can stream for FREE from the comfort of your own home. "Read the textbooks" -- Try reading through a few books on this topic (of which there are countless). And I'm sure you've seen a billion articles on the interwebs about this by now. "Form study groups?" -- Find a partner or two whom you can talk with regularly about BLM. Heck, if you learn best by =taking tests= there's even a bunch of those out there that you can go through. Not everyone's involvement with BLM needs to look the same and I'm sure you can find your own role in all of this. Are you going to participate in nonviolent protests? That's great, especially since I'm sure there are many who can't because they are ill or otherwise unable to. Are you going to confront other family members and have frank dialogues with them regarding BLM? That's great, especially since there are many people who are unable to do so due to barely being on speaking terms with their family. Are you going to donate to (hopefully well-researched) organizations that will use your money to further good causes? That's great, especially since there are many who simply don't have a stable source of disposable income that they can donate. Everyone can find their own means through which to pursue this common goal of justice. For myself, I'm not comfortable having a discussion about this with my family members, so that's off the table. However I happen to have a handwritten letter hobby -- I can tie that into BLM by writing to legislators regarding relevant policy decisions. We all have our part that we can play and I'm not going to judge you based on which you slot into. Daily homework Took a lot longer than I expected, but we're getting into my actual practical experiences now... So, so far my self-assigned courseload for BLM has been "do something related to BLM every day". I've kept that up so far, and hope to do so for some reasonable period of time. Maybe a daily thing doesn't make as much sense for you as much as a weekly thing, that's totally fine. Daily just happens to be a good cadence for me, while still allowing me a good amount of flexibility based on whatever else I happen to have going on that day. Here's some examples of things that I've counted to fulfill my "daily BLM assignment": - Watching a few TED talks given by people on color on what it's like to live in America, how we treat race, etc. - Reading an article about white fragility - Reading an article on "allyship" and what it means to be an "ally" - Watching "Just Mercy", a film about a black civil rights attorney that is free to watch this month - Literally looking down the "100 Greatest African Americans" list and clicking Wikipedia links on names that I recognized but didn't know much about - Reading and learning about Muhammad Ali specifically cuz hey, boxing, that seems interesting - Looking up my local police policies to see where they fall - Contributing to non-profit organizations through my employer's donation matching program - Doing initial searching into legislation such as the Justice and Policing act that is currently being pushed through the legislative process - Writing this blog post....(took longer than I thought it would...) ... I want to stress that I the amount of effort that I dedicate to this each day is sometimes a decent amount, but oftentimes it's very low and I'm OK with that. I've literally had a TED talk playing on my second monitor while grinding out some daily quests on Ragnarok Online and that happens to be two things that I can comfortably do at the same time -- actually it works out shockingly well. Could I be focusing more on whatever video I happen to be playing? Sure, but I'm making it work for myself and that's what counts. It's not a race here. Research Even if none of us ever learned any of the =truly relevant= (read: shameful) history of our country back in Social Studies class, my hope is that we at least came out of our education with some sense of how to approach a large project that requires some sort of research and critical analysis. Depending on what you self-assign for your BLM workload, you're probably going to undertake some larger, more "vague" projects. Don't get caught in the trap of operational procrastination! It's important to take these larger goals and break them down into microtasks so you can profit from checking off little checkboxes each day while making forward progress toward an otherwise-daunting task. One example of a larger-scale "project" might be donating money to an organization(s) related to BLM issues. You could just click on the first twitter link you see and call it a day, but here in this class, that's....barely worth a "C", honestly. You can do better. Come up with a breakdown that might look like this: - What organization(s) should I donate to? - Should I donate to a larger organization or a grassroots organization? - What is generally more effective? I should look up what other people have said about this - Search what are the most well-known BLM organizations and why. - Search what organizations are local to my city/county - What is this organization going to do with my money? - I should look up what this organization has done in the past. - I should look up what this organization says they are going to do in the future. - Is this organization trustworthy? - What are other people saying about them? I should look up external comments on them - Who is leading this organization? I should look them up. Are there actual people of color running this organization? - How much money should I donate? - I should think about whether I want to donate one-time or setup a recurring schedule For myself, an eventual project is to use my voice to affect change via writing to legislators. Here's what that process might look like. This one has a bit more detail because I've already started digging into it, but there are still a lot of blanks to fill in. I'm concerned about Police brutality, accountability, and injustice. If my local community has issues with these things, I should write to my legislators to suggest change and express my opinions. - What is the current state of the police force in my local area? * It turns out my local area has a unified public safety model, where staff are combination police+fire+emergency responders. My local area is also known for being extremely safe and having a low crime incidence. - Looking at https://policescorecard.org/, my city is rated as a "D-" for Campaign Zero. * I'm not going to take this at face value. Where did this rating come from? The rating seems to be "B" for police accountability and approach to policing, but "F" for police violence. - Where did the "F" come from? Are these statistics artificially inflated because there isn't enough data? * For example, 100% of the times police said they saw a gun, it was never actually found. This got assigned the lowest possible score...but there was actually only a single incident here. So 1/1 = 100%. That's silly. - policescorecard.org also says that the police have only adopted 2 out of 8 recommended campaignzero policies * Is this actually accurate? I should verify with the actual department policies. Fortunately the department itself has already issued a public statement regarding this where they reference specific sections of their policy. In some cases the policies might have been updated and in other cases the policy might actually more reasonable than the policescorecard.org rule? - If there is a problem with police behavior, how are the officers held accountable? - Are the violations escalated to a third party or are the policing officers responsible for enforcing themselves? (as is the case in many other places) - What has the city council said on this issue? I should look up past meeting minutes. - I found a website that has a pre-written letter regarding defunding the police * I should evaluate the points brought up by this letter. Do they actually make sense or not? (Repeat all above steps, but for the state level....etc.....) ... Does it feel like I'm writing a research report? Yes, in a lot of ways, it does. That's how it is. Turns out that public education was.....ok, well I can't in good faith say they always really excelled in teaching us how to do this kind of stuff, but they gave us a good start, in any case. Use those skills. Do your research! Motivate and enable I've constantly said that you should do your homework but I think collaboration and cooperation is great and highly appreciated as a lot of us are all taking this class together (and a lot of us are....unfortunately behind where we ought to be). Just remember that there's a difference between someone making a study guide versus copying homework answers from a friend. The goal is for everyone to =learn= and contribute, so I think it would be cool if we could help make that as easy as possible for each other. Share some strategies that worked for you, if you'd like. If you have a cool "daily BLM assignment", maybe other people would be into it too. If you found a grassroots organization that you researched and think is worth donating to, share it with other folks in your area and tell them WHY you think this organization is worth donating to. Maybe ask a friend if they want to join you on a protest walk? Above all else, I want this class to seem easy to get into, not confusing to start (....even though it's actually really hard and tough and miserable..........ugh). This post is way too long so I'll save other thoughts for later. I guess this ended up just being the "Treat BLM as a class" post. I feel like this post is long enough that I probably said something silly in the middle of it, so apologies in advance if I was being dumb anywhere. (We can't learn learn unless we allow ourselves to make mistakes, and correct them....)

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vegas-glitz · 4 years

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Your Personal Empowerment Is Figuring out "Who You Are Would make A Big difference"

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I believe that that we all have been endowed with the seeds of greatness and that no matter where by we discover ourselves we are always in a point out of getting a lot more. Aspect of the process of living our dreams and getting to be what we arrived here to grow to be is to understand our private electrical power, that is, who we are tends to make a variation.

