The other day I wrote a post called Help Wanted that revealed one of my biggest fears and exposed my own personal financial situation. I’ve questioned myself about whether or not that was a smart move. What was my motivation for doing that and revealing what many could consider to be such a private part of my life? Please allow me to explain.
My Past – the Private Parts
I mentioned that I came from a family that did not have a lot of money. I had all of the basics that I ever needed growing up – food, shelter, and medical care – and a few luxuries here and there when times were good. Still, I learned at a very young age to not ask for too much or else face the disappointment that came from being told no because we didn’t have the money. I could see the stress it would cause my mother who was divorced from my dad when I was only five and, although she married again, she essentially was the breadwinner of the family and I consider her to have been a single parent raising me and one of my younger brothers from her second marriage. Finances were always a struggle for her until after I was an adult on my own, making my own way. Even so, her abundant times never lasted for very long after I was an adult. I was more fortunate as a kid when spending summers at my dad’s with him, my step-mom and other two brothers. There seemed to be a little more abundance, at least more choices in the refrigerator and pantry, because of the stable two-income family they created.
As I grew up no one ever talked about money unless it was the lack of not having it. I didn’t learn how to make it except by getting a good job and working hard. If you were lucky to work for a good company you might get some benefits like health insurance, a retirement plan, and maybe a holiday bonus. My dad always had his own construction business and he labored hard as he was well-respected and in demand for the quality work that he does. However, being your own boss of a small business, you are paying for your own benefits, if you can afford it. So I believe they may have relied on my step-mom’s job to provide for health and retirement benefits. I really do not know as that sort of thing was never discussed.
Now that I am an adult and finally exploring all of the ways possible to get myself ahead of the rat race that works a typical M-F 9-5 job because I have learned that I have entrepreneurial skills and a desire to break out of the ordinary, I have learned that families who have more financial abundance do not seem to mind talking about money with other family members. The children of those families often grow up learning the ways their parents taught about investing, saving, and getting ahead of all the other families that barely get by. The skill these successful families has is communication. They are not afraid or embarrassed to talk about making money because it is a skill that they have learned and it seems natural. Just like when a momma cat teaches her kittens to hunt so they can survive. Their communication usually does not have any negativity associated with the subject. This eases the pressure that other families that are less fortunate may feel. Without that negative association they are more open to discuss ideas about different ways to make money and less likely to face ridicule or negativity for suggesting something new because their mindset is different than those who do not have it.
I’m not sure if because of my location of growing up in the South I also learned that it was not polite to talk to other families or people about how much money one makes or if it was only because we didn’t have much money ourselves and it was something lower income families typically say. I never asked or snooped to find out what men that I’ve dated were making. I know that some have been very successful because they openly talk about it and I am fortunate to usually attract that now whenever I do find someone I am interested in and I do not assume that because they are well off that I will be taken care of or that I’ve found a sugar daddy. I have had to rely on my own finances for so long and have never been offered to be taken care of unless it came with the price of compromising my personal beliefs, values, and self-respect.
This all of course has set me up to be in the situation that I now find myself which is having worked hard to get ahead, struggling to acquire as much as possible with only my own personal income, and because I dream of doing so much more than being average, I have made big investments in myself to unlearn all of the things that I was raised to believe which only would have kept me the level that my parents reached – I want more than that. I’ve taken a big financial risk to try a new business on my own that I discovered was not my passion and came out of it at an overall current financial loss but not a failure because it eliminated something I would not have been satisfied with. Now that I have discovered my passions – one of them I’ve discovered is writing here on this blog – and I am educating myself in another area I always had great interest but never pursued, I’ve reached way beyond the limit that my single income can keep up with. This was my big fear – facing financial failure and risking my credit or worse, the possibility of losing the things I have worked so hard for up to this point.
Looking back to my past though, I already did lose everything once before. There just wasn’t as much at stake back then because the only asset I had acquired at that point was a vehicle that was totaled when I did not have full coverage insurance. I was still so close to the beginning of my adult life that it doesn’t make a big difference to me now when I think back and remember. Soon after losing my vehicle I ended up living in a tent for three months when I decided to go back to college and until I could get into an apartment with two other roommates. I was given a little boost when I decided to go back by step-dad #2 because he was an auto mechanic and had a cheap used car at his shop they gave me to get back on my feet. It was later traded for another used car from his shop that was slightly more reliable and in a few years I traded it in for my first newer car purchase.
The Present – the Motivation
Now back to the question to myself, why share all of this with the public? What do I have to gain by this? Sympathy? That’s not what I’m after. Charity? No, I’m too stubborn to accept it unless I have no other choice and it comes from family where I believe it is typical to expect help. I want to earn my way instead. Support? A-ha! Now we are getting close.
It is my belief that by sharing the personal stories of my life that I might be able to help someone else gain different perspectives to consider or to inspire someone that has faced similar struggles they have not yet overcome. As I go through the journey of my life I want to validate my credibility to everyone whether you doubted my capabilities or cheered and supported me all along. By documenting my progress here on this blog, I am able to prove beyond a doubt that I am a real person, my stories are true from my perspective, and that when someone like me, given my current and past situations, makes it to the level of success that I desire to achieve – financial freedom – then, to myself more than anyone, I can validate my credibility to teach others the secrets that so many others have a hard time finding.
I have learned that the people closest to you may not support you in the way you think they should and it doesn’t mean that they do not support you. You have to communicate what you expect if it is something different than what they are giving. I do not have the benefit of having a significant other in my life that I can lean my head on their shoulder and expect a hug when I’ve had a stressful day or to look forward to telling them my achievements when something great happens.
