In Making a Living Without a Job, Barbara J. Winter described the idea of Multiple Profit Centers: “I think of creating profit centers,” she wrote, “as being akin to what a juggler does when spinning plates on top of sticks. The juggler walks out on the stage with ten sticks and ten plates but doesn’t begin spinning them all at once. Methodically, he or she positions the first plate on a stick and gets it into motion. Once done, the juggler moves on to the next, then the next, and so forth. Eventually, all ten of the plates are spinning away, each with its own momentum”

Creating multiple streams of income is key to sustain and secure your message. When one of the streams faces a hard time, others lift you up.

When it comes to creating multiple streams of income (or multiple profit centers as Barbara likes to call), people are divided into two groups:

1. Dominant Passion:

Those are people who have one dominant passion and would like to spend the rest of their lives pursuing that single passion.

Around this dominant passion may revolve several streams of income.

I belong to this category. I’m extremely passionate about the field of success and motivation. Now, I’ve three major streams of income: speaking, life purpose coaching and motivational information products … and I’m always looking out for more.

2. Passion Mix:

When you have several passions, which I call the passion mix, you can turn each one of them into a stand alone stream of income.

Think of Sir Richard Branson!

Beside success & motivation, I have a strong passion for Chess. I’ve not considered creating a profit center around it yet. However, if I do, I will belong to this category of people pursuing different unrelated passions.

The secret to making the idea of “multiple streams of income” successful is to follow the juggler example.

Start with one plate, get it into motion and then move on to another plate.

Don’t start everything all at once.

You’ve to focus all your efforts on starting and building momentum for your first business idea. Then, when it acquires the momentum that makes it stable enough, you move on to build your next business idea or stream of income.

Now, what possible streams of income can you create around your passions? Let’s continue the discussion in the comments section below.

Mohamed Tohami is a bestselling author and the creator of “The P.A.S. Technique: The World’s Easiest Way To Find Your Passion and Purpose In Life”. If you want to set your heart & soul free from the prison of the paycheck and discover how to proudly follow your passion, give a visit to his Transformational Motivation blog now.

You have more power over your financial destiny than perhaps you have given yourself credit for. No one can stop you from being extraordinary, well almost no one. The truth is there is one person who holds the keys to your success or failure, your poverty or riches, your freedom or imprisonment. If you are unsure of who I am referring to, look no further than your nearest mirror!

Here are 3 powerful ways to improve your finances by regaining control over the person in the mirror.

Acknowledge the Problem

Few like to admit that they are financially sloppy. In fact, we often go out of our ways to display artifacts that “prove” that we have our acts together. Money problems can evoke feelings of anxiety and strain relationships in ways few other subjects can. Just imagine how many friendships and marriages have been destroyed over finances.

Simply acknowledging that a problem exists with our finances is often a substantial part of the battle. Consider the following three keys about acknowledging financial problems. First, an unacknowledged enemy will flourish. A problem that is denied or ignored will fester and continue to hinder your progress. Acknowledging the problem enables you to pinpoint precisely what challenges (behaviors or associations) are blocking your financial objectives. It could be the lack of an emergency fund, need for instant gratification, shopping excursions with your friends, failure to invest, not investing enough, keeping a dead-end job, or even making too many splurges on family members. Second, it is difficult to be fed up with a problem that you haven’t yet acknowledged. In short, you need what Les Brown calls an “I had it moment,” meaning “enough is enough. I refuse to live this way anymore.” Free yourself from the stigma of not having all the answers. We’ve all made mistakes regarding money. Now, let’s move on to solutions. Third, without acknowledgment, your actions might not deal with the root-cause of the problem. Consider the wife criticizing her husband’s spending habits without realizing that there is an underlying pathology prompting his misbehavior. The true causes of financial problems are frequently masked. For example, debt is often not the problem but rather the symptom of the problem. Accordingly, I recently wrote on how to live debt free by addressing the underlying financial and mental issues causing indebtedness.

Remember, acknowledgment is typically pivotal to effect change. The application is that you can reclaim your power by acknowledging the problem today.

