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Think of that elusive “door”. Can you see it? Do you know what I’m talking about?
The door you want to be walking through. The door to the life you want. The door that changes everything for you. Everybody has a door in their lives. The door is whatever goals you have set up in your life. If you imagine what you want your life to be, walking through your door is how you get there from the life you have now.
Some people want the door to be opened for them. Some people are convinced it will always be locked and they don’t have the key. Some try to pick the lock. Others just want to run right through the darn thing. I, however, have a much simpler solution: knock.
Okay, enough with the metaphors, right? What do I mean? I recently read an article on marketing, and it actually got me thinking about life and the opportunities that are presented in it. Here’s what the author did to drum up more business for himself:
I finally decided that if I wanted something to happen, I had to go and get it. So I did the simplest thing I could think of: I just asked for it. I wrote to a bunch of different sites, and asked if they needed writers. I pitched a few ideas, used my blog as a resume, and offered my services. I couldn’t give you an exact number, but the response rate to my emails was extraordinarily low. Let’s just say that if I were a baseball player with that batting average, I wouldn’t be a baseball player much longer. Only a couple of people responded at all, and a few of those turned into the jobs I got initially as a freelance blogger. But my batting average wasn’t high. And it didn’t matter. For the opportunities that didn’t come my way, all it cost me was a few minutes of my time to send an email. The hour it took to write ten emails, even if it only generated one response, was well worth it just for that one response. I got my dream job this summer from exactly the same thing: I sent an email. I can’t explain why it worked, or why I got a response instead of the hundred or so other people my boss got applications from. It worked, though, and for one reason: I asked. If I never heard back, so be it; it’s a wasted ten minutes. But I did, and it became a fantastic experience for me.
I finally decided that if I wanted something to happen, I had to go and get it. So I did the simplest thing I could think of: I just asked for it. I wrote to a bunch of different sites, and asked if they needed writers. I pitched a few ideas, used my blog as a resume, and offered my services.
I couldn’t give you an exact number, but the response rate to my emails was extraordinarily low. Let’s just say that if I were a baseball player with that batting average, I wouldn’t be a baseball player much longer. Only a couple of people responded at all, and a few of those turned into the jobs I got initially as a freelance blogger. But my batting average wasn’t high.
And it didn’t matter. For the opportunities that didn’t come my way, all it cost me was a few minutes of my time to send an email. The hour it took to write ten emails, even if it only generated one response, was well worth it just for that one response.
I got my dream job this summer from exactly the same thing: I sent an email. I can’t explain why it worked, or why I got a response instead of the hundred or so other people my boss got applications from. It worked, though, and for one reason: I asked. If I never heard back, so be it; it’s a wasted ten minutes. But I did, and it became a fantastic experience for me.
“Opportunity knocks”, right? Wrong. You can’t sit around and expect opportunities to fall into your lap. You need to take action. You need to take charge of your life and do something about whatever you don’t like. What are you afraid of? Failure? A lot of people don’t think they can handle screwing something up. Just think to yourself, What’s the worst thing that could happen? In most cases, the “worst thing” is barely anything that will matter to you beyond a day or so.
That’s why I want you knocking on doors. It’s simple, and it’s fairly painless. If you were going door-to-door with some flyers, the worst thing you can probably expect to happen is someone might yell at you to leave them alone or shut the door in your face. Apply that to the rest of your life: why are you so afraid of rejection? Embarrassment? Get over yourself. Knocking on doors is easy – everyone can do it, and eventually, you’ll find yourself knocking on the door you’ve always wanted to open.
Lonely? Go out and join some social gathering or group and talk to a few people. Maybe you’ll make some friends. Worst case scenario: you won’t, and you’ll be back where you started. Need a new job? Polish up that resume, send it out to a few places, and start calling companies. Worst case scenario: you won’t get a new job and you’ll be back where you started. Looking for love? Go out on a few dates and give some people a chance. Worst case scenario: one of you won’t be interested in the other, and you’ll be – that’s right – back where you started.
In each of these cases, and in most others, the worst case scenario is that your knocking doesn’t work and you’re back where you started. But at least by knocking, you are giving yourself a fighting chance. Stop giving up on yourself and your life. If you keep knocking, you’ll keep learning, and you’ll keep moving forward in life.
[The quote above is from the article, Can't Miss Marketing: Just Ask from Stepcase Lifehack.]
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Picture your life as a millionaire for a second. What did you think of?
Like many of us, you looked around for a second and thought of improvements you could make. You looked out at your car and thought of a new, $30,000 sports car with every gizmo imaginable. Maybe even a garage full of other cars? Or you looked around your house and pictured a big, fancy-looking mansion with a swimming pool and hot tub in the back yard. You pictured a giant LCD television with every channel imaginable and a home theater set-up stocked with Blu-ray movies.
You’re doing it wrong.
While it is fun to imagine that kind of life, it’s just not realistic – and if you have aspirations of being financially independent, you have to wave “bye-bye” to those ideas. The problem is, the media has skewed our idea of what being “rich” is all about, and it has brought us horrible, materialistic expectations of what it’s like.