I speak to several folks in my coaching practice, who are, as Emerson claims, main life of quiet desperation. They know there is something extra to lifetime than they are experiencing but the can't seem to get their arms all-around what it is. I surprise how a lot of of you have wished-for to make some main alter in your everyday living or had ambitions and objectives you've constantly desired to achieve, but you've decided to settle for much less than what you know in your coronary heart that you are seriously able of acquiring.

It is my satisfaction to share with you some concepts that have experienced a impressive impression upon me and generations prior to me, the popular thread for each and every of us is the recognition that, Our Ability is in Our Thoughts!

In a single of the most recent versions of Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen's Chicken Soup for the Soul, entitled Lifetime Lessons Dwelling the Regulation of Attraction, co authored by Jeanna Gabellini and Eva Gregory, I share my story of a female who experienced no concept at the time that who she was could make a difference to any individual she was trapped in her individual distress.

That lady was me. I did not know the that means of particular power. I absolutely did not imagine that who I was could make a distinction in my existence nor in the life of others, nor did I comprehend that I had unintentionally orchestrated every negative problem I was encountering.

My life was a mess! I married at 19 proper out of City College or university. A relationship that was plagued with troubles from working day one. Shortly just after we were married his children because of to situations past their command came to are living with their father and I and our 2 new babies in our small 2 bedroom dwelling. The stress of attempting to make ends meet up with on a minimal wage even with my husband performing 2 employment was just about unbearable.

I was continuously consumed with fret as I went to work each day as a bank teller, a mom with 7 kids ages new born to 14 years of age.

I would worry irrespective of whether in the Spring I would be equipped to rejoice the Easter Vacation and give the children baskets and new Sunday sneakers and put together a good meal.

I would worry in the summer months time whether or not when it was time to go back again to college that I would be in a position to afford to pay for back to school apparel and several situations I couldn't.

I would get worried in the winter months regardless of whether the tattered roof on our home would be capable to endure the rain and no matter if I would have sufficient income at Christmas to give the little ones a good Xmas, and I couldn't.

I commenced unknowingly cultivating an attitudes of hopelessness and powerless. It seemed as if each time we'd make the slightest little bit of progress anything terrible would materialize to toss us back again further. Our house was burglarized 7 situations. But the previous time was a defining instant in my life. It triggered me to just take a look at where I was in lifetime and question what was taking place to me and ask ... why? Why me? Have you ever discovered on your own at rock base, dwelling in a way that you under no circumstances imagined you would and then stepped exterior of oneself and requested what is heading on with my lifestyle?

If you're reading this and are at that put suitable now, CONGRATULATE Your self! YOU ARE AT THE Location Where by Remedies AND NEW REALITIES ARE Having difficulties TO GIVE Beginning IN YOUR Existence!

Michael Beckwith reminds us "You can split yourself free from your hereditary patterns, cultural codes, social beliefs and demonstrate after and for all that the ability within just you is higher than the ability that's in the entire world"

So subsequent, I am going to current to you 4 pretty basic but profound strategies that can empower you in ways you by no means imagined probable.

Technique # 1 - We Must Understand Our Electricity

Do realize that if you can believe and come to feel you are developing? That you are either creating by intention or by default. In other terms you are possibly unconsciously creating situations you may or may perhaps not want transpire in your lifestyle, like I was, or via deliberate centered thought and emotions you are intentionally producing that which you wish.

Claude Bristol reminds us: To produce energy is like a magnet. This is real because this imaginative electrical power operates like a magnet. Give it a sturdy distinct photograph of what you want and this artistic electrical power starts to operate magnetizing conditions about you, attracting to you points, resources, chances, conditions and even the persons you need to have to support deliver to pass in your existence what have pictured.

Until finally we fully understand our inherent present of creative private energy we turn out to be like the elephant who was sooner or later freed from the 20 foot leash after many years and never knew he had the electricity to split the leash at any time. He could have absent wherever his heart wanted but he did not know, and he did know he did not know. Currently YOU KNOW!

I can nevertheless remember as a younger girl the experience I experienced the to start with time I was told I experienced the power to improve my circumstances. I felt that if this ended up genuine I had the important to fantastic opportunities! It practically felt far too excellent to be accurate. When there ended up periods I just couldn't get myself to feel it, I could at minimum consider that my mentor and mentor considered it, and occasionally that was more than enough for the time staying. Last but not least, when I started to see that my ability to regulate and direct my ideas was also my ability to recreate new realities, my lifetime commenced to change practically promptly.

Technique 2

Comprehending How IT Operates

It's not the phrases by itself that have creative electrical power but relatively the emotion at the rear of the terms and ideas that dictates the outcome. Consider about it, look at your lifestyle appropriate now and trace again your dominate believed and sensation designs more than the the latest months or several years. Can you see an awesome likeness concerning your earlier ideas and your recent situations?

As a young girl I would pray for much better situations with my phrases but I was unaware that with my ideas and inner thoughts and beliefs I was praying for personal devastation, poverty, limitation and stress because I authorized the negative circumstances in my lifestyle to dictate what I gave my concentration to and that became my prayer. I like the elephant, did not know and didn't know I didn't know.

James Mitchell reminds us that "be concerned is like praying for a thing we don't want to have materialize" The notion we give our psychological concentrate gets to be animated with existence.

How can we build more abundance in everyday living when we are centered on limitation? How can we make attractiveness, peace, safety and self achievement when we are continually targeted on what we perceive to be missing?

Sarah Ban Breatnach claims: "It is always our acutely aware selection which magic formula back garden we will have a tendency, when we choose not to concentration on what is lacking from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's current, adore, family members, good friends, perform, joys of mother nature and private pursuits that provide us pleasure, the wasteland of illusion falls absent and we expertise Heaven on earth "

Approach # 3

Activate YOUR Power

If you doubt that you have the own energy I'm conversing about to make variations in your daily life, then how about thinking of that you do, in deed, have the electrical power to imagine about what you want to feel about?

I was offering a seminar and I asked the participants to pull up a memory that gave them pleasure, that created them smile when they considered about it.

I'm heading to request you do this now, close your eyes and just go deep into your treasure upper body of memories and pull up a memory where you can remember how joyful or exhilarated you felt in your previous.

Okay what came up for you? Generate it down. At my seminar one girl explained it was the birth of her son and she felt as he lay in her arms 19 many years in the past. A single particular person explained it was her first love, she remembered the butterflies and the good inner thoughts she experienced at that time. Just one person said it was during the periods of link with his God. He stated he felt bliss and inexplicable pleasure. The total strength of the home shifted as we ended up...sharing, people today ended up fanning they felt their human body temperature appeared to rise as they basked in the joy of the second even considered it was a quite cold raining night time.

You see, they had been deliberately up-leveling their psychological energy and by performing so they were being activating their own ability. You see as they felt lighter and lighter their excellent feeling feelings have been attracting other fantastic emotion thoughts. Now they experienced energetically arrived at a put the place that had access to motivated tips and could attraction sources and help. In this article's what happens. Have you ever had a fearful believed or fret? Your thoughts went some thing like this, what if this takes place or that transpires? Then you imagine if that detrimental thing takes place it's likely have this or that detrimental influence and then your views start out multiply like bubbles in a bubble bath. The similar detail takes place with constructive ideas.

It is crucial in taking management of our life that we start having regulate above what we allow for ourselves to dwell upon! Why? Mainly because our views and feelings switch into our words. Our words and phrases switch into our beliefs and our beliefs convert into our habits and our behavior turns into motion which makes a end result or a reality for us.

In my have individual transformation I began to examine uplifting publications and hear to inspirational and motivational tapes and feel about these Universal Principals and as I did this I began to detect a change in how I was sensation. I favored it! I examine and listened more and extra and began to imagine that how I was imagining and sensation could make a distinction in my instances. The unforeseen bonus was this, if by probability there ended up no alterations, at the very least I was sensation far better inside of. But points did start off to adjust, I have because realized that inner thoughts have a key effect on the situation that present up in our lives.

