Mission Improbable Part 8: I Am Who I'm Becoming

Having taken a look at where I came from and where it’s brought me, it is now time to shift my gaze. I certainly have been the person my parents raised, absorbing their values, habits, and experience of the world, almost by default, mostly unconsciously. It is time to release the Unconsciousness – if I’m going to have a value, habit, or experience of the world today, I want it to be shaped by my own choices, not theirs. With intentional Awareness and a Willingness to Change, the truth is that I am less the person that I have been than the person I am becoming.

A dear friend and Unitarian Universalist minister, Tom Owen-Towle, states it as follows: “[We] live more by our aspirations than by our accomplishments.” This is a profound truth, a statement of faith and courage. In fact, I fully believe that who we truly are is revealed in our aspirations, rather than in our accomplishments.

We all have the capacity to change, if we choose to. These words are revolutionary, coming from the pen of someone (me) who was once deeply mired in self-loathing, self-pity, self-absorption, and self-destructiveness. I once considered myself a hopeless case, no matter how “successful” and “effective” I appeared to others. I felt doomed to a life of being unable to accept who I was, let alone find a way to become something bigger.

But I did change, perhaps in spite of myself. And it happened through an “earthquake” in my thinking.

I have a spiritual guide whose contrarian personality naturally upsets me. He has a strong personality, and when I first met him I had qualms about him. But I was desperate for help at the time, so I surrendered to him – I decided to let someone else be right for a change.

This was a key: My way had produced nothing but utter self-destruction wrapped in an apparently successful skin. If you nicked the skin, a dark, fetid world of shame and bondage would be revealed. I spent almost all of my energy trying to preserve this fragile skin – it was exhausting. Finally, at 48 years of age, I succumbed to the obvious fact that my way was not working, and humbly asked my new spiritual guide for help.

His “help” took the form of constant mental challenges, challenges to my existing thought patterns and mental habits. He told me to write endless lists of things I was grateful for (not easy for someone with my negative attitude), and he told me to place (what were in my dark mind) patently false affirmations up on my mirror and recite them to myself: “I am lovable.” “I am worthy.” I did it grudgingly, haltingly, and completely without feeling. But I did it.

He had a peculiar habit of disagreeing with every single thing I said to him. This was at times irritating, frustrating, aggravating, and clearly unfair; most of all it was disturbing and extraordinarily uncomfortable. This was the “earthquake.” And here’s the remarkable thing: In spite of my discomfort, in spite of my fear and aggravation, I sat with him anyway, rather than leaving in a huff. I lived with the discomfort of having my world view challenged deeply and thoroughly, and the resulting mental earthquake eventually had the effect of interrupting those dark habits of thought.

Here’s how it first became apparent to me what was happening: One day I was rehearsing my litany of woes to him, simmering in a comforting, delicious soup of self-pity and shame. He said: “You are doing this to yourself. It is unnecessary to resort to shame every time you have a thought. STOP IT! Just STOP IT!”

I said to him “How can I stop it? It’s the way I think! I just think this way, and there’s no way around it.”

He pointed to a couple of bad habits I’d dropped, and said: “You dropped those; now drop Shame. STOP IT!”

It seemed impossible, but the earthquake of his words shook me up enough that his words came to mind the next time I began descending into a “shame spiral.” And here’s the remarkable part: Just that tiny bit of Awareness cast on the mental habit of shame and self-loathing revealed that Shame was a process, not an event. In other words, there was a window of time that revealed itself, during which I moved from Not-Shame to Shame. It was a rabbit hole that I myself jumped into, rather than just an event that occurred to me, unbidden.

Simply by noticing, I was able to see that there was a short period of time during which, with practice, I was able to interrupt my own decision to jump into the rabbit hole, and side-step it instead.

This was huge. It was the beginning of my understanding that I AM RESPONSIBLE for my experience of reality, the dawning realization that my decision to jump into the rabbit hole of Shame created my experience of Shame. By learning tools that shook up my own thinking (in the same way my spiritual guide shook up my thinking) I could avoid the rabbit hole altogether.

This was simple. The tools were given to me. Their application was straightforward. But I’ll be damned if it was easy. It took all of the Willingness and Awareness I could summon to interrupt my own thinking and avoid the cozy, comfortable mental habit of Shame.

What, you might ask, was the “payoff” of being so ashamed that it became my “go-to” emotion? It took me awhile to figure that out, but it wasn’t very complicated. By resorting to Shame, I allowed myself to slip into the comforting role of Victim, endlessly beleaguered by my surroundings, and – here’s the clincher – not responsible for my own situation.

It did not matter that it was a false comfort. It was simply an ancient mental process that established itself in my distant childhood, one that made it safer to exist in my dysfunctional family of origin. That it no longer really served me was irrelevant. It was a habit, and felt known. To experience anything besides Shame had become uncomfortable, and I resisted discomfort with every fiber of my being.

