You have to crawl before you can walk!  How many times have you heard that phrase when learning something new?

The problem is that many times we’re too impatient to spend the time crawling in order to walk.  We tend to overcomplicate things by focusing on how much we want what we’re trying to crawl towards and on what short cuts can be found to get there.

If we could put the same effort into crawling, we’d get where we’re headed faster and with less frustration. 

Crawling Backwards

Take for example, our little girl.  She’s been working on crawling for a while and finally figured it out. Now we’re in trouble!

She’d see something she wanted, put her head down, and start crawling.  The only problem was that she couldn’t coordinate her arms and legs so she’d end up pushing herself backwards!  Sound familiar? You’re trying as hard as you can but feel like you’re moving away from what you want, instead of towards it.

I know she would get frustrated, especially when she ended literally up backing herself into a corner, scooting backwards until she was wedged under a chair or in a corner.  But Mother Nature prevailed, our little girl kept at it until she finally figured it out.

My Crawling Hero

Of course I can’t really attribute this to our daughter’s dogged determination (although as a doting dad I’d like to) that’s just what babies do.  It’s not only tots with steely resolve that figure out crawling; sooner or later most babies learn to crawl and then walk.

But that doesn’t mean that learning to crawl or walk are inconsequential events.  Those babies should be our accomplishment heroes!  They should be the motivation for anyone that wants to accomplish anything.  They don’t know how to crawl, they don’t even know what crawling is, they just go for it.

Don’t Worry, Just Crawl

Little babies don’t overcomplicate crawling, they see something they want on the other side of the room and go after it.  Imagine for a second if a baby endured as much anguish and delay as we do over the things we want in life.  Imagine, if instead of crawling, babies spent their time worrying about questions like these:

• Why should I crawl?
• Is it too soon to crawl?
• How fast should I crawl?
• What style of crawling should I use?
• Do I need a crawling plan?
• Should I hire a crawling coach?
• Do I really have time to crawl?
• What will people think if I crawl?
• Why are they already crawling and I’m not?
• What if it hurts to crawl?
• What if I can’t crawl all the way across the room?
• Is it a waste of time to crawl?
• Can I get someone else to crawl for me?
• Am I really the crawling type?
• What if I don’t like crawling once I start?
• Do I have to crawl every day?
• What if they crawl faster than me?
• I wonder if I’m good enough to crawl?
• Maybe I should watch someone else crawl first..
• What happens if I run into an obstacle while crawling?
• Will my crawling take away from my time doing other stuff?
• Is crawling overrated?
• Will anyone even care if I crawl?
• Who will crawl with me?
• Isn’t there another way than crawling?
• Has anyone ever crawled before?
• What happened to the last person that crawled?
• What’s plan B if crawling doesn’t work out?
• What’s the worst that could happen if I don’t crawl?
• Maybe I should wait until tomorrow to try and crawl…
• Where am I crawling to anyways?
• Crawling sure sounds like a lot of work…
• What are the dangers of crawling?
• How will I know when I’m REALLY crawling?

I could go on all day but you get the picture.  If you’re human, you probably know what I’m talking about.  You can share your “favorite” crawling excuses below in the comments below if you’d like. 

What Will They Think?

I remember one day I came home from work and opened the door to see my wife’s friend’s baby “crawling” in the most unusual way that I’d ever seen.  I can’t really describe it; she was sitting up, using both her heels and the palms of her hands to scoot around.  I felt like I was watching a creature out of Star Wars scamper around our living room. 

I could tell her mom was a little embarrassed by this unique form of crawling. I’ll admit, it was a little strange, but guess what.  The baby didn’t care, she had figured out her own way and was getting exactly where she wanted to go.  Not only that, the little girl could book it too!

So who’s to say how you should crawl?  What crawling excuses are you fretting over?  What if you just started crawling and figured it out along the way? 

Crawl baby crawl!