Harness the Power of Focus

Many years ago, I was overweight and learned a powerful lesson regarding focus. I had tried diets and exercise programs, and the only one that seemed to “work for me” made me sick. I decided that I “needed” a new piece of equipment to get in shape. However, I a) was very young with limited financial resources and b) had already unsuccessfully tried many programs and products. I decided that in order to encourage my family’s sponsorship, I needed to prove to them that I was focused on my weight loss this time and that nothing would deter me. I literally read and implemented every sound regimen that I could get my hands on. I utilized all my existing equipment until they broke.  I conscientiously moderated my eating habits. Eventually, I did get the new equipment that I requested, and in just 10 weeks, I loss the remaining 40 pounds! This had previously seemed like an impossible feat, but focus made the impossible possible for me.

The implications of this example are not exclusive to fitness. There are many parallels between your health and your wealth. In fact, one study found that 47% of millionaires engaged in jogging or running within the last month, and 23% played tennis within the same period. That’s a tangible correlation. Indeed, the same principle that enabled me to lose my weight quickly also helped me to eliminate all of my consumer debt in my mid-twenties. Harness the power of focus to achieve your financial dreams as well.

Place Yourself on an Increase Fast

I’m convinced that we occasionally need to go on an increase fast. Spend 30 days where you only think about the best, read the best, associate with the best, and hear the best. This is your increase fast. You will allocate some time each day to invest in yourself, and everything that you do during this time will tend to your prosperity and abundance. Concentrating your mind on increase is one of quickest ways to begin reprograming negative thought patterns, to expand your vision, to dream again and to come up with creative solutions to challenging financial problems.

My primary caution is that during and after this period you will likely have to overcome both external and internal roadblocks that suggest that you are being silly or ineffective. Not everyone will appreciate your vision. Nearly every dreamer has faced this. Imagine if Walt Disney had stopped when he was fired for not being creative enough or if Steve Jobs had given up when Apple ousted him in 1985. In Jobs’ case, he referred to his firing as the best thing that happened to him. Just because you face adversity doesn’t mean that you are on the wrong path. Similarly, you may have mental “cow paths,” which are dull and uninspired ways of thinking that are designed to keep you from stretching yourself. Such paths are often self-defeating. These “cow paths” will keep you in your comfort zone financially (and otherwise), if you let them, and will work to any dreamer’s detriment. Recognize “cow paths” in your thinking, and reject every thought containing your vision to that which is common.

The quality of the imagination is to flow and not to freeze – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Closing Thoughts

In summation, there is so much potential within us to improve our financial worlds, but moving past ourselves is often our biggest challenge. The responsibility rests squarely upon our shoulders to acknowledge our shortcomings, silence the critical voice of doubt, set aside time to abandon ourselves to our focus, and stretch our thinking in ways that allow us to achieve success beyond our wildest dreams. Decide whether you are up for the challenge of moving beyond the person in the mirror today. That choice will decide your destiny!

He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he would had failed – William James

Roshawn writes at Watson Inc. on eliminating debt, investing money, and building wealth. Get his free eBook Your Foundation to Wealth by signing up for his email updates (no spam I promise). Get his RSS feed and connect with him on Twitter @roshawnwatson too.

I’ve been dropping into my favorite coffee shop for years. Then, amid the buzz over the economy and what a waste of money my lattes were, I stopped. Afterward, I found that while passing that coffee shop I missed the smell, the people, the “me time.” This combined with my inferior ability to make a cup of Joe made me realize this experiment was turning into a latte nonsense.

We often hear about what we can’t and shouldn’t do. But modern psychology again and again shows us that it’s not all black and white. A little splurge can be good for you; just sitting somewhere for a moment in thought isn’t a waste of time. Even what we know about caffeine has changed. Here are some reasons skipping that latte actually could be bad for your well being.

