Well, people. Another year has come and gone. And as people focus on the New Year, the many promises that it hopes to bring, and the many resolutions that will more likely than not see the month of February, I’ve started mine back in August and find it incredible that it is paying off more rapidly than I could ever expect.
I am finally starting to get the hang of this organization thing. I just had to make it more creative than formal to make it work best for me. Since October, when I officially started tracking stuff, I’ve gotten more quality writing assignments together and out to various publishers. Out of the twenty-one projects I’ve sent out thus far since October about twelve of them have been accepted with a handful more with the just still out into the New Year, which is okay by me, being that I have three pending book deals that are due for publication in the New Year.
Of course, the three that I am referring to are all under my pseudonyms, including one of them that I picked up happenstance. In a blog entry a few postings back I ranted about this tired queen and the many like them that work my nerves with their bitchy attitudes. I guess I wasn’t the only one that felt that way because it showed through the project that that person was trying to put together. At any rate, the publisher felt the same way and his proposed project is already a proposed flop before it even goes to press. And because it would cost more money to shut it down they decided to go through with it (i.e., he’s already come out of pocket for the project (time, money, potential losses off of other projects) and he was looking to get reimbursed through the sales of the project), BUT—pay attention to the hook— pay attention to the hook—they offered me my own anthology project featuring my works alone. Writers who have been in the business for a minute, understands the weight behind that statement. To the average person that means that I will be getting paid royalties off of my project in oppose to the standard contribution fee that is often given to writers through a comprehensive anthology project.
For those that don’t know, they do this because whether a project is a failure or a success or certain stories are failures or successes, it doesn’t cost the publisher any extra money to continue to pay out to various writers. Plus, it is often hard to tell which stories in the collection makes it profitable or drag down the value, and if sold together everybody would have to get an equal cut. For the most part, for most freelance writers, it operates as more of a portfolio piece for the writer to say that “I’ve been published” therefore leading to more writing opportunities. So to be offered a stand-alone anthology featuring just my works is a big deal that can lead to bigger things. And if not, at least it tells the world that I am established, and could lead to bigger things later on down the road.
I must say that this organization thing has improved my writing dramatically. Not only am I meeting deadlines long beforehand, but I have found that my quality of writing is getting better with every story I write. The words are coming with more ease because I’m more relaxed taking my time to focus one thing at a time, leaving a lot less time for me to be hell-bent on whether I am phrasing everything right and questioning if people are getting what I am saying.
With the exception of this blog, of course, I always have to remind people to look at the top right corner of the page and remind them that I type this with no revisions and other junk. This is straight from the mind onto the screen. It think sometimes people, especially aspiring writers, fail to realize that it takes a long time to get words flowing and oftentimes it does not always look pretty. Flip through a book sometimes and look at the laundry list of people that had to bring it into fruition. I promise that half the people in there are those that help edit the manuscript, enough with that.
The downside with the pending manuscripts, especially when they go to press, is the lag time it takes from getting my work in print to receiving the payment for my hard work. And it doesn’t end there, because payment is pretty much based off of royalty that means I have to do my own promotions, which is sort of tricky being that I’m writing from a pseudonymous place. But I am constantly taking cues from some of the best in how to go about it.
It is because of these things that I can see 2010 being my jump-off year. While the rest of the economy might be spinning in a downward tailspin I can taste my financial freedom (i.e., being debt free), I can taste homeownership, and whatever else without the weight of debt on my shoulders. Even more so, I feel that I can sink my teeth in having a novel under my own name and right, based on the project alone and the fact that I will have so many other projects supporting it.
Trust me when I say that I’m only an optimist in training. I figure, shit, I wasn’t doing that great when things were going that well for other people, and I’ve always been a contrarian, so why not make a go of it!
I am about to wrap this up for the Old Year. I still have about five more assignments that I have to get finished and out before the clock strikes midnight on December 31st. So be safe and sound this year and next, and look forward to you reading my works in the various forms that it comes in next year.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Listening Financially
This past week I have been driving people crazy. I have had these earphones stuck in my ear listening to this e-audio book that I picked up from my favorite place in the world, the local library.
If you happen to follow my reading material on Twitter and Facebook, I don’t have to go out of my way to tell you that it is on the line of financial education and financial prosperity. I know to most that sounds like a major contradiction for a fiction writer. Shouldn’t I limit my reading to fictional items? In the mind of the narrow-minded, of course, I should stick to reading that revolves around my craft. However, I was blessed not to be a member of the narrow-minded class. Hence, the reason I never wanted to go to school for writing. I just feel that I’m too multi-faceted for this one-dimensional world that operates on one-dimensional thought, because regardless of my craft, I need to know as much as I can about finances to sustain me. Nothing stifles creativity like the looming obese bully called debt. Also, I never could read and write in the same genre at the same time, giving me a wonderful opportunity to alternate between reading and writing throughout the day without currents crossing over or causing any major confusion.
I can’t begin to tell you how many writers and aspiring writers I know that have subconsciously changed up writing styles during their writing process to reflect their reading material, either to lose momentum in their own project after they put their leisurely read down or drafting characters that lack cohesive definitions.
