Health 101: Foods that Help You Stay Focused

I read an interesting article about foods that can help you to stay focused. The thing that really stuck out to me is that it’s not one single food that helps you to stay focused, it’s the full diet. Eating foods that keep your energy levels up, but not too high, can help you to have greater concentration and focus.

This is important to understand and I think most people do. However, oftentimes I think we wish there were a magic food or pill that we could take to give us all the nutrients we need. It just doesn’t exist.

One thing that the article points out is to stay away from foods that give you too big of a high like coffee and sodas. They give you a nice boost, but the low that comes after causes you to loose concentration.

Just like eating a diet full of good foods takes some time to implement, figuring out how to stay focused on your money maker is a lifestyle that has to be learned. If you cheat a little here and there on your money makers, the lows may be too much to recover from and you may end up losing focus on the things that make you money.

Does the Robin Hood theory work?

There was an interesting article at msn.com yesterday that estimated the net worth of all the current millionaires (10.1 million millionaires) in the world to be around $41 trillion.

I began to ask myself if they could really support the whole world with their money or if there is a limited amount that even the richest of the rich can do for mankind.  Call it the Robin Hood theory.  Take from the rich and give to the poor.

Can $41 trillion really support all of mankind?  I took the $41 trillion and divided it by the worlds current population of 6.7 billion people.  The answer is a measly $6119.40 for each person. I can’t even survive two months on that amount.

Granted, my cost of living is a lot higher than someone in remote Africa.  I understand that.  $6119.40 might be more than they could ever make in an entire lifetime.  However, I think it’s fair to say that it would be impossible for the richest of the rich to take care and support the worlds population with money alone.  So the question then becomes, whom do they take care of first?

This question alone has made me realize why the richest just don’t give their money away for free.  They are taking care of themselves first, family second, community third, and so on until they get to the remote places of the world.  Though they might be over the top with taking care of themselves first (I still don’t see the point in a $20 million home), I believe that most of the wealthy are in fact helping a great number of people.  Can they help more?  Yes, but they can’t help everyone so someone has to be left out.  So who do you leave out?

Your Image, Your Money: Led Zeppelin

What is the worth of a song?  According to Portfolio.com, $572 million plus.  That’s right, Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin is estimated to be worth $572 million and counting.

Led Zeppelin have found their money maker in a single song.  Sure they have a portfolio of great hits, but Stairway to Heaven is by far their biggest cash cow and they know it.  It is their image.

So how did they turn a single song into the money maker it is today?  First, its a great song.  It is one of the most requested songs of all time.  Every time the song gets played on the radio or otherwise, they make money.

Second, they didn’t whore it out.  They were very selective of when and where it was released.  It was never made a single because Zeppelin wanted to make people purchase the whole album.  By purchasing the whole album, Zeppelin made more in royalties.

Third, they use it to generate sales of their other songs.  Cadillac targeted baby boomers in a 2002 ad featuring “Rock and Roll”, another song of Zeppelin.  Cadillac knew that baby boomers would be drawn to an ad that had Zeppelin playing.  Zeppelin could have used Stairway to Heaven, but instead keeps it close to home for the perfect deal.  Now that companies know that Zeppelin is licensing their songs, the longer Zeppelin holds out on Stairway, the larger the price it will fetch to the lucky bidder.  In the meantime, companies are licensing Zeppelins other songs.

There are some important lessons you can learn from Zeppelin.  Once you have your money maker image, take care of it and you will reap the rewards over the long run.

My Mentor: Harry Swensen

We all have mentors that have guided us in our lives.  You probably even have many mentors for different aspects of your lives.  The same can be said for your money makers.  Different money makers have different mentors.  In My Mentor, we will try to highlight all the many mentors that have influenced our lives.

Today’s mentor is Harry Swensen.  Harry happens to be my father-in-law and it just so happens that he is the most frugal person I have ever met.  Some might even call him cheap (not me of course:).  I’ve never seen him splurge on anything brand new, buy the latest and greatest, or even take his wife to a new release movie.  That’s not to say that he doesn’t have nice things or take his wife out on dates.  He does.  He just refuses to pay full price for anything.