The Savoring Truth

Stopping into the coffee shop was a pleasurable way to start my day. Now that the world has dubbed it an ill-advised thing to do, I even stand to gain more pleasure from it, according to Australian researchers. In a study for Weight Watchers reported in the Daily Mail, they found that those who indulge experience bouts of stress relief and feelings of happiness. Watching reality TV, an impulse buy, skipping the gym…all these things can bring on temporary feelings of happiness and stress relief. I don’t recommend you lay at home all day watching The Bachelor and shopping on eBay, but there is something to be said about a brief mood boost from a simple pleasure.

How many work issues could you resolve just by pondering them over coffee? According to experts at Children’s Hospital Boston, a lot. Self-reflection not only helps you, it can help you better communicate with co-workers. “Sharing reflections with other staff members can help develop more effective strategies, with the added benefit of working as a team,” the researchers reported. “These are all-important ingredients for sound decision-making, staff skill development, appropriate service delivery, and effective staff communication.”

So, instead of carrying a grudge for someone who’s grinding on your nerves, skip away for a latte. Imaging the damage that could be spared from an activity the world has shunned as an expensive, fattening waste of time.

Your Friend the Coffee Bean

Being too isolated could make you sick, according to psychologist Martha K. McClintock of the University of Chicago. In her study on rodents, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, she found that social isolation affects the longevity of rats. “Isolation led to a higher production of a stress hormone, corticosterone, among rats that were kept
alone and subjected to the disturbances of colony life,” the report indicates. “Additionally, the isolated rats took longer to recover from a stressful situation than rats that lived together in small groups. “This level of stress and its duration made the solo rats “prone to malignancy in late-middle age,” researchers reported.

When you frequent a certain haunt, you have the opportunity to make friends with the staff and the regulars. Not only is this a fantastic networking tool, it just feels good to walk into a place every day and see people you know (cue the Cheers theme).

A Drop of Financial Advice

So how bad is it to spend money on that morning latte? Let’s just say you purchase a $6 latte five days a week on the way to work. That’s $30 a week, on par with treating your friend to lunch. Why is treating your friend to lunch not guilt-inducing, but a morning latte is?

According to Suze Orman, you shouldn’t go too crazy on restricting yourself during a budget makeover or it could lead to sabotage. “Don’t try to give up all your favorite things at once. If you go cold turkey, you will explode,” she said in an article for Yahoo! Shine.

The Coffee Cure

Coffee is the devil? It makes you nervous, causes insomnia and will make your taxes double? Let’s turn this argument on its head and at least show the benefits of our friend Joe. For example, WebMD reports that coffee drinkers are less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Coffee drinkers also have fewer instances of certain cancers, strokes, and heart arrhythmia. Caffeine makes pain relievers 40% more effective in treating headaches. And let’s not forget the other component to a latte – milk. We all know it builds strong bones, but it also may fend off certain cancers.

Let it Percolate

Sure, we’ve all seen the pitfalls of spending beyond our means or having a caffeine crash. But doesn’t it stand to reason that the more we deny ourselves the more we stand to lose in the long run? We deserve life’s little pleasures, and science says we need it.

Brendan Cruickshank (Vice President of Client Services) – Brendan is a veteran of the online job search and recruiting industry, having spent the past 8 years in senior client services roles with major sites like Juju.com and JobsInTheMoney.com. He is quoted regularly as an expert in employment and jobs trends in major media outlets like the Washington Post, US News & World Report, and Forbes and has spoken at recruiting industry events such as Onrec and Kennedy Information’s Corporate Recruiting Conference.

If a book costs $50, is that good value?

Your first response might be “no way!” It seems like a lot of money for a bunch of pages bound together.

If a book costs $2, is that good value?

“Hell, yeah!” That’s a bargain-basement price.

The problem is, the price of those books doesn’t necessarily bear any relation to the value which the books have to you. A textbook packed with useful information for college might be well worth $50. On the other hand, a trashy, badly-written novel might not be worth even $2 – especially when you factor in the time cost of reading it.

“Cheap” Doesn’t Mean “Good Value”

Most of us find it hard to resist a bargain. Maybe we’ve got a coupon for a particular store, or we see something marked down to a great price. Of course, advertisers and marketers know just how to push our buttons too.