Heck, just think of celebrities. Everyone pays close attention to how much money they spend on everything, but you don’t hear as many conversations about the aftermath of those financial decisions. Case in point: Michael Jackson. The recently-deceased King of Pop had no reason to be broke at this stage of his life. The man was not only a terrific performer; he was a great businessman. He earned millions every year just by owning catalogs of music – including The Beatles’! Add to that one of the highest royalty rates ever paid to a performer and world tours that sold-out everywhere on the heels of the best-selling and most successful albums of all-time, and Michael Jackson was richer than any of us could have dreamed.
But behind that was horrible financial decisions. He famously built a theme park in the backyard of his lavish mansion. He spent millions of dollars in one sitting. He ended up with more stress in his life – and it ultimately cut his life short.
“If only I had a millions dollars…” How many times do you find yourself saying that? Yet you hear stories of Jackson – who had hundreds of millions of dollars – dying bankrupt. Or you hear about the miserable lives of lottery winners who wind up in more debt and wishing they had never won the lottery in the first place. Yet people go back and buy them every freaking day.
As the media eats it up, or shows like MTV’s Cribs air and show people how great it is to be rich, we all suffer. The second we get our hands on some money, we think, “What can I buy with this?” The world creates status symbols that people feel they “need” to have. Never mind that civilization has gone literally thousands of years without iPhones – they’re so trendy, we need them! Forget the fact that there are people who are lucky to have a few outfits to change into while you are cramming clothes into your overstuffed closets – we need to go shopping! There are sales!
Our attitude towards wealth and money needs to change. A great way to start that is by running to your library and getting The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley. In it, he interviews people who are rich, yet they don’t place their value in their possessions. They drive humble, reliable cars. They cut their own lawns. They don’t have servants or giant houses. Their cars are paid off. They have no mortgages on their houses. They saved money and kept it in the bank, even investing it. They know that the joy in being a millionaire is knowing that you and your family are provided for in times of need.
Right there: that’s your problem. Ask yourself, “What exactly is the point of having a million dollars? Why do I want it?” Do you just want it so you can spend it? Then you have to be aware of what that spending will cost you in the long run. Is there any guarantee that you will always be making that kind of money? Is there any guarantee that you won’t have skyrocketing medical bills at some point in your life? Of course not.
You want a million dollars because you want to be free of the financial stresses in your life. But that means that your attitude about money has to change. You need to focus on spending less money. You need to focus on hanging onto it for emergencies. That doesn’t mean you can’t splurge once in a while, but take a good, long look at what you’re buying and its long-term value. Having a million dollars, in the end, doesn’t solve the real problem. It takes an attitude adjustment and a change in your spending lifestyle.
It’s nice to have nice things, but is it worth nickel-and-diming your way to bankruptcy? Is it worth not having the peace of mind that would come with having a solid emergency fund to back up your day-to-day life? Michael Jackson is not the only celebrity that blew through his money and died in debt. Many others have too. It’s a sad way to wind down your life. Rein in some of your spending now and start laying some building blocks for financial freedom down the line. Do it now, and you might actually be a millionaire down the road. Remember: for every million dollars you spend, that’s a million dollars you will never have.
Your thoughts?
I’m taking a little bit of a departure from my normal posts to speak about death and remembrance.
I’m a huge fan of pop culture, especially that of the past. I’m one of those guys that always thinks of the “good ol’ days”.So I was pretty bummed out as 3 different icons of the past died this week. Unfortunately, these three are consistently remembered for their troubles of recent years rather than for all the wonderful accomplishments they enjoyed over the years, as well as the joy their careers have brought us. So, especially for you youngsters out there who don’t realize the impact these three have made, I want to pay tribute to them with my own memories and how I will look back on them.
[Left, with Johnny Carson, right] I woke up to the news of Ed McMahon’s passing and it immediately pushed me out of bed. I was 7 years old when The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson went off the air. However, through the blessing of DVDs and videotapes, I have developed a deep love for the show, and I view it as the way late night television should be. When Johnny passed in 2005, I was really depressed. I don’t know why – it’s not as if Johnny had really been on television since 1992 (other than a walk-on appearance on David Letterman’s show), and he wasn’t about to return. But I was still sad, as if a piece of Hollywood legend was gone.
Well, now the other piece is gone too. Ed McMahon in recent years made headlines for having no money. He was bankrupt and in danger of losing his home, and he could not work because he had injured himself in a fall. When I asked someone I know (whose identity will remain undisclosed) if they knew that Ed McMahon had died, the response I got was, “Wasn’t he a football player?”
*sigh*.