It was not until my set of automatic thoughts and beliefs in this area were shaken to their core that I could begin to observe the dysfunction, and learn ways to intervene. The process has taken much time and effort – it was not easy – but I can say with all my heart that the time and effort spent surrendering to my discomfort and trying something else made all the difference.

I share this entire story to say this: I thought I was irredeemable. I was wrong. I can change. It’s uncomfortable, but – stick with me now – discomfort, once my sworn enemy, has now become a dear friend.

When I am uncomfortable, it’s because I’m stepping into the unknown. Change is by definition unknown. Change is uncomfortable. But growth and maturity cannot happen without Change, and discomfort (pain) is the proof of progress. When I am uncomfortable because a mental habit has been challenged, I now know that this is the harbinger of Growth, one of my highest Values. Discomfort is to be embraced rather than avoided, and learning this simple fact has changed my way of being in the world.

And I shared this story to say this: When I bring Awareness and Willingness to Change to my situation, bright, shimmering worlds of exciting potential reveal themselves to me. The Change of personal development is never comfortable, but Oh. My. God! It is worth every bit of the time, effort, and discomfort!

So do you think you know who I am by knowing my history or my present circumstances? You’d be wrong. My history is unchangeable. My circumstances are my circumstances. But my future is limitless and defined only by the outer regions of my imagination. I Am Who I'm Becoming!

Mission Improbable Part 7: Who Am I Really? Part 2

I alluded to my mother in the last post. I’d like to elaborate a bit on our relationship in this one.

You might ask: “Why are you spending so much time in the ‘Mission Statement’ portion of your blog talking about your relationship with your parents?” The answer, for me, is in the title of this post: To create a mission statement that is wholly in line with who I am, I must know who I am. Although I am evolving and changing (sometimes haltingly, sometimes by quantum leap), I will never completely escape the upbringing that shaped my earliest experiences of life. I may decide that the values instilled do not serve me any longer (and in fact I have, in some cases), but the process of moving in another direction will always start from a clear awareness of where I began.

My mom was born in 1926, putting her at the tender age of 3 when the Great Depression hit. That Depression did not subside until her “formative” years were near an end. I believe strongly that this event colored her reality for the remainder of her days, yielding a “scarcity mentality” that suffused her existence. My dad, born in 1917, was a little bit older when the Depression hit, and his early life and formative years were relatively spared.

As I mentioned, she pushed strenuously to keep my dad at a job that was sapping his will to live so that she would have the security of his pension in her old age. But this was the point: Her scarcity mentality affected and infected her family, in ways that haunt us even today – years after her death. There is nothing overtly wrong about her penurious approach to life; of course, wastefulness is no virtue. But the constant reminder of lack served to reinforce a world view that was pessimistic, beleaguered, and subtly victimizing.

“Mommie Doris” (as I have called her in later years – think: Joan Crawford) was a strong, determined woman. She was sweet as could be, with a coquettish giggle that never failed to charm (except for me – I’ll likely share about that later). She worked for my school during my elementary education, serving as a “chaperone” on the campus, assisting the staff in maintaining order and discipline. She was a tireless volunteer for our Parent-Teachers Association. She was very involved. This was very good, of course, but it came at a price.

Of course the kids teased me. Of course they resented me when she disciplined them. This was not terrible or life-shattering though, honestly. It was simply a nuisance, as I recall.

As I said in that last post, in private my mom had an edge to her. Saving much of her sweetness to confer generously on neighbors and colleagues at the school, she reserved her deep, blue ocean of criticism and judgment for her family. This complicated my relationship with her, even as a young child before I started attending school. To my tender, sensitive mind, I came to feel that there was nothing I could do that would really please her.

That conclusion was not entirely fair. She frequently praised me for academic achievements, and for the (admittedly few) times I contributed around the house. But something about the praise seemed wrong to me, and it would be long, sad decades before I pieced it all together. I came to understand that because I was constantly focused on winning her conditional approval, I never learned how to be satisfied with myself.

My dad told my mom before they were married: “You better accept me as I am. You will never change me.” This was largely true. So she let my dad be who he was (although she had her ways of punishing him for it), and set her sights on shaping me. Let me say here as an aside: she would have vehemently disagreed with much of what follows (and, probably, much of what precedes).

Deriding his feckless machismo, and subtly shaming me when I exhibited it myself, my mom pampered me to be the soft, loving man she really wished my dad would be. She taught me to be thoughtful of others, loving and kind; and not to react violently, but to back down from every confrontation peacefully.

Compared to my dad, who was completely unapproachable, overtly derogatory, and utterly unavailable emotionally, my mom’s carefully meted love and approval taught me very quickly whose opinion in the household really mattered. My dad was a lost cause; I learned to look for love where I could get it, even if it came at a price.