So in move 3 Activating Your Power, ignite modify by getting handle about your thoughts. Keep an eye on your feelings by noticing how they're generating your truly feel. When you realize that you are experience down, irritated, offended or pissed off or any minimal degree emotion, take a second and keep track of where by your dominate ideas have taken root. What are you concentrating on that is making you sense darkish inside of? You could have recognized, I did say to choose a minute monitor what is heading wrong in your lifetime. No choose observe on what you putting your concentrate, mainly because situation are fluid and topic to modify primarily based upon exactly where we placing our concentrate.

Now go to work refocusing on what feels greater, usually reaching for the better believed. You'll figure out when you have taken command again due to the fact you'll sense improved. Now you have arrived to the position in which answers and methods are obtainable to you.

Tactic # 4

Discover, Anchor and Sustain the Optimistic Result

When we are in a position to retain this bigger feeling put of gratitude and expectation of fantastic, recognizing that no matter of the physical appearance of the disorders in life, responses and options are out there to us and on the way. When we get there at this position we have found the key to building the instances which categorical our hearts wish.

The procedure in this strategy is designed to retain us moving forward, to aid us in retaining the optimum degree attainable in our psychological electricity. So how do we do this?

We start out by maintaining an Evidence Journal. An Evidence Journal helps us to really detect that our wishes, our goals our goals are coming into fact, that our good prayers are in truth in the method of remaining answered.

Have you at any time planted a seed in your back garden or in a pot? How does it sense when you see the initially indication of the petals of a plant? Enthusiastic? Very pleased? Filled with surprise of how a seed could basically render a strawberry plant? No matter what superior experience thoughts that are created when you see the proof of your backyard garden coming into variety are supporting the blossoming of that plant. It is the very same with your dreams and dreams.

As I started to get handle more than my thoughts and feelings I observed corresponding improvements in my outer circumstances, they had been tiny items at first. Like a single working day I received a compact sudden refund test from one particular of the utility providers, or my groceries would be less since of an unanticipated sale on some product in my basket and because I was searching for new realities to consider position in my lifestyle I would doc the smallest blessing which caused me to truly feel additional and much more expectant that my wishes were being actually unfolding and proper before my eyes.

Then one day something totally sudden occurred. We get a connect with from another person who we hadn't spoken to in a long time. This guy and my spouse ended up both of those included in stability on a significant division shop in the region. He was now dealing with the awarding of contracts to compact firms for a huge builder in city and he was in will need of a protection patrol corporation for a minimal money condominium advanced which was being constructed in our area. He claimed to us that if we ended up able to get a personal patrol license and number of top guards, there was option for us to start our individual modest non-public patrol corporation and offer safety for his site. This would transform our lives !!!

Wow this was the first large proof that a little something was actually manifesting! So we utilized for the license and acquired it! I instantly began to experience this was it! This was my reply! This modify of imagined point was functioning, I experienced activated my individual energy by redirecting my feelings and feelings and it was working !! My new ideas have been supplying start to new prospect I was so energized mainly because the method was doing the job!

As we prepared to go into small business. I started looking at myself with new eyes, like the man or woman I could be relatively than how I experienced perceived myself to be. I started to align myself with the spirit of the Inventive Supply of the Universe and embracing choices. I begun going for walks in another way, speaking with far more self-assurance and authority and one thing was happening and I experienced initiated it! This was huge !!

For the subsequent many weeks my concentration was entirely on the alternatives about to unfold. I commenced to get ready for my fantastic! I was heading to want an business office. I had no money, my home was heading to have to do. I borrowed a desk from my mom and a typewriter (this is ahead of pcs) from my greatest girlfriend and I began going for walks and speaking and most importantly experience like the CEO of Wanda Elaine Included! All I required now was that contract and we were on our way. Our life was about to change, we have been heading to be in a position to take care of the roof and buy the young ones new dresses, get our auto preset and probably even get a new a person .. I experienced big designs!

Then one particular day the telephone rang and it was him! Tears stuffed my eyes as I listened to him say, "Sorry fellas you did not get the deal, they awarded it to anyone else". For a minute I saw my desires disappearing right prior to my eyes. Disappointed? Devastated? Discourage? I consider not! Simply because while I was waiting for the agreement to be awarded, a transformation experienced taken spot within me. You see, I was performing on myself and in some way I had expert an inner shift and experienced obtained a new sense of self self-confidence and now I considered that I experienced the electric power in to go just after and produce company on my terms. I went into motion the future working day prospecting for enterprise.

Daily brought some higher superior some piece of the major image, you see I had manufactured an emotional pivot. Panic was turning into faith and faith was developing new realities. 10 many years later my firm had offered employment for about 3000 adult males and women and I was for good transformed with a new awakening that who I was built-in with the Divine Power inside and focused assumed had no doubt designed a variation in my existence and the lives of many .

For numerous years I have share my tale and these rules through non-public coaching and motivational displays. My story obtained national protection in US News & Earth Report and 7 other journals, together with a documentary entitled "Gals in Unusual Companies" as properly as numerous appearances of television and radio.

It fills my soul to provide as a conduit for Spirit to help other individuals on their journey to getting all they had been meant to be.

To possess a audio download of this presentation be sure to stop by http://www.lifetime-energized.com and simply click on "My Retail outlet".

By Wanda Peyton

Source by Wanda Peyton

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providentneora-blog · 6 years

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Eight Tips For Launching Your Real Estate Investing Career

