Annoyance

Something annoyed me a few days ago.  I was talking to a friend and he was saying how bad the economy was, and giving the doom and gloom speech about how the little man can’t get ahead.  He makes $21,000 more than I do, yet seems to be living paycheck to paycheck.  He’s convinced that “more money” is the solution to his problem.  So he’s gone out and got a side job.  And a side sales business.  I wish him well, but unless he changes his attitude, then he’s going to fail.  

Blaming “the economy” is just another gigantic copout that people do when they don’t want to accept responsibility for the mistakes they’ve made in their life.  Yes, finding work can be hard.  But if you are a bad ass, then you will find work.  It may not be in your field, but you can find work.  All you need is a “getting by” job to keep your head afloat while you find your wonderful job. 

But then many people need more than a getting by job because they’ve spent every single penny they made, trying to keep up with the Joneses and listening to the age old lie that you have to spend money to make money and you should “fake it until you make it”.  Which is completely hilarious.  Because “The Millionaire Next Door” says exactly the opposite, and that’s based off research of ACTUAL millionaires.  These are people who are worth a million dollars, and they know how to make money and hold on to it.  As a general rule, the rest are gigantic underachievers of wealth.  Of which I am too, but I’m making progress and I have a plan to change that.

More than likely, my friend has never put pen to paper and figure out what in the world is going on.  With what they make and what they pay in rent, that family should be banking.  But they aren’t.  And I can tell that just from the way they talk.  Because they are up to their eyeballs and debt and they talk like the “the economy” is bad.  They haven’t taken responsibility for their actions and accepted that the problem is right between their ears. 

I should probably spend some time working on them, but it’s going to be a hard sell.   I mean, how can a guy making a lot less than you tell you how you need to run your finances?  Even though my advice comes from works written by millionaires and by plans created by wealthy people.  We’ll see.   We’ll see.

Discipline

It looks like the discipline is starting to pay off.  Although it doesn’t seem like it now, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that light is not a train.  I’m on day two of waking up at 5:45, and making progress through the ICND 2 book.  I need to get me a new set of headphones and microphones so I can go back to my recording.  But that’s not going to happen right now.  I’m not broke, but I’m not going to push the envelope with useless purchases.  Anything I get right now either has a need right now or it doesn’t get purchased. 

On the plus side, I won’t have Internet at the house until the first.  How can that be a plus side?  Simple… very few distractions.  If you have no distractions, you get done what you need to do unless your brain is just jumping through crazy that day.  I’ve had those days.  But with a lack of TV and Internet, it hasn’t been as bad.  I guess I feel less stressed when I don’t have either.  Kind of cool, actually. 

I’ve always wanted to learn a new language, so I’ve started on that as well.  I think maybe my brain wants to do eighteen different things, and if I ignore it for too long, it becomes obsessive about whatever it is I’m trying to ignore.  So what I’m going to do is simply give it what it wants the first 20 minutes of my day.  I’m probably looking at 20 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for 20 weeks.  We’ll see how far I’ve made it then.  Could be amazing.  Could be nothing.  I have also found that something with interaction first thing in the morning works a lot better than reading dense material about PVST+ or other mind-bogglingly wonderful concepts.  Sure, Spanning Tree Protocol is awesome in practice, but reading about it is about as interesting as pulling teeth. 

I still keep looking into methods to learn faster and retain information better.  I haven’t made any progress, as I’ve not really bought any books as of late.  But I’m starting to look.  I think it was Jim Quick who said “There’s no such thing as a good learner and a bad learner.  There is only a trained and untrained mind.”  And that resonated with me fairly deeply, as I’ve spent a lot of time studying to not remember a single bit of what I studied. 

So what I know is that what I’m doing isn’t working, yet I’m continuing to do the same thing, over and over again.  

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to get a different result. 

It’s about time to jump off the insanity treadmill.

Changes in scenery

I was going to write something about "The Millionaire Next Door", but I'm not going to do that.  I don't know what to say that hasn't already been said.   At the moment, I'm going to write about "Man of Valor" by Richard Exlev.   And I think before I fall off a cliff again, I'm going to go back to something I was doing that seemed to be helping me, despite the anger from my wife. 

I think I need to relearn discipline, because it seems to be slipping back and forth and in and out, and I'm not achieving what I want to achieve.  The subtle spastic-ness that always jumped into my life is returning, and I'm skipping between subjects like a squirrel on crack.   Five minutes on this subject, two minutes on this other one.   A minute here.  A minute there.   A start to this project, and an attempt to learn that subject.  

But in the end, it's all been spent time without anything gained.  No real jump in knowledge or intelligence.  No true growth.   As I was saying, I've been reading "Man of Valor" as a chapter a day devotional with the knowledge that my life needs something that I'm missing.  I don't know what, but I know where to look.  I'm just not spending the time and doing the looking in the way that I should. 

We moved from our old one bedroom apartment to a three bedroom duplex separated by the car port.  We have our own yard, and space for everyone.  We still have no Internet, as that hasn't been set up yet.  I would have expected better service as I told someone on Monday when we were moving Friday.  But the person I told was on vacation.  So it has been almost a week long respite from the normal cares of day to day life.  The only connection to the outside world right now is my iPhone and our various trips into town.   I say "into town" because we're about 10 miles outside of town on old military base housing.  It's actually kind of a neat neighborhood, if you aren't quite ready to buy.

Day by day, "Man of Valor" is providing a different way of looking at life.  And one of things it talks about that I know I'm missing right now is discipline.  Discipline is the key to all of it, and I should have learned that in the military.  It was always the basis of everything we did.  There was no "other thing" unless there was first discipline.  But how hard is it to do any of it?  None at all.  It just has to be done. 

"The Millionaire Next Door" also talks about discipline, but as a means of a case study.  The people in the book were described as disciplined and fearless.  The only fears the entrepreneur seemed to have was of things they couldn't control.  But isn't that my real problem: a degree of fear?  Because I'm pushing myself towards an end goal with the hope that something will break and change, but is that really what's going to happen?  Are my fears justified: I can see what just two or three months of hard discipline is going to produce, but do I want to do it?  Am I going to have to take this road alone, or can I drag my wife, kicking and screaming, down the path with me. 

Because I'm really tired of going it alone and having to drag people along. 

Victory (for a while)

After months and months of fighting, it seems like things are starting to turn around.  Long term following of the budget has cleared a path and led to growth.  Everything I have asked for has been received, and moving is going to be a pleasure and not a risk.   

It’s a difference, when the fight seems all but won.  But it’s not over yet.  Just a brief reprieve.  There will be more fight later.  But not quite yet.  It’s time for an easy fight.  Congratulations on your success, but don’t rest on your laurels.  The fight will continue again…  just wait.  

edumacation

Let’s ignore the busyness for a bit.  Let’s talk about learning again.  I could complain about working 60 hours a week, but that is a waste of time.  It sounds like the petulant griping of a two year old.  So let’s ignore that.   I got distracted this morning before work by this Forbes article.    Or more appropriately, I was distracted by the implications.  I find my problem isn’t the ability to read quickly, it’s the ability recall what I have read.   But my definition of “quickness” is pathetic in comparison.  I’ve spent a decent amount of time learning how to augment my memory using technology because I’m operating off a false premise. 

I’m not terribly good at memorizing.  Facts, figures, numbers… all lost to me.  But those are what I need.  And if I recalled 1/3 of what I read the first time, I wouldn’t wake up early in order to learn more to move on and do better.   I’d be spending the time sleeping, and enjoying myself.  So I think my next educational thought is not what I need to learn.  It’s to learn how to learn.  And at 33, it’s about damn time I learned how to learn.