New Years Resolutions Tips

Your New Year’s resolutions for 2010 may mean a little more than they have the previous years because you are setting the tone for the next decade of your life.  On New Year’s Day 2009 will be over, and along with it a whole decade of your life; makes you stop and think doesn’t it?

Even if you typically avoid New Year’s resolutions, this would be a good year to take an hour to look back on where you’ve been the last ten years of your life and how you want your life to be in ten years from now.

I got an email from Ken McCarthy this week about the power of planning.  He’s a guy who’s accomplished a lot in his life and has helped many others accomplish great things as well.  He doesn’t complicate the planning process; here are his three questions and comments on each:

What did you accomplish in the last decade?

Probably a lot more than you realize. It’s worth taking the time to write it down.

 

How many more decades do you have to play with?

I guarantee it’s a small number no matter what your age. We just don’t get that many.

 

What are your plans for the coming decade?

Is it even possible to think that far in advance? Some people do it. If not with a rigid timetable, they have a sense of where they are and where they want to be. It’s a good practice because it’s a good guide for how to spend your time now.

Of course, making new years resolutions is really the easy part, working at them and achieving them is where all the work lies.  However, setting your goals is just as important a step, without goals you won’t have anything to work towards.

The thing about New Years resolutions is that we typically wait until New Year’s Eve or the beginning of the following year to think about them.  I see two problems with this approach,

1. You Rush Your Goals
2. You’re Behind Before You Start

Setting Goals in a Hurry

There’s nothing like a deadline to motivate you to get things done.  There’s a lot to be said for actually getting off your butt and making something happen, setting your goals for example.  However, if you save your planning for the last day of the year (or even worse, the last hour of the last day) then you may not give yourself the full hour you need to think through what you really want.

Don’t take it from me; look at how successful businesses operate.  They don’t hurriedly make plans the last night of the year or the first week of January. Many of them start their year end budgeting and planning in October or November for the coming year.

Now this is obvious to me after studying project management in graduate school, but in order to accomplish your goals, you’ll also need a list of tasks to tackle so you can meet those goals.  If you create your new year’s resolutions before December 31st, then you’ll have time to sketch out the things you need to do in order to get what you want. 

If your new year’s resolutions are hastily scribbled on the back of a party napkin then chances are you won’t have a list of actionable steps to take.  Of course you can always define them later, which brings me to the next problem with delaying setting your new years goals.

Behind Before Your Start

The longer it takes you to set your goals, the farther behind you’ll be when you start to try and achieve them. How frustrating is it to start a race already behind?  Why put that hurdle in front of yourself when a little thought and planning now will get you rolling right out of the gate on January 1^st?

People are always taking about starting with a clean slate, or getting a fresh start.  The first day or week of a new year (or a new decade) sounds like a pretty good fresh start to me. A lot of times reaching new goals means breaking or changing old habits.  You have societal momentum behind you if you start at the beginning of the new year.

People everywhere are trying to turn over a new leaf, to change their lives for the better.  What better time to buddy up with someone who has a common goal and go after it as a team? Why not ride that wave of shared energy and excitement to help you make it over the hump?

So schedule a time in the next few weeks to answer Ken’s three questions above and come up with your goals.  Then give it a day or two and start writing down specific things you’d need to do to reach your goals.  Put time and effort into deciding what you really want out the next decade and you’ll have an awesome set of New Years Resolutions!

How specific are you when you set your goals? If you were more detailed do you think you’d be more likely to reach them?

I’ve always heard that being very specifc about your goals increases your chances of achieving them. Last weekend, I saw some pretty good examples of this theory in action.

A Ten Year Plan

I met with about 40 other people for our 10 year college reunion and spent a few hours catching up and visiting about where they were in life.  During the course of the evening they were showing a video that was taped about 10 years ago, interviewing members of our class right before graduation.

One of the questions people answered on the tape was, “Where do you think you’ll be in 10 years from now”.  Some of the responses were pretty general like “I hope I’ll be making a lot of money somewhere”. Other people laid out their plans in great detail.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t on the video.  I’m not sure why I didn’t participate; perhaps I was studying hard for finals or maybe I was celebrating my pending graduation.  Whatever the reason, I know if I had that I wouldn’t have been as detailed as many of the responses that I heard.