But just because something’s cheap doesn’t mean that it’s good value.

Perhaps it’s a shoddy product. You could pick up some cheap garden tools, but they might work badly and need replacing after a month – in the long term, you’d be better to invest in some quality tools which last for decades.

Perhaps it’s a perfectly good product at a very decent price, but it’s just not right for you. Sure, that sweater might be amazingly cheap, but if it’s not a color and style that you like, you’re just not going to wear it.

Be very wary of bargains, coupons and money-off deals. Marketers aren’t acting out of altruism – they’re trying to part you from your cash.

“Expensive” Doesn’t Mean “Bad Value”

Conversely, sometimes it’s worth spending more money than you might initially feel comfortable with.

Let’s say you’re setting up a new business. Paying $200 for an hour of consulting might sound like a massive expense – except, if that $200 results in $1000 of extra sales within your first month, it’s looking like a much better value proposition.

Try to look beyond the price of something to assess the value of a particular product, service or event. Maybe those conferences won’t come cheap – but the networking and learning you do there will be worth much more than the ticket price. Perhaps you’re investing quite a bit of cash in training materials – but once you’ve worked through these, you’ll be in a great position to raise your rates.

Value Isn’t the Same For Everyone

We often think that items and services have a particular market value, set by invisible yet powerful forces. Of course, this is the case to some extent, particularly with popular goods like groceries.

On a day-to-day level, though, in your personal life, this sort of “value” isn’t really too relevant. What matters is being clear about what you consider valuable.

Perhaps the easiest example is the price of a ticket to a big soccer game. You might be willing to pay hundreds of dollars to see your favorite team play – but your mate Bob, who hates soccer, wouldn’t pay a penny.

Any time you’re weighing up a purchasing decision (or secretly judging a friend’s choices), bear in mind that your “value” isn’t the same as everybody else’s.

The price might be high, low or somewhere in between. What matters is whether or not that particular product or service is going to be valuable to you.

To test for value, ask yourself:

• Will this help me to make more money – perhaps by saving me time or teaching me new skills?
• Will this enhance my life?
• In a year’s time, would I be more likely to regret buying this or regret not buying it?

Yes, it’s always going to be a subjective judgment, and sometimes you’ll get it wrong. But by recognizing that there’s a difference between the fixed price and the value that you’ll derive, you give yourself a much higher chance of getting it right.

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A recent survey showed that 60% of us don’t keep a budget. Close to 20% hasn’t a clue where their money goes each month, yet 43% do spend more each year than they earn. Almost a third pay no attention to interest rates on their credit cards, even while carrying an average debt of $15,000 per household.

How can this head-in-the-sand approach to managing money end in anything other than disaster? Look at our economy over the last two or three years and the answer is obvious: it doesn’t. You can’t ignore the basic laws of economics. You can’t spend more than your take in without paying the consequences.

For over thirty years I have followed a very simple plan to financial stability. It allowed me to treat my family to Christmas in Hawaii several times, maintain a timeshare condo in Florida for 20 years, have a vacation home in the mountains of Arizona, live in a nice home with a pool and spa, and stop working when I was 52.

I didn’t hit the lottery. In fact, I wouldn’t buy a lottery ticket under any circumstances. I didn’t hit it big in the stock market. In fact, I am extremely conservative in my investments and suffered no major lifestyle changes during the last several recessions.

What I did is so simple, so easy to implement and so effective that anyone in virtually any financial situation can do what I did. It doesn’t matter if you are single, have a family, take care of your elderly parents, or live in a yurt in Mongolia. It doesn’t even matter what your income is. So, what is the one key?

Live beneath your means. That means spend less than you make. Ignore the siren call of instant gratification. Realize that credit costs you. Understand that risky investments are called that for a reason. Don’t be greedy. Remember the Turtle won the race.