Ten Tips for Getting Started in Real Estate Investing Introduction This article is just the basics to get started in real estate investing. This is not a how to article but an post that gives you some information about things to do to get started. Everything in this post is tools that can be applied to helping anyone get started within real estate investing. I am going to give you my eight keys to getting began. Nothing is right or wrong but reflects the point of view in the author. Laws and legal practices vary from state to convey, and laws can change over time. The author does not vouch for the actual legality of his opinions, nor is there any intention to supply legal advice. The author strongly encourages the reader to consult with experts and an attorney prior to entering in any real estate transaction or perhaps contract. The author is not a writer but he is a property investor. There will be grammar mistakes and errors, so you too critical of the grammar but focus your energy about what is being said. With that said prepare yourself to think a little differently as well as expand your mind. Let's get started on an amazing adventure. The 8-10 Tips are as follows 1 . Desire 2 . Goal Setting 3. Learning What To Do 4. Attending a Real Estate Investing Seminar 5. The Billings Montana Market 6. Finding a Mentor 7. Your Real Estate Team 8. Just Do IT 1 . Wish Before we get in to the bolts and nails of real estate courses in I want to talk to you about desire. If you are going to achieve success at anything in life including real estate investing you have to have the desire to get it done. Desire is defined as longing or craving, as for something that provides satisfaction or enjoyment. Desire stresses the strength of feeling and frequently implies strong intention or aim. In real estate investing minus a desire to learn and grow as a human being and also get satisfaction out of it, then real estate investing is going to be hard to do. Once i go out and look at a property it brings me a large amount of enjoyment. Every aspect brings me joy from talking to property owners, figuring out how I can make a deal work, to buying the house and also to finding a good homeowner or tenant for the house. Real estate investment may not be for everyone but real estate investing can offer anyone the monetary freedom we all crave for. If you do not have the desire for property that is ok, it can still help you to live your desires and help you to get where you want to go in the future. Why is bulk reo an amazing avenue for anyone to live out all of their dreams? Allow me to ask you a few questions. Do you have enough money to do almost anything you want? Do you have everything you want? No debt? A nice home? Great Marriage? The freedom to do anything regardless of how much it expenses and the time it takes? If you have all of these things then you are among the few people in America who does. Most people may be working fifty hrs a week and making just enough to pay their bills. In the current day and age most people are living pay check to pay check never truly knowing if they will make enough to pay the bills which just keep piling up. If you cannot keep up with your monthly bills how is your day going to plan for retirement or send your kids to college and still have time to enjoy life. The answer to all of these questions is becoming monetarily free. Now it's not going to be easy everyone will have to log off the couch and out of their comfort zone. Real estate is actually proven to be one of the fastest ways to get your out of the rat race on the nine to five and begin living the life you are worthy of to live. Everyone wants something different out of their life. Some desire traveling the world, spending more time with family, volunteering, golf, laying on a beach, giving back to the community, or anything that can make them happy. There are thousands of things that make people happy. Which makes it in real estate takes a person who has a strong desire to modify their lives for the better and think big. Anyone may become a great real estate investor. It is going to take a lot of work and can be challenging at times but in the end it will be the most amazing feeling ever. The folks that make it in real estate investing all have a few things in accordance. First they run their real estate investing business like any some other business out there. Second they get out there and system with anyone and everyone. Some people might be like me and have difficulty talking to other people. If you are that is ok, anyone can learn to become a people person, it just takes hard daily work. You need to push yourself past your comfort zone. The third thing is which you can not be afraid to fail. Everyone has failed at something but the the majority of successful people out their learn from their failures. Your fourth thing is that you have to put a good team together. I will get into putting a team together in a later chapter. The concept of locating a team together is so that when you don't know something you might have team members that know what to do and can help you with questions. The actual can also make sure that you are not working yourself to death. You do not wish to be the person doing everything in your business. Doing everything is really a receipt for failure. You have to put together good people who you are able to trust and rely on. The fifth thing is that you need the mentor. Sixth and final is the desire to do it. Nobody can become successful at something if they don't want to do it and do not get satisfaction out of what they are doing. 2 . Setting Objectives Having goals is one of the most important aspects of achieving what you want in every area of your life. You don't want to just have your goals up in your head you want to create them down and past what you have wrote within the wall somewhere or in the bathroom mirror. You want to take a look at goals daily and read them out loud to your self. This way you remind yourself everyday why you are building your company. How should you start to write down you goals? First off you need to think big, and by big I mean HUGE. If your targets are too small you will easily achieve them and also have nothing else to look forward too. You should start off through asking yourself the question if I had all the money and time on the planet what would I do, what would I buy, exactly how would I spend my time, and how would We spend my energy. Are you starting to write these straight down? Well you should be. Think about what you want, spending time with family, journeying the world, the best cars, a castle, owning a small nation, running for president, having the biggest real estate investing business in your town or in the country. Whatever your dreams and what you want from your life, write it down. Some of my goals are becoming free, vacationing the world, having a Ferrari, having 10 vacation homes worldwide. Right now I am just trying to get you out of your comfort zone associated with thinking and let your imagination run. There are several ways to set goals. We have learned a lot of ways you can set you goals and there is absolutely no right or wrong way. The best ways that I have found to set your goals would be to break them up into two categories. First your current short term goals. This should be goals from a month to be able to around a year. The second is your long term goals these ambitions are you think big goals and what you see for your upcoming. For year one I like to first make a list of things i want to achieve this year and I will give you an example of how to do this. For year one you want to be very specific very first you want to list what you want your income to be at the end of the year, following how much cash in the bank you want (this is money in your own personal checking account, not assets). Next you want to list how much you are likely to give. Giving is a very important, this can be giving to charitable organisation, giving of gifts to friends and family, giving to your school or maybe anything you can dream of. As long as what you give brings pleasure to others who need it more than you. Next listing what bad habits you have that you want to eliminate. Weather is become quitting smoking, spending too much on junk, drinking an excessive amount of, working too much, not spending enough time with family, excessive TV, not exercising and many more. We all have bad habits that must be changed in order for use to grow as human beings. Under each one of these bad habits list out some steps that you can take in so that it will quit them. If you bad habit is being lazy and never exercising enough what can you do to change that. Well you could get a gym membership or a home work out program. Splurge yourself you following through with a plan to work out approximately for five days a week. For you to change these bad habits you have to be completely committed and follow through with a detailed plan you set for yourself. Once you have your plans in place you should start listing several things you would like to achieve or do in the next year. This can be start a effective business, spend time with family, travel to 2-5 places and so on. Right now under each of these you should also write a detailed plan on what you need and you need to do in order to achieve these goals. Finally you should take all this information you have a write on page on what you see your life becoming over the next year. Doing this is a great exercise to really see what you need out of life.

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toddkelly2 · 6 years

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Raising Dogs

Raising dogs…slowing down speeds things up

By: Jeremy Moore

As a professional dog trainer, I’ve been able to work with various breeds of a large number of dogs over the years, ranging from 7 week-old puppies to dogs as old as 10 years or more.  I strongly believe that one of the only ways to get better at anything, whether you’re talking dog training specifically or life in general, is to put in the work.  And more times than not, the whole “work” part is where things start to get hard!  Thankfully, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to put that work in when it comes to the dogs. And, consequently, I know I have gotten a lot better as the years passed.  As I have personally improved, the dogs have mirrored that improvement as well.  Today, I can say with strong confidence that when I have a chance to work with a puppy or dog, I will be a positive influence on them and my hope is they are better off because of it as well.  

But what about the people when it comes to training?  I think that one of the most overlooked factors when it comes to training, or as I prefer to say, “raising” dogs or pups, is the importance of what the trainer brings to the equation.  One of the most desirable traits all dogs possess is that they want to please and are naturally looking for a strong leader.  That is simply how they are wired.  On the opposite hand, one trait that they also have because of this wiring is if they don’t find a leader they will become the leader.  

The great majority of training topics and articles I have written over the years and have read for that matter, have revolved around dogs in the field and how we prepare them for “the hunt”.  It’s the hunt that is the most fun to talk about.  It’s the hunt that is the most exciting.   And why not? I mean, the hunt is what so many of us have as the end goal right?  The hunt is the fun part, and in all reality the hunt is what comes the easiest for most dogs.  Hunting has been bred into them for centuries and is relatively natural.  As their handler, our job is to simply bring it out.  It’s the other stuff, beyond or before the hunt, that most struggle with and typically that is the reason things fall short.   

Although the majority of what I have read and written about has focused on the hunt, what’s interesting to me is that the great majority of questions I receive by phone call, text, posts or direct message on the various social platforms, and even when face to face at seminars and shows is centered around the basics.  It seems most struggles and headaches are not due to dogs that won’t handle well on challenging doubles and blind retrieves.  It’s rare that I am asked what to do when your dog stops to the whistle out beyond 100 yards but doesn’t want to face you in order to take a good hand signal.  (Recall the dog a step or two in order to square them up, stop them again and then cast…btw)  Instead, the questions that come up over and over are almost always related to their dog’s foundation, or more accurately their lack of foundation.  

Now, I’m certain that the direction this article is taking following that last line will have some folks turning the page.  Nowhere ever, have I read about the idea of “foundation” being described as exciting, fun, easy, or the overall end goal.  But the truth is, most struggles are directly connected and the majority of dog owner’s struggles are rooted there.  I also find that the reason most struggle with the foundation is because they just don’t know how or what to do in most situations.  

One of the most commonly asked questions I get about our dogs is, “How do you keep your dogs calm?” This question usually comes when I have multiple dogs ranging in age lying quietly at our feet on their “place” amongst a lot of distractions.  I am asked constantly how to handle pups that are just full of energy?  I hear about how their dogs must need to have more exercise than others but because of work, kids, school…the list goes on, all the reasons they just can’t seem to do enough to wear them out.   I’m asked how much time I spend running my dogs in order for them to always seem to be calm and under control.  The reality is, I wish I were able to run and exercise them more.  In fact, it’s likely that I might give the dogs I’m training less physical exercise than the dogs of those asking the question.  

