by admin | Feb 4, 2022 | Simple Self Help
A wise and good friend once said to me that "...Love is not a Noun but a Verb, a doing thing that requires effort and energy." You have to put work into love to make it happen. Relationships are part of the same process.
If a relationship is to continue from where it starts or where it is at a given point, it has to be seen as something flexible, malleable, and ever changing. The relationship you have with one person is as much subject to your input as to the input and exchange they get from the rest of their network and peer group. However, you can only be responsible for the contribution that you make yourself.
Building support, enhancing people skills, this is work in the true sense of the word. But in a natural relationship, where there is a point of connection, the effort or the "work" is not of the same type. It requires instead that you actively take part, that you bring yourself and your focus to the place of two or more people gathering.
There will be times in any relationship where you need more from it than you are contributing yourself and then the situation will change and you will become more of a giver, bringing strength to the arrangement. Simply being aware of this ebb and flow will allow you to have a sense of perspective and to be realistic about the exchange of energy that you observe to be needed. To stop giving, to end the contribution, will see you losing the relationship or at least no longer receiving so much from it.
Place your energy and your intention into the creation of a relationship that gives to both parties a sense of being welcome, having something to contribute, of being a space where judgment is absent and is neither required nor needed.
Your input and commitment to the relationship can bring satisfaction beyond measure, as you build upward from a foundation of understanding, appreciation and love. Your own input, sharing, supporting and encouraging can bring you all you will ever need.
Do the 'work' and receive the joyful reward of relationships that are both fulfilling and giving.
by admin | Jan 26, 2022 | Simple Self Help
Don't think that you have to wait for life to teach you all the lessons of money education. This could be a long time for you! Instead get yourself enrolled on some evening classes about managing debt and credit cards, or pick up a book on the topic of saving or investing. Attend an event with your local Better Business Bureau or Chamber of Commerce about starting your own business. Use a local business search to connect with small business owners and operators in your neighborhood. Go to a networking evening and let people know about you and what you are interested in. Any of these approaches can be supported through the internet and your local evening college so get hold of a prospectus and see what you courses you might be able to join.
Pick the brains of someone who you consider to be financially sound or even successful in terms of business or money or life experience. Ask them about the mistakes they have made and how they turned the situations around. You will be surprised to learn how often the person you approach will willingly give you some of their time or how they will reveal that for all they have achieved there were so many times when they lost it or had to start over again from scratch.
Is there a friend you can invite out for lunch in order to have some of their time to discuss and consider the way you have been approaching money management?
Handling cash is another great way to learn about money. Given how much you may have become used to using plastic cards to lead your life, the use of cash will be a new experience.
I recommend you start by monitoring your finances for a while until you know what the repeated patterns of earning and spending tend to be.
Once you have done this, take from your bank enough money to last you for one week. This might be the equivalent of your week's salary, or one quarter of what you are paid in a month.
Put the money in a bowl at home and each day take the majority of the cash with you out into the world. When you have to buy something use the cash. Do this at the shops, the fuel station, coffee bars, restaurants, book stores, anywhere you buy something. The physical act of handling the money makes it more real, more present in your life.
An interesting side effect of handling the cash is that you may discover you will spend less on items that you might unconsciously have bought previously and stuck on the credit card. You may discover yourself questioning whether that drink or item of food or clothing is really worth the amount of cash the shop might want you to handover. As a result you save the money for another day, giving yourself greater choice and more financial power.
Keep learning new skills, continue looking for new ways to earn and save the money you have.
by admin | Jan 7, 2022 | Simple Self Help
But they do develop from seeds! From the seeds of a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, from an opportunity to be shared and from a moment in which a decision is made that brings you closer to someone. In much the same way that we will plant surplus seeds to bring in the anticipated harvest, so too we can sow the seeds of a relationship by simply giving generously to that relationship.
Leaving aside the natural harvest analogy, you need to recognise that any relationship is developed. They do not just happen. If they did the interaction between two people would be called a meeting and not a relationship. And where a meeting can be a formal, structured and one-off event, a relationship by comparison is the place where so much more can happen.
Relationships at their best are supportive and nurturing. They can bring fulfillment and deep satisfaction. To work and to deliver these benefits though, requires an interaction of energies and a blending of intention. As you look about the map of connections and engagements that you have with those around you, there will be no escaping your awareness of what constitutes a good relationship and what distinguishes this from those of lesser depth and quality.
Take a look at the relationships you have and listen to what your own intuitive sense tells you about those that bring benefit, richness, support and nourishment, and those that drain the life force out of you, or which are simply neutral in terms of bringing less than you put into them.
Invest time in cultivating the relationships that surround you. Where a good connection looks to be lost then consider what might be done to first protect and strengthen it, before you face the absence of it. When you feel the bond with someone, do all that you can to encourage its continuation and growth.
You do this because you know in your heart that the human condition is about relationships at its core. About the links - invisible or otherwise - that bind us to other people, showing us the similarities that we so love to observe and move toward.
by admin | Dec 29, 2021 | Simple Self Help
Running a business of your own is an activity you can tailor to your available times and resources, perhaps starting with very little. If it matches your own Risk Profile, then start with a small sum of money and do what you can to increase the fund.
Beyond the Compound Interest way of investing your money, look at the simple concept that you invest a basic sum and double it - gaining yourself a 100% return.
The best way to do this is always through learning to Sell Something.
