Paying Interest

You have yourself some cash, and it is meant to go a long way and yet, somehow it doesn't take you past the finish line of paying your bills. How come?

Not making enough? Perhaps, but might I suggest that there may be a monster lurking that needs some slaying, known as Interest?

Look at that monster called Interest ... who called it that? Interest in what? The monster is interested in you alright, and wants to wring you dry of ever drop of your nervous energy, so that you feel frantic, and so disqualified from healthy functioning, that you give Interest more and more until you are shrivelled up, and ready to be blown away with the first gust of wind. 

You bought that thing and put it on your Interest laden credit card didn't cha? You wanted whats-it, and your line of credit shouted, Use me, I am ready to soak you for some extra Interest in recking your life! 

Interest is a loan shark. Interest is the mafia. Interest is the cloaked stranger hiding in the back alley ready to pounce and punch you out, as you pass-on-by. Interest has no business messing with you, unless of course, you give Interest, an invitation to come on into your life, your home, your car, your workplace, and boss you around; threatening you with financial crippling, as in, We gonna break your legs if we don't get us some kind of payment. Interest whispers, and then gets louder and louder until it is screaming, I OWN YOU, and I'M A GONNA HARASS YOU UNTIL YOU PAY BACK EVERY CENT, or go BANKRUPT.  

Interest is the ugly wicked step sibling that hangs around Principal Payment. Principal Payment is humble and honest, and stays somewhat silent, unless it is ignored. Principal Payment has something to say when a month or two goes by without snacking on some Repayment cash: it requires feeding, otherwise it gets hangry. When Principal Payment isn't fed, Interest turns up the heat, and both become enflamed with ravaging rage. 

Can you see it, the money monsters that tag team, wrestling you to the ground? Principal Payment holds his foot poised just above your neck, and Interest bends your leg in an unseemly twist, ready to wrench hard as you lay prone, face pressed into that filthy mat of Indebtedness. You must pay what you owe. The initial unspoken veiled threat of, You will lose everything, eventually turns itself into a broken discordant record, echoing the screeching message endlessly, All will be taken from you, if you don't feed us immediately, and often. 

You can slay this money monster. Interest doesn't have to have such an interest in your life, but you've gotta do things right, and by the books, if you want to slash and kill this imposing fella. 

1. Pay what you owe

2. Pay it fast, like your life depends upon it

3. Pay because you owe, not because Interest insists and Principal Payment is irritable

4. Pay like it is your responsibility, because it is

5. Cut out the interest, Interest has in your life, by never talking to it, courting it, promising it, dancing with it, ghosting it, ever again

By slaying Interest, you get a huge chest thumping gorilla off your back. Principal Payment must be addressed as a preferred customer, and eventually, you will be able to run through open fields of sunflowers, without the weeds of repayment grabbing at your ankles, with sticking thorns and thistles attaching themselves to you.. 

Slay Interest, and then Principal Payment, and walk as a freedman or woman, without owing anyone a thin dime, while owning what you worked to pay for. 

You're NOT Hired

There is something wonderful about working and getting paid. The exchange feels good, and when the exchange of product or service for payment is frequent, frenzy can happen. Work can be busy, hard, taxing and time consuming. Conversely work can be slow, snail paced and none existent. 

Entrepreneurs are generators, or they are dead in the water ducks. 

• What happens to the psyche, when nothing is happening on the work front? 
• What happens to self-esteem and confidence? 

There is a money monster called Useless, and it suggests that you are tanking, that business is all dried up, and in your worthless nose dive state, it might be wise to hang-up your briefcase, close the computer, and drop into funky despair. You are labeled useless. The threat to emotional well-being is real, until you recall an important fact; you are not a walking talking dollar sign. Your net worth is not wrapped up in the number of deals you complete, or the digits signifying money in your bank account. Your value doesn't drop like a stock market point, when the potential client turns into a no and says something like, I went with the other guy or gal. 

Take a good look at you. You are inestimably valuable, with or without the deal, the dollars, the yeses. The question is, do you like what you do? When you work with people, do they trust you, and are they grateful for your presence in their life? At this point you are thinking what I am suggesting is to not worry, and be happy and you are also thinking that this drivel won't pay the bills. You are right, it won't, that part is still up to you. 

My driving point is this: don't allow the label useless, be sewn into the fabric of who you are. 

My Best Friend

My best friend is great to be around. We think of one another and then decide to connect. We speak and then make plans. When I see my best friend, it is like we have never been apart. We make eye contact, checking in with one another. I ask how is everything and my best friend tells me the woes they struggle with. We look for solutions together and I comfort my best friend. Next it is me that is on deck and I can see my friend searching for a way in, wanting to know how I am. Asking questions, my bestie finds a way into my heart and the stories of my life. My friend weaves in and out of the emotions I do and don't want to express and in the end, my pal always wins because I do not want to resist, I want to share my thoughts, what is on my mind and driving my life in a certain direction. My friend is so amazing to be with because of generosity! I never have to worry about there being enough or who will take care of what because there is always Abundance. In fact, there is so much that my BFF and I laugh at the liars called by the names Insufficient Funds, Overdraft, Debt and Poverty! We think those guys are bums and we refuse to spend any time in their soul sucking company.

Me and my friend have random conversations that can occur at any time of the day and night. We delight in each other's company, and the cool and clever ways we use our ingenuity, service minded approach to life and people, and amazing work ethic, to spend a lot more time together. We have a long time love affair because of our mutual respect for one another and what we both bring to the relationship. Mostly, we both like to work and play, learn and grow... my friend grows on trees and I like to spend time hanging out on the top branches, the ones that reach for and brush the sky. There I meet lots of others who are just like me and my best friend because we all want the same things in life! I can't imagine my life without my best friend... we have done some amazing things together and I dream about the more to come moments.

