It’s a complex world, but most of us still manage to get on with it: whatever our job may be, we turn up every day and tackle the challenges that come our way.

When it comes to debt, though, it’s not so straightforward. Many people end up with serious debt problems they just don’t know how to deal with. Why is that?

• It could be because debt’s a complicated subject, full of unfamiliar terms and issues: repayment terms, APRs, early repayment penalties, and so on.
• It could be because we’re content to leave the details to the lenders. At the end of the day, it’s often tempting to assume that one set of terms and conditions is much like another – so all we want to know is ‘Can I borrow the money or not?’
• It could be because it’s just too easy to get credit – or at least it was until the credit crunch occurred. There are too many people who simply have too many debts: multiple credit cards, multiple store cards, an overdraft, a personal loan, a couple of hire purchase deals…
• It could be because we leave it too long before we look for debt advice.

In short, it’s easy to see how so many people who can cope with life’s other challenges still have a hard time coping with debt.

Is it worth getting debt advice?

If you’re in debt and you don’t know what to do about it, you should talk to someone who does know. To a professional debt adviser, debt isn’t something to think about once a month – and then try to forget about. It’s something they deal with all day, every day.

Whatever debt problems you’re facing, you’ll find that the right debt adviser has dealt with them before, and is able to give you some practical guidance on how to tackle them.

It might be something as simple as learning to make better use of your money – learning to budget effectively so you can be sure you’re not buying ‘luxury’ goods and services with money you really need to be putting towards your debt.

If your debt problems are more serious and/or you’ve already cut your non-essential spending down to a minimum, you might need to think about the various debt solutions that could help you sort your finances out.

Either way, a good way to find out what your options are is to get some professional debt advice from someone who does it all the time. In general, the sooner you do it, the sooner you’ll be able to start making some headway on your debts – put it off and you might find you’ve missed the ‘window of opportunity’ to bring your debts back under control without making any major changes to the way you live your life.

What Happens Next?

A debt expert will be able to examine your finances and propose the best solution for your situation. Common solutions include IVAs, debt consolidation loans and debt management plans. Each have their advantages and disadvantages which a debt professional will be able to inform you of.

IVA

An IVA or individual Voluntary Arrangement is legally binding and it works on the idea that you pay back as much as you can reasonably afford and then have the rest written off. The period you are likely to be paying back the debt, if agreed with your creditors will be 5 years. If both parties agree, the lender will agree not to pursue any legal actions against the borrower and write off the debt once the IVA has reached its conclusion.

Debt Management

A debt management plan involves liaising with lenders to lower monthly payments to ensure you will actually be able to afford the repayments and start paying off the debt. Depending on the type of creditor, they may also agree to freeze interest charges. By seeking debt help you will allow a professional to negotiate on your behalf. They have years of experience in dealing with lenders and will also take care of all the administrative work, phone calls and letters.

Debt Consolidation

This involves combining all of your monthly payments into one affordable monthly payment, making it easy to manage. You will also know exactly when the repayments end meaning you will know when you will become debt free.

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10 Money Mistakes

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Many of us have a tendency to spend money frivolously. I’m not talking about the rare folk who run up insane credit card debts on things they just can’t afford – but people like you.

Maybe you always come out of the grocery store with a few things you don’t need … and which eventually end up in the trash. Maybe you can’t resist buying new books, even though there’s a great library nearby. Maybe you end up buying things online when you’re surfing the net in the evenings.

Spending money unnecessarily is just a habit – but it’s one that can be detrimental to your financial goals. Here are five things you can do to break that habit and take back control of your spending.

1.    Always Use Cash

If you find that every time you go to the mall, you end up with a few more bags (and a few less dollars) than you expected, then stop putting things on plastic. Take out a set amount of cash before you go shopping – however much you’re willing to spend that day – and you’ll have a much better idea of what you’ve spent. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

This can also be a big help if you ever find yourself struggling to pay off your credit card balance. If you use cash, you know you’ve got the money there to pay for your purchases.

2.    Make a List

Heading out for groceries or office supplies or materials for your DIY project? Make yourself a list of exactly what you need. Don’t just go into the store with a vague idea in your head: you’ll be much more likely to end up going for “bargains” that you don’t need and perhaps can’t even use. They’ll just end up cluttering your home until you ditch them.