(And to those that are really interested, my next fiction read is How To Sell by Clancy Martin. that I hope to get to within the next couple of weeks or so, after I wrap up another book Rich Brother, Rich Sister by Robert Kiyosaki and Emi (Vereable Tenzin Katcho) Kiyosaki)
As “down in the delta” broke as am, I am always surprised at the great amount of hope these books offer to me and my circumstance. That it is possible to come up from my circumstance. That it is possible to overcome and achieve or overachieve. Most importantly, it has offered me an education that most people lack, including many that are apart of the so-called “educated” class of our society.
It is also great feeling to know things that even the most educated people don’t or won’t, particularly when most people just get their degrees and because of that feel like their education process suddenly stops or can only be achieved by a certain group of people.
It taught—or rather affirmed for me—that there was a distinct difference between an academic education and financial education. It afforded me the wonderful opportunity to discover the three primary kinds of income:
1. Earned Income
2. Portfolio Income
3. Passive Income
What they are, how I can tap into them and their various tax benefits and loses (I think listed from greatest taxed to least taxed). How to take my novice accounting skills to read a financial statement (not bank statement; there is a difference). Distinguish between a financial salesman, a financial planner, and a Certified Financial Planner. It has even given me insight to various real estate options that aren’t always talked about in the public or the media. I can go on and on and probably will once I get started.
Quite honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to come across if I wasn’t poor. A good portion of the time I’m strapped to the bus or train and being that I grew up on it, there isn’t much new to see for the long commutes. So I grab a book or now an e-audio book and listen as I got about my day. Why not do something productive with my time in the meantime other than look aimlessly at people or get lost in unproductive thought? Even when I’m driving (which is rare nowadays), I pop in a CD and listen as I drive. Let’s be real there aren’t too many great songs on the radio, and if so you have to go through a thousand and one commercials along with some chatty DJ talking much to do about nothing.
And the funny tragedy is that so many people wait to come into some money before they help themselves to financial literacy when in fact that’s when it’s often too late. Because nine times out of ten a person that comes into money aren’t going to pursue a financial education until AFTER they bought themselves and a few family members whatever they wanted and are trying to save their last few pennies. Then, too, so many of them are repulsed by the idea of budgeting, which is often a synonym for financial planning, and hence suggesting that one has to go without. Not understanding that it isn’t the case, but rather watching where your money goes. If it is going to go out the door, why not find out where it goes?
To me, it has grown financial literary has increasingly important, not because of the hogwash on television but because we live in a society that values money. Yet, if I was to ask the most frugal person to the most materialistic person how money works, nobody can tell me. I don’t mean you need money to spend money, but why are so people rich and others are poor?
To clarify the question, how do some people get rich and others stay poor?
The sad part about it, it has very little to do with intellect. It is important, don’t get me wrong, but lets be real about it. It isn’t like intellect equates to being financially prosperous or financially sound. I know some very talented intellectuals that can’t ever rub two dimes together. I know some dummies that all they can do is trip over money. I know people that floss and gloss like a million bucks but don’t have a penny to their name. I’ve know men and women that look like vagabonds and they’re sitting on bread that can carry over for a few lifetimes.
So please forgive me if I want to know how come. Just don’t get it twisted that I’m obsessed with it either. I thirst for the knowledge because I am certain that it will sustain me in oppose to useless facts that have very little to do with our lives. (I’m a historian and genealogist at heart, so I know that the past has a great influence in our present-day and future; however, I find it odd the curriculum that our education system offers has very little to do with current survival. Like knowing who won the War of 1812 is going to help me balance my checkbook so I can pay my bills! Which is scary within itself that are tens of thousands of people that can’t balance a checkbook much less read and/or comprehend. But that is a later topic.)
So why not invest time while I’m poor to find out the many options I have out there to become rich? Even if it never happens—though I work hard for that not to be the case—at a minimum I walk away with lessons of how a person can navigate through adversity to get to a means that have often proven to pay off for them.
And besides, to me, financial education in this stage of the game is the equivalent of not coming to a table full of food, a feast, because you’re hungry, “No thanks, I can’t eat because I’m hungry.”
It sounds silly right?
Well, we know a lot of people that say just that without those words. We hear “you can’t do that” or “it has never been done before” or “why do you want to do that”, etc., etc. If you pay close attention to their mouths you can often see the black hole that is their lives. There the ones that are so afraid of failing that they fail to even try to succeed, or do a wonderful job of telling you what you can’t do because they never could for whatever reason. Yet, and still do whatever they want with their time and energy, regardless of how asinine it is. (Like I got a cousin that told me he could never get rich but confessed that he spends close to $10Ka year on alcohol and other drugs. Do you know what I can do with $10K right now?!) Failure is apart of life. We’re going to fail at our best, and we are going to fail at our worst, anyway. So why not try and fail at something that might pay off?
I’ve fallen on my face so many times it isn’t funny, from life plans to life goals to just about anything that you can think of. I grew up believing that every failure was a failure and followed it up by going ballistic mentally, not as goal towards leading me towards greater success, like I tried that and it didn’t work so I will try something a bit different so that it might. We learn more from our failure than we do success. Think about it.
