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 I answered the phone and after greetings, Jenny said, I saw your retirement planner and have some questions.  Continue I said.  Well, what you’re doing sounds wonderful and I wish it were for us, but I don’t see it’s relevance.  I asked her to explain with that trite old phrase - A penny for your thoughts:

Well my husband’s hours were cut by 25% and for 14 months, we’ve glared at our life savings being reduced by 39%.  I know that’s exact because we watch it closely.  Years ago we took a seminar that taught us how to budget and plan.  For years now, every quarter we take a weekend away from the kids and our usual life to update our dreams and goals.  We then discuss how we’re going to make them happen.

Six months ago we chose to stop our get-away-weekends, to cut expenses.  Since then planning has stopped.  Why I questioned?  It’s just too depressing getting worse everywhere.  We feel like we’ll be better off if we just don’t look for 2 or 3 quarters.  We’re hoping it will be better by then.

Fear of finances dominates the general public or “The Masses” so intensely that people struggle to avoid it.  The consequence, they continue loosing more and more wealth, without conversations that inspire them to think outside the box.  Perhaps they could change their situation entirely, thereby controlling the very situation that has been controlling them.

We talked, Jenny got re-acquainted with their dreams about a vacation in the summer, the winter, new cars and a new timeshare they planned to buy.  Looking closer at the real numbers and discussing their meaning, they could see they were on track for their dreams and future they wanted, although it now required extending their retirement plans 6 years out.

Over the next two weeks, I noticed in our coaching sessions a sense of hope and inspiration re-appeared, a genuine excitement about being able to live the life they love.  They did it by buying a resale timeshare at fire sale prices and getting a different car.  Also booking 3 vacations instead of two far in advance with two other couples, which reduced the cost and only required a deposit.

The time value of money compounded over 19 years, in their case, made a big difference in their planning for the future.  The lessons here: Manage your fear & look ahead, take decisive action toward your goals, and always be willing to pay a penny for a thought that just might give you your world!

A common thread in todays’ world is how busy we all seem to be.  As you grind your teeth, sweat that next deadline and do your best to get through email and return calls, do you wonder if it’s possible to think about abundance and joy, let alone have that experience?

Occasionally you meet one of those rare people who appears to have life figured out AND is enjoying it - Amazing!  How do they do that having some of the same stuff to deal with that you do?

Just for a moment, with nothing else to pay attention to, see if you can imagine the experience of having these 7 habits fully developed in your life:

1. Build every day with the raw materials of your values and the vision of the future you want to live.  For this habit to be developed, DISCIPLINE is the practice.
2. Live life moment by moment.  PLANNING is a habit to master since the next moment is upon us.  Choose how to use it, or let it pass and deal with the next… oops, that one just went by.
3. A part of abundance is wealth.  What you have and need to live now, and what you will need in order to accomplish what you are going for.  The skill for this is FINANCIAL GOALS, a practice that will get you to and through your retirement years.
4. Sweep away tired uninspiring goals and replace them with an inspiring life purpose, from which an endless supply of relevant goals will emerge.  The practice to develop here is REGULAR REVIEWS.
5. Fight fear with action and get yourself an accountability partner who will hold you to account to accomplish your desires.  INTEGRITY is the practice of saying what you will do, by when, then doing just that.
6. Nourish yourself and others in small ways every day with simple things; like cleaning up your vocabulary and never complaining to anyone who cannot make a positive impact on the object of your complaint.  How many of us “Tell The Truth” in a negative way about our financial situation?  This is complaining and only ensures that things stay as they are, or get worse.  ANTICIPATION or POSITIVE EXPECTATION are skills well worth the time and practice to develop.
7. Finally, CELEBRATE everything you can.  There is much to celebrate if you look for it.  If you have trouble with this one, start an appreciation journal and commit yourself to write in it daily.

Live life by design, think about your credit, your budget, the impact of financing, saving, and investments on your long term planning.  Biggest of all, is your plan abundant enough to live a joyous life?

