Wordless Wednesday: Belize (My future retirement hideout)

Couch Time

This time of the year when I say “Couch Time” we probablythink of the playoffs and the upcoming Super Bowl, hanging out with the guys,eating some snacks, drinking some cold beer on a lazy afternoon.

But the couch time I am referring to is with our wives. This is a simple but very effective techniqueyou do daily that will greatly increase the intimacy and happiness in yourmarriage. 9 out of 10 wives approve. 

Couch time is simply this, 15-30 minutes per day, when the kidsare still awake or getting ready for bed; you and your wife sit on the couch and talk. You tell the kids that this is your couchtime and that there will be no interruptions.  You then talk about your day, your dreams,your problems, whatever. 

Note: When you talk,you must talk feelings not superficial chit chat. You must express yourself in a way that womenfeel connected; this is by talking about your feelings or your true inner selfwith them. This creates intimacy. 

This simple technique, done daily and in the way describeddoes wonders for your marriage. It alsohas a calming affect on your children, your children see that mom and dad haveoneness and this ensures your children of family security.

My wife and I don’t make it everyday, but we sure striveto. Every wife who has had her husbandtry this has had raving reviews. And ifyou need more of an incentive to try this guys read this: Talking + Feelings = Intimacy with wife. Intimacy with wife + Flirting = Sexual Wife. Do you get the picture?

Try it for 2 weeks, it works. 

Family Man

Family Man

Tim Miller had it all: an adventurous, high-profile career doing what he hadalways dreamed of doing. But there was a price.

by Chuck Holton

Tim Miller stood in the foyer of the White House and looked around. He hadreached the pinnacle of his career. As a Secret Service agent since 1991, Timhad recently been temporarily assigned to presidential detail — his childhooddream.

It was October 1994. He had just left the stairs leading to the President’sprivate quarters when he heard a rapid popping sound outside. Then glass beganshattering. Immediately, Tim’s earphone crackled to life with reports from theuniformed officers outside that someone was attacking the White House. Timsprinted around the sidewalk outside the fence. The shooting seemed to havestopped, but there was pandemonium on the street in front of the White House.Secret Service officers had a man handcuffed on the ground.

Francisco Martin Duran had remarked to friends that he was going to kill thePresident. No one took him seriously until he drove to Washington and, surrounded by tourists,opened fire on the President’s residence. As he stopped to change magazines,two civilians wrestled him to the ground and held him until uniformed agentsarrived to arrest him. Tim took the man into custody and performed the initialinterview.

Driving home that evening, Tim replayed the events in his mind. He feltgood, and this was right where he wanted to be — taking part in life-and-deathmatters of national importance, the culmination of his years as a Marine and asa policeman.

Costly success

Yet he could never dispel the nagging thought that maybe his job wasn’tworth it. His wife would be upset that he was late and that he had missedanother family dinner.

Tim loved his wife and children dearly, but it seemed that they always gotthe short end of the deal. Being a Secret Service agent was a lifestyle, sowhen his career conflicted with his personal life, the job had to takeprecedence. His family was paying a high price for his success. He worked threeout of every four weekends, missed his wedding anniversary while riding camelsaround the Egyptian pyramids protecting Tipper Gore and missed his daughter’sbirthday while protecting the President in Hawaii. But his family knew that he lovedthem, didn’t they?

Although the Secret Service has the highest divorce rate of any lawenforcement agency, Tim was convinced it would never happen to him and hiswife, LaDonna. But a knot formed in his stomach as he remembered her saying aweek or two earlier, “Tim, I feel like a single parent.”

This comment confused and frustrated him. He should have been enjoying life;he was right where he had always dreamed of being. Instead, the knowledge thathe was there at the expense of his wife and kids left a bitter taste in hismouth. And they weren’t the ones to blame.

Time for change

In the months following the shooting, Tim traveled more than ever. His jobcontinued to call him to important tasks and exciting destinations. He stayedin the palace of Saudi Prince Abdullah and protectedIsraeli Prime Minister Rabin just three weeks before Rabin’s assassination.