Even with writing. Writing is filled with constant rejection. While I’m writing this off-hand (meaning I don’t go back and check for errors, I just write it out, so don’t judge on this alone), the most frustrating thing in the world for me is that I’ve hardly ever been rejected on merit. For the most part, though I’ve gotten a few in my day, I’ve often been spared the generic rejection but given rejection that basically stated “close, but not close enough” for one reason or another. I have failed at game designed. Again, that personalized letter that states “close, but not quite there yet.”
The old me would have taken the glass half empty approach, but as I was reminded after I used to react badly to rejection that it wasn’t saying that I wasn’t good enough. It was something deeper in me that could produce something better. Like a positive DNA test, they were absolutely right. The thing was, because I was usually so good at what I did, nobody really asked me to “go the extra mile”. I was better than par, but failed to live up to my fullest potential. And I wouldn’t have seen that, if it hadn’t been for somebody going out of their way to publish an article of mine that was less than par—probably much like this one, except I know that I’m not going back to make corrections or changes. This is sort of a scratch sheet for me (a grade above brainstorming). At any rate, the small press publisher saw what I was trying to say. However, I saw every misspelled word and incomplete sentence, and the like. I knew better, but I was so hell-bent on seeing my name in ink at that time that I forfeit the integrity to my work.
Even with the game that I submitted recently, I saw so many errors in the instructions (not so much grammatical as explanation) that had I let it rest a bit more perhaps the company would’ve been more enthused about the project to take it on. Don’t fret. I’m back at the drawing board working ever so hard, because they have faith that it can viable product—even if I happen to go with another company to represent me.
I am struggling still—if you missed the memo that I’m poor and broke—but I feel more empowered now than I did when I had money because of the education about money that I am currently undergoing. Instead of aching over the money I spent on many foolish things, money that could have been used a bit more wiser and perhaps gone a bit more further, I take pride that I’m a class of men and women that rose to great heights financial after having the wind knocked out of them. (I’m in a point in my book where the author found faith and amazement in rocks and water; in short, if the Infinite Intelligence (politically correct for God) can create those things including my intelligence, He has also created me to use it along with instilled faith to fulfill my fullest potential, be it financial or whatever else. I’m know I’m not explaining it the best I can but if you happened to read The Master-Key to Riches by Napoleon Hill, you’ll understand far better than I can explain it without giving you the book.)
However, unlike many of my friends that are waiting for some magic money boat to come in just so they can then take a glance at some financial options, financial literacy, to do their own thing, I decided to take the proactive approach and hope to steady come into enough to hit the ground running, knowing what I can do, what I need to do, so I can do what I want to do, to be in a position where I am financially free of any negative debt, financially stable, financially secure, and financially comfortable. What does that spell—rich!
Just because the television and the radio tell me how bad it is out there doesn’t mean I can’t at least try. Hell, when they were telling me that things were going good, I barely got kiss of it. So why not get mine while everybody else is moping around! I know it’s seriously bad out there, perhaps as bad as many of us have ever seen it and by forecast still has a way to go down before rock bottom. However, that is why I believe that it is more vital now more than ever to get financially educated.
Think about it, when things were going good too many people took the word of somebody they thought knew more than they only to get their face cracked with messed up 401(K), IRA, etc., etc. I ended up getting in the financial hole that I dug for myself because I listened to unqualified school financial aid officers that fail to tell me the full scope of my options and had me signing student loans left and right, in essences being bitches for the pimp that is student loan companies.
I digress. It was the lack of education on my part and most Americans in our age group that were lead to jump off the cliff because we saw everybody else doing it. The same goes for everybody else as well with credit card debt, mortgages, and the like.
Financial education, everyone, financial education because while this country is poor, we are making somebody else rich with the debt we owe. I don’t know about you, I want to know who and I’m not completely satisfied with the answer that it is China and other nations. I want to know the middlemen in between.
And the tragedy is that most people are intimidated by expanding their vocabulary therefore avoiding a multitude of things, including financial literacy. I don’t know about you, but this world has a lot to offer and I want to do as much as I can with it as long as I got, preferably another 75 years or so. I’m not saying that a whole lot of money is needed to enjoy the simple pleasures of life—never that—but it would nice to know that if it comes with some cost I got it covered. Nicely covered and then some.
After that hurdle, what a lot of people fail to understand is that most of the financial books out there aren’t these complicated algorithms. It is very much expounding on philosophies we already know. The interesting this is that much of it has very little to do with money, as much as it does about how to apply money to your needs and wants. In fact, many of the books out there are pretty much one in the same. It’s very much reiterate what you do know and what you don’t know into your subconscious mind. With each book taking a different angle to it, either by explaining or promoting one aspect a bit better than the other.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many philosophies to financial books featuring advice that caters to those interested in long-term investments, short-term investments, specialized investments and the like. Not only that, there books written for the lazy investor to the most sophisticated investor.
Some are written for average people that want average advice. Those are usually set aside for people that aren’t going to strain themselves physically or mentally and just want enough to “get by” later on in life. That is for people that want to be average investors. Others go through easy to understand but probably not-so-easy execute plan about how to get financially sound. I must admit that I’m kind of partial to this. If it was that easy to do, wouldn’t everybody do it? With so many of my generation afraid of a little hard work, I figure more for me to get. The rest is technical in my opinion, and are for masochists that love for not-so-complicated things to be even more complicated for them to agonize over.