Achieving Goals

As I visited with people after we watched the video I made a point to ask each person how close they had come to meeting their “ten year plan”.

Not surprisingly, more of the alumni with very detailed plans had reached the point in their life that they had been aiming for.   Of course not everyone’s plans had worked out.  Some people had changed course over time, others had tried unsuccessfully and had to change their plans.

Overall, the people that were specific about what they wanted their life to be like ten years down the road were more likely to have achieved those goals.  Now I need to sit down and make out my 10 year plan to get my family where we want to be when our kids are teenagers, gulp : )

How do you know when you’ve saved enough money and can afford to spend a little?  How do you know when you’ve worked too hard and need to spend some time involved in life outside of work?

If you can’t find answers to these questions you might feel as though you’ve lost control of your life and how you’re spending all your time. Jim Wang (Bargaineering) and JD Roth (Get Rich Slowly) discussed this topic last week on their show, the Personal Finance Hour, and brought up some good points on how you can help find balance in your life.

Dreaming Big but Measuring Small

One of the reasons that I tend to work too hard or spend so miserly is that I’m pretty focused on my goals.  I want to save as much money as possible so that our family has enough for our needs now and decades into the future.  I also want to excel at the work I do so my skillsets can become more valuable, ensuring job security and higher income.

The problem with these goals in terms of finding balance is that they’re too general. Without specifics, it’s hard to say when I’ve achieved them or to know what progress I’ve made towards the goal in a given amount of time.  With general goals, I know if I just keeping working at it I’ll eventually get there. Of course the problem I run into is, how do I know when can I take a break from working and saving?

One of Jim’s suggestions was to set milestones so you don’t feel like you have to accomplish your savings goal all at once.  For example let’s say I had decided to save $500 a month in an emergency fund, and one night I had to decide between working a few hours and playing with our son.  If I could look at savings for the month and see we were almost there or making good progress it would be easier for me to close down the computer and have some dad/son time.  Without a specific goal and tracking of that goal I would probably feel the pressure to keep working to earn as much as possible that night.

Creating Boundaries

My favorite suggestion from JD was to set boundaries for yourself.  In his case, he’s been working from home and his work has been spilling over into his time with his wife.  He’s setting a boundary between work and family by renting office space close to home.  When he walks the short distance from office to home, he’ll leave his work behind and switch his brain into family mode.

Of course not everyone can afford to rent a separate office but even having a separate office in your house can make a big difference; this is the approach that I take.  Of course my wife thinks I spend too much time in my study but when I’m out of my office it’s easier to put work behind me and free up my brain for family time.

Spending Time Wisely

I think another key to finding balance is spending your time wisely.  If you can be efficient at working or saving then you can accomplish more in less time, leaving more time to do other things; such as working out, spending time with your friends or family, etc.

Of course there is no easy solution to spending your time wisely.  I think putting systems in place to help you make decisions and get your work done quickly can make a big difference.  Prioritizing what you have to do can ensure you’re getting the most bang for your working buck.  Lastly, trial and error can help you find better formulas.  I really liked a tidbit I recently read from Perry Marshall that said something to the effect of, if you can learn from your mistakes, you can fail your way to success.

With a new baby set to arrive any day now, I’m going to be struggling with finding balance over the next few weeks.  When I hit a rough spot, I’ll have to refer back to these suggestions and get focused.  What methods do you use to find balance in your life?

You can’t hide from bad customer service; it can happen to anyone, anywhere, at anytime.  You can however, launch a pre-emptive strike against crummy customer service and nip hours of impending doom in the bud.

Bad Customer Service is Expensive

Bad customer service can not only ruin your day, it can waste your valuable time and also cost you a lot of money.  I’ve had bad customer experiences dealing with many different types of companies but some of the biggest time wasters and potential money losers have dealt with health care and insurance matters.