Obviously, this severely complicated my relationship with my mother. I recall watching an episode of “The Simpsons” that captured it all for me: Bart discovered his school principal sitting in the waiting room of a psychologist’s office where Bart had been sent for acting up. Bart asked, “What are YOU doing here, Mr. Skinner?” to which he replied, “Well, I have some issues to work through with respect to my Smother – I mean, Mother.” Yesiree, Mr. Skinner, complicated.

The combined action of her conditional love and subtle manipulation made it much more difficult to work through her legacy than that of my father, whose complete unavailability made him less “relevant.” My mom’s love felt smothering, emotionally incestuous, expectation-driven, absolutely necessary, and always like a carrot dangling at the end of a stick, slightly out of my reach.

It was not until well into my adulthood that I was able to even BEGIN understanding how I felt about her, and I still have lingering “issues.” To this day, the sound of a woman giggling coquettishly cuts through me like a knife (perhaps this is one of the many reasons why the idea of a Sarah Palin vice presidency is so abhorrent to me). All of the ghosts are not cleared out of this closet.

And I have NOT received a “postcard” from my mom since her death. However, the clear good in her legacy remains with me: My dad had only anger as a tool; through my mom’s teaching, however, I learned the tools of love, kindness, and thoughtfulness of others. And I strongly believe that her persistent push for excellence has fueled my growth process over the last six years in particular. She may even be smiling on me now in a way that she didn’t have access to when she was living. Being in a much larger territory since her death, perhaps now she has healed from the scarcity consciousness that crippled her in this life.

I am grateful for the lessons I learned from BOTH of my parents. From my dad I learned (in a roundabout way) a zest for adventurous life and a profound and essential sense of humor; from my mom I learned that I did not have to wield a hammer every time I make a point. While I frequently have abused the good tools both of them put at my feet (and picked up a few of their tools that didn’t suit me), at least I learned that tools exist. And now that I have intentionally collected a whole arsenal of tools with which to negotiate life, their good tools fit my new toolkit nicely. As long as I don’t feel compelled to use a hammer when a screwdriver is called for (I recall here my dad’s story about initially using nails for his sawhorses instead of screws), I find I can handle most of the challenges that face me today with reasonable equanimity.

I am who I am largely because of the upbringing I received from my mom and my dad. This is a fact of life. However, I am not limited by their legacy, as long as I keep an open heart and mind.

Next: I am who I am becoming.

Mission Improbable Part 6: Who Am I, Really?

As I trolled the Internet looking for opportunities, I was like a “catch and release” fisherman: I ordered “opportunity” packages, and after a quick look frequently tossed them back like fish that were too small. Sadly, I was less selective than the average fisherman – I kept a few of the “stingrays.” That’s why I don’t advocate doing what I did, except that it opened my mind to opportunities, and I began picturing myself being successful at them.

I started life in a lower middle class home, with what I thought was a pretty typical family. My mom was very loving (although let’s just say that she had an edge to her in private), and my dad fancied himself a rugged individualist, pulling himself up by his own bootstraps. I know now that he felt hindered by his family, and wished he could strike out on his own adventurously. But the day-to-day reality of bills to pay and mouths to feed wore heavily upon him.

My mom was very security-oriented, and when my dad talked about leaving his stable job to find better work elsewhere, she rebelled – her lips pursed and her brow knitted furiously. She wanted that pension, which my dad could only earn if he stayed in one job forever. So, unfortunately for my dad, he stayed in the same job his entire career, working year after year in a job that disgusted him, gazing longingly at the want ads, and wishing he could do something else. I didn’t have much sympathy for him at the time, but I certainly do now.

My mom eventually got that pension she wanted so badly, so she was “happy” – but the cost was dear: She had to live with an angry, bitter, resentful husk of man for nearly fifty years to get it.

Of course, the world has changed dramatically since then. Now, life-long jobs with pensions are almost unheard of, and “job shopping” (as he called it) is the norm. The variety he longed for is a basic fact of life now, and the security my mom longed for is long gone.

So that’s the primal “soup” I emerged from. I used to think I was more like my mom than my dad, and grateful for that. I didn’t want to be like the angry, bitter man who raised me. But now I understand things a little bit better, and have come to see that somehow life has arranged to bring the best qualities of each of these frustrated, broken people to life within me: I have the softness of heart and ability to love that my mom possessed, as well as the strength and humor that my dad embodied.

I recently saw an essay that my dad (who died back in 1989) wrote back in the late 1980s. In his retirement, it turns out he had been “blogging” (or at least the late 1980s equivalent of blogging) about his life, perhaps with a goal of publishing. His essays were about being a handyman by necessity, driven by the requirement of upkeep on a home for his family. As I read that essay, I was struck by how similar our “voices” are. He has the same sense of humor that I have!