Like I said, there are a large group of people that don’t know where to start and are intimidated by increasing their vocabulary by a few extra words. I suggest start anywhere and let the book lead you to whatever (I got a list further down the line if you need a bit of help). A great number of them, especially some of the most recently published ones, have a reference points or quotes to other books. In my opinion, if it is a book that is easy but a come with a few complicated points or words, it is a book worth reading. Write it down the points or the words that you don’t understand and keep reading. When you come to a break look it up, and if it is still confusing keep reading. Because if you keep reading it will eventually explain itself out OR if and when you pick up another financial book it will break that or another point further down in context to be easily understood.
I got a stack of Stocks & Commodities magazine that about 80% I don’t get whatsoever. And that 20% I do get, I pretty much get it while I’m reading it, but have the time of my life trying to apply it to real application. Mostly because, in my opinion, I don’t have the luxury to play with a mock trading account to really get the sense of it. However, I never give up because when I do I may not hit the ground running but I will know enough to ask questions, and find someone that will have the answer.
But if it is a book that it totally out of your league, then put it down pick up another. If you’re smart, pick it up from the library so that it can be easily interchangeable.
If you need to break it in a little simpler, and more consistent, I recommend picking up some financial papers and magazines like Money, Smart Money, Fortune, Forbes, and the like before tackling The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, or your local Business Chronicle.
Most people have the luxury of cable to watch the various financial networks and shows. As for myself, I watch Consuelo Mack WealthTrack, Nightly Business Chronicle, Washington Week, and the like because I know that investing, though very interesting, is also very boring.
The people who are too easily excited about it are usually the one that often lose their shirts getting caught up in what the market say day to day.
Too many people freak out about the market going down and the market going up, not understanding that what goes up must come down and what stays down has to come up.
Follow a very popular stock one day minute by minute, second by second:
Let’s say we get up Monday morning right around the time the market opened and we got a stock that started at $108.48, it goes up and down in a matter of minutes in a range of the eight hours the market is opened. The high through that particular day was $196.04 and low was $70.65 with the market ending at $112.69 by the time the market closed.
Most people would bitch and moan that they lost $83.35 because all they saw was that high number of $196.04 and saw where it ended. Not realizing that it started at $108.48 and ended at $112.69, gaining a gross profit of $4.21 off of that stock.
That’s how most people got played with their 401(K), being told that it was worth one thing, but once the dust settled realized it wasn’t what they thought. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but hopefully enough to get you or someone you know interested in getting financially educated.
Trust me, I know.
Earlier this year, I invested 2,000 shares of a company.
Sounds like I’m a big baller right?
Oh, how wrong you would be!
I bought it on the ground floor for half a penny—you read it right—a half a penny to go up to its high of seven or eight cents. (For those trying to do the math, I’ll give you the break down in a minute, so be patient.)
Do I think that I’m going to get rich with this stock? Most likely not.
But it is more than I see other people do. Next to my brother and a cousin there aren’t too many people that I know personally that even bother. I tell some people that I own 2,000 shares of a company it’s like telling them that I crossed Antarctica barefooted, little do they know or understand that it cost only $10 to do so.
Then, when you introduce someone to the world of stocks and bonds, there is also Forex (like stocks except with world currency), ETF, Mutual Funds, SEC Investments, Asset Protection, and the like.
Even thought I’m not rich, I do have a strong idea of how the rich got rich and stay rich through investments, real estate, businesses, and the like.
It a great psychological change, especially if you were brought up to believe that there is more nobility in being poor than in being rich. You know the phrase, “the rich are greedy and dishonest”. Yet, “Roscoe” with his broke-ass was always greedy and dishonest and yet it didn’t pay off for him. So I go back to the question, what’s the difference?
I’m not suggesting that poor or rich alike are all criminals. But what I am suggesting that to each its own. There are good poor people. There are good rich people. There are bad poor people. There are bad rich people. It should go without saying, but I shall say it anyway. I want to be a good rich person. And just because I say that I want to be rich doesn’t mean that I want to be consumed with money. I just don’t want to be consumed with poverty. I realize that family and good friends, spirituality and health with forever trump any monetary value that is put on dollars and coins. My thing of it is, if it is out there to be got, why not you or I? Especially when I can find a way to do it legally and help other forms of humanity in the process?
One of the greatest lessons I have learned from my reading is that if you keep a poor mind about money, there isn’t anything else but to keep a poor mind about money. I didn’t understand how true that was until I started reading books about being financially empowered from people within my own race. I can’t even begin to tell you the grief that I’ve gotten about reading financial literacy books out in my daily commute. I think I would’ve gotten more love if I was robbing people the way some people carried on. And the hilarious part about it it’s usually people that will tell you that they don’t like to read.
Wow, I realize when I can go, I can go, and I need to get out of the door, so I will wrap this up.