Not having a list can also mean that you forget vital things – often leading to you making a second trip to the store and spending even more money, since it never seems worth going for just one item…

3.    Have “Spend-Nothing” Days

A very powerful way to break your spending habit is to have “spend nothing” days – you could even challenge yourself to go a whole weekend without spending any money. Leave your wallet at home when you go to work: brown-bag lunch, and take a thermos of coffee with you.

If you’ve fallen into a pattern of always picking up a newspaper and a latte and a candy bar or two, this is a great way to jolt yourself out of it. Similarly, if your weekends tend to involve going out for meals and drinks, going to a movie, or going on a shopping trip, you’ll find that it’s perfectly possible to entertain yourself for free.

4.    Keep a Spending Log

For two weeks, write down everything that you spend. Record the time, the place, what you bought and how much it was. This is a great way to make yourself much more aware of exactly where your money is going. There might be some nasty surprises (perhaps those “occasional” coffees and treats are more like a daily indulgence).

Plus, the hassle of knowing you need to write down every single purchase can be enough to make you think twice about whether you really want to go ahead and buy that new book or DVD!

5.    Avoid Certain Stores and Websites

We all have particular stores – whether on the high street or online – that we’re especially tempted by. If you know you can’t browse without buying, then don’t even start. Ban yourself from the store or website for a period of time. (I went cold-turkey on ebay for a month once…)

If it’s an internet store, you could even block it in your browser. This might seem a bit unnecessary, but it’s so easy to spend money online without really thinking about it – and if you do find yourself “accidentally” loading up the site, the block on it will remind you that you’ve banned yourself.

Are you struggling to break your spending habit? When are you most prone to spending money unnecessarily? What tips do you have on making sure you think twice before buying?

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How many times have you sat in rage-inducing, morning rush hour traffic, cursing your boss for making you come in early to finish that report, when clearly you would have already had the report finished if you’d only been allowed to write it from home instead of sitting in this car!?

How many times, distracted by your coworker, whose high-pitched laugh while regaling her BFF on the phone about a ‘hysterical’ new Facebook post, have you cringed thinking to yourself, if only I were working from home I wouldn’t have these distractions!

How many times in a week do you find yourself thinking, if only I could work from home I would be so much more productive!

Well, according to last months’ Time Magazine – The Future of Work issue, more and more employees and employers are opting for new and innovative ways to redefine the workplace, the most common of which, is changing it – more specifically from your office to your home. And while I hear upon writing this, a chorus of working stiffs belting out Hallelujah!, before you jump into your new way of life (conference call in your pajamas, anyone?!) – a life free of stress, bureaucracy, and office politics – I caution you to remember the old adage: Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

While without question, if done correctly, working from home will yield more productivity, less wasted time, and generally improve your quality of life, if done incorrectly you will see the exact opposite happen to the point where your job itself, may be threatened. And with the exuberance of being ‘free’ there is the risk that you will throw yourself into your new situation, without proper preparation. Simple upfront planning will ensure your success and increase your satisfaction factor.

1. Discipline: This is the single hardest part of working from home. Looks easy from your crowded cubicle, but simply not true. First you must honestly ask yourself what kind of person you are: Are you the type of person that works better in a structured environment? Or do you thrive with this type responsibility? Remember once you’re working at home there’s no rush hour and no pesky coworker to blame: your performance will be judged solely on you. If you are going to work from home, understand you’ll have to be ruling yourself with a stiffer fist. The general rule of thumb that I’ve found works is: If you wouldn’t do it at your old office (i.e. take 5 calls from Francine about her blind date last night) don’t do at your new office. I have found that the transition from office to home office is made significantly easier if you start working from home on a part time basis, and then gradually make the transition to full time from home.

2. Scheduling: One of the most important and overlooked aspects of working from home is creating a schedule. Just because you’re not required to be somewhere at 9 and can’t leave until 5, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a firm schedule. It is absolutely necessary to write out a weekly schedule for yourself – and stick to it. Working from home can come with many distractions – i.e. all of a sudden that bookshelf you’ve avoided for weeks needs to be dusted right now – and if you aren’t strict about your working hours they will quickly escape you. One of the other pratfalls is that when working from home there is no limit to how much you can be doing – theoretically you could be working 24 hours a day. So it is important to make clear guidelines about where your time will be spent everyday.

