Or…

How is it that I can have a decent library of books—many of which I haven’t even read yet—and yet I still want to buy MORE books?

Or…

Why am I looking forward to my cellphone contract ending so that I can upgrade to a different phone even though I was perfectly happy with my BlackBerry Curve when I got it just a year ago?

And…

Why do I want a Buick Enclave even though my 2002 Buick Rendezvous is in great shape and is PAID FOR?

According to Brent Kessel’s book, It’s Not About the Money*, all of the above can be attributed to something called the Wanting Mind. We always want something different from what we currently have. It’s the feeling that something has to change in order for us to be happy. From the book:

The Wanting Mind continually takes us out of the present moment in its attempts to make us happy in some better tomorrow. And unless we inquire into the subtle and often hidden workings of the Wanting Mind, including whether its promises of happiness are actually ture, we remain its slave and will likely spend a lifetime chasing its images of freedom.

In other words, people (myself included) buy things because we think those things will make us happy. And, for a brief time, they do bring us happiness because they keep us from wanting more. But, the happiness fades and the wanting returns.

So, how do we overcome the Wanting Mind?

If we look carefully and honestly, we are able to see that the happiness we feel when we get what we want comes from the absense of wanting. If we could experience the same absence of wanting regardless of whether we buy something we crave or not, we would be able to fully accept our present experience and not seek happiness from the objects or experiences we crave. That way, our deepest selves and not our Wanting Minds would be in control of the important financial decisions that will either contribute to or undermine our true freedom.

Kessel’s advice is simply to NOT SATISFY the object of the Wanting Mind. You can do this by telling yourself that what you want won’t make you happy in the long run and will not satisfy your wanting mind for very long.

I can practice this with regards to buying CDs by telling myself that I have enough music to listen to that it would take me 1,217 HOURS of solid listening to listen to it all! I can also take the same approach to buying books. In other words, I need to tell myself enough is enough.

As far as the Enclave goes, all I have to do is sit down with a loan calculator and take a look at how much a monthly note would be to purchase one. Then, all I have to do is go wash the Rendezvous and the desire is squashed for the time being.

One other suggestion I have is to STOP LOOKING for a replacement of what you currently have! I have no business checking out the Enclave website and looking at pictures and specs because I DON’T NEED A NEW CAR! Yes, they are nice-looking and it would be fun to have a new car, but like I said above, I don’t need or want a car payment and new cars become old cars.

I’m still undecided on the phone…lol.

NOTE: Brent Kessel is the co-founder of Abacus Portfolios

*Affiliate Link

Beginning June 1st, I want to do a community book review of Napoleon Hill’s The Law of Success*. A cheaper version ($10.99 vs. $30) of the book has become available and I think it would make an excellent source for a group study.

My goal is to incorporate other bloggers into this study by allowing them to host a lesson. This will help us all out in a couple of ways:

1. I don’t have to review every chapter, and
2. Other bloggers can get some recognition (and hopefully some new readers).

The book is divided into sixteen lessons (17 lessons depending on which version of the book you are using) and I thought it would be cool to focus on one lesson a week for 16 or 17 weeks. The study would end on September 21.

Bloggers who are interested in hosting a week can send me an email (JLP – at – AllFinancialMatters.com), along with the following information:

• Please put Law of Success in the subject line of your email.
• Lesson # you prefer to host (see list below)
• Name and URL of your blog

For the most part this will be on a first-come-first-serve basis. But, I reserve the right to reject any blog for any reason. I will update the information below as bloggers choose lessons.

In the meantime…

AFM readers who are interested in following along may want to pick up a copy of the book* and start reading. It’s a rather large book.

*Affiliate Link

Anyway, Larry Winget, has written a blog post about that book and about the new age philosophy of success. I like this quote from his post:

They [new age authors and gurus] also love to talk about increasing your deservability. Which translates to me into increasing your sense of entitlement. You are not entitled to a damn thing. You are rewarded for your efforts. No effort = no reward. The truth is that you deserve exactly what you have.

Remember that old Biblical saying, “You reap what you sow?” Most people aren’t reaping much these days because they haven’t done any sowing! I grew up in the country where we ate what we raised and trust me when I say that “sowing” is work! Even the reaping is work. But the reaping is the payoff for the work you put out there in the first place. Sadly, many people today are expecting to reap when they didn’t sow a damn thing. It doesn’t work that way.

I agree with Larry: we don’t deserve anything other than what is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Rock on, Larry. Rock on.

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

1. Don’t criticize, condemn or complain. This is much easier said than done. I find myself struggling with this on a daily basis.