Many of the books that I have read or listen to over the past four years (and to my surprise many of them I have read or listen to more than once):
The Science of Getting Rich
by Wallace D. Wattles
Think, and Grow Rich
by Napoleon Hill
As a Man Thinketh
by James Allen
The Secret
By Rhonda Byrne
The Road to Wealth
by Suze Orman
The Millionaire Next Door
Thomas Danko
Operation Financial Freedom
by James Dicks
Think Big and Kick Ass
by Donald Trump
The Money Answer Book
by Dave Ramsey
The Law of Success
by Napoleon Hill
Young, Fabulous and Broke
by Suze Orman
Rich Dad, Poor Dad
by Robert Kiyosaki
Black Enterprise: Guide to Investing
by James A. Anderson
Trump: How to Get Rich
by Donald Trump
The Magic Ladder to Success
by Napoleon Hill
Success Stories
by Robert Kiyosaki
The Laws of Money
by Suze Orman
Think Like A Champion
by Donald Trump
The Courage to be Rich
by Suze Orman
Financial Peace
by Dave Ramsey
Trump 101
by Donald Trump
CASHFLOW Quadrant
by Robert Kiyosaki
Focal Point
by Brian Tracy
More Than Enough
by Dave Ramsey
Trump: Think Like A Billionaire
by Donald Trump
Young, Fabulous and Broke
by Suze Orman
Rich Dad’s Prophecy
by Robert Kiyosaki
Napoleon Hill’s Positive Action Plan: 365 Mediations for Making Each Day A Success
by Napoleon Hill
The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success
by Brian Tracy
Guide to Investing
by Robert Kiyosaki
Multiple Streams of Income
by Robert G. Allen
Sudden Money
By Susan Bradley
Why We Want You to Be Rich
by Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump
In The Black
by Aaron W. Smith
The Total Money Makeover
by Dave Ramsey
The World is Flat
By Thomas L. Friedman
(not a finance book but very informative)
Forex Made Easy
by James Dicks
The Master-Key to Riches
by Napoleon Hill
Rich Brother, Rich Sister
by Robert Kiyosaki
This isn’t all of the books that I read in the Financial/Prosperity/Self-Help, etc. Genres
I am not stating that these books will give you rich alone. If so, I would already be there. lol. However, I have come to appreciate greatly how it has changed my outlook and even calmed me down mentally so that it’ll get me to that place of financial freedom and financial wealth. Investing and financial intelligence isn’t an arms race. If somebody told me four years ago that I had to read all of that I would’ve looked at them crooked. The time passed anyway so why not get away with learning something substantial?
If you happen to follow my reading material on Twitter and Facebook, I don’t have to go out of my way to tell you that it is on the line of financial education and financial prosperity. I know to most that sounds like a major contradiction for a fiction writer. Shouldn’t I limit my reading to fictional items? In the mind of the narrow-minded, of course, I should stick to reading that revolves around my craft. However, I was blessed not to be a member of the narrow-minded class. Hence, the reason I never wanted to go to school for writing. I just feel that I’m too multi-faceted for this one-dimensional world that operates on one-dimensional thought, because regardless of my craft, I need to know as much as I can about finances to sustain me. Nothing stifles creativity like the looming obese bully called debt. Also, I never could read and write in the same genre at the same time, giving me a wonderful opportunity to alternate between reading and writing throughout the day without currents crossing over or causing any major confusion.
I can’t begin to tell you how many writers and aspiring writers I know that have subconsciously changed up writing styles during their writing process to reflect their reading material, either to lose momentum in their own project after they put their leisurely read down or drafting characters that lack cohesive definitions.
(And to those that are really interested, my next fiction read is How To Sell by Clancy Martin. that I hope to get to within the next couple of weeks or so, after I wrap up another book Rich Brother, Rich Sister by Robert Kiyosaki and Emi (Vereable Tenzin Katcho) Kiyosaki)
As “down in the delta” broke as am, I am always surprised at the great amount of hope these books offer to me and my circumstance. That it is possible to come up from my circumstance. That it is possible to overcome and achieve or overachieve. Most importantly, it has offered me an education that most people lack, including many that are apart of the so-called “educated” class of our society.
It is also great feeling to know things that even the most educated people don’t or won’t, particularly when most people just get their degrees and because of that feel like their education process suddenly stops or can only be achieved by a certain group of people.
It taught—or rather affirmed for me—that there was a distinct difference between an academic education and financial education. It afforded me the wonderful opportunity to discover the three primary kinds of income:
1. Earned Income
2. Portfolio Income
3. Passive Income
What they are, how I can tap into them and their various tax benefits and loses (I think listed from greatest taxed to least taxed). How to take my novice accounting skills to read a financial statement (not bank statement; there is a difference). Distinguish between a financial salesman, a financial planner, and a Certified Financial Planner. It has even given me insight to various real estate options that aren’t always talked about in the public or the media. I can go on and on and probably will once I get started.
Quite honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to come across if I wasn’t poor. A good portion of the time I’m strapped to the bus or train and being that I grew up on it, there isn’t much new to see for the long commutes. So I grab a book or now an e-audio book and listen as I got about my day. Why not do something productive with my time in the meantime other than look aimlessly at people or get lost in unproductive thought? Even when I’m driving (which is rare nowadays), I pop in a CD and listen as I drive. Let’s be real there aren’t too many great songs on the radio, and if so you have to go through a thousand and one commercials along with some chatty DJ talking much to do about nothing.
And the funny tragedy is that so many people wait to come into some money before they help themselves to financial literacy when in fact that’s when it’s often too late. Because nine times out of ten a person that comes into money aren’t going to pursue a financial education until AFTER they bought themselves and a few family members whatever they wanted and are trying to save their last few pennies. Then, too, so many of them are repulsed by the idea of budgeting, which is often a synonym for financial planning, and hence suggesting that one has to go without. Not understanding that it isn’t the case, but rather watching where your money goes. If it is going to go out the door, why not find out where it goes?