As I’ve noted, we didn’t spend the last 30 years in a tent in the wilderness, living off road kill and fish. Our lifestyle was comfortable. We were not (and still are not) minimalists, though I like that approach to living. My wife and I agreed very early that we would do three things without fail: spend at least 30% less than we made, save and invest that 30%, and never carry credit card debt. We lived beneath our means.

Living this way means turning your back on the consumer society that fills our every waking moment. TV is not a medium for entertaining you. It is a delivery system for making you feel unsatisfied. Magazines and newspapers contain more ads than editorial content.  Every sense of yours is under assault to buy more, spend more, charge more, and risk more. To not do so is almost unpatriotic.

I am not going into detail on how you live beneath your means. Common sense will get you most of the way there. Thousands of books and web sites can educate you on the basics of budgeting and smart investing. There is really a very simple path to financial independence and anyone can follow it. Maybe not at the 30% level we managed, but if you spend less than you make and are committed, it will work.

Written by Bob Lowry. Bob hosts a blog, A Satisfying Retirement Lifestyle,  to help you achieve the type of retirement that leaves you happy and productive.

This guest post was contributed by Jane Sanders, who writes about debt management and other personal finance topics at DebtManagement.net.

“A man in debt is so far a slave” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the greatest hardships a person can face is being burdened by debt. In addition to paying off the original loan, interest (often at extremely high rates) continues to add to the total, making the ultimate pay off far higher than what was borrowed in the first place.

Having debt robs a person of freedom. They can’t leave a job they don’t like to pursue a new career, bad credit often prevents them from buying essentials like a home or a car, and it hangs over them for years, chipping away at the amount they can spend and save. It also creates stress, because someone with a great deal of debt is only one misfortune away from bankruptcy.

Fortunately, debt problems are completely avoidable. All it takes is an understanding of the seriousness of debt and some personal restraint.

Don’t Be an Idiot with Credit Cards

Everyone should repeat this mantra until it’s burned into their unconscious: Carrying a balance on your credit card is one of the stupidest things you can do. Credit card interest rates are extremely high, and the longer you wait to pay them off the more interest charges pile up. There is no excuse for using credit cards to buy something you don’t have the cash to pay for today.

Credit card companies love people dumb enough to make only the minimum payments because that’s how they make all their money. On top of that, they load their contracts with loopholes that allow them to jack up your rates at any time or hit you with charges for any number of small infractions.

I don’t believe there is any reason why a person has to have a credit card, but if you feel the need to have one anyway, you must avoid purchases you can’t afford and religiously pay off your balance before the end of each month. If you can do that, then you’ll have avoided one the most common causes of debt.

Do You REALLY Need that Degree?

Another leading cause of debt is student loans. While education can be a great investment that increases income over the course of your career, it can also be a gigantic waste of money.

If you want to avoid burdensome debt, it’s important to seriously consider the costs and benefits of attending a particular school. Is the degree going to improve your employment prospects? Is it going to help you start out in a higher paying position? What level of salary can you expect? What would you lose by attending a cheaper school (such as a state university)? Are you really sure you want a career in this field?

Whenever possible, you should look for cheaper alternatives and scholarships you might be eligible for. A top flight university looks great on a diploma, but if it puts you in debt for 20 years, the price might be too dear.

People also get themselves in trouble by changing their minds about a particular career path. I personally know more than one law school graduate that quickly decided that lawyering wasn’t for them. Unfortunately they couldn’t abandon the 6 figures of student debt quite so easily. This is also common among doctors.

The key point here is to avoid student debt as best you can, and when you do take it on, to be completely sure it’s an investment that will pay for itself.

Skip the Flashy House and Car

It’s trivially obvious, but still bears repeating. If you want to avoid debt, live within your means. Part of the reason people go astray is that it’s extremely tempting to spend. A future life with freedom from debt is intangible, but that sweet ride or the brand new condo are tangible things, tempting you with immediate gratification.

On top of that, there are salespeople doing everything in their power to persuade you. Keep in mind that these people do not care about you. All they care about is their sales commission and will say pretty much anything to get it. You should also ignore the spending habits of other people. Just because someone else is acting like an idiot is no reason to follow suit. You will never catch up to someone with more money by spending more than you should. If you want to buy luxuries then you need to work harder, not dig yourself a hole.