Then one day, on his way to the White House, Tim heard Dr. Dobson on theradio saying, “Men, if your career is causing you to miss out on your family,you need to pray and ask God to provide you a job where you can be a truehusband to your wife and a good father to your children.”

Those words represented the final blow to his dilemma. Tim found himself intears, and he immediately made the decision to find a new job. It wasn’t aneasy choice. He didn’t know what God planned, but his family would no longersit in second place.

Tim left the Secret Service and became a U.S. Customs agent. His position asa Senior Special Agent in the U.S. Customs Office of Anti-Terrorism gave himthe immense responsibility of implementing a nationwide plan to safeguard ourcountry’s borders from terrorist infiltration and attack.

He thought that he was making a sacrifice for his family at the time, but itbecame clear that the choice to put his family ahead of his career was likegiving up a fistful of mud for a chest of diamonds. Tim experienced greaterblessing than he had ever imagined.

Once Tim was prepared to give up his career, God not only blessed his familybut also gave him a job he loved. He now makes a better living and enjoysweekends with his family. Currently, as a Senior Department of HomelandSecurity Liaison to the FBI, Tim has enormous responsibility helping tosafeguard our country.

He wouldn’t give anything for the relationships he has built with his familyover the last seven years. “My son, Aaron, got married last year,” Tim says.“And one of the best moments of my life was the day that he asked if I’d be hisbest man.”

This article appeared in the December2003 issue of Focuson the Family magazine.Copyright © 2003 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. Internationalcopyright secured.

A father of five, Chuck Holton is a former Army Ranger and lives in Maryland with his family.

Happy Birthday

On this day, Jan. 11, 1999 at 05:51AM

The Lord blessed me with the birth of our first child, a beautiful baby boy. 

Although I had no idea what I was doing at first and some days I still don't, we have become best buddies.  We wrestle together, watch football, fight bad guys with swords and drive the girls in our house crazy with our singing.

You make me proud in so many ways.

I am truly blessed to have you in my life.  Happy Birthday Chancellor.

I love you.

Daddy

Wordless Wednesday: Italy

Great Post from Guy Kawasaki's Blog

Evangelism: Eternal Life, Forgiveness, and Operating Systems

A little known story: When I was writing Selling the Dream—How to Promote Your Product, Company, or Idea—and Make a Difference Using Everyday Evangelism, I attended the Billy Graham School of Evangelismto learn from the best. It was a very interesting experience. Some ofthe finest speakers that I’ve seen (and tried to copy) were on apulpit—not an operating system or music-player pulpit—but a churchpulpit.

Fast forward a few years: I am on the board of directors of a para-church organization called Hawaiian Islands Ministries. Its mantra(if I can help it, no organization that I’m affiliated with has amission statement) is to “train the trainers”— that is, pastors,ministers, deacons, elders, etc. Twice a year it runs a conference featuring some of the best Christian speakers. If you like to watch and hear the sessions from this Fall’s conference, click here. For example, streaming video is available of these sessions:

• Bill Hybels: “Give God Glory in Our Leadership.”Founding and senior pastor of Willow Creek, Bill is well known for hisrelevant and insightful Bible-based teaching. He is the author ofseventeen books, including Rediscovering Church and Fit to Be Tied(co-authored with his wife Lynne), Too Busy Not to Pray, Becoming aContagious Christian (with Mark Mittelberg), and The God You’re LookingFor. He is chairman of the Willow Creek Association’s board ofdirectors. Bill holds a bachelor’s degree in Biblical Studies and anhonorary Doctorate of Divinity from Trinity College.

• Juan Carlos Ortiz: “Supernatural Experiences Are For Today.”Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Juan Carlos was ordained in theChristian Assemblies of Argentina and is presently a minister in theReformed Church in America. His vast experience in discipleship andsmall groups has taken him to conventions, congresses, universities,seminaries and churches on five continents. He has founded sixchurches, was professor at Instituto Biblico Rio de la Plata inArgentina, and at present is professor at the Robert Schuller School ofPreaching in Los Angeles, CA. Pastor Emeritus of the Crystal Cathedralin Garden Grove, California, Juan Carlos’s world renown books include Discipleship, Call to Discipleship, and God Is Closer Than You Think.