2. Give honest and sincere appreciation. Again, I’m failing bigtime on this principle. I love the example that Carnegie uses of Charles Schwab, the president of

3. Arouse in the other person an eager want. According to the book, the only way to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.

Six Ways to Make People Like You

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.

2. Smile.

3. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.

5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests. It helps to have broad interests of your own so that you have something that you can talk intelligently about. Don’t be a know-it-all…you know what I mean.

6. Make the other person feel important—and do it sincerely. I think sincerity comes across when you don’t appear as if you aren’t looking for ways to make a sale.

How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

2. Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.” OOPS! I have done this many times! I do at least try to show respect for other people’s opinions on this blog.

3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

4. Begin in a friendly way.

5. Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately. From the book: “In talking with people, don’t begin by discussing the thing on which you differ. Begin by emphasizing—and keep on emphasizing—the things on which you agree.”

6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.

8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.

9. Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires. I’m not usually good at being sympathetic.

10. Appeal to the nobler motives.

11. Dramatize your ideas.

12. Throw down a challenge.

Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.

2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indeirectly.

3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.

4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. I need to do a better job at this one. My boys are getting older now and me telling them what to do and when to do it is meeting resistance.

5. Let the other person save face.

6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement.

7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to. Towards the end of my grocery store career, I was getting good at this. I remember one time I was working the front end of the store on a Sunday. It was slow that day and I HATE people just standing around so I decided to put people to work doing various things. I wanted one guy to clean the storage areas around the registers as they get really dirty over time. Anyway, I put my hand on this kid’s shoulder an told him that I NEEDED him to clean and organize the registers in such a way that everyone would know that he was the one who cleaned them. I won’t say that my strategy always worked but it worked incredibly well in this case.

No, I wasn’t a great manager. I just happened to have a couple of flashes of inspiration that worked out.

8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.

9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

I have discussed in the past the idea of doing a community-style book review or study. I think this book would be the perfect place to start because it’s not too long, is a pretty easy read, and is fairly inexpensive. But, I only want to do something like this if there’s readership interest.

*Affiliate Link

“Am I True to Myself?”
by Edgar Guest

I have to live with myself, and so
I want to be fit for myself to know,
I want to be able, as days go by,
Always to look myself straight in the eye;
I don’t want to stand, with the setting sun,
And hate myself for things I have done.
I don’t want to keep on a closet shelf
A lot of secrets about myself,
And fool myself, as I come and go,
Into thinking that nobody else will know
The kind of man I really am;
I don’t want to dress up myself in sham.
I want to go out with my head erect,
I want to deserve all men’s respect;
But here in the struggle for fame and pelf**
I want to be able to like myself.
I don’t want to look at myself and know
That I’m bluster and bluff and empty show.
I can never hide myself from me;
I see what others may never see;
I know what others may never know,
I never can fool myself, and so,
Whatever happens, I want to be
Self-respecting and conscience free.

Good stuff.

*Affiliate Link
**another word for money.

Do you have goals?

Are they written down?

How often do you refer back to your goals to track your progress?

I’m ashamed to say that I have gotten out of the habit of setting goals. I have always found the experience frustrating because I have a hard time trying to figure out EXACTLY what it is that I want. Everything I have read about achievement says that the number one key to success is to know exactly what it is that you want. Second to that is to have it written down along with the plans for accomplishing what you want.

I’m going to spend some time on my own personal goals. I’ll be sharing with you what I find out.

What’s different about the Strengths-based model is that it focuses on improving strengths rather than trying to improve weaknesses, which seems to be way of most self-improvement literature. It’s an interesting idea.

The book came with a special code that must be used in order to take the survey. My code was already used so I picked up a copy of the follow-up book StrengthsFinder 2.0* and used its code to take the Strengths Finder survey.

The survey, which is all done online, requires you to pick from two different statements. On the left side it might say, “I like to lead people,” and on the right side it might say, “I am perfectly happy to work behind the scenes.” If one of the statements is true for you, you can select “strongly agree” for that statment. You can choose neutral if neither applies to you or you can strongly agree with either statement or you can lean more towards one statement or the other. They don’t want you to sit there and think about the statements so they only give you 20 seconds for each question. They want your gut response.