Following is a quote from that “blog” entry. He was talking about the first time he constructed sawhorses, using two-by-fours and metal braces he bought at a hardware store:

“I tried nails first, but the horses were shaky, ergo the screws. I still have the brackets. I recently replaced the bargain two-by-fours. After twenty-odd years, they were growing splinters like hair. Mean hair, that is.”

I laughed when I read this, and it hit me: The sense of humor that is native to me, that has brought me safely through all sorts of crises over the years, was an inheritance from my dad! A man I barely knew, whom I resented fiercely, and who possessed no qualities I thought I wanted, was the source of one of my finest character traits! This was a major eye-opener.

As I thought about it, I realized something even more powerful: I am now living the life of HIS dreams! I am single and unattached (for better or worse), have no children, and am striking out on an adventure of self-realization and personal fulfillment that is Quixotic and courageous! I am blogging about it, and “published” (if only on the web), and I bring to it the same zest for life and love of the unknown that propelled my dad. The difference: I am getting to live this life, while he only got to dream about it.

Interestingly, a week before I read the essay my dad wrote, I received a postcard in the mail. It was addressed to someone else (at my address), a name I’ve never seen before. It was a picture of Hawaii and had the single word “Aloha!” on the face. The first word that jumped into my mind, unbidden, was “Paradise” – I even said it aloud. I turned the card over, and it said simply, “COURAGE!” and was signed “Dad.”

I don’t know who the addressee was, but I know who the message was intended for. The seething anger and resentment I had nursed for someone who demeaned me as long as I knew him melted into a warm affection for the source of some of my finest qualities.

My heart aches for the pain my dad endured, working a job he loathed for thirty-five years because he felt trapped by a family that treated him only with disdain (and vice versa). Perhaps in living his legacy I am giving shape to his dreams in a way that is extremely satisfying to him now.

Here’s to you, dad, wherever you are!

Mission Improbable Part 5: Education, Schmeducation

Robert Kiyosaki defines an Asset as something that is a “source” of Cash. He distinguishes it from Liabilities, which are a source of Expenses (and thus a “use” of Cash). So a rental property that produces rent income every month is an Asset, but a family home, which requires upkeep but produces no Cash is a Liability. Yes, your family home, often considered the bedrock of one’s financial future, is a Liability!

One needs to look no further than the current real estate crisis to understand why. It is true that if the value of one’s family home is appreciating, it can be sold for a profit and generates Cash. This would appear to make it an Asset. But across the country the “equity” value of this perceived Asset has been mortgaged and re-mortgaged to a fair-thee-well in the last few years, and the resulting glut of new mortgages, often granted to households that were unable even to make the first payment, is what triggered the downfall of the financial giants you are reading about in the news. If the family home were an Asset, it would have been reliably generating Cash rather than requiring Cash to sustain it. The “bedrock” of many people’s financial future turned out to be sandstone.

Rental property is only one kind of Asset, one that’s easy to wrap the brain around – it’s easy to understand how rental properties generate Cash. A business is another such Asset - a service or product sold for a profit provides Cash, and the business is as such an Asset.

But Kiyosaki states that the most valuable asset one can obtain is financial education. Education an Asset? But doesn’t Education cost money, making it a Liability? Yes, at first glance. But a sound financial education can position a person to recognize financial opportunities. Taking advantage of such opportunities can generate income for decades, far exceeding the initial Cash outlay for the education that made it possible. Education is an Asset, if it is geared to recognizing financial opportunities.

As an accountant, you’d think that I’d had more than enough financial education to be a success. I can read a Balance Sheet and an Income Statement. I understand the Accounting Equation: Assets minus Liabilities equals Owner's Equity! I know how to spot financial problems and figure out the sources of those problems so that they can be corrected before profit is impacted.

But my Accounting education taught me how to monitor and evaluate Wealth – NOT how to attain it. This is a key quality that distinguishes an Entrepreneur from his or her financial Controller – the ability to spot financial opportunities and boldly seize them. And it was a key ingredient missing from my education and career.

So I left my job back in February, and was soon aware that I’d never be able to return to the grueling, stressful career that I had tended and nurtured for nearly thirty years. And where had it gotten me? I had some cash in the bank, but no real understanding of investments, no way to use that cash in ways that would build wealth and allow me to escape the career that had been destroying my health. So I decided to embark on a program of real, financial education.

Most schools teach people how to be employees. Think about it: An MBA – that cherished prize of people who want to embark on a profitable career in business, often prepares its recipient for nothing more than a cubicle farm.

Even doctors in our age, once considered the epitome of financial success, have succumbed to employee mentality, often working for hospitals and HMOs in overworked, underpaid, and horrendously stressful conditions. Combine that with a right-out-of-college debt well in excess of $100,000, and it makes for a pretty miserable career choice for all but a few select specialties.