3. Create the appropriate space: When working from home, one of the big challenges is keeping your ‘home’ life from your ‘work’ life, otherwise with time both worlds will blur into one, leaving you feeling like you’re always working and never living. If your space allows it, designate one room to be used specifically and ONLY for your office – while it would be more comfortable to sit on your couch writing that report (like I am right now…horrible, horrible, horrible!) it is important to have a concrete spatial divide. If you don’t have the space available, craft out a corner which again is reserved for ‘work’ time only.

4. Separating work from home: Building on creating different spaces, your entire work practice should be separated from your living practice. Though at first it might seem sooo productive to be doing your laundry while taking a conference call, it’s actually not, and most probably both tasks will suffer as a result. Use the time you have allotted to work, to work, conversely use the time you’ve allotted for personal chores, for personal chores. It is also a good idea to get out of your house on designated breaks, i.e. lunch, afternoon break. Go for a walk around the block or eat your lunch outside. Being trapped in your house day and night has many negative long term effects, both personally and professionally.

5. Staying Connected: Just because you’ve said Hasta La Vista to your office, doesn’t mean you should say the same to your colleagues. One of the bigger risks of working from home is becoming isolated and out of the loop. Make the effort to reach out to colleagues you have a good rapport with – suggest a group happy hour drink/coffee once a month. Most jobs and careers still benefit from making connections and having in person relationships. Meeting up once a month will keep you abreast of relevant insider information that will invariably help you in the long run.

Got any working-from-home advice or stories that can help? Please feel free to comment below! (Only if you’re on a break!!)

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An entrepreneur needs to be someone who can both visualize and actualize.  He needs to be able to visual something-and once that “something” is visualized, he needs to see exactly how to make it happen.

In order to make it happen, there are several steps that you as an entrepreneur must take on your way to entrepreneurial success.  Do not just enhance what is, but advance towards what will be: keep the long term in sight.

It is essential that you are able to marry your work and what you love.

When in sales, there is no right or wrong way to sell: all you need is passion and enthusiasm for your product. This passion will ignite the minds of your potential client, facilitating connections, and connections between will be made.  Your passion and enthusiasm for your product will be what encourages the sale-not the rote duplication of someone else’s selling system. What you do to sell and promote your business has to be a reflection of what you are already willing to stay up late for and get up early for.

It has to connect to your why and be a part of your own experience.

Second, you must start working your plan, whether you are ready nor not.

Know the four good things that you are about to do: first, that your business is going to be built on a great idea; second, that great idea is going to connect you to a market; third, that you will create a plan based on what you learn, on an ongoing basis, about that market; fourth, that you will adjust that plan over time.

After you have visualized your plan, find the right partner… and avoid the wrong one!  You will have a significant advantage over one-man businesses if you come together with another person regularly to make important decisions.  Find someone with whom you have good chemistry, someone who fills your blind spots. Successful partnerships are based on the idea of taking different perspectives in a discussion and having different talents.

Once the groundwork has been established, set priorities for the absolutely crucial first year.  Concentrate on why you are doing something-not how.  Your why will keep you closely connected to your company and your product.  As soon as you lose sight of why, you will also lose sight of your driving force and your motivation.

Through your first year and beyond, court clients-and keep them coming back! In order that you become a successful entrepreneur, it is essential that you are the person who is willing to pick up the phone and call people to talk about making deals and doing business. When you make this phone call, make sure you are absolutely certain about the product that you are selling.  With this certainty, you can use confidence to build up a network of contacts.  The network cannot be established overnight-it is going to take a lot of phone calls.  You cannot just wave your magic wand over a corporation and change them into a profitable client.

In order to keep your client base, you need a great team to work with.

Make sure that your company has shared values, that there are rewards for quality improvements, and that there are strong internal and external relationships. Empower the best, lose the rest!

Inevitably, there will be failure.  You must learn from failure: use it as a stepping-stone. Do not forget what mistakes you have made, but do not allow yourself to dwell on them.  Take from your failure: take the lesson learned-do not let it take anything from you: not your energy, not your time and not your space.

Finally, in order to keep your company going and keep your clients happy, maintain good relations with your vendors.  It is essential that you support the people who support you.  If you are making a big commitment to a client, make sure you have a solid relationship with your vendor.

In the end, take energy from taking risks.  Live in the spirit of the entrepreneur!

Thinking about becoming an Entrepreneur? Get Your Questions Answered!

Robert Tuchman is a Guest Blogger for PickTheBrain.com. He is an Executive Vice President at Premiere Global Sports and the author of Young Guns: The Fearless Entrepreneurs Guide To Chasing Your Dreams and Breaking Out On Your Own.