Once you have completed the survey, it will come back with your top five strengths out of the following 34 strengths:

Achiever
Activator
Adaptability
Analytical
Arranger
Belief
command
Communication
Competition
Connectedness
Consistency
Context
Deliberative
Developer
Discipline
Empathy
Focus
Futuristic
harmony
Ideation
Includer
Individualization
Input
Intellection
Learner
Maximizer
Positivity
Relator
Responsibility
Restorative
Self-Assurance
Significance
Strategic
Woo (winning others over)

I have to say, the findings for me were surprising. According to the survey, my top five “strengths” were:

Harmony
Restorative
Communication
Empathy
Learner

The one that surprised me the most was “Empathy” which has the following description in the book:

“You can sense the emotions of those around you. You can feel what they are feeling as though their feelings are your own. Intuitively, you are able to see the world through their eyes and share their perspective. You do not necessarily agree with each person’s perspective. You do not necessarily feel pity for each person’s predicament—this would be sympathy, not Empathy. You do not necessarily condone the choices each person makes, but you do understand.”

That just doesn’t sound like me. Sure, there are times when I feel what other people are feeling, but for the most part, I don’t care what other people are feeling. Or maybe I really am Empathetic and I have just been living contrary to my belief system. Hmmm…

The other “strength” that surprised me was “Harmony.” Read their description to see what I mean:

“You look for areas of agreement. In your view there is little to be gained from conflict and friction, so you seek to hold them to a minimum. When you know that the people areound you hold differing views, you try to find the common ground. You try to steer them away from confrontation and toward harmony. In fact, harmony is one your guiding values. You can’t quite believe how much time is wasted by people trying to impose their views on others.”

This sounds nothing like me. I mean, I SHOULD be harmonious but I don’t think I am.

I’m wondering if I took the assessment wrong. The questions weren’t asked in such a way where there was a choice that stood out as being the one that “normal” people would pick, making you feel stupid if you chose the other response. It seemed like a fair assessment so the results were confusing to me.

It is a shame that they don’t make the survey available for a small fee or free. The only way the survey can be accessed is by using an access code located inside on of their books. StrengthsFinder 2.0 can be purchased from Amazon.com for $13.77.

Have any of you taken the survey? If so, would you share your strengths? Did you agree with the findings?

RELATED: For more information on the StrengthsFinder survey, check out these links:

StrengthsFinder Research

StrengthsFinder FAQs

I agree with Sarah about her feelings for people after cashiering for over 5 years. At this point, I could care less about losing my job after dealing with so many rude customers. It is a lose, lose situation for cashiers; you don’t say anything to avoid a confrontation, your rude. You say one word; your rude. You look at customers in what they feel is a “wrong way”; your rude. And Billy, I too, have developed a very low opinion of the general public. Most customers should stay home and take their meds first before coming out in public.

I think this person is just looking for an excuse to justify not doing a good job. If you can push all the blame to the customer, then you can justify your I-don’t-give-a-crap attitude.

I’m sorry but this is just wrong.

Sure, there are rude customers out there. But, MOST people are not rude. Most people just want good service and to be taken care of.

I challenge this person to take a different approach. Try these following actions that I found on page 83 of Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude* for 30 days and see what happens:

Be nice.

Be kind.

Smile.

Make friends.

Say nice things.

Praise others.

Take responsibility.

Be proud of your work.

Be proud of your accomplishments.

Don’t worry, be happy.

Finally, I couldn’t help but notice that this person has been cashiering for 5 years. FIVE YEARS! That’s a long time. Cashiering is usually an entry-level job…not a career. I would encourage this person to either set their sights on a better position within the company or take action to find a career elsewhere. Once a plan is in place and you don’t feel like you’re stuck in a dead-end job, it’s a lot easier to have a positive attitude!

* Affiliate Link

People Are Idiots and I Can Prove It!: The 10 Ways You Are Sabotaging Yourself and How You Can Overcome Them*

I love the title and cover of this book! That said, DON’T LET THE TITLE FOOL YOU…this is a VERY positive book!

For those of you not familiar with Larry Winget’s work, he’s known as The Pitbull of Personal Development. That should tell you something about his style. Larry tells it like he sees it. He has no tolerance for stupidity and refuses to sugarcoat his medicine. Personally, I think this is EXACTLY what people need! I almost always find myself nodding in agreement as I read Larry’s books—”People Are Idiots” is no exception!

Larry opens the book with examples showing why he thinks people are idiots. He breaks down his examples in categories such as health, parenting, finance, etc. Some of my favorites:

“Americans spend $33 billion annually on weight-loss products and services. Wouldn’t it be a lot chaper to just eat less and go for a walk? People complain that they have no money—I could save society $33 billion a year in this area alone.”