There is nothing wrong with being an employee. But I’ve decided the whole financial paradigm of employment is wrong, and will not provide sustainable income in the current global economy.

The trouble with employment? You work once and get paid once. It is LINEAR income. Reasonable pay for an honest day’s work. What’s wrong with that, you ask? Well, linear income will pay the bills, but only the highest linear income (think CEOs) can provide a truly secure financial framework. Look at the news: CEOs get paid generous, contractual bonuses for destroying companies these days! When was the last time an employee besides a top manager got such a parachute?

But here’s what’s even more alarming about my situation right now: What’s a guy with training in Accounting and a successful twenty-five year background as a financial analyst and Controller, with not even a CPA or MBA, supposed to do in an environment where CPAs and MBAs are now a dime a dozen? In my city, that would mean preparing myself for an extended period of unemployment, likely followed by an extended period of underemployment.

What’s a guy to do? In my case, I began educating myself about opportunities. I had to turn off the risk-aversive accountant inside of me, ignore the advice of my CPA and the tsk-tsking of my attorney, and start looking at new earning paradigms.

I’ve heard it said: Profits are better than Wages. The meaning: Owning your own business is preferable to employment. That’s great. But I’m no Entrepreneur – I’ve only been trained to keep an eye on other people’s money. What kind of business would work for me?

I started desperately trolling the Internet for investment and business opportunities. This was the period of terror I described in an earlier post. Fueled by the image of that child in Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad who observed his environment and spotted opportunities to earn money, I began watching – god help me – infomercials and ordering materials about possible Internet businesses. I took advantage of coaching opportunities offered by some of these programs. I learned a great deal about the kinds of businesses and investments that are available out there.

Let me be blunt: I do not recommend that ANYONE do what I have done here. My fear-based foray into “financial education” was scattered and random - like a shotgun - and pretty expensive. I am ashamed to say that I fell prey on occasion to the unholy Nemesis of Reason: Advertising Copywriters! Curious about any and all wealth-building programs that purported to “work,” I invested in a few dogs. And not cute, fluffy ones – mean, snarling dogs that would have chewed my throat out if I’d let go of the leash for a second.

But it gave me an eye to the opportunities that are everywhere. And I began to affirm that I deserved to benefit from one of the good ones. Practicing this affirmation, I just kept looking and learning until I found some things that fit. In retrospect, I don’t think I would have done anything differently (except for picking the "dogs" a little more carefully!), and I’m positioned now for an entirely different life. More about that in the next post!

Now a Word from Our Sponsor: Murders and Acquisitions 101

As I admitted in a previous post, my education over the last six months has been a bit scattered. The reason: Pretty quickly after I left my last soul-draining job, I knew with a certainty that I could never return to that business. I found myself, at the age of 52, trying desperately to figure out what I wanted to be when I grow up, only to realize that I’m already too old not to already be grown up! That, I’m afraid, threw me for a short while into a bit of a terror, and caused me to look in lots of directions simultaneously.

I’ll discuss some upsides to this educational approach as well as what I’m sure are the pretty obvious downsides, in a future post.

Previously, I was a controller for a mid-size company that had been purchased by a large company. This is not the first time I have had such a job, in fact the job before this one was almost identical in situation, activity, and scope. And I had actually made a sort of specialty out of taking mid-size businesses through acquisitions, helping them adapt to the new operating environment, modifying their accounting systems and reporting to make them compliant, and implementing new policies and procedures. Having gone through this a number of times, I have noticed a very persistent pattern, and it goes like this:

A mid-sized company has through dedication and hard work created for itself a track record of success and a bright future. It is very profitable. It has a wonderful corporate culture, is actually like a large, extended family. They have parties, share their personal lives, and see each other through dating crises, marriages, pregnancies, divorces, and family deaths. Home away from home.

Then, the mid-sized company is purchased by a large company, usually in an effort for the large company to “diversify.” The mid-sized company, because of its success and bright future, is purchased for top dollar by the acquiring company.The former owners are very happy, and sometimes go away, or are worked into the new top management team for the acquired company.

The new parent company’s financial people descend on the mid-sized company, auditing, evaluating, and changing everything. They force the smaller company to wrangle their accounting and program reports to fit into the scheme of the larger company. Because the smaller company is an attempt to “diversify,” their business is by definition different from the parent’s core business. This requires the smaller company to chop its numbers into odd, meaningless pieces simply to get them to fit into the new required format. Simultaneously, they struggle to maintain their previous, meaningful accounting and program reports because these actually help the management understand the business properly. This requires the financial staff to produce double the reporting, including a set that is demonstrably meaningless. Honestly, this is not my own bitterness speaking – I’ve watched this play out time after time.