I have a lot of wonderful friends that I can share many things with, however, most of the closest ones are married, have their own lives, and are raising children that I cannot wait until I one day will be able to have. In my eyes they are a success. Maybe not all of them are financially successful by my personal goals yet, but in relationships most certainly.
Facing My Fears
I have found that whenever something is bothering me I have to confront my dis-ease and release it or else I will internalize it and it will manifest into a disease or other physical ailment. The easiest and best way for me in most scenarios it to write about it. I still do not like verbal confrontation with anyone that I may have an issue with, although I find it much easier now than I did 10+ years ago and it seems to be much less frequent than even just a few years ago. Writing for me is an outlet that allows me to create my thoughts in a thorough manner without interruption from anyone else or giving them an opportunity to twist the words against me in an argument or debate (which I severely dislike).
I do not seem to mind being an open book and sharing information about my life. I think I have led a rather interesting one so far and lately, on more than one occasion, I’ve been told I should write a book. It’s on my Bucket List of things to do now. I’m not 100% sure what I want to write about specifically yet. If anyone has any best-seller suggestions please let me know. ;) I’m am sure that whatever I do end up writing about it will include many of the little adventures of my life.
It’s funny to me to think that as a teenager I was much more private about my life and rarely would have a phone conversation without going into my room for privacy, even if it was just one of my girlfriends for a quick call. Now, within reason, I and nearly everyone I see seems to have all kinds of random conversations in plain view for all of our friends to see and we have them on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. It’s more than entertainment, it’s people looking for praise when they’ve done something they are proud of, support when they are feeling down or challenged, feeling wanted when they are lonely, asking for advice on something, promoting and soliciting business, and connecting with others to get new ideas for projects they are working on.
The Results
My outcome is not finished yet when dealing with this current situation I am in, however I am dealing with it. I’m finally facing the challenge of the fear I have before me. I am working on a solution – even if it isn’t an easy one or one that meets all my wishes. My close friends and family now know what I am going through and are morally supportive. Rather than asking me to participate in something I cannot do right now, they are offering ideas or advice to see if any of it will help me out. Since I live alone, hundreds of miles away from any family members or most of my closest friends, I need that sort of moral support and to feel connected to someone. It lets me know that they care even if they cannot make what I am going through go away. I think it is important for us all to feel supported, connected, and that we are loved – that we make a difference being here in this life to someone.
When dealing with fears there are several things I have learned:
- The fastest way to make any fear vanish is to experience it fully.
- To overcome your fear, you deal with what emerges and put attention on it.
- Nothing has any power over you, except the power you give it.
- Fear can cause people to hesitate and/or stop in their tracks.
- More is learned in pain (facing your fears) than in pleasure.
- Better late than never.
- If there is no risk, there are no goodies (i.e. euphoria of overcoming the fear and any other benefits it may bring).
- Anger is a fear that the offense will occur again.
- In order for things to change, you must change (you have to do something different to get past that first step of facing your fear).
Much of this wisdom I have learned has been through the many self-development courses I have taken. One that I highly recommend from one of my mentors, Marshall Sylver, is his two-day event called Turning Point. It is a great beginning for anyone to learn how to overcome their fears, understanding the types of communication for better relationships, learning the art of persuasion and influence (a great skill for anyone, not just for salespeople), and the skills of subconscious reprogramming so you can achieve anything you set your mind to. I believe that I even have a few discounted or free tickets available for someone that is serious about attending (a $2000 value). Contact me for more details.
If going to seminars is not your style and you can only commit yourself to reading books, there are several books for inspiration – many of which I recommend are in the carousel at the bottom of this webpage. The number one foundational book that nearly all speakers I have ever heard reference to is Think and Grow Rich
by Napoleon Hill.
Thank you for being here with me as I go through this personally challenging time. I hope that you will come back again to see how I progress. To stay automatically updated on new posts that I publish, be sure to sign up for the RSS feed (click the little orange icon in the right sidebar above the heading Recent Posts). Please explore some other pages on the site and help support me further by clicking on any of the links that may interest you and also by sharing this site with others. If you have a suggestion for me, a subject you would like me to write about or information to share, please click on the suggestion tab near the top left side of the screen. Remember to leave comments too on any page or post where comments are enabled. Let me know you are out there, reading this, and if any of it is useful to you. And finally, if you are on Facebook, please join my group Studio di Mare to connect with me and others that share passions, information, creativity, and adventures.
with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman and filling out some random Facebook Bucket List Questionnaire that someone else made up for you to check off items, I have looked at my own life and the many adventures I’ve been on and the items that I’ve accomplished so far in this life. I recall back to the days in middle school when my classmates and I would create “Slam Books”, a notebook somewhat similar to a Bucket List that asked for answers to a bunch of random questions, and pass them around to fill out until we were caught by our teachers. Rather than check off the tasks I have completed from someone else’s Bucket List, I’ve decided to create my own. Really, who wants to laugh until milk or some other beverage has come out of their nose? I have many other more interesting accomplishments that I’d rather boast about and challenge myself to, and they are less painful or embarrassing.
Now that I have a puppy, Lulu, that I walk daily throughout the neighborhood, I see just how much litter is on the ground - particularly in front of the school on the next block. I’ve been telling myself for the past couple of weeks that I should bring a bag with me to begin collecting some of this garbage, only in our haste to get out the door (Lulu gets so excited to go for her walks) I always forget to bring one of those plastic grocery bags that I recycle. This morning I was in luck. A grocery bag had blown up against my fence right were we walk out of the yard. Instead of throwing it in the garbage bin I took it with us and before we turned the 2nd corner to begin the walk in front of the school my bag was already full. Lulu was very good at spotting the litter. From now on, it is our mission to take one with us on every walk to collect garbage and clean up our neighborhood.