I won’t punish you by sharing my infuriatingly insane experience with extreme incompetence dealing with ADP FlexDirect “customer service”.  I’ll also spare you my latest tale of broken promises and frustrating phone marathons to verify health insurance coverage for our soon to arrive baby.

Eight Steps to Beat Bad Customer Service

Instead, I’ll give you a playbook for beating bad customer before it has a chance to beat you down.  I don’t know about you but I’m getting really tired of having to make sure a company does their job.  Unfortunately, if we don’t stay on the offensive, sooner or later a company will fail us and we’ll be the one wasting time and money.

The first step to beating bad customer service is to assume ineptitude.  Every customer service department you talk to should be considered inept until proven competent.  (Important Note: This doesn’t mean using hostility or rudeness; simply think of them as a 2 year old that you have to walk through everything).  Once you’re in that mindset follow these steps to beat bad customer service:

1) Ask the name of person you’re speaking with
The primary reason for this step is so you have a point of reference when you have call back and follow up.  A secondary benefit is that if you refer to the person by their name you’ll stick out somewhat from the other dozens of people that work with that night and it might help you get what you need.
 
2) Get a ticket/issue number
Once you’ve explained your question or problem, immediately ask for a ticket or issue number. If you don’t do this (and sometimes even if you do) you’ll end up re-explaining the issue to someone else the next time you call back.

3) Ask if they’re adding call notes
Just because they open a support ticket doesn’t mean they’ll put your details in it.  Ask them if they’re recording the details of your conversation.  Specifically request any facts that you want noted.

4) Write down date/time of conversation and details
When you call back into customer service they may ask when you last called, who you spoke with, and what your issue number is. Keep a written record of your conversation so that you have these details handy for the inevitable follow up.

5) Ask for detailed action steps
Like any abusive relationship, we think this time it will be different, that they can change and won’t leave us with broken promises yet again.  We naively hope our customer service agent will take care of our issue or get back to us when the reality is they have a long list of other customers to address that will push our needs into the eternal to-do pile.

Instead, get specifics and get commitments:

• Who are they going to call?
• What form are they going to fill out? 
• What are they going to mail?
• When they will do it by?
• What’s the turn around time?
• Will you get a return phone call? 
• Will you get status emails?
• Will you get a letter in the mail?

Once you have all the information, recap your issue and how they’re going to solve it for you.

6) Get their phone number
As you can probably tell, I’m little pessimistic that your customer service department will take care of you or follow up.  Assuming they won’t, you’ll need to call them back.  Get a direct phone number or extension so you avoid the phone tree and re-explaining your issue.  Plus if you repeatedly contact the same person your chances of actually seeing progress on your issue increase.

7) Set yourself a call back reminder
Life is busy.  You may not notice right away if they don’t take care of you or fail to follow up when they said they would.  Setup an alert in your email program, or on your phone, or on your calendar to call them back by a certain date to let them have it follow up if no progress has been made.

Get angry
When parents are angry, kids react. When teachers are angry, students react.  When bosses get angry, employees react.  If you are angry, chances are your customer service department will react.  There’s a reason the old saying “squeaky wheel gets the grease” is an old saying.  It’s been true for a long time.

Perhaps I’m too nice.  Despite repeated call backs and multiple screw ups I keep a level voice and restrain myself from hurling a pent-up flood of obscenities at the person on the phone.  I let them know I’m not happy but I’m certainly not the loudest squeaky wheel. 

As I navigate the phone tree I get ready to yell and scream but when they answer it always seems counter-productive to lose it on the phone.  It sure would feel good but it probably wouldn’t get me any closer to my goal.  Instead I calmly let them know I’m pissed, appalled, and wasting my time and ask to talk to their boss.

Where Does Bad Customer Service Come From?

I don’t know that the blame lies with the people handling the calls.  My suspicion is that the companies they represent don’t have the right customer service quality processes in place and aren’t sufficiently incentivizing reps to take care of customers.  The people on the other end of the phone are just showing up for a job like you and I do every day.