On large purchases you also need to be careful of shady lenders. Car dealerships make a large chunk of their profits by providing financing, generally at much higher rates than you could get through your bank. Mortgage brokers are also known for being extremely corrupt. They were a large cause of the financial crisis. If you start to hear terms like “adjustable rate” or “interest only” you should run for the door.

Keep Yourself Insured

Another common cause of debt is health problems. This generally happens when someone gets sick or injured and doesn’t have health insurance, or for some reason loses their coverage. It’s easy to let your coverage lapse if you become self employed or have a job that doesn’t provide it, so it’s important to understand what a tremendous risk that is. Medical problems cause 60% of all US bankruptcies.

Although you might think it makes sense to save money on premiums if you are young and in good health, health problems can happen to anyone, and they are frequently unforeseen and highly expensive.

Run From Short Term Debt Offers

This should be obvious, but any type of short term loan or cash advance you might be offered will come with ridiculous interest rates. These companies will often get celebrity endorsements and buy radio or TV ads touting the benefits of their loans: “All I had to do was fill out a form and they gave me $1000 cash”. What they don’t mention is that you’ll often be paying a 15% (or more) premium on whatever you borrow, due in a matter of weeks. Needless to say, this is a terrible deal for the borrower.

Stay the Path and Enjoy Your Freedom

Hopefully I haven’t overwhelmed you with too many instructions in this article, but the truth is that avoiding debt is mostly common sense and responsibility. These aren’t very sexy values, especially compared to promises of easy money that lenders offer. But unlike the those promises, they actually offer real rewards. By looking after your own best interests and keeping debt fueled expenditures under control, you can easily avoid soul crushing debt.

For more information on debt solutions and money management tools check out debtmanagement.net

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“I Can’t Do My (business, art, purpose, mission) Without Funding First!”

This is probably the number one money myth that drives us away from living our dreams, passions, and true talent and consequently realizing abundant wealth from those gifts and inspiration. And it is not only a major money myth, but it is a big fat convenient excuse keeping you from investing in yourself.

I know that many of you are going to be totally offended at this one. But if you really want to live your purpose, your gift, your talent— nothing, and I mean nothing, should stop you or distract you. The biggest myth that Power Brokers Perched atop the Mountain of Money (most all of it paid to them by us); is that you must have funding to accomplish your dreams. There is only room for one real dream and that’s theirs.

Now, if you play along, you can participate in “the Pre- defined American Dream,” which is the so-called freedom of a job, a home (owned by the bank) and social-security retirement, with Medicare health insurance (mostly consisting of prescription drug ad- diction in old age). At the risk of sounding angry, let me clarify that I am not. We are responsible for our participation, and I am simply speaking truth.

What about your own unique dream? What about your purpose? What about your deeply held talents and passions? You start asking these questions and “Power & Money Brokers” have an answer for you…”Get funding.” We’ll loan you the money and you can pay us (argh), interest! (again). If you jump through the right hoops, (mostly hoops that require traditional employment) we will give you a small business loan, an art stipend, or an educational grant (with interest).

The reality here is you spend 75–90% of your time jumping through the red-tape hoops, paying interest, or not even being able to qualify for these—because the goal is to keep you (and everyone) in the work force. If somehow you manage to break away and get the funding, however, you are still going to pay “them” interest for the loan, or jump through red-tape hoops for the grant, and therefore will be ineffective in your real purpose. You are still working for them, and their dreams—not yours.

SOLUTION: Make a commitment to your dreams. Not theirs, whoever “they are.” Start going deep inside to find out what your true dreams and talents are. Start investing now in your own dreams. Make a plan and a strategy to see those dreams come true. Do not be de- railed from your dreams by the myth that you need funding or money first in order to see your dreams come true.