So, what’s the difference?  I think the difference lies greatly in the culture that the dog is being raised in.  Here is an easy idea to understand-  a dog’s body is no different than the human body when it comes to their athletic conditioning.  The more you exercise, the greater your endurance becomes.  The greater your endurance, the longer it takes you to tire or wear out.  Why would this be any different with your dog?  In an attempt to physically “wear them out,” they are actually conditioning them to simply be better athletes which will in turn take more to tire them.  It’s a snowball effect, in the wrong direction.  

See maybe if this example sounds like something you can relate to:  You got to bed last night later than you had hoped because you stayed up to finish a project for work or school (or you had to finish your article for The Badger Sportsman Magazine…nevermind, that’s me!?!)  You hit the snooze button twice and now you are rushing to get the kid’s lunches made and ready for school or work.  In the midst of all of this, you let the dog out of the kennel and then back in after the morning’s food and water.  Off to work, then back in the evening only by rushing home to let the dog out of the kennel quickly before grabbing a dinner on the fly and then out the door again to basketball, soccer, baseball, football, gymnastics.  Day after day, your specific routines and reasons may vary some, but the pace is constant.  It’s FAST and HIGH ENERGY.  How can you expect your dog to slow down if that’s not the culture you are instilling in them?

Now your schedule doesn’t have to be exactly like that, but you get the idea.  The speed at which we move and the amount of things we take on these days is scary.  In a lot of ways, it’s great and with the help of technology we’re able to be much more efficient, get more done and pull it all off faster.  But, I have to remind you that dogs are not interested in technology helping them to become more efficient, and getting more things done faster.  We, and our society, have changed greatly over the last several hundred years. However, our dogs have not changed one bit.  They still learn by forming habits and habits are formed by repetition and consistency.  Their behavior is influenced greatly by the culture they are raised in.  That repetition, consistency and culture comes from us as their leader.  When you think about it that way, it’s not a lot different than the process of raising a child.  

I literally see people that are in such a big hurry with their lives schedule, they will jump on an ATV or UTV in order to get their dog’s walk in (which ends up being a sprint).  Look back on what happens before these runs.  The dogs go from zero to 100 miles per hour when they are in any kind of contact with us because they match our pace.  When we take dogs out in a hurry and have them run for miles behind an ATV with the idea that they need the exercise and that this will help “burn off energy,” I think the owner’s heart is in the right place, but unfortunately they’re trying to put out the fire by pouring gasoline on it.  The faster, harder and more you run your dog, the faster, harder and more your dog will be able to run.

So what can you do? I do think there are a few easy things we can do to work on this by simply changing the culture.  But if you remember what I mentioned early on in this article, “More times than not, the whole work part, that’s where things start to get hard!”  We need to take a good look at our lives and how we operate day to day.  Think about your schedule and instead of simply trying to figure out how to get more miles in, see how well your dog can focus while covering a 1/10 of the distance, but under great control while in the heel position.  Vary and set the pace in everything you do.  When your dog is part of the equation, slow that pace down. If your dog wants to go fast (and the “excitable” ones usually do) you need to slow down to counter that.  

In training, I often talk about the importance of balance.  This is another example of when it needs to be found.  You might break up the walk with 2-3 minutes of just sitting still.  Two or three minutes doesn’t sound like much, but if you’re used to a fast pace with everything you do all day long, stopping and standing still for that amount of time can feel like an eternity.  From that, add layers into the exercise that will challenge your dog to have to think about what they are doing instead of just mindless physical exercise.  Mentally stimulating our dogs within their routine of physical stimulation can be by far the most effective way to “wear them out”.  By simply doing a few things like this, you begin to work towards building patience in both your dog as well as in yourself.       

The best way I have found to speed things up when it comes to raising dogs is very simple…just slow things down.  Best of luck to you in your training!

Jeremy Moore

The post Raising Dogs appeared first on Morning Moss.