Ed was the second banana of second bananas. He was brilliant. He could incite laughter just with a booming chuckle or a “Hiyoo!” He launched careers by hosting Star Search, and he made us laugh with Dick Clark in TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes. I remember sitting and watching that show with my dad and laughing our butts off. I don’t want to remember Ed as the guy who was down on his luck. I want to remember him for being a guy that could bring smiles to so many, and for banter like this with Johnny:
Farrah had been in quite a few headlines lately. She had anal cancer and it was deteriorating her body. She carried a camcorder around during her treatment and filmed it for a TV special that aired recently. It showed her as a dying, feeble woman.
She was, however, an icon in every sense of the word throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s. People don’t really use the term “sex symbol” anymore, because Hollywood is full of good-looking women, and their dirty laundry is aired before us every day. But Farrah was different. She hit the big-time with her stint on Charlie’s Angels, which you might remember as a pair of crappy movies. The TV show was hot, and she was all over the place. Her feathered hairstyle was emulated by too many to count. She also showed her acting chops in a TV movie called The Burning Bed, which was one of the first depictions of white, suburban spousal abuse. It also started the trend of Lifetime movies where women are oppressed by terrible men and exact their revenge.
But most famously, Farrah was known for the picture to the right. That poster sold millions of copies. It is the quintessential sex-symbol poster. Men wanted her, and they bought that picture in droves. Women wanted to be like her. In remembrance of her, just take a look at that picture and enjoy it. She’s beautiful, graceful, cute, and she doesn’t show any sign of trashiness. It’s sexy, but classy. That’s how Farrah should be remembered.
As I write this, it is just a little over an hour since he was declared dead at 50 years old, and I’m listening to his last album, Number Ones. I think I’m still in shock. Over recent years, when you bring up Michael Jackson, people just talk about how “sick” he was and how crazy he went with plastic surgery. They bring up his molestation trials. Now, my response has always been that I feel Michael was just sick in the head. It’s no secret his father pushed him way too hard and abused him physically, and he had been an international superstar since he was a child. That’s too much for anyone to bear. So I feel that he never really molested anyone – he just thought he was a little kid like them.
But now, my response is as follows:
Michael Jackson was one of the most talented performers that ever graced a stage. He changed music in ways that people today simply do not appreciate. He turned the music video into an art form, creating movies out of them (Thriller and Scream are two examples that come to mind). He danced more gracefully than anyone has before or since. He invented the Moonwalk, and the music world went crazy. The first time he did it was a timeless moment in television history. I saw him dance a few years ago on some TV special, and he moved just as good as he always did. He had scheduled a giant European comeback tour, and he was reportedly intensely training and rehearsing for it. Sadly, that must have been too much for him. To remember Michael as we all should, check out his official YouTube channel with all his music videos. And as a tribute, I’m posting the debut of the Moonwalk, and enjoy as the crowd is eating out of the palm of his hand:
This world is full of people who just want to look at the lousy parts of everybody. I say let’s take some time to enjoy the good things they brought to the table. We all have our shortcomings. We’re not evil. We’re just human. Let’s remember these three and smile.
I wish I had a list like this back when I signed up for my first credit card.
Credit cards have become a “necessary evil” in this world. You get them young so that you can start to build credit. With a solid credit history (and score), you can get the best interest rates for car loans, mortgages, and other purchases. Unfortunately, they carry quite a bit of danger to them as well.
I was warned when I got my first credit card. My mother told me to pay it off every single month. But I saw that credit limit as money I could spend, and that led to my undoing.
To save some of you from the same fate, Wise Bread has put together a giant list of resources where you can learn more about credit cards. Think you know everything? Check it out anyway. There are plenty of things to learn about credit cards, from understanding programs and fees to getting out of credit card debt after screwing up big time.
What’s your favorite piece of advice for us regarding credit cards?
People who know me personally know how big of a cooking fan I am. And they’re right! I find cooking to be relaxing, and I love being able to control the taste sensations that are going into my meals.
However, even if you don’t find cooking to be relaxing or fun like I do, there are some great benefits to doing it. For one, it’s healthier. Now I’m not an organic food eater, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that making a cheeseburger from scratch with a side of potatoes is healthier than inhaling a value meal from McLazy’s.
Or how about the taste? I baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies last week from scratch, and there is no way any boxed cookie could touch them. It’s not my cooking that did it – it’s the recipe!
Finally, and the biggest argument people make, is it is cheaper. Buy a few staples and you can feed yourself for weeks. It’s the classic “giving me a fish versus teaching me to fish”. Yeah, I know I’ve used that analogy before. I don’t care. It’s the biggest lesson that people need to learn in life.
So, I hear people tell me, “Oh, I can’t cook!” Hogwash! (Do people still say “hogwash”?) Read my lips (or the words I’m typing): cooking is as simple as knowing how to read. If you can read a recipe, you can cook. Nobody’s asking you to create fancy masterpieces that they make in five-star restaurants. But you can cook plenty of delicious, healthy, and cheap meals at home any day of the week. Here are a couple of guides to get you started:
The Lifehacker Cookbook!
The Top 10 Cooking Videos from YouTube (featuring CHRISTOPHER WALKEN!)
Any great cooking tips? Share ‘em!