Your dream is not dependent on the system of money, which is maintained and perpetuated by those who are in a not-so-generous crowd. Your dreams are dependent on your passion and your personal power and your commitment to fulfill them. The money, financing, and resources will come once you step out and get started. Do not wait on their money or on them who have the money!
Use the Power of the Pen. Write them down in a journal or create a dream board, or vision board. Better yet, publish your own dream plan book (Dreams to Reality Curriculum, by Deborah S. Nelson, www.AuthorYourDreams.com)

Deborah S Nelson is a guest blogger for PickTheBrain and the founder of Author Your Dreams Publishing

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PickTheBrain is proud to present a 10 Part series, written by Deborah S. Nelson of Author Your Dreams.

Money Myth 1:  “I Can’t Afford It!”

Can’t afford It.” How many times do we repeat this in a day? It has been astutely stated, “possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
It is also the basic tenant of advertising that by repeating something over and over again, it becomes truth.

Let’s face it: 50 years ago, no one needed deodorant. Mankind survived for thousands and thousands of years without it. Suddenly in the past 50 years, deodorant is an absolute necessity in polite culture.
So how did that happen? Repetition creates reality; and using mass communications, repetition created the “deodorant reality” for millions of people.

Repetition is how advertising works: “I can’t afford it,” “I can’t af- ford it.” Repeat it often enough, and it becomes true for you. While you may think it was true before you recited it a dozen or so times, try not saying it and even try not thinking it for a week, as I contend this is one of those “what came first…the-chicken–or-the-egg” quandaries. Stop and replace that thought and statement with another more abundant thought and statement for just one month, and witness a change. You will realize that “I can’t afford it,” becomes true as long as you make the statement, believe it, and practice it.

This is because it is impossible to separate our words from our thinking and our thinking from our words. Your subconscious seeks to obey the word pictures you feed it, because it wants to be at peace with your consciousness. So until you break the spell, the “I can’t afford it,” statement will hypnotize you into the practice of a continuous financial state of “not enough money.”

You are ultimately the boss of the thoughts activated by your subconscious. If you think and then say, “I can’t afford it,” your subconscious will get the message, and will scan for and focus on circumstances, situations, and events to prove and solidify that myth as reality. Our subconscious always seeks to find congruency with our consciousness—the real boss.

Solution: You are the boss of your thoughts. Rearrange, reorganize, re-scramble, and rethink your thought patterns to reflect an acceptance of wealth, which is our true original condition. If you would like to dig deeper into this subject, you may get the free preview copy of a book entitled, A Thoughtanomics Manifesto—How to Move From Money Madness to True Abundance, by signing up for the Dreams to Reality Report. If you feel that “wisdom” would advise you not to spend resources on a particular thing at a particular moment, then line up your thoughts, words, deeds, and subconscious to be in agreement to support you in the practice of wealth. You may say something like, “I choose to invest money in something more important right now,” or “I want to invest my resources, rather than to con- sume them right now. Try saying that and feeling that right now! You will most likely feel stronger, more empowered, and less whiney than when you say “I Can’t afford It!” This takes practice, but start right now to build a personal belief system to welcome abundance into your life.

Deborah S Nelson is a guest blogger for PickTheBrain and the founder of Author Your Dreams Publishing

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Image courtesy of W. Kozak

Starting your own small business can seem like a daunting task at first. This is why many people never attempt it. However, if you break up your duties into smaller tasks, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. In fact, if you follow these steps to starting a small business you may find that you’re a profitable entrepreneur in no time.

While you may not have to complete all of these steps, or complete them in this exact order, the following list should give you a better idea about the things you should be thinking about and planning for your business start up.

1.    Brainstorm Business Ideas. You may already have a business idea in mind, but it’s important to fully explore your options in the very beginning. Think about a few different businesses that you had in mind for yourself. Make a pros and cons list and see if you can narrow down your choices. Remember that starting a business is never something to be taken lightly, even if it’s just part-time.

2.   Have a Business Plan. If you’re starting your own small business, you must have a business plan. Even if your plan is simple, it should be written out for you in detailed steps. Too many people go in blindly without clear goals. They may end up profitable, but probably not nearly as profitable as a company with a business plan.