• Francis Chan: “Give God Glory in Our Calling.” Francis is pastorof Cornerstone Church and president of Eternity Bible College in SimiValley. He is a highly sought after and gifted speaker, engaging adultsand youth throughout the U.S. and challenging them to deepercommitment. He can be heard on his radio program “Truth Be Known”.Francis has a great sense of humor, a genuine love for Christ and acommitment to teach straight from the Word of God. Francis and his wifeLisa have been married for twelve years and have four children. He is agraduate of The Master’s College and Seminary.

• Brenda Salter McNeil: “Give God Glory in Our Relationships.”Brenda is a gifted communicator who has a wealth of knowledge andexperience in the area of racial and ethnic reconciliation. She isfounder of Overflow Ministries, a nonprofit, faith based organizationdevoted to the ministry of racial reconciliation. She continues thiswork through Salter McNeil & Associates, LLC, a racial and ethnicreconciliation training, consulting and leadership development companybased in Chicago. She earned an M. Div. at Fuller Theological Seminaryand a D. Min. from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

• Dan Chun. Dan is president of Hawaiian Islands Ministries (HIM),which he founded with his wife Pam in 1983. He has been senior pastorof First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu since 1994. Prior to that hewas associate pastor with singles at Menlo Park Presbyterian Churchfrom 1985 to 1992. Born and raised in Hawaii, Dan left an early careerin television broadcast journalism with the Honolulu, Hawaii CBSaffiliate KGMB-TV to commit to full-time Christian ministry. Dan hasbeen a speaker at national Promise Keepers stadium events and ispassionate about bringing revival to the Bay Area and Hawaii by unitingthe Church of Jesus Christ through equipping church leaders.

Even if you’re not a Christian, you should watch these sessions outas examples of great speaking and evangelism although this isn’t a faircomparison because eternal life and forgiveness are far better productsthan most operating systems. :-)

Permalink Here: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/12/evangelism_eter.html

Will It Last?

Kimber over at No Limits Ladies  posted today on guidancefrom Jim Cramer, Cramer’s advice is to be heavy into equities or aggressiveinvestments in your 20’s and 30’s and then start moving more towards FixedIncome investments closer to retirement.

 My only complaint with Cramer’s advice is that those of uswho retire in our 40’s or 50’s will need this money for the next 30-40years. Will fixed income investmentscontinue to grow as we start to withdrawal funds? Will our nest egg last because of our earlyretirement? Will inflation eat away thefixed income over time?

I talk with many retirees who are now living off theirinvestments and most of them are still 60/40 or 70/30 between stocks and fixedincome simply because they know they will need to continue to retain growthduring retirement.

 Work Less, Live More talks about this same issue and how toovercome it. Using the 4% Withdrawal Rule and Proper Asset Allocation, your egg will not only last butthrive.

Just another opinion :)

Finances Part II: The Not So Secret - LBYM

The One (Not So) Secret of Legacy Wealth

Wealth can be attained be anyone at any income level usingfour magic letters LBYM. LBYM stands forLiving Below Your Means. It is the oneprinciple that everyone must learn to become financial independent andwealthy. It also relieves financialstress and puts us back in control of our finances.

 
Now, it is very easy to read this and you have probably evenheard this before, yet most Americans simply do not master this first step towealth. I have never met anyone who iswealthy who has not mastered this principle and because I am such afinancial genius, it took me 5 years to learn this principle and instill it inmy family!!! Talk about hard headed?

 
Let me simplify this principle for you. LBYM simply means that you are saving moneyevery month and increasing this savings yearly. You are living on less than you make and investing and saving thedifference. This is how all wealthcreation begins.