My wife is always telling me stories of her dad and how he influenced her while she was growing up.  One of her favorite stories to tell is how her dad actually looked forward to getting “toilet papered”.  Toilet papering involves kids that throw rolls of toilet paper all over your yard and trees as a prank.  Harry actually liked to get toilet papered.  He would get out in the morning and gather all the toilet paper and put it into trash bags.  He would then bring the bags into the house and instruct his family that they were to use the toilet paper until it was all gone.  He liked the fact that he wouldn’t have to use his own money on toilet paper for a few weeks.

I know this is somewhat extreme, but he has had a good influence on my wife and I.  It’s nice having a wife that has the mindset of frugal living.  This was taught to her by her dad.  I don’t have to worry about my wife racking up unnecessary debt.  Nor do I need to please her with an extravagant lifestyle.  This in turn has helped me to focus on the things that will help our family be successful in the long run.  Because of this I have extra money to pursue side projects outside of my regular employment.

As for the art of frugal living, I am not as extreme as Harry.  However, learning from Harry I have been able to find areas in my own life that I can cut back on.  This in turn has kept me from consumer debt and has laid a solid foundation for regular savings.  My mentor, Harry Swensen.

Have your own mentors?  Share them with us in the comments section.

Your Image, Your Money: Tiger Woods

Have you ever wondered why Tiger Woods has no visible tattoos, no piercings, doesn’t wear hip hop clothing, nor does he have excessive “bling”? The answer is rather simple. Tiger Woods understands that his image is his money maker.

Tiger Woods has earned $100,890,709 in career tournament earnings. However, he has made $668,550,000 in endorsements. So what does that mean? 86% of Tiger Woods earnings come from endorsements, not golf. Endorsements are all about image. Tiger Woods understands that he is trying to sell a product to a middle class male. He’s not selling to the inner city kids.

If it were simply about golf for Tiger Woods, he could dress how he wants to, drive what he wants to, act how he wants to, but Tiger Woods understands that golf isn’t his true money maker. Sure, it got him to where he is at, but keep in mind that the money he has made from golf is only 14% of his total earnings.

We can learn an important lesson from athletes like Tiger Woods. Your image is your money maker. Companies with dress codes understand this concept. They institute a dress code to take away your image. They want you to represent the company, not yourself.

The same can be said for your money maker. You represent your money maker, not yourself. Build your image around your money maker. If your money maker is selling Harley Davidsons, how would you dress? Would you wear a suit and tie? Tattoos or no tattoos?

Tiger Woods sells to the middle class male. That’s why he endorses Buick and not Lamborgini.

Ryne’s Lemonade

Ryne had been bugging his dad for weeks and weeks and weeks to help him build a lemonade stand. Finally, on memorial weekend, his dad drove him over to the local Home Depot to pick up some materials. After a few hours of building, Ryne was open for business. Though he lives on the end of a dead end street, by the end of the weekend, Ryne had made $28, just shy of his goal of $30.

Even though Ryne is not quite a teenager, not yet a millionaire, not a licensed business owner, his parents aren’t Donald Trump or Warren Buffett, we can still learn a lot from his simple story.

Lesson 1. “Ryne had been bugging his dad for weeks and weeks and weeks to help him build a lemonade stand.” Often times when you are first starting up your business or pitching your idea, nobody wants to listen. It takes perseverance on your part to show those around you that you believe in your idea and that you will do whatever it takes to get it up and running. This is important to the success of your idea. If you are trying to get funding or backing for your idea and you just throw away your idea after the first “No, I’m not interested”, you will never be successful in getting your idea off the ground. In contrast, if you can show those that said “no” that you won’t let your idea slip by the wayside and you keep at it, eventually someone will listen and you will get the backing that you need.

