What’s REALLY important?

December 14, 2009 | 10 Comments

Seems like such as easy question to answer. The average, normal person would quickly say “my kids,” or “my family” or “being healthy” and so on. I bet those answers are about what you came up with when you first read the question too.

It’s just that I’m not buying those answers. I’m not calling anyone a liar who recites those quick and easy answers, it’s just that I don’t buy that’s what is really important to most people. Why would I say that? Because their isn’t too much proof to suggest those answers are the truth.

One of my basic philosophies is that your time, your energy and your money go to what is important to you. So if kids and family and being healthy was as important as most people say, it would follow that is where people would focus their time, energy and money. Follow? Well, it isn’t happening. Look around and you’ll see that people are clearly not putting their actions into the important things in life. People are putting their time, energy and money into lots of things but more often than not, it’s the temporary, the mundane, and the instantly gratifying. The ridiculous occupies people’s time, saps their energy and seduces the money from their fingers. And the media helps with that fascination. But I don’t blame the media because they only give us what we beg to see. It’s not their fault they are capitalizing on our preoccupation with the stupid; it’s our own. Watching stupid stuff on television is voluntary participation. No one forces you to sit there and see who the newest stupid celebrity is and what he/she is doing. You choose to do that. People choose to participate in things of no importance and neglect what is really important. I dealt in great detail about this problem in my book, The Idiot Factor: The Ten Ways We Sabotage Our Life, Money and Business (formerly titled People Are Idiots and I Can Prove It.)

Are there exceptions? Of course there are so don’t get all fired up and write me a bunch of comments about how wrong I am and how my premise doesn’t apply to you. Fine. You may be the exception. Read this and be satisfied with how none of this applies to you and find some satisfaction in pointing the finger of blame at everyone else.

“I get it, Larry. So what is important?”

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Posted by Larry Winget | Filed Under Money & Personal Dev 

The Five Things To Do When The Money Runs Out

June 8, 2009 | 40 Comments

I get a lot of email from people who have either lost their jobs or are losing their jobs. Their 401K is gone, their savings is zeroed out or maybe their unemployment checks have run out. This is becoming a common situation for a good part of our society as unemployment rises. Many people are facing a lack of employment and a lack of funds. Yet their family still needs to eat and the bills still have to be paid. Does this apply to you? I hope it doesn’t. But I am betting that you know someone who is in this situation.

It’s too late to tell people they should have saved more (six months cash set aside to cover your monthly expenses.) It’s too late to say you should have worked harder or smarter or better so you wouldn’t have been the one who got laid off (not always the case but it is often the case.) It’s too late to say that you shouldn’t have spent so much money on stupid stuff – that you shouldn’t have wasted money on things that gave only very temporary satisfaction – that you shouldn’t have gone out to eat 4 nights a week or bought that car you couldn’t really afford or that house you knew you couldn’t make the payments on if anything happened to your income. It’s too late to beat people up about any of that stuff at this point, so I don’t and I won’t.

Instead, it’s time to give folks some ideas they can use when it’s crunch time, they are scrambling and when survival is the main concern. So here you go:

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Posted by Larry Winget | Filed Under Money & Personal Dev