3.    Go Over Your Finances and Consider Hiring Help. Since you’re starting a part-time business, you might find yourself on a tight budget. This just means that you’ll have to plan carefully and make sure that you make some smart financial decisions. It’s a skill that every entrepreneur should work on in life. Also, the part-time nature of your business might mean that you don’t have a whole lot of time to invest. This means that you might need to look into hiring help, especially for some of the more tedious work.

4.    Come up with a Timeline. There are probably quite a few steps that you have laid out that need to be completed in order to reach your goals. Set out a timeline for every goal. Make sure that you set attainable goals, but still try to push yourself to achieve in a timely fashion.

5.    Setting up a Business. You might want to ask the advice of a local accountant about your particular laws when it comes to setting up a business. This is just because every country, state, county or even city may have special rules that you need to follow. There are usually many hoops to jump through right at start up, but once you get through it maintaining your various licenses from year to year shouldn’t be much of a problem.

6.    Taking Action. Your next step is to take some bold action to achieve those goals. Your business is not just going to launch itself. Starting a business takes especially hard work right at the beginning.

7.    Using Your Plan B. Sometimes everything will not go according to your plans. This is why it’s usually a good idea to have a Plan B in place. Your Plan B may end up getting you out of a tight spot.

8.    Evaluating Your Progress. As you continue on your journey as an entrepreneur, you’ll want to pause to evaluate your progress at certain intervals. Check on things like your profits and efficiency. See if you can make bolder goals, or maybe you need to scale back a bit. You should be constantly striving to be the best you can be.

9.    Maintaining Your Business. In the end it’ll come down to maintaining your small business. One of the final steps to starting a small business is to just keep doing what is working for you, but never fall into a pattern where you stop trying to better yourself. Your part-time business likely has the potential for full-time income and then some.

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One of my favorite posts on this blog is the one that is titled “It’s Ok to Spend Money on Stuff You Love”, simply because it vindicates my position in the standoff that I currently have going on with my spouse. I feel that it’s ok to spend on the things that we both enjoy while he insists that they’re frivolous expenses and that we need to save our money for the future. While I see the wisdom in his point of view, I also feel that the money we earn after much hardship and struggle is best used in a timely manner.

For example, going away on a much-needed vacation will definitely drain our bank balance by quite a number of dollars. But I feel that it’s money spent on a worthwhile cause, especially because we’re both still young enough to feel and experience the romance of travel and appreciate the beauty of the places we visit. Now if I were to go along with my spouse and save the money instead, we would have enough and more in our bank when we retire. But the problem is that we would have lost out on our youth and may no longer feel the desire to travel and enjoy new experiences.

There’s a time to spend money, and when you lose this opportunity, you lose out on life. Sure, you do need to be careful, cautious and thrifty, but what’s the use of hoarding away money that you’re not going to spend in your lifetime, or rather, when you have enough life left in you? In my opinion, it’s ok to spend money on what you love, even if the expense may seem frivolous, if:

• You don’t have pressing debts that must be settled as soon as possible.
• You don’t have to save up for your kids’ college or other foreseeable future expenses.
• You have a pretty decent nest egg saved up for emergencies.
• You have a reasonably secure and well-paying job.

In general, your overall expenditure must not exceed your overall income for a certain period of time if you want to lead a stress-free and debt-free life. It’s basic mathematics, but unfortunately, not many of us are good at it. We spend more than we earn, we don’t follow basic finance rules (such as the one that says that any money borrowed using a credit card or otherwise earns interest that must be paid back as well, so it’s wise to pay off debts at the earliest), and we don’t keep track of our expenditure. This is why we’re always in a bind when it comes to money.

But if you’re financially savvy and have enough to get by comfortably, I see no reason to scrimp and save at every point of your life. You earn to live well, so spend money when it’s most needed and best enjoyed – that is money well spent!

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This guest post is contributed by Shannon Wills, she writes on the topic of Top Online Engineering Degree . She welcomes your comments.

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