To me, it has grown financial literary has increasingly important, not because of the hogwash on television but because we live in a society that values money. Yet, if I was to ask the most frugal person to the most materialistic person how money works, nobody can tell me. I don’t mean you need money to spend money, but why are so people rich and others are poor?
To clarify the question, how do some people get rich and others stay poor?
The sad part about it, it has very little to do with intellect. It is important, don’t get me wrong, but lets be real about it. It isn’t like intellect equates to being financially prosperous or financially sound. I know some very talented intellectuals that can’t ever rub two dimes together. I know some dummies that all they can do is trip over money. I know people that floss and gloss like a million bucks but don’t have a penny to their name. I’ve know men and women that look like vagabonds and they’re sitting on bread that can carry over for a few lifetimes.
So please forgive me if I want to know how come. Just don’t get it twisted that I’m obsessed with it either. I thirst for the knowledge because I am certain that it will sustain me in oppose to useless facts that have very little to do with our lives. (I’m a historian and genealogist at heart, so I know that the past has a great influence in our present-day and future; however, I find it odd the curriculum that our education system offers has very little to do with current survival. Like knowing who won the War of 1812 is going to help me balance my checkbook so I can pay my bills! Which is scary within itself that are tens of thousands of people that can’t balance a checkbook much less read and/or comprehend. But that is a later topic.)
So why not invest time while I’m poor to find out the many options I have out there to become rich? Even if it never happens—though I work hard for that not to be the case—at a minimum I walk away with lessons of how a person can navigate through adversity to get to a means that have often proven to pay off for them.
And besides, to me, financial education in this stage of the game is the equivalent of not coming to a table full of food, a feast, because you’re hungry, “No thanks, I can’t eat because I’m hungry.”
It sounds silly right?
Well, we know a lot of people that say just that without those words. We hear “you can’t do that” or “it has never been done before” or “why do you want to do that”, etc., etc. If you pay close attention to their mouths you can often see the black hole that is their lives. There the ones that are so afraid of failing that they fail to even try to succeed, or do a wonderful job of telling you what you can’t do because they never could for whatever reason. Yet, and still do whatever they want with their time and energy, regardless of how asinine it is. (Like I got a cousin that told me he could never get rich but confessed that he spends close to $10Ka year on alcohol and other drugs. Do you know what I can do with $10K right now?!) Failure is apart of life. We’re going to fail at our best, and we are going to fail at our worst, anyway. So why not try and fail at something that might pay off?
I’ve fallen on my face so many times it isn’t funny, from life plans to life goals to just about anything that you can think of. I grew up believing that every failure was a failure and followed it up by going ballistic mentally, not as goal towards leading me towards greater success, like I tried that and it didn’t work so I will try something a bit different so that it might. We learn more from our failure than we do success. Think about it.
Even with writing. Writing is filled with constant rejection. While I’m writing this off-hand (meaning I don’t go back and check for errors, I just write it out, so don’t judge on this alone), the most frustrating thing in the world for me is that I’ve hardly ever been rejected on merit. For the most part, though I’ve gotten a few in my day, I’ve often been spared the generic rejection but given rejection that basically stated “close, but not close enough” for one reason or another. I have failed at game designed. Again, that personalized letter that states “close, but not quite there yet.”
The old me would have taken the glass half empty approach, but as I was reminded after I used to react badly to rejection that it wasn’t saying that I wasn’t good enough. It was something deeper in me that could produce something better. Like a positive DNA test, they were absolutely right. The thing was, because I was usually so good at what I did, nobody really asked me to “go the extra mile”. I was better than par, but failed to live up to my fullest potential. And I wouldn’t have seen that, if it hadn’t been for somebody going out of their way to publish an article of mine that was less than par—probably much like this one, except I know that I’m not going back to make corrections or changes. This is sort of a scratch sheet for me (a grade above brainstorming). At any rate, the small press publisher saw what I was trying to say. However, I saw every misspelled word and incomplete sentence, and the like. I knew better, but I was so hell-bent on seeing my name in ink at that time that I forfeit the integrity to my work.
Even with the game that I submitted recently, I saw so many errors in the instructions (not so much grammatical as explanation) that had I let it rest a bit more perhaps the company would’ve been more enthused about the project to take it on. Don’t fret. I’m back at the drawing board working ever so hard, because they have faith that it can viable product—even if I happen to go with another company to represent me.
I am struggling still—if you missed the memo that I’m poor and broke—but I feel more empowered now than I did when I had money because of the education about money that I am currently undergoing. Instead of aching over the money I spent on many foolish things, money that could have been used a bit more wiser and perhaps gone a bit more further, I take pride that I’m a class of men and women that rose to great heights financial after having the wind knocked out of them. (I’m in a point in my book where the author found faith and amazement in rocks and water; in short, if the Infinite Intelligence (politically correct for God) can create those things including my intelligence, He has also created me to use it along with instilled faith to fulfill my fullest potential, be it financial or whatever else. I’m know I’m not explaining it the best I can but if you happened to read The Master-Key to Riches by Napoleon Hill, you’ll understand far better than I can explain it without giving you the book.)