Then, because the large company wants to reduce their own expenses and improve their rates, they begin allocating a portion of those expenses to the smaller company as “corporate allocations.” Because the smaller company has shown a history of inordinately large profits, the larger company applies these allocations with an increasingly heavy hand. In short order, the allocations require the smaller company to raise their prices to the customer in order to cover the additional layer of expenses. This makes them considerably less competitive on new business, and the struggle to maintain growth and retain customer base begins.

The last company I worked for was a defense contractor, and the smaller business had benefited from government-instituted “small business set-asides” prior to their acquisition, a boost given by the government to promote the development of small domestic suppliers. Being acquired by a large company, however, the smaller company no longer qualified for these set-asides, and they lost an important competitive edge. This, too, affected their success in the marketplace.

In the meantime, the larger company is seen by the employees of the smaller company as a bit of a nuisance, but nothing more (except for the accounting and human resource departments, which struggle to keep up with considerable changes without impacting the employees any more than necessary). However, the new corporate culture begins to seep into the smaller company: Rising costs make it increasingly difficult to maintain the regular parties and fun events that maintained esprit de corps. Employee benefits change, impacting the employees and their families in ways both large and small, almost always at least troubling. Bonuses begin a steady downward trend, until they are based in large part on Corporate performance standards rather than those of the smaller company – in other words, unless the parent has a good year, nobody gets a meaningful bonus. And further, they are often skewed toward top management in spite of management's best efforts in the interest of the employees,. Even tiny holiday bonuses, which the employees had come to rely on, begin to disappear in the struggle to maintain price competitiveness.

The result is a growing dark cloud over the offices of the smaller company. Bitterness increases, and the management of the smaller company struggles to maintain even paltry incentives for its employees. At this point, usually the most talented employees begin resigning, often lured away by competitors and customers. The business base eventually deteriorates, raising the concerns of the parent company, and further stressing pricing. That’s when the hideous specter of “reorganization” begins.

The parent company, compelled to rework this marginal business into their incompatible business structure (and motivated by the high price they paid for the smaller business in the first place), begins moving the smaller company into various positions within the larger framework. They move from business line to business line, each time adding new layers of allocations and often requiring that their accounting information be presented in new and even less meaningful ways to fit the new division they have been placed in. Besides the disarray this causes the accounting department, often the human resources department finds itself in the hapless position of changing employee benefits again and again to fit the new organizations.

I’ve seen the “end game” play out in three different ways: Either the parent company puts the smaller company on the block to sell it for whatever they can salvage; or they chop it into sometimes minuscule and meaningless pieces, fitting these arbitrary chunks into existing businesses that are as close as possible to their trade; or they are consumed by the Borg and lose any semblance of their former identity. Sometimes, if it is sold to a suitable buyer, this can result in a return to some semblance of normalcy. If it is assimilated entirely, that, too, can be okay – although it has by this point lost all of its “charm.” But the endless rounds of reorganization rarely go well for either the business, the customers, or for the remaining employees.

In the meantime, the halls of the smaller company are dark and joyless due to attrition and discouragement. Empty offices scold the remaining employees, making them feel like failures for not have left the sinking ship early in the game. Often the smaller company’s management team is removed or changed, eliminating what was once a central focus of employee motivation and loyalty. This is a dreary, thankless, demoralizing process, and I have sat through this “end game” twice to completion – and that’s why I simply can’t go back.

Please note: Every bit of the above analysis is my humble opinion. I am sure that viewed from another perspective the process looked very different, and perceived (or assumed) motivations may not been the real motivations for what transpired. Nevertheless, it is cathartic to put this process as I have observed it into writing. Honestly, it’s not that the large company is an “evil empire” – they’re just trying to do the best they can to assure long-term stockholder value and a firm foundation for the future. The problem is that they often do this while instituting short-sighted, bottom-line policies that quickly undermine what they’ve acquired. They’re somewhat like a child who captures a bug in a bottle, and “loves” it to death.

In the next post, I’ll discuss the range of my recent education, and why I believe my “shotgun” approach was helpful for me (and the price I’m paying for it).

Mission Improbable Part 4: Actively Creating Passive Income

Yes, we’re finally coming to it, at long last! You thought I’d never get to my business plan, my vision, my mission statement, my goals and objectives, my strategies! But yes, I’m getting there!

If the mindset (actually: Mindset, “Bodyset,” and “Spiritset”) were not so important, I would have put the Vision Statement in the first posting. But as a former bean-counter propelled suddenly into the world of entrepreneurship, the first step of realizing the necessary fundamental shift in my world-view was far more important than a business plan.

I have been aware since early on that my business approach would eventually be (at least) three-pronged, involving Real Estate Investment (the “First Habit LLC” part), Stock and Equities trading, and Internet Marketing, or some other kind of Internet-based business. So I began educating myself in all three areas. It made for a somewhat psychotic educational experience, but slowly the pieces are coming together, and I know it’s just a matter of time and effort.