“People say they want good public schools for their kids. Yet only a small percentage of parents belong to or attend PTA meetings or go to parent-teacher conferences.”

…and my ultimate favorite:

People sign contracts with credit companies, agreeing to pay their bill on a certain date. While the print is small, the rules and regulations are clearly laid out in black and white—all you have to do is read them. Then people don’t make their payments on time and don’t pay the minimum amount as they agreed (probably because they spent their money at the mall or eating out). Why are these people surprised when their interest rate goes up and the company reports their late payment to the credit bureaus and their credit score goes down?”

In the second chapter, he lists ten reasons why people are idiots and tells the reader to confess how they qualify for each one (yes, I did the exercise!):

People are ignorant.
People are stupid.
People are lazy.
People don’t give a damn.
People lack vision.
People have low expectations.
People don’t recognize the consequences of their actions.
People have bad habits.
People have poor role models.
People have no plan.

Chapter 3 begins the “idiot healing process” through recognition, education, and application.

The Second Section of the book contains what Larry calls “Idiot Fixes,” which are lists…lots and lots of lists. I like lists. Larry has a list for everything! There’s a list on how to take responsibility, how to set and achieve goals, how to be smarter, how to make great conversation, how to manage time better, how to solve problems, how to be a better communicator, and lots of other lists.

There’s even a list for how to dress better. His fashion tips for men cracked me up—especially his thoughts on shoes:

“Shoes should always be shined. Loafers never go with a suit. Penny loafers don’t really go with anything, Fonzie. And in my personal opinion, tassel loafers work only when you want everyone to consider you a pretentious goober named Biff.”

Dang! I have a pair of penny loafers on at this very moment (and I own and wear tassel loafers too)! I think they look nice. To each his own, I guess.

Anyway, despite his fashion advice, this is his best book yet. Everyone—both idiots and non-idiots—will benefit from reading (and APPLYING) this book.

Larry was also kind enough to send me an extra signed copy of his book to give away. So, if you’re interested, please leave a comment below and I’ll randomly-select a winner on Wednesday, January 7. Just remember my two rules:

1. You must be a resident of the U.S. or Canada (I won’t ship internationally).

2. You can only enter once.

Related

LarryWinget.com – Larry’s website

10 Questions for Larry Winget – An interview with Larry

Larry Winget on the Housing Crisis – An interesting interview I did with Larry last spring

* Affiliate Link

Poor Boomer:

What’s with all the education hype? I have an awful lot of education and a minimum wage income – so what’s so great about education?

JLP:

poor boomer,

Have you ever asked yourself why you only make minimum wage?

Poor Boomer:

It’s obvious why I make only minimum wage – I have no marketable skills and no career-related experience. (I got a liberal arts degree with law school in mind, but couldn’t afford law school, so my degree is now worthless.)

His answer bugged me so I sent him an email and asked him if I could post about his experience. This was his response:

Hi, no problem – you’re welcome to it. I think a college education is, generally, an excellent investment, BUT one entailing huge downside risks. I can now say that NOT seeking an internship in college (I was sure I couldn’t afford unpaid work) was one of my biggest mistakes. Also, I think there is a moderate time window in which one must “do something” with their education or degree in order to have meaningful career prospects. This time window for me lasted roughly five years, during which obtaining an interview was not especially difficult. After roughly five years, the interviews abruptly stopped coming.

Instead of me addressing this myself, I decided to ask Larry Winget for his help. For those of you not familiar with Larry, he has written a ton of best-selling books. His latest, People Are Idiots and I Can Prove It!, will be released next week (see Larry’s website for details on special he’s running). I like Larry’s style because he doesn’t sugar-coat his advice. He tells it like it is.

So, I sent Larry an email asking him for his opinion and this was his response:

I hear this argument a lot. Rarely do people actually work in the field in which they get a degree. Degrees in education, liberal arts and the like are typically not the educational path to high-paying jobs. In fact, in my opinion, the whole reason for a college degree is the education in discipline it requires to get the degree – not what your area of studies were. It takes personal discipline, personal responsibility and accountability, the ability/willingness to study, the time and effort to get to class and sit through class, the skills to test, the ability to work with others, the ability to set a goal and achieve it, to manage your time and a variety of tasks, and on and on and on. Those skills are the ones that will make you rich and the skills most beneficial from earning a college degree and those are the skills that can make you rich if applied.

Larry Winget

Larry said it better than I could have said it myself. I appreciate him taking the time to respond to my email.

Now, let’s open this up for discussion. What do you think of Larry’s thoughts regarding ‘Poor Boomer’s’ situation?