They do their best but they’re paid by the hour and there’s only so much work you can do in 8 hours time.  This is why getting angry can be effective, it can help raise you up in the queue, or move you to a shorter queue.

I just wish the decision makers at some of these companies would read Seth Godin’s comments on customer service and answering the phone.  Until that time, stick with these eight steps to beat bad customer service.

Are you a “do it yourself” kind of person or are you able to delegate work to others?  Until rather recently I’d always been in the do it yourself camp, why pay someone else good money to do something for me when I could figure it out on my own?

How Valuable is Your Time?

What I’ve learned is that although you do save money when you do everything yourself, you are instead spending another equally valuable resource, your time. I think back to when I was in my mid 20’s and seemed to have all the free time in the world.  It made sense to do everything myself, I had an abundance of time and wasn’t exactly flush with money.  However now that I’m running circles trying to keep up with a job, my family, business projects, and soon another baby; I’ve come to immensely appreciate the value of time.

A wise philosopher once observed that necessity is the mother of invention, and I agree with him. As my available time has eroded over the last two or three years my “invention” has been to find ways of getting other people to do the work that I used to do.  I know it’s not a unique approach but “inventing” my own process of how to do this effectively has been key to any success that I’ve had.

Getting Things Done

The main problem with doing everything yourself is that you have to find time to do the work.  When time is short, this often means that the work simply doesn’t get done, or gets done three months down the road.

It is easy to put things off but some tasks simply won’t wait on you forever.  For example, doing your taxes.  Or fixing a hole in your roof that leaks into your garage every time it rains.  The implications of not doing things such as these can be pretty costly, in fact the cost tends to increase the longer it takes for you to get them done.

I know experts like David Allen and Stephen Covey have created systems that help us with “Getting Things Done” or being “Highly Effective People” but what I’ve found is that even with a good system in place, there’s a limit to how much one person can optimize their time.  For me, there comes a point where I realize that in order to get certain things done, the best way is to hire someone else to do the work for me.

Getting Things Done Right

If you can hire the right person to do the job they can do the work much faster and much better than you ever could.  The key is finding the right person; not that there is only one qualified person to prepare your taxes or fix your roof but there are a certain set of characteristics that you’ll be looking for when you hire someone for a job.

I think one of the reasons that people get bogged down with too many things to do and not enough time to accomplish them is that they don’t know how to find the right person to help them.  I know that’s certainly been the case for me.  There are many times I’ve wanted to hire help but wasn’t sure how to find a person that would do a good job or how much to pay them.

Overcoming Your Fears

It really sucks when you pay a professional to build or fix something and you end up having to go back and re-do the work or hire someone else to fix it.  I think this is what many of us are afraid of; that we’ll end up spending money and not getting what we want or spending way more than we have budgeted.

Honestly, I think the only way to overcome these fears is to go through the process of hiring someone for a project and figuring out techniques to help you pick the right person and communicate to them exactly what you need. I’ve been going through that process in small chunks over the last year or so and I’ll share in the days ahead what I’ve learned, what’s worked for me and what’s flopped.  Stay tuned.

How are your goals for 2009 coming along?  Any progress?  I outlined an action plan back in January to help make this my most productive year ever and thought it was time for a review.  As a reminder, I limited myself to three goals so that I could have a lot of focus on each of them.  Here is an update on my progress:

Exercise Four Days a Week
My exercise and healthy eating have been right on track! I hurt my back shoveling snow yesterday so this will be the first week that I won’t hit four days of exercise.  Of course the shoveling was pretty exhausting so maybe I could count that as a workout  

I don’t know how much weight I’ve lost, I haven’t gotten on the scale once.  I’m trying out what I call the “un-diet” where I just eat healthy and exercise and don’t focus on how much weight I’ve lost.  My goal is to make it a lifestyle change and the weight loss will follow.