Selling is the simplest of skills to learn at a basic level and you can choose later to get really good at it.
Start by finding something that you like enough to carry with you all the time. When someone expresses interest in it, you say,
"It's for sale. Would you like to buy it?"
I am sure that the reason most people express a fear of selling, is because they can't be comfortable waiting for the silence to be broken after asking this question.
If the person says "Yes", then you have a sale. And you might have doubled your investment.
Do the research and see what you can invest in, for the short-term, the medium or the long term. Again I would recommend that you assess your approach to risk and always work within the boundaries of what is right for you.
The development of a good set of selling skills is a prerequisite to success not just in business but in a lot of personal and social situations too, and as such should not be overlooked as a skill worth acquiring.
Face to face selling can be done at a street food stall if you can cook well. You could buy a collection of household items and sell them at a weekend car boot event. If dealing with the public face to face does not appeal then instead focus on selling via one of the online outlets such as Easy, Ebay or Amazon. You can be up and running within an hour, even after taking pictures of your starting stock. You list the items for a fixed price or for an auction style sale and you then wait to see how your offering is received. The process is simple and your costs are predictable based on the published percentage charge that the web platform applies.
If you want to make things at home and sell them online there are a mass of specific sites where the audience comes and searches for home made, craft or vintage items. Do your research and look around for a selling activity and opportunity you can feel comfortable with. Start simple and set yourself a budget for the first batch of items you will collect or make yourself and list these for sale.
by admin | Dec 1, 2021 | Simple Self Help
As you develop the powerful habits of spending less than you earn, of accumulating savings, and earning interest on those savings, then you might consider taking a small percentage investment in a Business or venture of some sort. Investing in other companies can be difficult if they are really small, because so much depends upon the character and determination of the founder or owner of the business.
With a small business investment you can be very vulnerable to making a mistake, seduced by the money or the possibility of a quick profit. Too often the entrepreneurial energy can attract the interest of investors who seek a fast result and in doing so people can drop their guard and forge or overlook the need for a little investigation or due diligence.
If you are considering investing in a small business then it might well be one that you start and run yourself, getting the tax benefits that come with business ownership of your own venture. Give this a lot of thought. If it doesn't grab you and hold your interest, then stay away from owning a small business and simply consider the investment route as being potentially better for your lifestyle and character. If this is not right for you then consider looking around a broad search of the opportunities in other more established businesses such that you can find one that could be a good home for a portion of the savings you have accumulated for yourself.
If the idea of a business of your own is simply too much to contemplate - either because it is such a new concept or even possibly because it is too frightening - then from the portion of your savings placed instead into Stocks and Bonds you are likely to get at least a slightly safer return on your money.
You have the benefit that you can maintain an interest in public companies through the internet and the newspapers, following the stories behind each company and the industries they are active in. This way you get to develop investment behavior as an interesting hobby and one where the day to day aspects of your money are handled by those who do this all day long and who will give you a reasonable return without the hassle or angst of you needing to get involved.
Looking beyond equities and stocks I have personally always preferred the long-term holding of Residential Property. For myself that has been an easy decision because people always need somewhere to live and for many years now we have supplied good homes for them to rent. Buying property need not be a complicated process and there are plenty of great online and printed materials for you to develop your skills in this sector. Just like Stocks and Shares you can let someone else do the letting and managing of your property for you, or you can choose instead to upgrade your skills and manage the place yourself. You can also drive past the property and check it is still there whenever you want to!
A further route I would like to go back to is the combining of some of the above approaches, but with a small or part-time venture of your own. You can choose to intentionally design your new business working from home, online, part-time or full-time, according to the results you want to create.
by admin | Nov 3, 2021 | Simple Self Help
Albert Einstein allegedly described the way that you can make money from the interest on your savings as the "eighth wonder of the world". He was talking about the miracle of Compound Interest.
He was justified in his excitement about the way the bank will give you extra money for allowing them to keep your money on deposit. They will lend your money to other people who have become borrowers, and in exchange will reward you with a percentage increase on your own initial money. The money they give you is the result of compound interest.
The sooner you can put some money aside, the better. If you can then add a regular amount - no matter how small - to your savings, you will see your money grow time and time again over the years. This is the principle of money working for you whether you are working, sleeping or playing.
You can start by trying to save an amount from your earnings each month, an amount that is the same each pay check, but even easier than this is to go for a percentage of each amount. The reason that a percentage works so successfully calculate. No matter how much you earn or bring in each pay period, if you tell yourself that you are going to save 10% or 5% your mind will always be able to calculate the amount you need to deduct from the pay check.
Get into this habit of paying yourself first. It will always stand you in good order and create the growth of the savings.
If you allow yourself to think that you should pay your bills and your expenses first and intend to save what is left - guess what - there will be nothing left.
But if you do set aside that 10% from everything you receive then before you look at the bills you have the comfort of knowing you already have 10% set aside as savings for the long term. And almost by magic the 90% that you have left for everything else seems to expand and to grow such that you do not miss the 10% you have already put safely away for your future.
Get started now and you will love it and what it does for you. Enjoy knowing the pleasure of having a consistently growing nest egg for your future, and one which is within your own control and has been structured through your own diligence and wisdom. Each time you get a dividend or interest check, take some of the money and spend it lavishly on yourself, re-investing the remainder so that your balance continues to grow and bring more benefit.