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How Spirituality Helps New Entrepreneurs

5 Ways To Motivate Yourself To Save

But when you’ve got a long way to go before you meet your financial goal, and when – frankly – a dollar spent now seems to provide a lot more pleasure than a dollar saved, how can you make sure you’re motivated enough to put money aside on a regular basis?

Here are five things that could work for you…

1.    Save Little And Often

Do you tell yourself that it’s not worth saving if you don’t have at least $100 (or $500, or $1000) to put into a savings account? This is a bit like telling yourself that it’s not worth getting some exercise unless you have a whole day clear to jog.

How about saving just a dollar or two each day? Most of us can cut a couple of dollars of unnecessary spending every day (how about skipping that latte, carpooling, ditching your daily newspaper..?) It’s a tiny amount that you’ll barely notice on a daily basis, but over the course of a year, you’ll have saved several hundred dollars.

2.    Read Personal Finance Blogs

I find that I get encouraged to save – and to adopt good financial habits in general – by reading about others’ tips and success. One of my must-read blogs for this is The Simple Dollar; Trent writes very well, and covers topics in-depth without making them too complicated. He also has an upbeat and motivating attitude towards savings and finances (some personal finance blogs can make for rather dour reading).

Other good blogs on personal finance are Get Rich Slowly and Wise Bread.

3.    Keep a Savings Log

Something that’s often recommended for those sorting out their finances is to keep a spending log – to write down what you spend, so that you have a clear picture of where all the money is going. I’ve done this in the past, and it’s always revealing (and occasionally a bit horrifying!)

A twist on this, though, is to keep a savings log. Each time you make a deposit into your savings account (or each time you shove a few dollars into the jam jar hidden under your bed), write down the date and how much you saved. This can be a great way to motivate yourself to save more. You could also use your calendar or diary for this.

4.    Save Towards A Specific Goal

Having a very clear goal in mind can make it much easier to save up. If you know that you need $1,000 for that new computer, or if you’re determined to reach $5,000 in your emergency fund, focusing on the end goal can keep you motivated.

Your end reward might not be a tangible thing like a vacation or a new purchase: it might be peace of mind, or a sense of security or freedom. Consider visualizing how you’ll feel once you have your target amount in the bank. Will it take a weight off your shoulders? Will you be proud of what you’ve achieved?

5.    Automate Your Savings

Finally, if you do find that your motivation waxes and wanes, simply automate your savings. Get your bank to transfer $100 (or $200 or $500 etc) from your checking account into a savings account, at the start of each month. If the money goes out without you having to lift a finger, chances are that you’ll simply let it head off into the savings pot …

There are plenty more ways to motivate yourself to save – so let’s hear some of your best tips in the comments!

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6 Things a 19 Year Old Has Learned About Finances

How To Survive a Recession

Ever since I was 15 I’ve been coming up with ways to make money. For some reason, I’ve always had the internal belief that I’m going to be very successful when it comes to finances. At 19, having a lot of money isn’t as important to me now as it was to my old egotistical self, but I still want to be comfortable.

There are definitely areas of personal finance that I could improve upon, but I think some of the fundamentals I’ve stuck to have kept me in a relatively good position compared to others my age. Hopefully, despite my youth, I’ll be able to share something here that you can apply to your own situation.

6 Things I’ve Learned

Before we start, I want to say the obligatory: I am by no means a financial advisor so my words shouldn’t be taken as fact. However, hopefully you’ll see these, often common sense, ideas as beneficial to your own wealth generation and apply them where relevant.

1) Keep Doing What You’ve Done, Keep Getting the Same Results

It amazes me how many people can moan about the likes of living from paycheck to paycheck and make absolutely no change to their spending habits month after month. As the saying goes, if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting the same results you’ve always gotten.

This applies to many areas of life but especially to finances. If you’re in debt then the simple solution is this: earn more money than you spend, or, spend less money then you earn. If you want to start saving money and you haven’t been doing so previously, you’ll obviously need to cut back your spending habits.

2) The Most Expensive Items are Rarely Necessary

Although you may be thinking “but I don’t go for the expensive items anyway”, I’m speaking as someone who isn’t yet twenty years old. I’m sure you can all relate to your youth (or you may be there now) where everyone wants the best MP3 player, the coolest phone and the most impressive car.