Lesson 2. Ryne had asked his dad to help him build the lemonade stand. We all need help. No matter how intelligent you think you are, you need to get help from those around you. Ryne probably knows how to use a hammer, spray paint and saw, but he doesn’t yet have the skills to build something that is square and sturdy. He probably could have figured out how to build the stand on his own, but he saved himself a lot of time by asking his dad to help him build the stand. By saving himself the time it would have taken him to build it on his own, he was able to get the stand up and running and MAKING MONEY in just a few hours.

Just like Ryne, when you are first pitching your idea, surround yourself with people that have done it before. Ask for help from those that have already paved the way in front of you. By doing this you will save yourself the headaches of missing the details. I am a firm believer that most small business fail, not because the product or the idea is bad, simply because it took the owner too long to work through the details and they ran out of funding.

Lesson 3. Ryne lived at the end of a dead end street, but was still able to almost meet his goal. How did he do it? He wasn’t blessed to have a prime location for his lemonade stand. It wasn’t on a busy road, near a local store with lots of traffic, or even by a park on a hot summers day. It was on a dead end street. He did it by telling his friends about the stand. His friends eventually told their friends and their friends told their friends. By the end of the weekend, he had people from all over the neighborhood buying his lemonade with zero advertising dollars.

Often times you may want to keep your ideas secret. Maybe you don’t want people to know what you are planning to do because you are afraid that if it fails, you will be ridiculed. Maybe you have some sensitive ideas that you can’t openly share so you don’t share any of the details of your idea. Whatever the reason that you don’t share your idea, you are only hurting yourself. Eventually for you idea to succeed, people need to know about it. Don’t hold back and share as much of the idea as you can. Pretty soon your idea will gain momentum if your idea really is that good.

There are millions of stories out in the world that are just like Ryne’s. The trick is learning how to spot them and learning what to apply from them. This is what Focus On Your Money Maker is designed to help you with. As we find more stories and you begin to share your comments and stories in your own life, we can all learn the lessons of what it truly means to Focus On Your Money Maker.

Budget your Budget

We all know that we need to have a budget if we want to be successful in making money. The problem I have found is that we sit down and make a budget and then we forget about it. Three months later, nothing has changed and we still have the same financial problems that we had when we first sat down and made a budget. Why? Because we forgot to budget time to follow up on our budget.

This happens all the time. It happens to me and it happens to many of you. You have good intentions to get your finances in order and you sit down and make a budget. Your budget looks good and you are super motivated to set your finances straight. The next day you forget about your budget and fall back into the same habits that got you into the position you are in today. You eat out too much, you drive too much, you don’t save enough, and by the end of three months, you are back to square one and you sit down to make another budget.

This time you try to figure out where your first budget went wrong and the cycle repeats itself. The funny thing is you never gave your first budget a fighting chance. In the words of Ron Popeil, owner of the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie Grill, you “set it and forget it”. However, instead of making the perfect rotisserie chicken, you have killed your budget.

Because this is a common practice for me and for many people, we have to schedule time to go over our budget on a regular basis. Or in other words, Budget time for our Budget. I recommend setting a little time everyday after you are home for the evening to go over your budget for the day. Do this religiously for the first 30 to 60 days. The reason, if you set time aside everyday, the stuff that you spent money on that day is fresh on your mind. This will keep you from looking at your budget a week later and see a charge on your charge card for $15 and wonder where it came from (it just so happens that every time I get a haircut and I look at my bank statement, I wonder what the charge is for).

After you have done this religiously for the first 30 to 60 days you will start to feel more comfortable with your budget and can start to scale back the amount of time that you spend on it. Start with a couple of times a week, then move to once a week, but never go more than a month without going over your budget.

Budgeting time for your budget is just as important as the budget itself. Stick with it and you will give legs to your budget and it will take off running. You’ll have more savings and greater control over your spending habits.

Health 101: Yoga as a Money Maker

MSN.com has an interesting article stating that you can use Yoga to help make you money. From the article:

“Take a minute right now to breathe deeply into your lower abdomen. Don’t force yourself to hold your breath or breathe too slowly, but instead relax all tension and let gravity pull the oxygen into the lowest part of your lungs. As you do this, totally relax your stomach muscles and solar plexus.