However, unlike many of my friends that are waiting for some magic money boat to come in just so they can then take a glance at some financial options, financial literacy, to do their own thing, I decided to take the proactive approach and hope to steady come into enough to hit the ground running, knowing what I can do, what I need to do, so I can do what I want to do, to be in a position where I am financially free of any negative debt, financially stable, financially secure, and financially comfortable. What does that spell—rich!
Just because the television and the radio tell me how bad it is out there doesn’t mean I can’t at least try. Hell, when they were telling me that things were going good, I barely got kiss of it. So why not get mine while everybody else is moping around! I know it’s seriously bad out there, perhaps as bad as many of us have ever seen it and by forecast still has a way to go down before rock bottom. However, that is why I believe that it is more vital now more than ever to get financially educated.
Think about it, when things were going good too many people took the word of somebody they thought knew more than they only to get their face cracked with messed up 401(K), IRA, etc., etc. I ended up getting in the financial hole that I dug for myself because I listened to unqualified school financial aid officers that fail to tell me the full scope of my options and had me signing student loans left and right, in essences being bitches for the pimp that is student loan companies.
I digress. It was the lack of education on my part and most Americans in our age group that were lead to jump off the cliff because we saw everybody else doing it. The same goes for everybody else as well with credit card debt, mortgages, and the like.
Financial education, everyone, financial education because while this country is poor, we are making somebody else rich with the debt we owe. I don’t know about you, I want to know who and I’m not completely satisfied with the answer that it is China and other nations. I want to know the middlemen in between.
And the tragedy is that most people are intimidated by expanding their vocabulary therefore avoiding a multitude of things, including financial literacy. I don’t know about you, but this world has a lot to offer and I want to do as much as I can with it as long as I got, preferably another 75 years or so. I’m not saying that a whole lot of money is needed to enjoy the simple pleasures of life—never that—but it would nice to know that if it comes with some cost I got it covered. Nicely covered and then some.
After that hurdle, what a lot of people fail to understand is that most of the financial books out there aren’t these complicated algorithms. It is very much expounding on philosophies we already know. The interesting this is that much of it has very little to do with money, as much as it does about how to apply money to your needs and wants. In fact, many of the books out there are pretty much one in the same. It’s very much reiterate what you do know and what you don’t know into your subconscious mind. With each book taking a different angle to it, either by explaining or promoting one aspect a bit better than the other.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many philosophies to financial books featuring advice that caters to those interested in long-term investments, short-term investments, specialized investments and the like. Not only that, there books written for the lazy investor to the most sophisticated investor.
Some are written for average people that want average advice. Those are usually set aside for people that aren’t going to strain themselves physically or mentally and just want enough to “get by” later on in life. That is for people that want to be average investors. Others go through easy to understand but probably not-so-easy execute plan about how to get financially sound. I must admit that I’m kind of partial to this. If it was that easy to do, wouldn’t everybody do it? With so many of my generation afraid of a little hard work, I figure more for me to get. The rest is technical in my opinion, and are for masochists that love for not-so-complicated things to be even more complicated for them to agonize over.
Like I said, there are a large group of people that don’t know where to start and are intimidated by increasing their vocabulary by a few extra words. I suggest start anywhere and let the book lead you to whatever (I got a list further down the line if you need a bit of help). A great number of them, especially some of the most recently published ones, have a reference points or quotes to other books. In my opinion, if it is a book that is easy but a come with a few complicated points or words, it is a book worth reading. Write it down the points or the words that you don’t understand and keep reading. When you come to a break look it up, and if it is still confusing keep reading. Because if you keep reading it will eventually explain itself out OR if and when you pick up another financial book it will break that or another point further down in context to be easily understood.
I got a stack of Stocks & Commodities magazine that about 80% I don’t get whatsoever. And that 20% I do get, I pretty much get it while I’m reading it, but have the time of my life trying to apply it to real application. Mostly because, in my opinion, I don’t have the luxury to play with a mock trading account to really get the sense of it. However, I never give up because when I do I may not hit the ground running but I will know enough to ask questions, and find someone that will have the answer.
But if it is a book that it totally out of your league, then put it down pick up another. If you’re smart, pick it up from the library so that it can be easily interchangeable.
If you need to break it in a little simpler, and more consistent, I recommend picking up some financial papers and magazines like Money, Smart Money, Fortune, Forbes, and the like before tackling The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, or your local Business Chronicle.
Most people have the luxury of cable to watch the various financial networks and shows. As for myself, I watch Consuelo Mack WealthTrack, Nightly Business Chronicle, Washington Week, and the like because I know that investing, though very interesting, is also very boring.
The people who are too easily excited about it are usually the one that often lose their shirts getting caught up in what the market say day to day.
Too many people freak out about the market going down and the market going up, not understanding that what goes up must come down and what stays down has to come up.
Follow a very popular stock one day minute by minute, second by second:
Let’s say we get up Monday morning right around the time the market opened and we got a stock that started at $108.48, it goes up and down in a matter of minutes in a range of the eight hours the market is opened. The high through that particular day was $196.04 and low was $70.65 with the market ending at $112.69 by the time the market closed.