 
Why does everyone not practice this principle? I believe it comes down to priorities and thelies we believe. You have to make it apriority to become wealthy and master your finances. In a moment, I will share with you some statistics(for all you analytical types) of how this breaks down but from all the data here isthe bottom line:

Those whomade it a priority to save, built wealth, regardless of their income level,individual circumstances or choice of investments.

Here are some key findings:

• There’s a huge variation in wealth at every income level. Many low-income families have almost nothing. But the same is true of many high-income families.
• Income alone doesn’t explain wealth disparities. Some of the lowest-earning households had managed to accumulate significant wealth.
• In fact, income differences explain just 5% of the wealth dispersion the     researchers found.
• What the researchers called “chance events” -- inheritances, medical bills,marital status, and number of children -- explained about 4% of the     dispersion.
• Investment choices explained about 8% of the variations.
• In other words, the vast majority of the differences in wealth had nothing to do with income, chance events or investment choices.
• What did explain most of the differences in wealth? Venti and Wise concluded it was this: How much the families chose to save. Those who made it a priority to save built wealth, regardless of their income level,     individual circumstances or choice of investments.

Here it is again…

Those whomade it a priority to save, built wealth, regardless of their income level,individual circumstances or choice of investments.

Crazy? Makingit a priority to build wealth is 80% of the battle.

“80% of Success if showingup.” - Woody Allen

So we now know that simply making finances and wealth a priority is halfthe battle, what is the other half?

We need tostop believing the lies.

Hollywood, The Dot Com Craze, TheMedia and even Financial Advisors have been selling us a lie. The lie is that when you’re wealthy, youdrive a Mercedes SL600, you live in a $5M Mansion, you only buy Gucci, Pradaand Armani and if it’s practical and cheap, you don’t want it.

We buy into this lie and try to look the part, try to live up with theJones. We spend our hard earned money onthe one thing that will never help us become wealthy…liabilities.

Not only do we spend our hard earned money on crap but we also use ourcredit and buy more crap to get us deeper in debt. Here are some debt facts:

• More than a third -- 36% of those who owe more than $10,000 on their cards have household incomes under $50,000, according to the VIP Forum analysis.
• 13% who owe that much have household incomes under $30,000.
• The percentage of disposable income used to pay debts is still near record highs.
• The median value of total outstanding debt owed by households rose 9.6% between 1998 and 2001.
• Bankruptcies set another record in 2003, with 1.6 million personal filings, the American Bankruptcy Institute reports.

More…

 · Sixty-two percentof Americans report that they are saving and/or investing. However, more than40 percent of all Americans save lessthan 5 percent of their annual household income. Sixteen percent savebetween 5 and 10 percent. Only nine percent save more than 20 percent of theirannual income (Jean Chatzky, You Don't Have to Be Rich,2003).

· Theaverage personal savings rate is now less than 2% of income, and theaverage household has a net worth of just $264,000 at retirement, not includinghome equity (Money, December 2004, pg. 94).

So what are we doing? We are taking our hard earned money and buying new cars, boats, jetskis, snowmobiles, charging vacations on credit, financing Christmas, gettingthe latest gadgets, hooking up 141 channels of cable, eating out everyday andbuying Starbucks every morning at $4 a pop instead of making wealth a priority andsaving money first.

 
Have you ever looked at those pictures of wealthy people yousee on the walls of old estates? Theydecided to make building wealth a priority; they built a financial legacy that influencedmany future generations.

 
So what are we doing for our future generations? What will our great, great, greatgrandchildren say about our legacy?

 
Again, financial wealth is not the only aspect of a legacyand it is certainly not the most important but, it is a factor and needs to beaddressed. Ignorance is not anexcuse.

If everyone was given a financial report card on our networth, what would our grade be?

Take all your assets (investments, retirement, and cash) andsubtract your liabilities (mortgage, debt, loans) and see what your grade mightbe?

 
A = Net Worth of $2 Million or more

B = Net Worth of $1 – 2 Million

C = Net Worth  of$500,000 - $999,999

D = Net Worth of $100,000 - $499,999

F = Net Worth of $ Negative - $99,999

 
Using this grading scale and statistics, a majority of usare getting D’s and F’s?