For me, it was turntables. I got into DJ’ing over 2 years ago and instantly knew I had to buy Technics 1210’s, they are the best in the industry and retail at around $1200 brand new. Even though I was 16 and playing only to my friends in my bedroom, I thought they were a must. I ended up saving my money for almost a year to afford them, but I eventually got my hands on a pair.

These days, I’m much wiser as to where my money goes, I don’t need the latest iPhone and my laptop is 4 years old. If it isn’t broke (and still fairly optimal), don’t fix it.

3) Showing Off is the Highest Form of Ego and Lowest Form of ‘Cool’

If you can afford to show off with your cash then great, but it doesn’t mean you have to. Teenagers especially like to show people how much money they have, and this was further pushed into my reality when watching ‘My Sweet 16th’ — the TV show where millionaires spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to throw their daughters a birthday party.

Often though, the sad case is that people who really don’t have the cash spend what they have in order to look better in the eyes of others. Sometimes it is to fit in and appear cool, other times it’s just about the ego. If you’re spending money just to look good to others then that is a low form of fulfilment and the relationships you gain aren’t going to be of much substance.

An old friend of mine from high school used to be very popular until he started talking about how expensive his watch was, how much money he earned and which car he was going to buy. People started seeing him for what he really was. People aren’t interested in your false self, there’s nothing for them to connect with.

4) Rash Spending Will Catch Up to You

I registered my own limited company when I was 17 so that I could legally start offering internet marketing services. When I decided I wanted to start a company I just quickly Googled “Register a company online” and went with the first service I found. The price was only $50 to set-up a company which I didn’t think was bad at the time.

My haste led me to missing the $300 charge after a year which was explained in the terms of service (I guess you should read them sometimes). Needless to say, since that incident I’m much more careful about what I sign up for and where I’m spending my money. If something is worth buying, it’s worth the time to make sure you are getting the best deal for your money and that there won’t be any nasty extras like I found myself with.

5) Actually Spend Time to Look at Your Income / Outgoings

This is probably one of the most common bits of advice you’ll see on finance related articles, but let’s be honest – who actually does this? I know personally this is something I had never really wanted to do, mostly due to the time and effort it would take.

However, I’ve started taking a more responsible attitude to my dealings, especially regarding outgoings. In fact, now that I work from home full-time this is even more important to me as I need to make sure that my income is matching my targets. Even if it’s just for one month, or if you find that too challenging, just one week, actually take the time to record where your money is going and where it is coming from.

The most important thing you should look for are any unnecessary expenditures you are making; you might surprise yourself and see a few things you can cut back on.

6) If You Must Take Risks, Take Affordable Ones

This might be a rare occurrence, but it’s likely that there will be times when you need to take risks in order to reap some potential rewards. This might be in the form of an investment, an idea you would like to take into production or even just some fun gambling.

As the point states, if you have to take a risk, make sure it’s an affordable one. By that I mean consider the worst possible scenario. Ideally, the worst possible scenario is going to leave you in a situation that isn’t financially abundant, but one that is at least financially stable. As any sensible gambler will tell you, “Don’t bet more than you’re willing to lose”.

Glen Allsopp writes on the subject of Personal Development at PluginID. His aim is to awaken, inspire and motivate readers into seeing they can be who they want to be and live the life they want to live.

The secret to surviving a recession is opportunity recognition.  The first step in opportunity recognition is to know and believe that there will always be opportunity for those who seek and pursue it.  Regardless of how bad the economy may seem, people still buy and sell.  People still have needs to fill and businesses have products and services that meet those needs.  When the economy goes south, however, there is mass fear and concern and the perception is that the entire world may completely cease to function.  This is patently untrue.  Even in the Great Depression of the 1930’s the world continued to function and 75% of Americans had work and jobs.  Some people actually became wealthy during the Great Depression because they were able to identify opportunity and capture it.

One of the great examples of success during the Great Depression is the motion picture industry.  People were so distressed and fearful about their economic condition they needed emotional relief and a means to escape.  The movies provided that relief, no matter how brief and temporary.  The movie industry identified need and opportunity and filled it at a price people were able to pay.  Opportunity always exists, even though it may be harder to recognize in tough times because it takes a different form.

In good times, opportunity comes in the form of just doing more of what already works.  Opportunity in good times assumes the continuation of the normal and capitalizes on things remaining normal.  In bad times, opportunity comes by abandoning things that no longer work and finding new things that will work, based on new needs.  Recession itself is a great opportunity for those who choose to see it that way.  It’s just that the opportunities may look different and they might require us to leave our comfort zones.  Now we are down to the real stress that a bad economy produces; the stress of change and the need to leave our comfort zones!  Sometimes that means taking a new road.