Outsource 3 Major Tasks
I’m halfway through a great book called “Cloning Yourself for Fun and Profit” by Edward Savio that’s walking me through the process of smart outsourcing of tasks. He’s a screenwriter and novelist who’s successfully used virtual assistants in his work and documents his process in the book.  I’ve only been reading it so far, haven’t taken the time to go through the workbook so that’s on my list of things to do.

I’m also in the middle of putting together a screening process for people that apply for the jobs that I want to outsource.  My goal is to spend the time up front defining the tasks and objectives and then let my screening tool filter out the best people for the job.  I committed to having it completed before our baby is born this Spring so the clock is ticking!

Limit Myself to 3 Projects  & Complete One a Month
Unfortunately, there were several projects that I had to stop working on all together in order to help get my outsourcing system in place.  My goal is to get them back up and running eventually once I find quality people to help me with them, but for now, they’re on the back burner. 

I’ve done a pretty good job of staying focused only on my outsourcing process and keeping up to date with this site.  I’ve had many distractions come along but I’ve managed to pretty much avoid them; of course taxes are something you can’t avoid so I had to make time for those. 

I haven’t done so well on the “closure” aspect of this goal, I said that I’d finish one project a month and I didn’t finish one in January or February so the pressure is really on this month.  I’ve made a lot of progress but don’t have anything finalized yet, I don’t want the first quarter of the year to end without finishing a project so by the end of this month I WILL have one done.

How about you? Are you tracking and working towards your goals to help make 2009 the best year yet?

Technology is changing, the workforce is changing, traditional career paths are changing, and you need to be constantly changing if you want to succeed in today’s job market. Today is a rough time to be looking for looking for a job or starting a new business. The unemployment rate is over 7%, banks aren’t lending money for small business loans, and employers are tightening up their guidelines for hiring new employees.

To stand out from the crowd and make it easier to find your next job you can start building your personal brand. The goal of personal branding is to communicate your experience and build trust in your abilities and expertise so that when a hiring manager has to make a decision of which candidate to choose, you’re the obvious choice.

Begin with the Interview in Mind

Think about every manager that’s interviewed you for a position on their team or in their company.  They only had 30–60 minutes to find out everything they needed to know about you and why you’d be the one to meet their needs.  They pick the person who they think would be the best fit based on their limited knowledge of the candidates abilities.

If you’ve done a good job building your personal brand then chances are the manager will know alot more about what you can do and will be more likely to choose you over the other “unknown” candidates.  How will they know more about you?  Well a strong personal brand tends to lead to referrals so chances are you may have been recommend by someone the hiring manager knows or trusts.

As part of your brand you’ll also have built a portfolio and have examples of projects and successes you can share.  Concrete examples of problems you’ve faced and overcome can go a long way in building someone’s confidence in your abilities.

You will also have some type of website the manager either already has visited or will visit after the interview that will answer any unanswered questions, clear up any confusion they may have, and give them the chance to learn more about what you know and how you interact with other people.

How to Build a Personal Brand

This all sounds great but how do you go about building a personal brand?  The truth is that building a solid brand is actually a lot of work and it won’t necessarily pay immediate dividends. It takes time to put all the pieces together and create a profile that represents all you have to offer.  Basically, you’re doing all the work ahead of time, before you actually need your next job.

The good news is that it will make the process of finding that job much easier. However, sometimes it’s hard to look ahead to the long term so it’s easy to put off or avoid doing work now, even though it will pay off down the road.  So the simple answer of “how to build a personal brand” is - one day at a time : )

Tools for Building Your Brand

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the technology and tools you can use to demontrate your abilities and spread the word about your talents.

Our country is in transition, out with the old and in with the new.  As our nation’s leadership prepares to change, President Bush has been reflecting on the legacy he’s left during his tenure in the White House.  Last week I saw part of his press conference where President Bush talked about his biggest disappointments and I realized that I’ve made some mistakes over the last eight years that I need to correct.

Here are five ways I’ve failed myself during Bush’s terms and how I plan to change them during the upcoming Obama era.

