9 Tips to Control Every Meeting and Get What You Want

Are you nailing job interviews, closing new clients, and maximizing every meeting? Most likely you aren’t, but I’ll show you how I blew a huge meeting and what you can learn from my mistakes.

Bottom line . . . you need to prepare for key meetings. It doesn’t matter if you are on an interview, auditioning for a TV show, meeting a prospect for your business, or trying to get your kid into a swanky private school. It doesn’t matter if the meeting is at your office or theirs. You need to invest some of your other 8 hours into preparing for your big meetings.

Why? It’s simple. If you don’t prepare for a meeting, someone else will control it. If you have something important to say, you might not get the chance to share it. And when I say “control,” I don’t mean some Machiavellian thing where you need to dominate the discussion. Control the meeting means you know what you want to say and that you navigate the discussion to make sure your key points are addressed. Read the Rest of This Article »

Financial Help for Women: 5 Strategies You Must do in the Other 8 Hours

Image courtesy of Marie Claire/Bill Diodato

In a divorce, a woman’s life is turned upside down — nearly everything about her existence changes, but for the man, the most he has to change is his phone number and address. Most women who left the workforce to raise a family are at a significant disadvantage and find it difficult as they try to re-enter the workforce they left years earlier. I don’t have marriage advice, but if you do a few simple things in the other 8 hours, you can survive a divorce and get back on your feet as quickly as possible.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my own experience growing up in a single parent home (my mom raised five kids after my father left) recently because a very good friend of mine and her two young boys were just abandoned. One day they were a family and the next her husband was leaving her for another woman. She is now struggling to survive. Not only is she trying to deal with the emotions of the situation, but she has to raise her two boys and find a way to pay the mortgage.

Added to all of this, in many families women are now the main bread winner and this trend is certainly on the rise. Now more than ever women have to take responsibility not only for the family, but for the finances, too.

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Learned Helplessness: The Secret to Being Poor

“The Power Of One” courtesy of Shaun King

Everyone and their brother has the “secret” to being rich. Countless books, articles, and late-night infomercials have revealed how we can all live in palm tree lined mansions and drive bright red Ferraris. So why are so many of us struggling? Because we have learned to be poor. It’s time we changed this…

Many poor people — and by “poor” I mean financially but also living below your true potential — may have developed the belief that no matter how hard they work and how much education they get they will never get out of the financial and personal straight-jacket they are in. They may look at investing the other 8 hours and think it can work for others but that it will never work for them. It’s no wonder why poor people play lotteries in greater numbers than any other income class. The middle class surely wants and needs the money too. The difference is that some of the poor see the lottery as the only way they can get ahead. If you truly believe that regardless of what you do today, it won’t positively impact tomorrow, you’re not going to try. Read the Rest of This Article »

Discover Your Passion: Do What You Love And The Money Will Follow

You’ve heard this cute advice a hundred times: Do what you love and the money will follow. If you love what you do, it doesn’t feel like work. But what if you have no idea what your passion is?

It’s time you find out.

It’s time to live your passion.

In real estate, there’s a concept called “highest and best use” (HABU). Properties are valued based on the best use of the land that will produce the highest value. For example, appraisers may value a two-bedroom house on a busy street next to retail shops as if a strip mall occupied the land, because the best use of the property that produces the highest value is a strip mall and not a house. In other words, other two-bedroom houses in the town might be worth $200,000, but an investor may pay $600,000 just for the land in order to build a strip-mall. Read the Rest of This Article »

Greed is Good: Why You Need to Tap Into Your Inner Gordon Gekko

Greed is good. Embrace it. Love it. Live it. In fact, greed may be the one thing that can save us. Don’t believe me? Greed was the foundation for this country. The brave souls who risked their life to settle in a new country did so out of self interest. Our forefathers recognized the importance of self-interest in the Declaration of Independence where they emphasized our unalienable right to pursue happiness.

Greed is good not just for your own life but for others as well. By elevating your life, you can radically elevate your family’s life, your community, and yes, even the world. Mother Teresa was greedy — she had an unquenchable thirst for serving the poorest of the poor. Missionaries are greedy in their quest to spread their religious beliefs. You just need to get greedy. You need to focus so intently on what it is you want that your desire seeps out of your pores. Read the Rest of This Article »

Tax Tip: Save Time Filing Your Taxes

I’ve got a tax tip that won’t save you any money, but it will save you something far more valuable . . . time. The IRS says the average American spends 21.4 hours completing their 1040 tax return. It’s this “hidden” tax — the sacrifice of not your dollars but your other 8 hours — that you can reduce. And the good news is this tax tip won’t increase your risk of an IRS audit.

Here are three ways to save time filing your taxes: Read the Rest of This Article »

A Revolutionary New Way to Learn Revealed

One of the best ways to make incremental progress during your other 8 hours is to learn. There are all sorts of newfangled websites that can teach you a thing or two — some with nifty videos and others with PowerPoint presentations. Call me old school, but I think one of the easiest and most economical ways to learn is by reading a book.

But I discovered something over the weekend that’s better than a bookstore and even better (gasp!) than Amazon.com. Stick with me because I’m going to introduce you to new terms and concepts that you won’t be familiar with. It might take some time to digest what I’m explaining, but hang in there — it will be well worth it. Read the Rest of This Article »

Make More Money and Live Your Passion: Become a Cre8tor

Image courtesy of Tim Hussin/Meanderings

Your financial life has a certain trajectory — similar to a train on a track. There will be twists and turns, but you can easily determine where you will end up if you stay on the financial track you’re currently on. What if the traditional methods of working hard, cutting expenses, and saving don’t work for you? Brown bagging it every day won’t cause you to jump tracks and end up somewhere completely different. The guy living in the mansion overlooking the ocean didn’t buy that house by clipping coupons, and the woman passing you in a $400,000 Maybach didn’t get that way by eliminating her morning latte. For most of us, the gap between where we are and where want to be is so wide that we’ll never be able to close it by following traditional financial advice. Read the Rest of This Article »

Bad Day? 5 Tips to Keep Your Motivation

A couple of weeks ago I had a bad day. Actually, it was a terrible day. Every piece of news I got was disappointing. Did it affect me? I still have bruises from the rock I tried to hide under.

Guess what? In the coming weeks you will have a bad day, too. Whether you are an entrepreneur launching a new product, an employee aiming for a promotion, or simply someone going after a big goal in your other 8 hours, you will experience disappointment and setback. How you respond to disappointment could determine your eventual success or failure. Why? A really bad day can, at best, cause you to lose momentum, and at worst, cause you to lose your will to continue. Read the Rest of This Article »

Compounding Time: Create More Free Time by Investing it Wisely

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that compound interest is the foundation of investing. But what does compounding have to do with the other 8 hours? A great deal. How you invest your other 8 hours determines your happiness and financial success. If you squander this critical time, it’s like putting $50 under your mattress. It won’t provide you with any return. For that $50 to grow, it must be invested. For your time to grow, it must also be invested. We’ve been told that time is money. But is it possible that time can make more time? Read the Rest of This Article »

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