Making Money Addiction

When I was about 15 years old, I learned the hard way that sometimes you want things and only when you get them, you realize they were not what you wanted. Addiction is like this too – you want something and shortly after you get what you want, you realize it was not what you wanted.

As a life coach, I talk a lot about wanting. I believe wanting is essential in life. It is the driving force of our existence. But today, I want to tell you about a session on my life coaching deck that reminded me again why the question “Why?” is as important as the question “What?” Chris, one of my wonderful clients, taught me a wonderful lesson about what happens when you do not know why.

All I knew about Chris was that he was a businessman in his early fifties, married, with no kids and a lack of motivation who was looking for a life coach. Nothing special. We all have those periods in our life when we just find it hard to get up in the morning.

This is what I told myself when I prepared for his session. The first time he came, when I opened the door, I saw from the corner of my eyes a classy Mercedes Benz parked outside. Well, the first thing I could think of was “Oh my god, what a beautiful car”. I have to say it made me more curious about the reason he came. I thought that car was the result of lots of motivation.

“Why are you here, Chris? What do you want?” I asked him.

He looked confused. “I really don’t know. I think something’s wrong with me”.

This post is part 6 of 19 in the series From the Life Coaching Deck

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Parents Doing Business

I had my first business at the age of 25. I finished my Special Education studies and opened an Early Childhood Center that became a very successful business within a short time. I was a mother and a wife and had a mortgage, a car and a personal loan for my business.

If you hear parents tell you that kids are an obstacle for them, I can tell you that having kids is a bad excuse for not doing business. When the kids grow up and leave the house, they will be left with their excuses. So when they have to explain why they have never done what they have always wanted to do, they will start saying, “It’s too late now”, which is just another excuse.

If you are thinking of starting a business and will need to juggle business and family, it is a good idea to discover what you will have to do to succeed at it. Some people are not cut out to own and operate a business. Others do not know how to balance a home and a business. Managing your business, your home and your parenting well requires some skills and attitudes that will determine the success of your business, the quality of your family life and even your health.

Unlike people who do not have kids, business parents risk a lot more than their own time and money. They risk their relationships with their partners and with their kids, as well as the quality of preparation their kids get for life. You go into business because you want a better life for your kids, not to destroy your relationship with your kids, so do it right!

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Everyone can do it (with expert help)

The first thing you learn about starting a business on the Internet is that everyone can do it. I remember the first seminar I attended. You may have had the same experience yourself. It is a free event that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales in one day. The food, the venue and the free gifts are nothing compared to how many suckers come to those events for the promise of sitting on the beach in a swimsuit with a laptop, sipping cool drinks and watching the dollars appearing on the screen every day and every hour.

Gal and I went to our first event as life coaches. It was an awesome weekend. It was a great seminar and I learned a lot. For 2 days, they promised the world “Be your own boss! Work 3 hours a day! Money will be coming out of your ears!” and … “Everyone can do it!”

I have to say I almost believed them. I wanted to believe them with all my heart, but because our life coaching course had promised exactly the same thing, I had the suspicion there was a pattern there. Luckily for us, it was not a test of our trust. We just did not have $10,000 to buy the product on offer. We were shocked that our fellow coaches spent so much money just weeks after they had spent thousands of dollars on the life coaching course.

If you have ever heard these slogans about trying to build a business on the Internet, be warned, someone is convinced you are a sucker and might be taking you for a ride.

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Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Money

Every parent wants to raise kids who will be wealthy and manage their financials well. The best way to raise kids with a wealth mindset is to be a family in which good financial management is part of daily life. It is best if your family is also wealthy, but it is not necessary.

I grew up in a very simple family, you could even say a struggling family, with 5 children, and most of us are in a very stable financial status. My dad, who worked very hard all his life and was the money manger it the house, taught us very well. My family is proof that you do not have to be rich to raise kids with a wealth mindset. I think that if my dad could do it, you can too.

Here are my parenting rule about money, saving, investing and raising children who know their way through financial management.

This post is part 10 of 10 in the series Ronit's Parenting Bible

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Lifestyle of the rich and the famous

Our highly commercialized world pumps us with the idea that being rich and famous is a good thing. Even things “mere mortals” find difficult to deal with, like going on a diet or breaking up with a partner, are leveraged to create more fame and more fortune for the celebrities. Scandals are just useful ways to sell the next movie or the new album. So useful, in fact, that some of them are manufactured.

In their song Lifestyle of the Rich and the Famous, Good Charlotte sing about how celebrities complain all the time and say their life is hard, even though they have money, mansions and other things money can buy. By contrasting fame and fortune with living on the streets, this song reflects general public sentiment very well.