A key goal of my business will be the generation of “passive income,” the Holy Grail of financial freedom. Robert Kiyosaki explains the process in Rich Dad Poor Dad: Poor people earn money from a job and buy “toys” and other Liabilities using that income. Wealthy people, by contrast, use the money they acquire from their jobs to buy Assets, and pay for their “toys” using the income generated by those Assets. That distinction is the definition of passive income: Liabilities cost money, while Assets are a source of money. When you buy an Asset – for example, an apartment building – you can rent out the apartments for monthly rental income. You will be paid that money month in and month out, as long as there are tenants. You earn this income whether you are working your nine-to-five job or not – and that’s why they call it “passive income.” When you earn enough in passive income each month to pay for your day-to-day expenses, you are financially free. You no longer need the job to pay your bills.

A new mentor of mine (whether he knows it or not) is a man by the name of Jordan Adler. I will tell you about my (remote) relationship with this man in a future post. (I’m sure he doesn’t even know who I am – yet.) But he has written a wonderful book called Beach Money, all about the power of passive income (and network marketing – more about that later, too). The “Beach Money” he refers to is money that you earn while you are lying on the beach – true passive income. He explains that when you work a “day job,” you get paid once for your work – you work one hour, and you get paid for one hour of work. But with passive income, you work one hour, and get paid over and over and over again – for years if you work it right. That’s the power of passive income, and that’s why it’s a central goal of my business plan.

Kiyosaki defines the “poverty cycle” of working a job to buy toys and pay bills as the “Rat Race.” Only by generating true passive income can we hope to escape the Rat Race and build the financially secure life of our dreams.

In these tumultuous times, with the threat of failure in the Social Security system, the decline of the dollar, the volatility in the stock market, and the insanity of the privatized health care system in the United States (including the stress that is being put on Medicare), I think we could do much worse than adopt this change in perspective regarding the treatment of money in our lives. Our futures, and the futures of the coming generations, depend on how we decide view the Rat Race – as a necessity based on a dysfunctional misunderstanding of the “work ethic,” or as a destiny to be escaped at all costs. Kiyosaki advocates prioritizing the acquisition of Assets even before monthly bills have been paid – escaping the Rat Race is that important.

As an aside, if you'd like to read an almost Apocalyptic vision of the future as predicted by Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad" himself, pick up a copy of his book Rich Dad's Prophecy - it will scare the bejesus out of you!

Do you own a house? Do you consider that an “Asset”? Let me disabuse you of that notion. A family home is a LIABILITY – not an Asset. Think about it: Do you earn money from it every month? No – you pay money to keep it in good condition. And for what – resale value? I think the recent burst of the real estate bubble is evidence enough that even a family home is not “safe” as sources of passive revenue go.

There are ways to make the acquisition of real estate into an Asset – don’t misunderstand me. What I’m saying is that if you are counting on your family home as a “nest egg,” you’d better at least build a second nest to put some eggs in. Putting all of your eggs in the investment-basket of your family home is risky at best.

So what is the best Asset you can buy, when you’re just starting out? Is it stocks, bonds, or rental units? Is it gold, or other commodities? I’ll submit (along with Robert Kiyosaki, by the way) that the answer is Financial Education. Education, an “Asset,” you ask? Yes, Financial Education is perhaps the most powerful asset, because once you have it you will be attuned to the vast world of opportunities out there, and be in a position to wisely discern which opportunities are in your best interest.

As a former accountant, I understand Robert Kiyosaki’s Assets/Liabilities formula very well. But as clearly stated as it is in his book, I can tell you that this equation was never presented this clearly in any of my accounting classes. We learned how to keep track of other people’s money – not to build wealth for ourselves. This is an entirely different skillset, and a powerful distinction: true Financial Education is learning how to recognize and acquire Assets, and determine with reliability that they will generate passive income.

So having left my soul-depleting job back in February, and having now read Robert Kiyosaki’s powerful book Rich Dad Poor Dad (have I mentioned that this book is a must read?), I determined that my first course of action would be to expand my Financial Education.

As I said, my educational experience in the past six months has been psychotic – perhaps “multiple personality disorder” is a better description – but I know it will eventually come together in a workable package – it will just take the addition of that magic concoction of “Practice, practice, practice.”

I’ll speak more about the education I’ve pursued in a subsequent posting. Stay tuned!

Mission Improbable Part 3: The Key to the Law of Attraction

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. - Epictetus

This quote has always had powerful meaning to me. It seems so simple, and yet the wisdom of the ages seems lodged in it.

“Becoming” starts with a Vision of the future, and is followed by a lot of targeted Action. I have never seen this recipe fail, when:

1) The Vision is clear and I believe in it enthusiastically and without reservation.

2) I am willing to evaluate my Actions honestly to make sure they are really on target.