from Morning Moss http://morningmoss.com/raising-dogs/

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topicprinter · 6 years

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1. Entrepreneurs are burdened with vision AND a sense of obligation — they’ve all taken a leap of faith.“Somebody should do something… and I’m somebody.”This is perhaps the first “point of divergence” between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs. Everybody has daydreams and fantasies — but entrepreneurs seem to be more pained than everyone else at the prospect of not doing something about it.Entrepreneurs of all personality types, introverts and extroverts, “thinkers” and “feelers”, all seem to casually–yet–sincerely use words like “vision”, “conviction”, “leap of faith” and “courage” to talk about themselves and their work.I’m naturally quite a creative person, and I really had passion and flair for my craft. I’ve always had a million ideas for things I would do to break the mould of the cafe market. I always had ideas that I was so sure would work, and I would always propose them to my manager. They’d get rejected — because of issues like costing, ordering, storage, the additional impact on existing operations, etc. So I was constantly on the lookout for the opportunity to start my own thing — and the moment I spotted one, I dove right into it. — Christine Seah, Dapper CoffeeNot every entrepreneur has a clearly-articulated grand unifying vision, or a super-elaborate business plan. But every entrepreneur has taken a leap of faith. And taking that leap is never easy, no matter how much preparation you do. It almost always boils down to “somebody’s got to do it, and I’m somebody”.Interestingly, when I tweeted about this, someone asked, “But you’re probably talking to SMBs in tech right? That would explain the emphasis on vision and mission.”And the answer is… nope! It’s true for restauranteurs and ‘traditional’ entrepreneurs selling everything from seminars to standing desks. Vision and mission may have become buzzwords, but they’re still fundamentally important to entrepreneurs.Why is this so persistent? I think it’s because of the activation energy required to start a business. Unless you have lots of disposable cash to burn, starting a business requires you to decisively walk away from everything familiar and comfortable to most people.I think every entrepreneur puts a significant part of himself into his business. Not just time, energy, money, but also vision, personality, values, ego, in a way. Self doubt is huge, when you struggle to meet your business goals, when you think you’re not good enough. When as the leader responsible for the entire business, you couldn’t think of the answer, or do the right thing that can unlock the answer to your goals. But even deeper than all that is the idea that your business is a part of you, a representation of you and your beliefs and values. For that to fail, and be rejected, can be extremely personal. It can feel like the world is rejecting your existence. […] All the way through, theres the questioning of whether even if we irreversibly compromise our values, whether we can achieve the vision. Is that vision even still meaningful? — Louis Puah, Praxium2. Entrepreneurs constantly battle self–doubt , and they do it in an arena where there are real stakes and consequences.“But can I do it? I’ve never done anything like this before.”To most people, the phrase “self-doubt” tends to imply a generalized self-criticism: doubting whether one is fundamentally capable, good, worthy. And that definitely is a question that many entrepreneurs have deal with — and sometimes one that they turn to entrepreneurship to answer.But entrepreneurs also grapple with a much more granular, nuanced sort of self-doubt than most people relate to. And that’s about contending with each aspect of their abilities.Are you good enough to hire the right person for the job? Are you good enough to make the sale to the client? The success of your business depends on you being accurate in your self-assessments!“I’m a specialist, and I’m focused on making the classes better. I rely on my teammates to focus on bring in sales. I did a strengths test — I’m all about relationship building. It drains me to think about sales.” — Fagan, MOVE AcademyLots of people don’t know how to support entrepreneurs through The Struggle. For example, when they have self-doubt, it’s tempting to say, “Don’t doubt yourself!” But that wouldn’t actually be good advice, because self-doubt is part of what helps entrepreneurs survive in challenging and uncertain environments.3. Entrepreneurs endure increased accountability to others — to customers, employees, vendors, investors.“I need to deliver the goods so I can realize our potential. I cannot let everyone down.”The word “entrepreneur” literally means “one who undertakes”. To be an entrepreneur is to volunteer to shoulder more responsibility than other people. It’s to declare, “I think we should go that way,” and then bring people along with you for the ride — without being completely certain that it’s absolutely the right thing to do.Just think for a moment about all the people entrepreneurs are accountable to.They’re accountable to their customers, who will sometimes write scathing reviews online if something isn’t right.They’re accountable to employees, who expect their paychecks to come in on time, but may not necessarily feel the same sense of obligation when it comes to clocking in the hours.If they have investors, they’re accountable to them too — to give them a return on their investment.Some entrepreneurs even feel accountable to all their friends and family — by choosing to strike it out on their own, they become a flag-bearer for the pursuit of dreams.“I often feel guilty that I’m not giving Statement enough attention. I believe there’s still tons of ideas that we can explore with it. I feel like we are sitting on this huge mountain of potential, and possibly inhibiting its growth.” — Desmond, Statement4. Entrepreneurs appreciate the true nature of constraints better, because they’re rubbing up against them all the time.“Can I feed my family doing this? Does a market exist? Will competitors eat me? Can I make payroll this month?”As consumers, we never quite appreciate how tough it is for SMBs to survive — and how personal it is. Deciding to start a business is a very personal, overwhelming decision — and the moment you start, the timer starts ticking. Costs are guaranteed, revenue is not. And so begins a frantic race for survival.“Time is one constraint. We spend our office hours in an ad agency. After dinner, paperwork, and the occasional fitness/social/me-time, there’s not much time for anything else. Market size is another. Our brand isn’t directly scalable, so growing while remaining authentic is a challenge. We also have partners not paying up on time, which isn’t fun.” — Selena Soh, Temasek ClothingsThis has all sorts of effects on entrepreneurs. Some liken it to the highs and lows of gambling. Others describe it as like “living in the wild”, hunting for every sale, warding off predators.One thing is clear — SMB entrepreneurs are hypersensitive to the beating hearts of their business. Every sale, every review, every social media share has a real impact on their moods, even if they try to be somewhat stoic about it.When I first started, I was the only cafe making a variety of homemade vegan-friendly milks out of nuts. We had hazelnut milk and macadamia milk, it was fantastic. But it took a lot of labour to make them, and nuts are expensive. One day I realized, “I’m just going to have to get packaged almond milk because it’s taking 2 days to make a batch of homemade nut milk and nobody’s buying it.” So y’know I had to really have a good hard think about what I do, and how to compromise creativity vs product quality vs cost vs marketability.But in a way I felt it was good to have so many constraints, because you can only really do something out of the box when you have an actual box to work with. Unicorn Tears was my best work, arguably classified as a “perfect” product. it was creative, no one in sg had seen anything like it before. it was tasty, visually impactful, it was cheap and easy to make, and it sold like hotcakes. — Christine Seah, Dapper CoffeeEntrepreneurs are also always mindful of the opportunity cost of what they’re doing — many of them have walked away from lucrative, well-paying jobs in order to enact their vision.5. Entrepreneurs “wear many hats” — in a much more fragmented way than regular folk are used to (or can even imagine)“I do everything around here — operations, accounting, sales, hiring, morale…”“I was really exhausted. Trying to pull everything together — construction, manpower, suppliers and costing; was a considerable feat for one person. I struggled because of my lack of experience. I learned the hard way that running a café was a lot more than just the simple stuff like preparing items and serving customers.” — Samantha Koh, Curbside CafeThis is obvious intellectually, but experiencing it is something else altogether.You might start a business because you want to do your own thing — say, selling your specially-frosted cupcakes, which your friends have raved about. But you can’t just be a specialist — you also need to be a salesperson. You need to manage the numbers. You need good communication and interpersonal skills. You need to figure out how to hire people, fire people. You need to be an “influencer”.How do you actually build that up in almost no time at all? Most of the time, you have to learn on the job. And that means enduring a lot of failure as you learn.In school, we learned about the various fields of management, finances, technology— but until I experienced it for myself, I didn’t fully appreciate why there are specialists in each field. I understand now why there are entire disciplines about the various subsets of business. Each thing takes a lot of expertise. How can a single person build that up overnight? You have to figure it out as you go, on the job — and that means you’ll be failing a lot. — Fagan, MOVE Academy6. Entrepreneurs are constantly overwhelmed with decisions, “fighting fires” and an infinite todo list"I have more things to do than time to do them."“Our vision has always been to empower couples and the challenge has been to avoid getting distracted by other things. So the question we’re always asking ourselves is, “Does this help empower couples?” Recently we’ve looked at expanding the ways in which we empower couples but our end goal remains the same. Sometimes it can be helpful to distinguish between what the goal is and the means by which you try to achieve it. From time to time, the means might change but our goal is still the same.” ~ Dharma and Leana, The Wedding Scoop Every entrepreneur is living in a sort of chaotic state in their minds, where everything around them is suboptimal and needs to be fixed, corrected, addressed, taken care of.Nothing good happens unless you make it happen, while bad things happen all the time — sometimes because of your neglect and failure, and sometimes due to events entirely beyond your control.“Our todo list? Well — there’s a mix of things we haven’t done, things we need to do now, and things we need to do in the future. At some point I realized I can’t just keep cleaning what’s due or past due. It’s always never done. So I have to touch a bit of everything, and be okay with the fact that every day is going to be like this. I have to keep reminding myself of that.” — Selena Soh, Temasek Clothings7. Entrepreneurs value relationships a lot, and often speak about them with a certain tenderness and reverence“Through shared struggle, my partners and have developed extremely intimate bonds.”To me, this seems related to the fact that they get to “choose their partners”. If you start your own business, you get to decide who you’re going to hire — and each person you hire is going to contribute the culture of the organization you’re building.Most people inherit their relationships and coexist with their colleagues. Entrepreneurs are more discerning.“We didn’t initially expect to work together. But it made our relationship even better. I think we’re both ambitious career-driven types. And we get to make more decisions together, face conflict and challenges together. Solving problems together on more than just domestic issues helped us grow.” — Lydia Shah, A Good CitizenIt’s interesting to consider the causality here — in several cases, it seems to me that entrepreneurs either crave the sort of intense relationships only cofounders have, or they dislike ‘regular’ relationships (consider the stereotype of everyone going to the bar after work to complain about their jobs).I have a huge, huge appreciation for everyone that becomes part of the journey, even if it’s just giving support, giving advice, making connections. […] Regular folk” would form friendships with colleagues, but retain a business relationship for anyone outside of the department or organization. But as an entrepreneur, every connection is valued, nobody I encounter is “none of my concern”. — Louis Puah, Praxium Ironically, entrepreneurs are often “people persons” and yet quite lonely — because they’re so consumed by their work. As my colleague Si Quan pointed out when I talked to him about it,I’ve grown to realize, there is a loneliness to entrepreneurship. It’s a funny paradox: they’re very sociable, that’s why they’re in the people business… and yet they’re too busy to have much of a social life. One merchant even said to me, “I don’t think anybody has actually asked me the full story before.” — Si Quan, Breakdance Decoded8. Have a growth mindset: prioritize learning and growing to get better at managing uncertainty“It’s not going to get easier. I’m going to become stronger.”Being an entrepreneur is staggeringly overwhelming — if you don’t believe that you have room to learn and grow, or you don’t believe you’re capable of doing it, you’re going to quit.I find that running a business makes you almost “live on another planet” compared to friends who stayed in a regular job. Most employed people “avoid uncertainty” (or so they think) by e.g. going for a fixed contract or sticking with a big name employer. As an entrepreneur, we learn to “manage uncertainty” by not relying on one big client, agree things clearly in contract, requiring payment up front. While it can be challenging and draining, I tell myself that employment only provides the illusion of security. And I really see no alternative for learning to manage it. If you have a job, it’s just one job and when it’s gone, it’s gone. By always managing uncertainty, entrepreneurs live more in the real world. Once you build the skill of managing uncertainty, you are much better equipped to deal with sudden events. — Guus Goorts, Crystal MarketingTo me, this seems directly related to the fact that entrepreneurs operate in a more uncertain environment.Some seek out the uncertain environment because they want to learn, and tolerate the uncertainty to enjoy the accelerated learning.Some prefer the uncertain environment to other more controlled, predictable environments, and learning is the rent they pay to stay in it.And for some, well, why not both?In the best cases, this results in entrepreneurs learning and growing more than — if they manage to survive in a chaotic, uncertain environment, they begin to develop skills and abilities that they wouldn’t have otherwise. They learn to manage and inspire people. To set a course. They create meaningful, colourful experiences, that make the world a brighter, more colorful place.There’s a staggering caveat, though. Having a growth mindset does not guarantee success. And growth only really feels good on retrospect — it’s uncomfortable, painful and exhausting all the way through.After working night and day to make your vision reality, you wake up to find that things did not go as planned. Your company did not unfold like the Jack Dorsey keynote that you listened to when you started. Your product has issues that will be very hard to fix. The market isn’t quite where it was supposed to be. Your employees are losing confidence and some of them have quit. Some of the ones that quit were quite smart and have the remaining ones wondering if staying makes sense. You are running low on cash and your venture capitalist tells you that it will be difficult to raise money given the impending European catastrophe. You lose a competitive battle. You lose a loyal customer. You lose a great employee. The walls start closing in. Where did you go wrong? Why didn’t your company perform as envisioned? Are you good enough to do this? As your dreams turn into nightmares, you find yourself in The Struggle. — Ben Horowitz, OpswareThanks for reading! The struggle is real.