Sometimes taking new roads leads you in a completely different direction than you had originally intended, with favorable consequences.  Here’s a great example: In 1927, a young married couple started a hot dog and root beer stand called The Hot Shoppe.  They had many years of success but they saw greater opportunity along the new highways being built across America.  They opened a motor lodge for travelers to sleep overnight.  That venture helped J. Willard and Alice Marriott build one of the greatest hotel chains in the United States.  In 2007, The Marriott Corporation was handling over 50,000 reservations a day!

If you see something that needs to be done and you have the opportunity to do it, don’t let someone else seize the opportunity.  Be bold and step up to the task. If you are the first person to see that something needs to be done, you are probably the best person to do it.  That is the action you need to take when you identify opportunity.  But, what is it that helps us recognize new opportunities?

The people who have trouble recognizing opportunity are most likely the same people who are unwilling to leave their comfort zones.  What is a comfort zone?  First and foremost it is a mental state in which people lose the momentum to pursue a vision because they have accepted where they are as the best they need to be or do.   Identifying and capturing new opportunities always requires strategic change and the nature of strategic change always disrupts comfort zones.  That is why change is a big deal to people and is so difficult to achieve. The pain that accompanies change can be financial, physical, or emotional, but regardless of the type of discomfort created by change, recession and hard economic times demand that you embrace it if you intend to remain competitive and effective.

Comfort zones are called comfort zones because they are comfortable! The only thing required to remain in a comfort zone is to close yourself off to new ideas and refuse to change. Over the years, I’ve learned that nothing very interesting or innovative ever emerges from a comfort zone, except more plans to make the comfortable more comfortable.  Comfort zones impact all of us. When people in organizations become too comfortable, it’s because they have lost the momentum to pursue their vision. Why? Because they’ve accepted where they are as the best they need to be or do.  Recession and hard times require a different response.

So, how do you survive a recession?  First, you embrace a mindset that relentlessly pursues new opportunity.  Don’t close yourself off to new ideas and change and become an expert on what people need and want.  In a recession, people may want some things that are different and someone will have to fill those needs.  Second, read lots of books, magazines and other publications that may expose new needs your product or service might be able to meet.  You will probably discover that people still want your product or service, but just need to see it differently.

This brings us to the final piece of the puzzle on surviving a recession.  You must be able to articulate a powerful value proposition for your product or service that will resonate with the felt needs of your customers and potential customers.  Understanding their deepest felt needs is the key to understanding the value of what you have to offer.  Talk to your customers and prospects.  Discover their problems and concerns and you will discover your opportunities!

©2008 Tony Jeary, author of Strategic Acceleration: Succeed at the Speed of Life.

About the writer: Tony Jeary has been and continues to be the coach to the world’s top CEOs and high achievers for more than 20 years. His clients include the Presidents of Wal-Mart, Firestone, Shell, Samsung, New York Life, and the United States Senate, to name only a few. An advisor to many, Tony Jeary has invested his life and career in helping others discover new clarity for their vision, develop focus on direction, and create powerful execution strategies that strategically impact achievement and results. Tony is happily married and blessed with 2 great daughters.

Learn more about Strategic Acceleration at www.strategicacceleration.com.

Visit Tony Jeary at www.tonyjeary.com

I disagree.  In this article, I want to show you how spirituality can help new entrepreneurs in two major challenges they face in starting their own business.

For the purpose of this article, I am defining spirituality as our awareness of higher purpose and power.  That invisible something that transcends us as individuals.  I am not affiliated with any organized religions.

Spirituality offers sustainable motivation

I find it quite dangerous that so many people want to become their own boss because they hate their current jobs.  They want to escape from what they hate, be it the boring job itself or the demanding boss or the work environment.  I don’t say this is no good for moral reasons.  If you don’t like something or someone, then it is so, it’s not good or bad.  I find it dangerous because the escape mentality doesn’t offer any sustainable motivations.

You see, it’s actually so easy to escape.  If you have been tied to your job for many years, and you have been brainwashed in years of education prior to employment, you may find this hard to believe, but it really is so easy.  Too easy, in fact.  You step out, and the escape is done.  Then you are left with no real motivation to build your business other than financial need.

