A Quote for Today: August

"The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything;

they just make the best of everything they have".

~Unkown

Investment Club Meeting: August

This was an exciting meeting for me tonight. I get into one of these spaces where my ideas just come enthusiastically spewing out. Since all members were present, our current president re-opened the subject of increasing membership and taking a new direction for the club... bringing back some of what we used to do, improve on what we currently do and add more to our monthly meetings. This is what got me all jazzed!

This investment club has supported so many women over the last four years -- it is really more than just an investment club. Through this club we educate ourselves, broaden our comfort zones, go within to explore our relationships with money, set goals and achieve them, support each other no matter what pace anybody is at. Since I founded this club, I take great pride in seeing growth in all who have come and gone in the club.. I want more for this club and I want to see more women join and gain.

After long and thoughtful discussions, the group has asked me to make a draft revision of our by-laws to review at our next meeting. We also will discuss holding an open house in November to recruit new members! Yeah!

Things ARE Better Than They Seem

Today was a day where I thought (for about an hour) that my finical situation was worse off than it really was. Reality ... what is it anyway? I have more bills due and past due than I have money in hand today. ... So what I am doing is juggling and stretching the money. My next pay check is still two weeks away. I have items for sale on eBay and Craigslist … not sold yet. I feel like I am pinned tight to a budget. Why dose this feel so boxed-in, heavy and draining?

Then my friend Elsa comes over during the day. Just in general conversation, she just happened to share her thoughts about reality ... she told me that it not real to have a million dollar home, its not real to have interior decorators come in and your home is ready and in order all in one day. Basically I think she was saying it is not real to have an expensive life style at least not now. ... Hmmm ... to think this way actually felt worse to me than thinking about all my past due bills.

Well then, I do not agree with what she said. And I do not agree with what my reality appears to be like today either. I do believe that no matter what economic status someone has money can perceivably create pressure, responsibilities and freedoms too (whole slough of emotions, thoughts and conditions). But you know what? Those feelings, thought and ideas are not coming from the money. I am not sitting here consoling my checkbook because it felt stretched and juggled today. Those feelings and thoughts came from within me! I had to think about where these ideas and feeling where coming from in the first place; to be honest with you I was sounding like my mother.

So I nipped that in the bud. I basically acknowledge my emotions and reminded myself that my life is my life and I have control over my life. I became the observer throughout the day. I reminded myself of all that I am grateful for and all the success in my life. I thanked the money for coming into my life and blessed it as I sent it out again to pay the bills; passing it along to bless someone else’s life.

And the best part is that I sat down and reorganized my budget and saw that I really do have enough money coming in each month (all about cash flow) and my perception around my financial situation changed! Next month will be different! Things are better than they seem and I bet they always are!

My Mission for this Blog: Sharing my Path

So after these past several months, it has become clearer to me what I am doing here; writing entries for this blog. I really do want to share my day to day doings with those who are genuinely interested. I want to share my path of how I make changes in my life to get to where I want to be in all aspect of my life.

Here is a “catch-you-up” paragraph: A few years ago I had read the Power of Focus (written in 2000) by Les Hewitt, Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield. Later I took an online course taught by Les Hewitt. The course was based on the book. I really enjoyed the course, but I kept finding myself saying that his content really speaks more to business owners and to men in general. Basically as a woman who has an entrepreneurial spirit (I always have a project brewing) and a mom of two kids I felt he was not speaking to me and maybe others like me. Anyway, I took his advice and suggestions and tweaked them to fit me better.

Thus, I have six (6) areas in my life to focus on; to plan for, to goal set for, to nurture, to balance, and to simply enjoy. Those areas are: my spiritual life, family life, social life, my health, my financial life and my life style. At the time I took the online course I had written several essential goals for each area. I listed each goal in order of importance and took the top three to in each area to focus on. In another blog entry I will detail how that looks. It is time for me to do this exercise again!

Also I had written a personal purpose/mission statement; Les Hewitt called it a Life Purpose. I just reread what I had written (in 2005 - wow time flies). I’ll share that later too after I amend it.

Later I discovered that Les Hewitt and his wife Fran Hewitt wrote in 2003 The Power of Focus for Women. That is now on my current reading list of books to read.