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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fitono · 6 years

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Is “Saying No” Really the Difference Between Successful and Very Successful Fitness Pros?

If you’ve reached the point in your career where new opportunities are coming your way with regularity, you’ve probably considered this quote from Warren Buffett:

“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”

I hear this a lot, from executives to entrepreneurs to personal trainers and nutrition coaches. And that concerns me.

You see, I believe it’s actually bad advice for those early in their careers. That’s because, when you’re starting out, you need to do the opposite and actually say yes to almost everything.

Later in your career, when you’re at a stage when you need to say no, how you turn someone down matters. You can’t take the infantile and myopic approach too many people use.

I think it’s long past time to add a little perspective and nuance to the “just say no” conversation. Because, ultimately, this conversation is about your time:

How to use it on activities that bring great value.

How to view your career as a series of stages, each of which requires different ways of using your time.

How to gratefully and gracefully say no to opportunities that might not be a great fit for you at the current stage of your personal or professional growth.

From Hearing No to Saying No

I’ve personally experienced five different stages in my career, each of which required a different approach to accepting or declining opportunities.

Stage One: You have no opportunities at all

This is where I started 20 years ago, and where you may be right now.

You don’t have the luxury of saying yes or no because no one’s offering you anything. You’re out there begging for someone else to say yes.

And, honestly, that’s the way it should be. Early in our careers, no matter what innate talent or skill we have, we haven’t yet done enough reps to warrant opportunities.

Of course you want (and need) the opportunities. But why should anyone give you a shot when there are better, more practiced, and more experienced people out there?

That’s why, when someone does give you a chance, there’s only one answer: “Yes!”

At this stage, everything’s a yes. Because you need the reps, you need the money (if they’re paying), you need to figure out what you enjoy doing (in practice, not in theory), and you need to discover what you find rewarding vs. what you think you’ll find rewarding.

Then, if you’re lucky, you get to Stage Two.

Stage Two: You get your first opportunities

Hurray! People are now coming to you, asking you to do things without you having to go out and solicit them.

Nevertheless, like the previous stage, almost everything’s still going to be a yes.

Why?

You still need money, and when you say yes to something, there’s usually a paycheck at the other end.

Whether there is or isn’t, you still need reps. Some of the best opportunities—working at a charity bootcamp, writing a guest post, speaking to the trainers at a friend’s gym—won’t pay you a dollar, but they’ll help you develop your skills in those areas.

You also need to figure out who you are, what you do best, and what you enjoy doing. The best way to learn is to jump on almost every opportunity and see what works for you and what doesn’t.

Now, I say “almost every opportunity” here because some offers at this stage are a “hell no.”

At this point you know enough to see when an opportunity is total crap for you. It might be reputation damaging, zero fun, inconsistent with what you believe your goals to be, or inconsistent with who you think you are as a person. And you now have the luxury to steer clear.

But still, 90 percent of the time, your answer to any offer should be “yes.”

Stage Three: You can start to pick and choose

Here, in the middle of the continuum, you’re starting to learn which things fill your cup and feel good for your soul. You’re starting to figure out which things lead to a short-term return and which lead to a longer-term return.

At this stage you’ll have an innate “gut feeling” about your value and your values, and you can say yes or no based on what gives you a financial or emotional return on your investment, whichever is most important at the time.

Stage Four: Almost everything is a no

“You want to contribute to this chapter?”

“You want to write a book?”

“You want to speak at my event?”

You’re getting loads of opportunities, and you’re also getting a lot of time-sucking requests.

Stop for a moment and consider how amazingly blessed you are, especially considering how bereft of opportunities you were at Stage One.

No, really. Let that sink in.

Because, at this stage, it’s so easy to forget that once upon a time no one cared about your opinion or wanted your services. So don’t turn into one of those ungrateful bastards who forget where they came from and seem angered by new opportunity.

Yes, when somebody asks you to read her book, of course it’s a big ask, and of course you’ll have to pass. But still, somebody wants you to read their book!

You should feel honored, but you still might need to turn it down because the time investment may not help build toward your own big, ambitious goals, or square with your value system and idea of meaningful work.

It’s now imperative to develop a set of criteria to decide which opportunities align with your personal and professional goals, and which don’t. You can run each new offer through this very explicit filter to make sure you’re taking advantage of the right ones for you.

Stage Five: You’re beyond saying no

Nowadays I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I get so many opportunities, it’s like people are firing them at me with a semi-automatic rifle. If I didn’t have a system in place I could spend every minute of every day reading and responding to them.

I’m not exaggerating. I could spend a 60-hour week just evaluating opportunities and following up with the good folks who sent them over. Which means I’d have no time to actually make good on them.

So, how do I get beyond just saying no?

The simple answer: I have other people evaluate all these opportunities, and say no when it’s appropriate. They can do that because of the criteria I created in Stage Four. That’s how they know which ones to pass along to me, and which ones to gracefully decline.

One more thought:

There may be even more levels beyond this one. If you talk to someone who’s been successful into his 60s or 70s, you may learn there’s a Stage Six, Seven, or Eight. But this is all I’ve experienced, and I never forget how incredibly lucky I am to get to Stage Five.

Establishing Your Criteria

A generation ago, the biggest names in fitness, nutrition, and strength and conditioning built their reputations by getting out there and speaking at events 50 weeks a year.

Some of these folks were my heroes, and some were my mentors. At the same time, many of them were divorced, estranged from their children, and massively unhappy.

Now, I’m not here to judge any of that. I just realized, early on, that I didn’t want that for my life. Which is why I established a clear set of priorities, and these criteria have persisted for more than a decade now:

Priority: Be an active, present partner to my wife and parent to our four children.