When you start your business to live your purpose and share your love, on the other hand, you have clear and sustainable motivation.  You know what you want to do, and you have the sense of direction where you are heading.  Your vision and love motivate you and help you endure the down times that most entrepreneurs have to go through.

Spirituality helps improve the quality of service

Let’s say the guy who escaped the job he loathed finds a nice business idea and figures out how to start his business.  So he is an entrepreneur now.  His motivation is to make money (and maybe become famous along the way.)

Of course, making money is essential in entrepreneurship.  If you don’t make enough money, you go out of business, and you are not an entrepreneur any more.  The catch is, when you focus only on making money, on what you can get, you become absent in the core of your business, that is, your products and services.

In contrast, when you start your business because you love what you have to offer and you want to delight your customers with your products and services, you naturally pay attention to how you can improve your service even more.  You give great value to your customers, they appreciate the value they receive from your business, and the money flows back to you as a result.  The customers even bring in their loved ones to you because they love what you have to offer.

Marketing becomes tremendously easy when this flow is established.  Even if you are shy, talking about your service becomes enjoyable because you love what you offer.  Your confidence is communicated, and people will pick up your passion.

How it worked with me

I know firsthand how spirituality can help entrepreneurship.  I didn’t particularly hate my corporate job.  In fact, I liked it because it offered me opportunities to work with many people in and outside of the company.  And it paid pretty well.  I would not have left there if I didn’t believe I could help more people live better lives.  The sense of service has encouraged me and sustained me through the early struggles as new entrepreneur.

And I love thinking about how I can make my service even better, more interesting, and more available to my existing and potential clients.  In fact, large chunk of my time goes into that part of business development, which is also the study of personal and spiritual development, and I know I am investing my time well.

Starting a new business is a leap of faith.  It is a jump into the unknown.  Once the initial excitement and the feeling of freedom subside, you are left with all kinds of challenges from making sales to recording them in the book and doing the actual work.  It is so easy to be caught up with the superficial problems and get discouraged.  This is why so many new entrepreneurs quit before they succeed.   I really don’t think I can go through all these day in and day out without my spirituality, without the power that transcends my ego.  My gratitude goes to the god of my understanding.

About the writer:  Akemi Gaines writes for Yes to Me  – Spiritual Healing and Growth for Greater Success.  She is a new entrepreneur herself, serving people who are serious about personal and spiritual growth through her Akashic Record Reading. You can subscribe to her blog here.

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For years, I had heard that in Chinese, the word for crisis is the same as the word for opportunity. Recently I learned that the more popular story is that the Chinese word for crisis consists of two characters: one meaning danger, and one meaning opportunity. Both stories are interesting, but neither is true. While there’s some disagreement, there is little evidence to suggest that the word for crisis was derived in such a way.

But etymology aside, a crisis and an opportunity really aren’t that different, are they? Each is a critical point at which events will turn for the better or for the worse. A mishandled opportunity become a crisis, and a well-managed crisis becomes an opportunity. The most important factor is not the challenge itself, but how you handle it.

Everyone knows that the U.S. is in the middle of a huge financial meltdown. But the events are what they are, and worrying about things won’t change them. So you can either address the situation as a crisis or as an opportunity.

To treat it as a crisis, you should live in fear. Even though the banks are FDIC-insured, you can go withdraw all your cash in case there’s a run on the banks. To protect yourself against the collapsing dollar, you can convert most of your cash to gold and keep it in your basement. With the cash you have left, you can buy food and supplies to keep you alive when the world collapses. Of course, having all this gold and food and such will make you a target, so you’ll need to arm yourself appropriately.

On the other hand, to treat it as an opportunity, you’ll need to be bold and courageous enough to make the situation work in your favor. The downside of this path is that it’s a lot harder to figure out what to do. After all, panicking is easy. But taking constructive action when everyone is losing their head, that takes guts and vision.

Here are some ways of turning an apparent crisis into an opportunity:

1. Take advantage of unfounded pessimism

Because of all the news of bank failures and rampant speculation, bank stocks have been a wild ride lately, and some of them have been undervalued by overreacting investors. This has created some great opportunities for those with the appropriate knowledge, risk tolerance, and yes, luck.

On September 29th, Wachovia stock went as low as $0.01. The next day, it reached $3.70. Market timing is notoriously difficult, and personally I don’t recommend it. However, for someone who was brave enough to invest in a high-risk stock and lucky enough to time it perfectly, it was possible to turn $10,000 into $3.7 million in one day.