Who is your best friend or have you yet to meet them? Make sure you get acquainted soon, don't wait now. If you need my best friend in your life, I am happy to share... Abundance lives everywhere and is super friendly. 

Sales & Service

What are you selling? 

I work as a coach. When I tell people what I do, I often offer a sample coaching session if they have not heard of nor experienced coaching. It's a taste test for the eyes, ears and consciousness, a come and see experience. Sample sessions may or may not result in conversion. In other words, I may or may not have a new client as a result of the sampling. If at the end of the initial session I ask "would you like to work together", I am attempting to close on the deal. This is the point of honesty, where I admit that I am a sales person and I remain one until I am hired. Once there is agreement, that yes we will become client and coach, it is then that I assume my role. 

A conversation about arrangements is now possible and this is the agreement, the contract that states services rendered will be paid. What about a no, you ask? Well that is when next comes into play. I go back into sales with new people I meet or old acquaintances I run into. 

There is a money monster that says sales are egregious and slick, that to be in sales is a statement about your character or lack there of. Lies. We are all in sales. Look at a receptionist for a dental office, making outbound calls to patients to sell them a spot in a chair for dental care. Or the greeter at the front door of your gym, selling you on having a good workout on the way in and a good day on the way out and more subtly, depending on the gym, selling you on the good looks you will be surrounded by and have hopes of achieving once you join. 

You can't do your job, your work if you have no one in front of you, no one to serve. Sales, then service. Service without payment is a freebie, a give away. Keep it up and you have become a volunteer doing charity work and lets not make the mistake of you calling yourself a professional. Thats when another huge money monster will rear its ugly head and tell you you will never make it, your services are not worth payment and why don't you just get a day job instead of pretending? 

So, what are you selling? How much is your time worth? Are you willing to ask for the sale, close the deal so that you can provide the best service possible to clients? Go get 'em tiger, your work is waiting for you. 

Second Guessing

Second Guessing, that is the money monster that rears its ugly head after an appointment goes in the direction of no deal. 

What did I say? 

What did I not say? 

Was the information I shared pertinent, and what about that joke, did that offend? 

Second guessing can preoccupy, and steal the energy required to go out there and see next. How about this for slaying the monster: THEY missed out. 

YOU, know what it takes to provide exceptional service.

YOU, have done your homework, your due diligence. 

That could have been a client no deal last person you saw, just DIDN'T see the opportunity in front of them, when you were right there. 

Blinders, we all wear them. We have tainted vision, blurred vision, temporary blindness, and I'm here to suggest to you, Take a look at Second Guessing. 

What form of myopia would this monster have you suffer? Slay this monster with your new perfect vision ~ review what you need to learn from the last no go, and second guess no more, because next is waiting for you, and they have 20/20 vision with a complimentary yes on their lips. 

Go get em Tiger. 

What's in it for me?

There is a money monster that lurks, murmuring what's in it for me...what do I get out of this thing, this contribution I am making? With shifty eyes, what's in it for me looks around and sees what others have and wants wants whispering that should be minnnnneeee.  This is one of the most dangerous money monsters. Given space and time to breathe and speak, it breeds contempt, jealousy and a self indulgence that destroys character and trust in relationships. This is the dangerous part, the broken trust in relationship. What's in it for me has a posture, a way of positioning and maneuvering to get what is owed to it and giving way to the insidiousness of entitlement, another natural monster bred cousin. When what's in it for me shows up, everyone can smell it's odoriferous scent and backing away is the only self protective mechanism available to the would be offended victim if they were to stay...what's in it for me is offensive and must be stopped by checking in with the questions: what do I want, what am I willing to do to get it and lastly, who do I want to be in relationship with others? Letting what's in it for me speak is a mistake, eradicate him by going out immediately and doing something kind for someone who could NEVER possibly pay you back! 

Dark Doubt

What makes you think you can do this thing, this, thinng you think is so immmportant, so. ... valuabbbble ... hissssss. 

You aren't good enough. 

You are so arrogant, thinking you are special, different, unique. Give up! 

Mediocre is waiting for you. YA DON'T HAVE WHAT IT TAKES. 

Take a look around you, what do you sssseee? You are NOTHING, compared to those successsssful people you so want to be just like.

Want to be, want to be like ... wanna be ... you are a wannnnbe. That's allll you are, hissssssss, a wannabe. 

Can you hear the whisper of doubt, dragging out words, planting insecurity and condemnation, with the taint of contempt? This is the Dark Doubt that threatens to shroud the soul, bury talent, hope, possibility, under the blanket of you cannnnnt doooo that. 

Doubt threatens to steal vitality and strength, the drive and passion required to actualize what the heart and mind, conceive as important and possible. The voice of Dark Doubt gets loud and proud in its assaults, as you move toward your goals, your dreams. 

This blog is about slaying the money monster that rears its ugly head in your mind, in your pysche. You have a dream, and a purpose, and payment is the reward for your work. Don't allow Dark Doubt to be the loudest, hissing voice in your head. 

What do you need to hear about who you are, and how important your work really is? Once you have spent some time in self-discovery, let the words in your head, your heart and soul, be your repeated refrain. Something like this:

I am amazing at what I do

I am a game changer

I make a difference in the lives of others

I don't stop; I keep on going

My life and work have meaning and purpose

I believe my services are what people need

I matter, and so does the work I am called to

Dark Doubt, be damned. I will serve and be glad for the opportunities.