It is virtually impossible to be anxious about money with a relaxed solar plexus and belly. If you use yoga to create real relief during moments of acute financial stress, you can avoid making rash decisions — for instance, bailing out of a sound investment strategy prematurely. That, in turn, will help you live the financial life you most yearn for in the long term.”

Though the article doesn’t specifically state that you can make money by doing yoga, what it is stating is that the principles in yoga can help you to stay focused on what you are doing financially. This is one of the important concepts of focusing on your money maker. Learning how to take the emotion out of your decisions will always help you to make the right decisions. Yoga is all about self control and by learning those principles you can learn to apply them to your financial goals.

Hit the link for the full article.

Health 101: Why Your Health is Your Money Maker

One thing that we tend to forget about money making is our health.  If you are feeling good, eating right, and in good shape, it really does help you to make money.

One of the constant features we will run on Focus On Your Money Maker is learning how to take care of yourself.  Just remember that if you are sick, or worse off dead, you aren’t making money.

Being the first post of this series, I just want to start out small.  It’s almost summer and the weather can be really nice on some days.  It’s important to take advantage of these opportunities.  Just go outside and read a book, take a walk, do anything outdoors.  It doesn’t matter what it is, but there is something to be said about feeling the sun and breathing clean air.  It really does do wonders to our attitude and helps you to regain focus on the important things.

As we continue this series, we will take an in depth look at getting ourselves in physical and mental shape.  It takes a keen mind to stay focused on your money makers.

Tips for Selling Your House in a Tough Market: Use the Buyers Agent to Obtain the Best Price

We all know that the housing market isn’t what it was two years ago. Houses are sitting on the market longer and prices are dropping across the nation. The problem is that you may be forced to sell your house for various reasons (re-locating, loss of job, ARM moving to a higher rate, etc.). Suppose you do have to sell your house in a tough market, what can you do to get the best price possible?

Scenario: Your house has been on the market for 120 days and you get your first offer. The offer comes in $20,000 less than your asking price. If you accept the offer you are set to lose $5,000. Do you accept the first offer without negotiating because you are afraid if you don’t accept it, you won’t see another offer for an additional 120 days?

This sort of scenario is commonplace in a bear market. The numbers will be different, but the story is the same.

One thing that you can do is use the buyers agent to feel out the offer. The buyers agent is in a great position. She understands her client and knows how firm the position really is. Knowing this, it is important to understand the buyers agent and her motivations.  The buyers agent has two motivations:

1. The buyers agent wants a higher price for a larger commission. (Some people will argue that the are trying to get the lowest price for their client. I disagree simply because a lower price is a lesser commission and the buyers agent is in it to make money just like everyone else.)

2. The buyers agent wants to get her client to buy a house as fast as possible so as to make her commission. (She doesn’t make anything until the deal is done.)

Knowing the motivations of the buyers agent, we can now use them to get us (the seller) the best price that the buyer is willing to pay for the house.

To do this all you have to do is call up the buyers agent and start asking some questions about the buyer. Did they like the house? What were some of their comments as they walked through the house? (These two questions are for you to see if the buyer is emotionally attached to your house or just looking to get a good deal) Are there any other houses that they have made offers on recently? (Again, this questions is to see what sort of person is looking to buy the house. If they have made a few recent offers on other houses, chances are they are low-balling on all their offers looking for a good deal) I need to make a small counteroffer, how do you think you client will respond? (This question is great because you will be able to see what sort of price range the person really has and can afford. Notice how I said a “small counteroffer”. This lets the buyers agent know that you really want to get the deal done soon and taps into both of HER motivations.)

These are just a few samples of questions that you can ask. By asking the right questions, you can get a good feel for the offer on your house and whether or not you should accept it without making a counteroffer. If the answers to your questions are cold and it doesn’t seem that you should make a counteroffer, then your best option may be to accept the first offer and take a small hit because who knows when the next offer will come around. If you get a good response from the agent (the client LOVED the house, I think they could move a little on a small counteroffer, etc.) then feel confident to make a counteroffer to get a better price for your home.