Most people would bitch and moan that they lost $83.35 because all they saw was that high number of $196.04 and saw where it ended. Not realizing that it started at $108.48 and ended at $112.69, gaining a gross profit of $4.21 off of that stock.
That’s how most people got played with their 401(K), being told that it was worth one thing, but once the dust settled realized it wasn’t what they thought. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but hopefully enough to get you or someone you know interested in getting financially educated.
Trust me, I know.
Earlier this year, I invested 2,000 shares of a company.
Sounds like I’m a big baller right?
Oh, how wrong you would be!
I bought it on the ground floor for half a penny—you read it right—a half a penny to go up to its high of seven or eight cents. (For those trying to do the math, I’ll give you the break down in a minute, so be patient.)
Do I think that I’m going to get rich with this stock? Most likely not.
But it is more than I see other people do. Next to my brother and a cousin there aren’t too many people that I know personally that even bother. I tell some people that I own 2,000 shares of a company it’s like telling them that I crossed Antarctica barefooted, little do they know or understand that it cost only $10 to do so.
Then, when you introduce someone to the world of stocks and bonds, there is also Forex (like stocks except with world currency), ETF, Mutual Funds, SEC Investments, Asset Protection, and the like.
Even thought I’m not rich, I do have a strong idea of how the rich got rich and stay rich through investments, real estate, businesses, and the like.
It a great psychological change, especially if you were brought up to believe that there is more nobility in being poor than in being rich. You know the phrase, “the rich are greedy and dishonest”. Yet, “Roscoe” with his broke-ass was always greedy and dishonest and yet it didn’t pay off for him. So I go back to the question, what’s the difference?
I’m not suggesting that poor or rich alike are all criminals. But what I am suggesting that to each its own. There are good poor people. There are good rich people. There are bad poor people. There are bad rich people. It should go without saying, but I shall say it anyway. I want to be a good rich person. And just because I say that I want to be rich doesn’t mean that I want to be consumed with money. I just don’t want to be consumed with poverty. I realize that family and good friends, spirituality and health with forever trump any monetary value that is put on dollars and coins. My thing of it is, if it is out there to be got, why not you or I? Especially when I can find a way to do it legally and help other forms of humanity in the process?
One of the greatest lessons I have learned from my reading is that if you keep a poor mind about money, there isn’t anything else but to keep a poor mind about money. I didn’t understand how true that was until I started reading books about being financially empowered from people within my own race. I can’t even begin to tell you the grief that I’ve gotten about reading financial literacy books out in my daily commute. I think I would’ve gotten more love if I was robbing people the way some people carried on. And the hilarious part about it it’s usually people that will tell you that they don’t like to read.
Wow, I realize when I can go, I can go, and I need to get out of the door, so I will wrap this up.
Many of the books that I have read or listen to over the past four years (and to my surprise many of them I have read or listen to more than once):
The Science of Getting Rich
by Wallace D. Wattles
Think, and Grow Rich
by Napoleon Hill
As a Man Thinketh
by James Allen
The Secret
By Rhonda Byrne
The Road to Wealth
by Suze Orman
The Millionaire Next Door
Thomas Danko
Operation Financial Freedom
by James Dicks
Think Big and Kick Ass
by Donald Trump
The Money Answer Book
by Dave Ramsey
The Law of Success
by Napoleon Hill
Young, Fabulous and Broke
by Suze Orman
Rich Dad, Poor Dad
by Robert Kiyosaki
Black Enterprise: Guide to Investing
by James A. Anderson
Trump: How to Get Rich
by Donald Trump
The Magic Ladder to Success
by Napoleon Hill
Success Stories
by Robert Kiyosaki
The Laws of Money
by Suze Orman
Think Like A Champion
by Donald Trump
The Courage to be Rich
by Suze Orman
Financial Peace
by Dave Ramsey
Trump 101
by Donald Trump
CASHFLOW Quadrant
by Robert Kiyosaki
Focal Point
by Brian Tracy
More Than Enough
by Dave Ramsey
Trump: Think Like A Billionaire
by Donald Trump
Young, Fabulous and Broke
by Suze Orman
Rich Dad’s Prophecy
by Robert Kiyosaki
Napoleon Hill’s Positive Action Plan: 365 Mediations for Making Each Day A Success
by Napoleon Hill
The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success
by Brian Tracy
Guide to Investing
by Robert Kiyosaki
Multiple Streams of Income
by Robert G. Allen
Sudden Money
By Susan Bradley
Why We Want You to Be Rich
by Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump
In The Black
by Aaron W. Smith
The Total Money Makeover
by Dave Ramsey
The World is Flat
By Thomas L. Friedman
(not a finance book but very informative)
Forex Made Easy
by James Dicks
The Master-Key to Riches
by Napoleon Hill
Rich Brother, Rich Sister
by Robert Kiyosaki
This isn’t all of the books that I read in the Financial/Prosperity/Self-Help, etc. Genres
I am not stating that these books will give you rich alone. If so, I would already be there. lol. However, I have come to appreciate greatly how it has changed my outlook and even calmed me down mentally so that it’ll get me to that place of financial freedom and financial wealth. Investing and financial intelligence isn’t an arms race. If somebody told me four years ago that I had to read all of that I would’ve looked at them crooked. The time passed anyway so why not get away with learning something substantial?
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