How many of us have heard the saying “Money is the root of all evil?” I’m willing to bet each and every person reading these lines have heard it hundreds of times. In fact, we hear it so much that we begin to believe that it is true….Well, just like many of society’s popular sayings, I’m also going to throw this one in the bag of bullshit along with sayings like “I had no choice”, “it takes money to make money”, and the infamous “that’s impossible.” Money has no power. YEA I SAID IT! A million dollars sitting on a table is simply a bunch of paper with crap written all over it. It is immobile and thoughtless. It has the ability to do neither good nor evil. In certain places of the world people would prefer to use it as firewood over anything else. Money is just a tool. A tool remains valueless and unable to improve or worsen your life or the lives of others until it has been combined with a decision. For example, a bat can be used by the mob to engage in acts of violence against innocent people…OR…it can be used to smash balls out of the park as a means of entertaining thousands of baseball fans… Put your money in the hands of Bernie Madoff (world famous crook) and you are sure to be left broke (I’m guessing this is when that bat the mob uses wouldn’t be such a bad idea HAHA). But, invest your money into learning how to make more money and you may find yourself swimming in it! By now we all understand that money has no ability to make decisions…But people do! Understanding this, we see that money cannot be the root of all evil. It is the decisions people make with money that creates good or evil. Typically, my writings and speeches are focused on achieving GREATNESS… Today is no different. The DECISIONS we make with our money have a huge impact on how we go about achieving our own personal GREATNESS. It is important to tackle the subject of money and GREATNESS because many of us are putting our dreams on the backburner because, “I got bills!” As it relates to good and evil, I believe that putting aside the pursuit of our GREATEST dream based on finances is an evil decision. Investing our time and energy to understand how to make our finances work to help us achieve our GREATEST dream is a good decision…better yet, a GREAT decision! Psychologically, making good decisions with money can free your mind so that you may focus on achieving your own personal GREATNESS. So here I will explain what I believe is a GREAT process that will free you from the financial strangle hold money has on you. Following these few steps could be the liberation you need to pursue YOUR dreams! 1. Build up enough guaranteed money so that you can cover your monthly expenses (food, rent, car note, etc). I suggest having about 6 months worth or expenses put away in a savings account. If you get laid off or quit your job, you’ll at least know that you can survive for half a year. Guaranteed money just means that you can depend on the money being there despite future incidences. I wouldn’t go so far as to survive off of bread and water. However, I do suggest taking an honest look at whether the things you decide to spend your money on are actually valuable to your life. 2. It is important to begin putting your remaining resources toward pursuing your dream. This is where you begin investing in yourself (see the Research & Development video blog). Use your resources (time, money, and network) to build on your knowledge, skill, and ability to be GREAT at what it is that you truly love to do. This is the BE and the DO section of the BE DO HAVE video blog. Here you are working to become GREAT at what you love doing most. 3. There may be things that you desire to have in addition to achieving GREATNESS. For example, an MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fighter may have a dream to become so GREAT that he revolutionizes the MMA industry. AND, he also wouldn’t mind having a house on the beach to celebrate (nothing wrong with that LOL). The idea is to leverage your wants to provide further motivation to achieve your dream, GREATNESS. Force your wants to make you work harder at achieving GREATNESS. The house on the beach serves as a by-product of changing the course of MMA. The fighter uses his desire to have a house on the beach as additional motivation to work harder to achieve GREATNESS so that he can have the house. This is placing the DO before the Have (from the BE DO HAVE Principle of the previous video blog). If the thing you desire to have in addition to your GREATNESS requires money, then it is a good idea to figure out how you can monetize what you truly desire to be GREAT at. In other words, figure out how you can make money doing what you truly love to do as a means of providing your additional wants. Although our love for the dream we desire to achieve would allow us to do it for free, most times the nature of the society we live in will not. Remember that a tool only has power when the decision is made to use it. Utilizing the process described above as a tool, I believe that we can begin to make good…No…GREAT decisions with money. We no longer have the “I got bills” excuse for not pursuing our dreams. Below I have listed links to the blogs mentioned within this blog:
http://www.youtube.com/use r/dgant06#p/a/u/1/xxzxF1_LMO0
http://www.youtube.com/user/dgant06#p/u/3/-7S2qGxPj5I I appreciate you taking time to read this entry. I sincerely hope that this message proves to be beneficial to your life. I look forward to speaking with you about your thoughts! All comments are welcomed whether or not you are tagged, we know each other, or any other reason that may hold you back from contributing. Thank You! Darius Gant
http://www.dariusgant.com/
aahttp://www.twitter.com/DariusGant
dgant06@yahoo.com
