Which Ticket Do You Have?

     I was sitting on the couch at my grandmother-in-law’s house watching TV while she and my wife spoke. She was telling my wife about how she has on a small scale been buying lottery tickets for the last few years (or maybe decades......). With her being 75 years of age and having the notion of “making it big” one day made me wonder. Why does the lottery drive people more than goals?
    
      Here we are, fully functioning, intelligent, able bodied people, yet we would rather rely on chance solely to make our fortunes. The odds are so astronomical that you know you are wasting your money. Yet people still do it in droves! People still put all of their faith in it. People come up with systems to pick numbers that they KNOW will be a winner. Yet and still, people would rather do that and work as a cashier than to roll up their sleeves and make something out of nothing.  We have become a "microwave" society in more ways than the kitchen............

     Truth be told, running a business of some sort does rely on a bit of faith and chance, but it is of the tangible type. One that you can see come to reality day by day. You can’t see a lottery ticket making you millions until they don’t call your number.

     I am not wearing my preacher hat today, but merely saying cheers to those that are working towards a goal. A person with a goal is a person on fire. There is nothing more meaningful or honorable. Coming from a past of working for somebody else’s goals I will tell you that I feel invigorated knowing that my efforts are for my future.

     Working for somebody else is pretty much like hoping you win the lottery (and that's ok for many people). I just wish I would've stopped paying for their tickets and made my own sooner!

Read More

I Got 99 Problems And ……….

……. Healthcare is number 1 !!



The new year is here and for a lot of people improving their health is a resolution.  Now it’s a mandated law for all of us! 

With that being said, this creates a new budget for a lot of people.  This can either be something that has never been in a person’s budget, an increase in an existing budget, or a decrease.  Either way, a lot of health insurance deductibles are rising. 

This is similar to what happens in the automotive insurance world because people choose a low monthly payment with a high deductible.  I believe this is because most car damage wouldn't be a necessity to fix.  Quite frankly, it’s a little less important to fix your windshield than to fix your heart.  Therefore a lot of people will be financially exposed by going from an average deductible of $2,000 to $4,000.  This doubles the amount that you are responsible for towards your health carrier.  Health expenses planning should be as high on your list as getting your beach body because they both need to be handled by March!

The great thing about this new law is that it greatly improves citizens access to means of preventative care and reduces small emergency costs.  You have to realize though that these health insurance companies will get their money one way or another.  Either you will pay more monthly and less at the hospital or pay rock bottom monthly and take out a loan when you’re in the ER…….

Plan for the worst and hope for the best is what my wife has always said and now we all really should.  Don’t let a decision to get a cheap insurance bill now affect  your family later when you actually have to use that plan.  Cover your risk (the deductible) so bankruptcy doesn't cover you.

Have a plan not a plea.

Read More

Disney Drive

Hello all! 



I normally don’t get on a soap box, but I was feeling especially dirty and in need of cleansing............

I was watching some Christmas Disney movies with my son the other day when something struck me.  The spirit of Disney is the entrepreneurial spirit. 

Every Disney movie has the you can do it drive.  The impossible is possible notion. 

The movie that brought me to this idea depicted Mickey Mouse as a poor Christmas tree laborer (yeah right!  Mickey poor!) trying to do whatever he had to in order to get Minnie a gold necklace for Christmas. 
He had a horrible job with low pay, but he had a goal and a dream.

How many of you say that something is a must like Nemo finding his way home or like Simba reclaiming his throne?

Whether your 4 or 40, every single Disney movie is the life of an entrepreneur.  The world against you.  Odds so high you can’t see over them.  People doubting your every step from rise to rest. 

It was in that moment that I really saw the genius and soul of Walt Disney.  Although he is long passed, he was just a man that wouldn't quit.  Decades after his passing his movies still show that tenacity.  Just when days seem their bleakest and darkest, the hero pushes through a breakthrough. 

How close are you to getting your Princess Jasmine even though you’re a beggar?
How much more passion do you have to show to get a beauty if you’re a beast?
How many people have to tell you that you can’t be “real” before you change your wooden reality?

Whenever your situation gets you down you may not have to pop in an inspirational CD.  Just go through a child’s movie collection!  Think of it.  We teach children to dream from the moment they can see, but somewhere around puberty we forget to do that. 

Be a child.  Be foolish.  Be a dreamer.
Be that person who pulls the sword out of the stone when hundreds before you said it can’t be done.

Be Disney.

Read More