First I’d like to give a huge shout-out to the USA Men’s Hockey Team. That last second 3^rd period goal got my heart racing like I haven’t felt since Ohio State winning the Rose Bowl. Sure, we ended up losing in Overtime, but those 10 between goals was the most excited I’ve been in a long time.

So now that my disastrous month is finally over (Good Riddance) and shitty canceling clients have cataloged into the bad news database, I want to tell you what my main goal is for the month of March. I thought long and hard about it. There are so many things I need to get done, so many things I want to do and have to do, but it struck me this afternoon exactly what my goal should be.

The Goal is this: Have No Goal and Enjoy Myself. I haven’t had this goal in a long time and the last time I made this my goal not only did I reach it, but so many good things happened for me. Why not make that happen again.

Here is the way I see it. In the Fool’s Journey there is a cycle everyone goes through when venturing through life. This cycle repeats itself constantly and at every stage in your journey a new challenge rises to greet you. There are 22 different challenges. If you ever got a Tarot Card reading, the numbered cards represent the fool’s journey; books like Red Wall and the Lord of the Rings are based on the Fool’s Journey as well.

During the final leg of the journey, one of the challenges is called the ‘Tower. On tarot cards the Tower is represented by a lightning bolt blasting the top of the tower with you falling… no… crashing to the ground. It represents an unforeseen catastrophe that knocks you off your pedestal.

Then the next challenge (card ) is the ‘Star.’ The Star is represented by a person, naked, at a stream washing themselves of all the dust and rubble from their fall. In the water they see their reflection and begin to realize that there was no ending because of their plunge from the Tower, but a new beginning and a new freedom, a freedom this person never had while locked in their Tower. This person decides to go forth with their new found inspiration, but there is a problem… It’s still dark. Illuminating the path before them is the next challenge (card): The Moon.

The moon lights only half of a winding path surrounded by dangers and other people’s Towers. The path leads to the mountains where there is only darkness. Your creative Imagination gets coupled with your darkest fears as you traverse this moon light path and you become bewildered and afraid. You want to stop and call out for ‘Mommy!’ But if you keep moving forward something that always happens will happen and that’s the next challenge (card): The Sun.

The Sun rises and illuminates all of the hidden places. It provides clarity to the areas where the Moon provided confusion and fear. You begin to feel and understand all the good this world has to offer you. You are given a new Zest for life after being struck down by lightning, left in the dark with your fears and forced to trudge path you cannot see. Greatness finds you as you ride through life with new hope and optimism. You’ve traveled so far, learned so much and overcame debilitating obstacles. You can’t help but shine like the sun.

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This was a disastrous month and I was going to use this blog entry to cry and complain about how crappy it was. Where is complaining going to get me? So here are the good things.

First, despite all the cancelations, I did have some good clients and thanks to them I am able to pay my bills and put a few bucks away for savings. Second, I am much more organized now financially. I have all my bank accounts in order and haven’t had an overdraft since I began my new financial plan. Third, I’m the hottest I’ve ever been. Thanks to my client from last Thursday who wanted to help me out with a new video then canceled at the last second, I put in so much time at the gym that my body is amazing. I haven’t looked this good since college. I love it.

Finally, I feel better about my future. Before my mid-month debacle I was smashing my way to my goal, but now I am sailing towards it. It’s going to take longer than I expected, but at least I know I can make it.

February of 2010 will go down as the biggest blunder in my Vegas career, but like I’ve heard said time and time again: It Gets worse before it gets better. Man am I excited to see March roll around.

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For some reason this has been a very troubling month in regards to client cancellations. Actually, even my friends are canceling on me. This afternoon I was supposed to do a job with a friend, then my friend canceled. I scrambled to find another partner, then the client canceled. And the client canceled specifically because he wanted to be mean and hurt my feelings; and it did hurt my feelings. I was totally about to cry. 5 times this month clients have canceled on me at the last second. This has never happened before.

I remember talking to my friend Tyler a while back during one of these ‘Bad Months.’ He said that sometimes you get months that are incredibly amazing and sometimes you get months that are a complete disaster. Well, this month has been a complete disaster. And the madder I get at the clients who make you free up your schedule, seek out other parties for them, require you to email and call them on a constant basis then pull the rug in an abrupt manner from under you; the more I realize that the anger isn’t helping.