Try this     (click to follow) new tool to build a great plan in a short session.

If you are alive today, you know about planning, goals, urgency, and inspiration.  You may not be as good at practicing what you know as you are at knowing it, but you do know their value in getting what you want.

If you are an investor, a stay-at-home-dad or mom, a student, an employee, if you’re out of work, we are all confronted with the same dilemma in getting the results we want in any project and across all platforms.  That dilema is the triad

Yesterday - Today - Tomorrow!

1. How much do you rely on lessons learned from yesterday to plan today or even tomorrow?
2. What amount of focus should be placed on living for the moment?
3. Why is the notion of tomorrow such a compelling vision for each of us, we have never been there & neve will?

Here’s something that will surely offer some direction and perspective:

Today

Yesterday is a history book of lessons

An archive of memories and lore

Yesterday is a faded fogged dimension

Behind a glass labeled nevermore

Yesterday is a wise experienced teacher

Who teaches what the lived and wise men say

Yesterday instructs and warns and tutors

So I can learn and live a great day

Tomorrow is an out of focus future

Where nothing is real and distant from today

Tomorrow is a wish but not a promise

A reachless place that’s just too far away

Tomorrow is a hopeful fiction story

But has not guarantee and no say

Tomorrow can be only slightly molded

But planning, working, loving here today

Today is all I have that I can work with

From where I rise to where I lay my head

My yesterdays are used and lie behind me

Tomorrow lies beyond my covered bed

Today I can show loyalty to someone

Today I can dispense forgiving grace

It’s now I can use yesterday’s wise lessons

To make this world a safe and better place

Today I dream about a great tomorrow

And work and vote and supplicate and play

Today I make a masterpiece of living

For all I have to work in is today

Swen Nader

For most of my life I hated insurance.  It Seemed to me to be a lot of expense for noting of value.  Well, this changed.

I was riding my motorcycle, slowing to an intersection stop sign & out of nowhere a car with a beginning driving, made a left turn directly in from of me with no time to react.  I picked myself up 50 feet on the other side of that car & long story short, insurance, mine & theirs, paid the bills for about 5 years.  The amount they paid in claims replaced what was broken and would have paid my insurance premiums for the next 26 years.

I’m married, have raised 3 wonderful healthy children, and after they all left home, breast cancer came to call. it’s appearance produced a life of background stress and worry for 2+ years.  While we learned to produce the positive outcome and life we wanted instead of that which so many fear, the bills were paid.  Other than the uncomfortable “power surges” as my wife calls them, (hot flashes) that linger, my wife is now 5 years beyond recovery & celebrating the victory of a lifetime.

 You guessed it, insurance paid for all that, sums equal to 3.5 years of my income at that time, and in my late fifties, the biggest earning years of life, I was paid very well.

 Take it from me, let the companies who can afford to take the risk, pay the bills, you pay the premium, a small cost for shifting the risks in life?

What do you think and do you have a story to contribute?

Thank you for reviewing this and for your comments.

I am a LinkedIn member, have nearly 1,300 front line connections and 11,000,000 total.  I have had a 30+ year career instantly displaced by the recent down turn in the economy.  Fortunately I took action quickly and am now leveraging those years to help others who may be in financial difficulty in these times. 

In the months to come, employment or a job may not be sufficient to survive.

My questions is this:  I’ve started a continuity group supported by 14 Tele-course calls on personal finances from the basics of budgeting clear through effective retirement planning.  See my profile and this link - Don’t Let Your Finances Ruin Your Personal Life. 

I’ve noticed people will readily discuss their financial situation and most specifically how poor it is, how much they would like it to change but when offered the opportunity to make something happen to change it, nearly 95% of the population stop short, don’t engage, and continue their bad habits and to suffer nedlessly. 

What ideas do you have that would made a difference for yourself, something that would have you take action, learn even the basics of how to get exactly what you want from life, even in times like these?

Again, Thanks - Dan