But it is not true.

If you have been anywhere near a TV set in the past few weeks, read any newspaper or even glanced at a magazine at the checkout line, you have seen them – Prince William and Kate Middleton. Their lives and upcoming wedding were covered from every angle and then, their wedding was covered in even more detail. Anyone who had anything to do with them at any time was interviewed ad nauseam and every bit was replayed over and over again.

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I Want to Be a Billionaire

Some time ago, the kids and I discovered a song about being a billionaire by Travie McCoy (sung with Bruno Mars), most of which goes like this:

I wanna be a billionaire so [beeping] bad
Buy all of the things I never had
I wanna be on the cover of Forbes magazine
Smiling next to Oprah and the Queen
Oh every time I close my eyes
I see my name in shining lights
A different city every night oh I swear
The world better prepare
For when I’m a billionaire

Call me a pest, but after hearing them sing it many (many) times, I thought it might be a good chance to bring up the topic of money. Ronit and I believe that kids should be exposed to various topics at different ages simply because they are part of life. They may not “get it” every time, but they “get” a little bit more and develop their understanding over time. This way, they have fewer surprises when they become adults and have to take care of themselves.

The issue of money is no different.

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Anybody Can Do It

If you have ever been to a seminar about personal development, wealth creation, investment, Internet marketing or business (and I stopped counting them some time ago), you have heard the following resounding statement:

“If I can do it, anybody can”

This is typically said at the end of a story of how the presenter has clawed his or her way from extreme poverty, shame and rejection to the stellar success that forms the basis of the whole seminar. Some of these presenters look like pretty normal people, even if they dress up a bit more than their audience, so why not believe them?

Because everybody can IN THEORY. Sure, everybody can retrace the presenter’s steps and, if everything also happens the same way, make lots of money and become really successful and happy.

Oh, wait. What if it does not happen to me the same way?

Exactly! This question appears in most people’s minds as soon as they start thinking about applying all those wonderful tips and methods to themselves and their own life.

You see, when a person stands on stage, having made lots of money, it is easy to imagine them having the same confidence when they first started out. But they did not have it, and it dawns on us as soon as we shift our focus to us.

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Sailing the Ship of Life

Last week, I had a session with a new client. She was very frustrated about things in her life. She had wanted to change them for so many years and nothing had happened.

“I feel like I have no control over my life”, she said to me, “It’s as if part of me says ‘go left’ and the other side says ‘go right’. For some reason, neither is the direction I want to go and I’m stuck! I can’t get the two sides of me to communicate with each other”.

I smiled. It sounded familiar.

“Sometimes, I wake up with energy and motivation that lasts for three days. There is a voice inside of me that keeps telling me it can be like this forever. I’ve tried shutting it out, but I don’t know how to”, she kept telling me about her frustration.

I listened to her and thought to myself, “She is ready for the sailing story”.

I hope you are ready too.

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How to Be Your Own Financial Planner

This weekend, we had some friends over for a barbeque with their kids. The place was full of lively conversation, food and games and time went by quickly.

Since the men had not seen one another for a few weeks, we did a round of updates and Wayne told us he was planning to change his line of work and become a financial planner. As soon as he mentioned the words “financial planner”, the rest of us changed facial expressions and posture and it was clear we all had strong feelings about this profession.

This was by no means personal, because we like Wayne a lot, but we had all been visited by a financial planner or two and had all chosen not to use them. From that starting point, we felt Wayne was starting “on the back foot” and was headed into difficult, unpleasant territory.

As we talked, some interesting points emerged, which I would like to share with you, because they can help you become your very own financial planner and stop looking for one, if you are.

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Rich Parent, Poor Parent

In many areas of life, we relive the same pattern over and over again, but we do not notice it. Just like riding a bike (the ultimate cliché about automatic habits), we pedal on, completely oblivious to each up and down movement.

Sometimes, circumstances make us take note of our patterns and we start thinking about them. Rarely, we change those ingrained ways of behavior and our life changes as a result, hopefully for the better.

Anthony Robbins compares human beings to thermostats. He says every person has a sense of where they feel comfortable and does many things subconsciously to stay in that place. Sure, everyone knows what would be better, but too good is also uncomfortable, because it does not fit our sense of identity and self worth.

So each of us lives within a certain range of “temperatures”. When it gets to “cold”, we take some action to “warm up”. When it gets to “hot”, we procrastinate for a while and even sabotage our previous efforts, until it is “nice and cozy” again.

One particular area in which this happens to us is our finances.

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