I feel like the cosmos is punishing me for something I once did. Time to figure what I need to fix in my spiritual make-up so I can get back to life as usual.

I choose to be the winner that I know I am.

2 hours no Technology starts now. I’m going for a run at Sunset Park. Who wants to join me?

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Cheryl Richardson: “If you remove energy drains, you make room for what you really want.”

What are the top ten things draining my energy. What do I need to get done, but keep putting off, and the more I thing about them, the more I do nothing about it.

If I want a burst of energy, I have to attack the things that I keep putting off. These things are like weights that hold me down and make me sluggish. If I remove these things, my zest for life will sky-rocket! I believe that too. When I owed nothing, was responsible for nothing, had nothing to fix; everything I made was mine to keep and anything I wanted to do was mine to get done. It seemed like my dreams came to fruition more often during those days. So I’m pretty excited about this list.

Here it is:

1. Fix Coolant Thingy on my truck
2. Pay Off Banks I owe money to (only like $500)
3. Pay Off Credit Cards (only $1200)
4. Clean My Room
5. De Clutter My Bathroom
6. Contact New Agencies for work
7. Set Up Online Automatic Bill Pay
8. Go through My old Hard Drive and Pull Out all the Files I need
9. Check to see if My Incorporation Papers are still valid in Ohio
10. Research Marketing Events for my Magazine

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So last night after I saw a client I went shopping at Express because it was the last day for me to use my 50% off coupon. I only ended up buying 1 pair of Jeans. I wanted to buy 3 pairs, but the other 2 styles I wanted weren’t in my size. Bummer.

I did not have my Bank Card with me because of my new plan to keep me out of the Casinos. I did, in fact, have an extra hundred dollars on me just in case my client canceled so I could still go buy some new clothes. After purchasing the jeans I had to walk through Caesar’s Palace to get to my truck parked at City Center. While walking trough the Casino I saw my favorite Quick Hit machine with no one sitting at it. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a total ‘Max Bettor.’ It doesn’t make any sense to do the minimum bet because you can’t hit a Jackpot or win $500+ on a lucky spin.  Since I had the extra $100 on me, I took a seat in hopes of hitting one of the ‘Quick Hit’ jackpots.

After the first hundred disappeared, I popped in another $100 in hopes of breaking even. When that was gone, I popped in the last $100 hoping to walk away with at least $200. That didn’t happen either.

So I need to restructure the money situation. My new plan is this: Besides work, which I easily can walk in and out of a casino for that, no trips to the Strip unless I am accompanied by someone else. It’s mandatory that I get a handle on my finances if I want to be a business owner. And if that means I need people with me to say ‘NO’ for me, then thats what I am going to have to do.

Looking forward to being a Millionaire. Can’t wait!

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Cheryl Richardson: “A high quality life has more to do with what you remove from your life then what you add to it”

What that means is: If you want to get more done with your life, don’t keep adding things to do, but rather focus on a few things to do and discard the rest.

The problem with me, though, is that I have too much free time on my hands with not enough to do with it. So I honed in on something important she mentioned about Time Wasters. Time wasters are things that create over-stimulation and keep you from focusing on what’s important. Obviously, the biggest time waster for me is Technology, like my computer, Facebook, iPhone, TV, Nintendo Wii, etc..

My attempt at fixing my Time Wasters is to set aside 2 hours a day with no Technology. No computer, phone, TV… nothing but me with myself. Let’s see what I can come up with. The 2 hours starts now.

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Cheryl Richardson asked a big question in regards to dealing with money issues and it was this:

“What is the one thing you know you need to do to handle

your money better that you keep putting off?”

The Answer to that question was easy: Keep money in my bank account, no more expensive nights out with friends and stay out of the Casinos.

As a single male in Vegas who always has a few bucks in his pocket, this town is designed against me. Every time I get bored or have nothing important to do for a while I hit the strip, which ends up costing me dearly.  So I have to create a way to prevent my money from making it to the Casino floor.

The solution I’ve decided to try is to take all my money (which happens to be all cash and in white envelopes stashed around my house) and put it in the bank. That way I won’t  have cash at my finger tips all the time. Next thing, with all my cash in the bank, I’m going to leave my bank card at home. That way I won’t be tempted to visit expensive casino ATM’s when deciding to hit up a club or throw down some cash at a hot table on a whim. The Whims are what destroy my finances.

