Self Improvement Journal » General

Creating a Passive Income System

Chris — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:05:04 +0000

I’ve been reading the second book in the Rich Dad, Poor Dad catalog – It is titled “The Cashflow Quadrant” – and it discusses the different types of workers:

E: Employee
S: Self-Employed
B: Business Owner
I: Investor

Basically, I’ve come to realize that while I work for myself, make my own hours, find my own clients, and I don’t have a boss… I fall under the “Self-Employed” category, which is essentially a glorified Employee. I have nothing that is an actual “Business” which I could sell, or which makes me money without me working for it. I still have to work for every hour that I get paid.

This was a little kick in the pants. I’ve got several websites that might someday function as a Business System for me, but I thought the quicker solution might be to finally go ahead an hire some help. I put up a post on Craigslist, weeded out the weirdos, and met with two fresh-faced college kids. Each one has 10-15 hours a week to give to my projects.

I’ve got a few new things coming down the pipeline, and we’ll be starting work on the first project Monday. This client wasn’t able to afford my normal hourly rate, so it was the perfect opportunity for me to pass along some work to my ‘employees’. I will pay them an hourly rate, and keep the difference.

I realize that this is far from operating as a real Business System, but it is a first step.

The Power of Guilt

Chris — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:59:27 +0000

Sometime in college, I realized the power of making myself feel guilty. It wasn’t something that I purposely did, but it happened to me one day. My New Years Resolution had been to start eating healthier, and I stuck to it. I didn’t eat any candy and I started eating healthy sandwiches and salads, instead of burgers and fries. This went on for a month or so – and then one day I ate a candy bar. It tasted good, but I felt really bad about it afterwards. I had put in all this effort to lose weight and it was finally paying off, and now I was going to throw it all away for a candy bar?

That fact is that one candy bar wouldn’t suddenly make me fat – but I had shifted my thinking about food. I was at a point where I expected myself to eat healthy and to avoid all junk food, thus when I did eat junk food, I really thought about the effect that it would have on me and my health.

Today I eat healthier than I ever have, but the idea of guilt still pops up from time to time. I know that it is okay to indulge from time to time, but I try to keep it to Saturdays. When I am doing well with my running program, the same idea applies… I am working hard, sticking to my running program and making progress – and then suddenly I skip a day. I feel really bad about it. I feel that I have let myself down and I am throwing away everything that I have worked for. As a result, I do whatever I can to ensure that I follow through.

Make a commitment to yourself, and you’ll see the guilt start to arise. It’s a good thing. Embrace the guilt and see how it makes you feel. If you are truly committed to the task, you take the guilt as motivation to continue on your path to improvement.

Speedlinking

Chris — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:36:17 +0000

Okay it’s not all about self improvement. Sometimes it’s about Blog improvement. I am running another blog over yonder and here are some things I’ve been reporting on.

New Year 2008
New Year 2008 : NV Penthouse Lounge
New Year 2008 : Champagne Supernova
New Year 2008 : Cruise

Holiday Activities
Navy Pier Winter Wonderfest
Chicago Christkindlmarket
Chicago Star Wars Exhibit

Big News
Chicago Smoking Ban
Downtown Chicago Casino
Chicago Cool Roof Grants

Why Raise The Bar?

Chris — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:03:46 +0000

When you “Raise the Bar“, you are basically telling the world that you are unsatisfied with your current state of affairs. If you raise the bar for your health, then you expect to be healthier. If you raise the bar for your job or schooling, then you expect to do better than you have previously.

The question remains – Why should we raise the bar? It’s a pretty easy life to sit in front of my computer all day, poke around the internet and and maybe do a few hours of work – but I decided to raise the bar in this area of my life. Why would I do a such a thing? Why would I choose to raise the bar, to make more work for myself, to make myself get out of bed earlier and go to bed later – when I was perfectly comfortable with my current state?

The reason people choose to raise the bar is because while we may be comfortable with our current state, we know that we are fooling ourselves – we know that we won’t be comfortable for very long. Yes it is comfortable to have no real obligations, but it isn’t so comfortable at the end of the month when you have to write a rent check and you’re not sure if you’ll have enough money to cover it, or when you friends are all going out to dinner and you have to stay home because you can only afford to buy ramen noodles from the grocery store.

Raising the Bar is your way of telling the world that the you do not accept your current state of affiars. You want something more and you want something bigger, and you’re willing to go out and take it from the world. It can be a very daunting task, but if you want to make a change in your life then you need to start to raise the bar, wherever you see a shortfall. Start off with something small – I will get out of bed an hour earlier – or I will get X amount of work done today – and build from there.

Are You Actually Listening?

Chris — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 14:56:00 +0000

Last night I was in my current Landmark Education seminar. Through the course of the Landmark Forum and Landmark Advanced Course – and now in the seminar – you are presented with a lot of opportunities to go up in front of the class and share “what you are getting out of this conversation”. Through the course of the evening you will often discuss many different topics – yet when people are called up to the microphone, they will often ramble on about whatever random thing they are thinking about. We will be talking about topic A, and the person will go off talking about topic X… and I am left wondering if they are actually listening to what is going on, or if they just like to hear the sound of their own voice.

People do this all the time. You will be having a “conversation” with someone, but actually you aren’t even listening to what they are saying – you are simply waiting for them to stop talking so that you can share your point of view. You’ll see this all the time on TV or hear it on the radio – though in these areas it is often done to divert a question on purpose. The host will ask someone “What do you think about the war?” and they will go off and talk about their latest proposal for the economy…

The next time you are having a conversation with someone, turn off the voices in your head and make sure that you are actually listening to the person. It isn’t always easy to do – we all have our internal dialog – but if you can catch yourself at moments, you will find that you can understand the other person much better and make deeper connections.