Priority: Devote adequate time to self-care (exercise, nutrition, sleep, stress management).

Priority: Within my work hours, do everything I can to serve and build the Precision Nutrition brand and community.

Your criteria will certainly be different from mine. You should get a pretty good idea of what they are during Stage Three, and codify them in Stage Four.

Once you’ve chosen them, you simply need to run every opportunity through your priority filter by asking a few questions. These are the ones I ask:

“Does this help me become a more present parent or partner?”

“Does this help me with my health, fitness, sleep, and stress management?”

“Will this make a big impact on the growth of Precision Nutrition?”

If it’s “no” to all those things, it’s something I can’t do, even if it scratches my “I get to take a cool trip” itch, or my “I get to connect with someone I really respect” itch, or my “I get to try something new” itch.

Without this filtering system, I would be tempted to say yes to all those things in the moment. Here’s a specific example:

A friend and colleague recently asked me to speak at a world-renowned symposium in Olympia, Greece. No, not the Mr. Olympia. This is the real Olympia, the site of the original Olympic games, where they preserve the ancient ruins and house an international learning academy.

Awesome, right? I nearly rushed into saying yes.

But what about my criteria? Will this help me spend family time? Will it help Precision Nutrition? Will it help with my own health and fitness? No, no, and no.

But I really wanted to go! So I looked for loopholes. What if I bring my whole family? What if we rent a villa and stay nearby? Is it still a no?

Because our youngest is one year old, I realized bringing the whole family halfway around the world wasn’t right for us. It crushed me to turn it down, but I had no other choice.

To be sure, most of the requests that come to the staff at Precision Nutrition aren’t nearly so epic. We get loads of offers to do podcasts, articles, and seminars. I’ll never hear about any of them until they’ve been screened.

Let’s say we get a request for me to go on a podcast. Our team will do a little research. What’s it about? How many listeners does it have? How many people have rated it on iTunes? Who else has been interviewed?

It takes a lot for a proposal to reach me. Is it the biggest possible thing with the biggest possible impact? If not, someone else on the team can handle it.

Your criteria are certainly different from mine. For example, if a reporter from the New York Times or Washington Post calls you, and you’ve never done an interview with them before, you should do it. Same with a chance to go on CNN or the Today Show or a popular podcast, or to contribute to a major magazine or website.

But if the request is for something that doesn’t fit your criteria, you need to say no. And that brings us to the most important part of this story.

How to Say No

Nobody says this explicitly, but running beneath a lot of the “always say no” sentiment I see—especially on social media—is something like this:

“Once upon a time I realized I was saying yes to too many things. That’s when I put a stake in the ground. People have to know how valuable my time is. So, now, when people offer me opportunities and invite me to events, I’m relentless. I let them know what a big deal I am and how they’re standing in the way of my goals.”

Right. How dare they offer you money and a chance to be involved in something?

While I totally understand the need to have clear boundaries (see above), viewing opportunity as an invasion of your carefully curated life is myopic and infantile.

Worse yet, the result is usually an off-putting dismissal of the opportunity, no matter how nice you think you are when turning someone down.

“Thanks for the offer but I have to very carefully guard my precious time.”

Here’s a much better way to say no.

Step 1: Express gratitude

Even if it’s not the most exciting opportunity I’ve gotten, I still make a point to remember when no one gave a damn about me. So this is the first thing I say:

“Dear Marcus,

“Thank you so much for thinking about me. It means a lot that you shared this opportunity.”

Step 2: Show respect for their project

Just because you can’t say yes to the project right now doesn’t mean it’s not a worthwhile endeavor. That’s why I say something like this:

“Your project sounds really cool, and I’d love to help. However, I’m working on this other thing right now, and I have to stay 100 percent focused on it.

“The truth is, I’m intrigued by what you’re doing, and I’d love to get involved, but I don’t think I have the capacity to give it the attention it deserves.”

Notice that it isn’t all about me. I’m not saying, “Don’t you know I’m a busy guy? Don’t you know I have my own priorities?”

What I’m saying is, “Your thing is cool! Keep doing it! I just can��t be involved right now. And if I were to be involved, I’d do a bad job because I can’t devote enough time to it.”

I’m not lying when I say it. If I could only give it five minutes, it’s completely honest to tell him his project deserves more than five minutes.

Step 3: Come through for them

Step back for a moment and ask yourself why the person came to you in the first place. Do they need you specifically, or do they need someone like you? As much as I like to think I’m special, and no one else can fill my shoes, it’s not true.

If someone asks you to speak at an event, and there are 20 other speakers, they don’t need you. They just need a speaker. Or they need an expert to quote in an article. Whatever it is, you’re now going to give them what they need:

“I’d love to recommend my friend Brett. I’m not sure if he’s available, but if he is, he’d be awesome for this project.

“And if he doesn’t work out, you might also try my friend Geoff. He’d be great too. Or my friend Krista. She’s amazing.”

Now, instead of burning a bridge by just saying no, I’ve built three or four. I’ve built a bridge to them by helping to solve their problem. And I’ve built bridges to Brett, Geoff, and Krista, because they’re going to find out I recommended them for an event or an interview they wouldn’t otherwise have had a chance to do.

Step 4: Keep the door open

In closing, I say something like this:

“In the end, I’m really, truly grateful you thought about me for this.

“I want you to know I never take opportunities like this lightly.

“If something like this comes up again, don’t hesitate to reach out. I can’t promise I’ll be able to do it, but I’m a pretty connected guy, and I can help you find the help you need.”

I’ve used this script for 10 years, and it’s worked well for a simple and important reason:

Even though you’re turning someone down, your goal isn’t to say no. It’s to accept an opportunity gratefully and gracefully, and to help that person get what she needs.

You’re not always helping her in the way she expected, but that doesn’t make your contribution any less valuable.

In fact, it’s more valuable, because instead of stopping with the one person who reached out to you, you’ve helped several others.

Final Thought: The Knight Who Says “No”

For a lot of you reading this, the idea of saying no to any of the things I’ve described must seem nuts. I used to feel that way too, until about 10 years ago, when I hit the wall.

I’d just spent an entire 40-hour work week answering inbound messages from readers and customers, and I realized I was at the limit of my human capability.

I can’t give a seminar if I’m doing that. I can’t write an article. I can’t coach a client. I can’t grow a business. I can’t do anything except that.

So I stopped.

It wasn’t easy for me, and it won’t be easy for you. Especially if your story is, “I’m the kind of person who stays connected to my fans!” Are you now the person who doesn’t care about your fans? If so, will they abandon you?

Or you may think, “What if I don’t do a favor for this person, and I need a favor later? Will they say no?”

There’s also the fear of scarcity. “What if they never offer me a thing again?”

Put those fears aside. They’re unwarranted.

If you take the time you would’ve spent saying yes to everything and use it to do great work, you’re only going to get more opportunities in the future, not fewer.

Plus, if you decline the opportunities you can’t accept with gratitude and grace, without burning the bridge between you and the person who’s asking, you don’t just enhance your own reputation. You also give deserving colleagues a chance to move forward, while helping to make the health and fitness industry a more collaborative place.

In the end, maybe Warren Buffet’s quote isn’t totally off base. But it doesn’t give us the subtlety and nuance we need to live up to our highest values, personally and professionally.

Say no when you need to say no. Just make sure you do it at the right times, and in the right way.

Bonus Video

This article was inspired by a video chat that included all-star coaches Brett Bartholomew, Geoff Girvitz, Jon Goodman, Mark Fisher, Adam Lloyd, and Krista Scott-Dixon. For a deeper dive into this subject, with insights from all of these amazing folks, check out the full video here:

vimeo

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