Working Hard, Not Smart

One of my old boss’s favorite sayings was that he was never the smartest guy in the room but he’d outwork anyone else.  He would stay at work all night long to get the job done, sometimes working day after day with little sleep, and many times I was there right beside him.

I’m afraid I’ve had a similar mindset for most of my adult life; what I’ve lacked in experience or intelligence, I’ve tried to make up for with hard work.

I’ve put myself through a lot of unnecessary stress and missed out on some neat opportunities because I was convinced that I had to work that hard to be successful.

New Policy – Starting a new job at the end of last year made me realize that I always have alternatives to my current situation and that it’s in my best interest to identify and evaluate them. In the future I will be more dilligent with being aware of my best options.

A big part of working smart is setting goals and aligning my actions with those goals, if something I’m doing either doesn’t acheive those goals or seems a roundabout way to get there, I’ll re-evaluate those tasks.

Failure to Start

I shared a quote on Twitter the other day that really hit home for me:

“Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm” – Winston Churchill

If I don’t take the risk of starting something and failing, I will be no closer to success.  My problem is that sometimes I overthink things and spend far too long deciding whether to start a project and then how to implement it.  This site is a good example, I should have started it two years before I did but I was so busy researching which type of website to start that time just slipped away.

New Policy – If something fits with my strategy that I create while “working smart”, I won’t hesitate to start the project.  If I don’t have time to do it myself, I will find someone else to do it for me.

Lack of Focus

This has probably been my biggest failure over the last several years.  I tend to spread myself too thin and then spend so much time multi-tasking that nothing gets done. 

I find myself having so much to do that I get frustrated and overwhelmed.  I try staying up all night just to get everything done but I can’t keep that up forever, so instead I will focus in on the projects that fit my strategic goals.

New Policy – The action plan I set out in my New Year’s Resolution will help me focus on only a few projects at a time.  I have to be careful with my aboe policy on starting new projects.  I can’t commit to them until I have the resources lined up to carry them out.

Thinking Small

Since I’m the long-haul, hard worker type, I’m good at taking regular small tasks and just plugging away at them day after day. Of course this is a great way to build something over time, it’s probably why I’m such a good money saver, consistent and regular.

However, without a big picture I could be working in circles for the rest of my life.  It’s easy for me to keep doing the same thing over and over and optimizing it for success because that’s what I know.  BUT, in order to grow I need to push myself this year.

New Policy – Set some goals that scare me and seem unattainable, then figure out how to reach them.

Not Diversifying

Thank goodness for my wife.  When we first got married, I wanted to live in the smallest apartment we could find and plow all our money into the stock market for ten years.  I quickly learned that you don’t always get what you want in marriage and we ended up buying a house.

Let me say it again, thank goodness for my wife!  If we would have followed my path we’d be seriously weeping in our beer right now thanks to the recent stock market performance.  The real estate market certainly isn’t great but our home has held it’s value much better than our stock market investments would have.

The money we did invest was pretty diversified across industries and asset classes but it’s not just our investments that I need to diversify.

New Policy – Evaluate and pursue forms of investment in addition to the stock market, such as running our own business and owning rental property.

Those are the five ways I’ve failed myself during the terms of President Bush, with my new plans I will turn around my shortcomings during the Obama era.  What changes are you going to make?

January and September are the two biggest months for making resolutions.  After the Labor Day holiday everyone realizes they’ve been working too little and enjoying themselves too much during the summer months.

It’s back to work, back to business, and we all have a list of things to get done.  What’s on your list of things to accomplish this fall?  Let me guess, there are a few things on your list that may have been there for months, maybe years. 

I have several goals I’ve been working on fruitlessly for many months and I recently realized why I wasn’t achieving them.  I’ve been making excuses that have held me back from pursuing my goals!

The good news is, I’m through with these excuses.  In the audio below I share how making excuses has held me back and how I’m going to get past these roadblocks in my life. Click on the play button to listen (RSS and email readers may have to visit the site to listen).

[No More Excuses Transcript]

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