2. Take advantage of low competition

I’ve seen a lot of people saying that because of the economy, they’ve decided not to start the business they were planning on, or to put their business on hold and resume it when things turn around, or to slash their prices because no customers have any money.

While this makes sense at some level, I think most people are overreacting. And when everyone decides it’s not a good time to do something, that reduces your competition tremendously. Now might not be a great time for certain types of businesses, but the low competition makes it a wonderful time for other types of businesses.

3. Use this time to reassess your life plan

When bad things are happening, it sometimes makes you stop and think about where your life is going. While you can do this at any time, we tend to be stuck on autopilot until we encounter obstacles on the course we’re on. Unusual times can give you a much-needed wakeup call.

During this time, some people have decided that they’re in the wrong career, or they want to be self-employed, or they want to move to a different part of the country, or they want to get married, or they want to have a kid, or any number of things. Take a minute to ask yourself if your life is still moving in the direction you want.

Every critical juncture has the potential to become either a crisis or an opportunity. What will you make of this one?

Hunter Nuttall wants you to stop sucking and live a life of abundance. Visit his site to learn how to improve your life and your income.

Right now, the news coverage is overloaded with stories about the economy.  This is completely understandable, because recently there have been some very interesting developments in the global economy.  What’s unfortunate about the media coverage is that the majority of it is focused on trying to “make sense” of the current situation. Sadly, that approach just seems to be causing more and more confusion and panic. Personally, I believe in the concept that one should focus 10% on the problem and 90% on the solution.

Crystal Ball Gazing

We have “experts” looking at the past, comparing it to the current situation and then extrapolating what this will mean for the future.  I find this approach very interesting because almost every financial prospectus comes with the fine-print warning that past performance does not predict future results. Just because something happened in the 1930’s does not mean that it is directly relevant to our present-day situation.

Consider the Source

We have “experts” telling us what we absolutely must do in order to “survive”.  We are overloaded with advice about the survival of the global economy.  We are overloaded with advice about the survival of various national economies. And we are overloaded with advice about the survival of our own personal finances.  My question is: Are these different “experts” from the ones that were advising us before these interesting economic developments?  To my mind, financial “experts” are in the same league as weather “experts” and that is not meant to be a criticism of either group.

Anchoring Yourself in This Storm

Let me shift your focus for just a second.  I want you to think about the three happiest days of your life so far.  Take all the time you need to find the three that you would consider the “happiest”.  Have you got them?

For me, they would have to be…

• My wedding day
• The days that my kids were born
• April 15, 1994

Now I’d like you to immerse yourself in the feelings of your happy days.  Really try to relive them!  Remember the people that may have been there with you. Remember the sights, sounds, smells, conversations, and emotions.

Are you there?  Are you reliving those happy times? Good! Now… please tell me how much money you had in the bank on each of those days.

My guess is that you probably aren’t able to answer that question with any real certainty.

Our Relationship To Money

Yes, we need a certain amount of money to live.  However, we also need to remember some very important facts about life and our relationship to money.

• You are not your bank account
• You are not your credit score
• You are not your mortgage rate
• You are not your retirement savings balance
• You are not the economy

Our Relationship to Life

If we can manage to pull ourselves away from the 7/24 news coverage and spend some quiet, reflective time, my guess is that we will come to realize some important truths about our relationship to life.

• Your life is made up of “the good times” and for the most part, those good times have nothing to do with money
• Your life is made up of the meaningful relationships you have
• Your life is made up of the meaning you give to it and the significance you attach to it

Conclusion

We’ve probably all seen the bumper sticker that says: “He Who Dies With The Most Toys, Wins!”  The fact of the matter is that at the end of the day, “He” is still dead.  It’s not about the toys – it’s about the feelings we have while we’re alive.  As my children have taught me again and again: sometimes the best feelings don’t come from the cool toys, but from the cardboard box they came in.

Yes, the economy is doing some very unusual things.  Yes, that may end up having an impact on you and your family.  But I promise you that you will only feel helpless if you focus on the things over which you have no control.  My suggestion is that you use your power of focus to stay anchored in the present moment and to choose your reactions wisely – they make all the difference.

I now return you to round-the-clock coverage of the falling sky, already in progress.

Patrick Mathieu is a life coach for personal development.  He is also a motivational speaker and author and he has been featured on Oprah & Friends where he discussed his powerful Mortality Manifesto.