The reason it works is because it’s a different way of stating the Law of Attraction – aligning my thoughts, passion, and actions to a specific Vision draws that Vision to me inevitably. This is not “magic” of some kind; it’s just the way things work in this universe. There are potential problems with this formula, though, and they warrant discussion.

Potential roadblocks permeate that simple statement of the Law of Attraction, among them:

1) Is my Vision clear and focused? If not, the Law of Attraction may not appear to work.

2) Do I really believe in that Vision? If my Thoughts are not truly in alignment (and “belief” often happens at a subconscious level), then the Law of Attraction may not appear to work.

3) Does the Vision really evoke my Passions, or does it evoke the passion of someone else in my life, but not mine? Again – this can make it seem like the Law isn’t working.

4) Am I really taking Action? If I’m fooling myself about being in Action, I’m wasting my time.

5) Am I really being honest about whether the Action I’m taking is working? If I don’t honestly evaluate the Actions I take, I may thwart the Law of Attraction.

When I review that list of roadblocks (and I doubt that it’s even complete), it’s intimidating. What can I do if I don’t even know what my Vision is? – many of us have gotten disconnected from our dreams. How can I know beyond a doubt that I truly believe? How can I wrangle my subconscious mind into submission? What if I don’t know what Action to take next? What if my perceptions about whether an Action is “working” are inaccurate? When I think about all of the questions these potential pitfalls beg, it can be overwhelming – especially to a recovering perfectionist like myself.

There is good news in all of this, though: It doesn’t seem to matter at first whether we are truly convinced of our Vision beyond a shadow of a doubt. As long as we continue to be willing to believe, the Law can work.

Also, even if our Passions are not fully engaged at the outset, still the Law of Attraction can work. What matters is that we are intent on aligning our passions properly.

Finally, it doesn’t even seem to matter what Action we take at first, as long as we take Action. Even the lamest attempts at taking Action seem to yield fruit as long as they are evaluated honestly and we don’t allow “failure” to immobilize us.

There is a powerful Principle in play here, one of that “laundry list” I keep referring to in my posts. That Principle is Willingness. If we are willing to work toward aligning our Thoughts, Passions, and Actions, we will find a way to make that happen. Epictetus’ immortal words, in fact, only make sense in the context of Willingness.

I'll even state it more emphatically: I believe that Willingness is the key to the Law of Attraction. Whatever we would become, whatever we would achieve, whatever we would obtain in this life – if we are Willing to do whatever it takes to become, to achieve, to obtain, our powerful God-given brain will somehow locate the proper Path.

Willingness is so central to my success in life that I often forgo all other goals to refresh my precious reserve of Willingness. When I am discouraged (it happens), when my efforts seem to be failing, when my energy flags, when my “feelings” have deserted me – I fall on my knees and pray “God, please help me to be Willing.”

The power of that prayer in my life is astonishing. I find in those seven words exactly what I need, every time. They bring me to a place of Humility, where I realize that the efforts of my Self-will are always going to be futile. It brings me to a place of Honesty, where I accept the fact that I am responsible, and that it is I who must change, and not my circumstances. And it brings me to a place of Surrender, where I stop fighting that fire in my heart that draws me closer to the Vision of myself that is in proper alignment with the Will of my Creator.

James Arthur Ray, in Harmonic Wealth , demonstrates the power of this when he talks about getting the car of his dreams at a time when he was barely making rent each month. He wanted that Cadillac very, very much – his Passion was aligned with his Thoughts, big time. And his spiritual advisor at the time suggested that he make it a goal to obtain that car in the next six months. But how could he do it? He was stumped as to how to even begin to achieve such an ambitious goal.

He did the one thing that he could think of to do as a first step: He went to the dealership to look at the car. As he sat behind the wheel, he dreamed of it, loved it, cherished it. All good. What to do next?

A salesman asked Ray if he wanted the car, to which he replied in the affirmative; but he explained his financial situation. The salesman suggested leasing, an option Ray hadn’t considered, or even known about. For $150 per month, the car could be “his.” In six days, he had the car of his dreams.

From a pipe dream to fruition, a six-month goal happened in six days. But only because he was Willing to do the next indicated step – a simple visit to the dealership – did the proper path reveal itself. It was not much as “actions” go, but it was enough, because he was Willing.

One might question the wisdom of selecting that specific goal when obtaining the rent each month is a concern. And here’s the point about the Law of Attraction: The Goal doesn’t matter. It’s the process that matters. And Ray learned the process in this simple exercise, and has since learned to apply it in every area of his life. Ray’s spiritual guide understood this: Start with what you are passionate about – whatever it is – and learn the process in a context of absolute Willingness. Then learn to apply it to other goals. It’s as simple (and difficult) as that.

At long last, with all the Principles in place, my next post will start shedding light on my own Vision, Mission, and Goals. Stay tuned!