 
Statistics show the average American spends 120% of theirannual income. That means all theirincome plus 20% using credit and debt.

     
Okay so what do we do instead?

You put your money in the one area that hasmade all the wealth in the history of our world, from J. D. Rockefeller to BillGates to Warren Buffet. This one area toput your money creates wealth for you. Assets

 
The reason we don’t now of this great secret is because theydon’t teach it in school and unless you’ve made it priority to find out, itremains elusive to us. First, somesimple definitions.

 
Liability – is anything that depreciatesand/or takes money out of your pocket sometimes reoccurring monthly.

 Asset – is anything that appreciates in value or puts money back into yourpocket hopefully on a reoccurring basis.

 
In his best selling books “The Millionaire Next Door” and“The Millionaire Mind” Dr. Thomas Stanley does research on America’s wealthy households. He found that there are two types of wealthypeople.

Income Statement Wealth and Balance Sheet Wealth

 Income Statement Wealth is people who havelarge incomes but spend a majority of their incomes on liabilities. Theyhave big houses, nice cars and look wealthy but have no real wealth becausetheir money is in depreciating liabilities.  They are tied to their incomes (jobs) tomaintain their income level.

 Balance Sheet Wealth are people who don’tnecessarily look wealthy, they have modest houses and modest cars yet they havemost of their money in appreciating assets and our normally financial independent,meaning if they quit their jobs, they would be able to live off their assetsand in most cases make more money.

Now please understand this, there are some people who are sofrugal that they do not spend money on anything, they deny themselves of simplepleasures and rewards and make it their life’s work to be stingy, miserlypeople. This is not the lifestyle I amtalking about. I am talking aboutreducing unnecessary costs, lowering liability debt and redirecting that moneyinto assets that will put money back in your pocket.

Like I said, it is easy to read but much harder to “get offthe liability wagon” and put this into effect. It took me 5 years of reading, struggling and failing a few times tofinally learn this principle. Hopefullyyou are much smarter than me and will chose to draw a line in your checkbookand stop these habits.

For some help in this area and to go into much greaterdetail I recommend the following books:

TheFour Laws of Debt Free Prosperity – This is the first book on finance thatI read and lead me on this journey to creating wealth.

 YourMoney or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and AchievingFinancial Independence – This is the “financial bible” on frugality andLBYM. I have heard countless accounts ofthis book turning peoples spending habit around.

A Quick Recap of what we need to do to LBYM: 

Make it a priority to master your money and create wealth. This is the first step in setting an example for your children, then teaching this process to them. It also relieves financial stress on your marriage and starts the process towards your children’s financial legacy.

Reduce spending and liability debt. Stop living the lie of income statement wealth. This sometimes takes a little pressure from God and others to get us to do. It takes a level of maturity on our part as well. It was hard for me at first to see friends driving BMW’s they financed on credit and other friend’s spending money on liabilities. I would be lying if I told you I didn’t slip back to my old habits a few times when I first started. The books listed will give you a more in  depth game plan of how to make this step easier and automatic.

The third step once you’ve reduced spending is to start Paying Yourself First. This is a simple beginner principle to get you to save 10% (for starters) every month. The idea is to set up an automatic withdrawal from your paycheck of 10% and have that money transferred to a savings account. This forces you to live on the 90% that is left over. As you progress, I will show you how to start saving more and more. I am currently saving around 30% of my monthly income and to be honest, there is plenty left for extras and entertainment. It is all in themindset.

So your next question is going to be “Where do I put this10% of my income?” This we will answerin future posts and I will take you through the simple savings account to verycomplex investment choices.

First we crawl, then walk, then run and finally soar. Until next time, God Bless.

 -Esse Quam Videri-   

"The only thing that standsbetween a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try itand the faith to believe that it is possible."

- R. M. DeVos

Some additional links for statistics:

Debt Statistics - http://www.mdmproofing.com/iym/hfstats.shtml

Here is somescientific information on this subject  from Money Central