The Clubs and the Tables aren’t the main things that get me in trouble, thou. It’s the overdraft fees. I’m willing to bet that last year I must have shelled out over $3000 in overdraft fees alone. I didn’t know this at the time, but there is something called ‘overdraft protection’ that I could sign up for. That means I’d have to open up a new savings account because I currently have a savings account at a different bank. Definitely something to look into.

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Detour…

After looking at my room with no desk, I saw the filthiness of the walls. The walls actually looked like the walls in a frat house. If my room is going to be the home base for starting my Abundant Life, then that was going to have to change. If my living space is a reflection of my life, then I want it to be interesting. At 3pm Saturday afternoon I made the Executive Decision to repaint the whole damn thing.

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Time and Money are the first areas that need to be dealt with, but it would be better for me to start with Energy. She talks about Energy Drains, things in our life that we have to get done which we put off. Also, or physical space acts as an Energy Drain. Is it cluttered or is it organized? Your mind and your physical space are the same thing. A cluttered space relates to a cluttered mind. My physical space is cluttered, which leads to procrastination and laziness.

So my first task in creating my Abundant Life is to de-clutter my Living Space. Since I share a house, my bedroom is the first place I need to start. In my room there is an old desk that was here when I moved in. I wanted to get rid of it before I moved in, but never did. It takes up a lot of space and is ugly. I’ve been using it to store all kinds of junk, the junk that is my life. Well it’s time for that junk to go. It’s amazing the type of crap I have in there. Old Las Vegas Weekly’s that I never read, Matchbooks from the different clubs I’ve been to, 3 old iPod boxes, a cell phone that I had since 2002 and doesn’t even work, napkins from Subway (WTF?), the Sports Page from the Las Vegas Review Journal from May with nothing important on it, a granola bar I never opened, old copies of Men’s Health, A few old boarding passes, My Rose Bowl Ticket Holder (Hurray, I found It!), Business cards from clients who wanted to give me a job and never did, pens and note pads from the different conventions I like to visit here in Vegas just to get the free stuff… All kinds of junk, 2 trash bags worth.

After hauling the large bags of crap out of my room I looked at the desk to see if there was any other function it could serve, like if I painted it or only used the bottom half as a table. I found no reason to keep the desk and began to dismantle it, which was a bitch to take apart. Whoever designed this desk had no concept of ‘light construction.’ I didn’t go after the desk with a hammer; I just removed all the screws and let it fall apart.

When the desk was gone I felt the room totally open up. I see what Cheryl Richardson meant by de cluttering your living space to help clear your mind.  And it’s refreshing to throw that stuff away. It was like I was surrounding myself with unwanted useless junk and because of that all I was producing for my life was unwanted useless junk.

De-cluttering is Awesome!

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I’m putting my faith in a video I rented off of NetFlix called Cheryl Richardson: Create an Abundant Life. In her seminar video she says the Key to creating an Abundant life is 3 things:

1. Figure Out What’s Great About Your Life
2. Have a Strong Belief that there is a Higher Power out there Providing us with Abundance
3. Marry Belief with Action

She then goes on to explain the areas in a person’s life that need to be cleaned up in order to put yourself in a receiving space. Those areas are: Time, Money, Energy and Passion.

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On Monday, Feb 15^th, I went to put a deposit in the bank and found that my checking account had been over drafted with a remaining balance of -$297. “Not again,” I thought to myself. I thought something was wrong, like someone got a hold of my Check Card number and was using it at their leisure. After contacting the Bank on Tuesday I discovered that the overdraft was my Own Damn Fault. This is becoming a regular problem for me, Money mis-management. Obviously my job is a cash-only industry and doing regular banking is not something I engage in often, so my checking account is constantly being over drafted. I thought I finally got a handle on all of this back in December, but that was not the case. Something had to change… Fast!

I hired a Life-Coach back in September of 2009 to help me make my dreams come to fruition. He charged a lot and had lots of success with other people. I didn’t have the success others had attained, but then again I only put in half the effort. He was a Guru Type, all about Visualization, Meditation, and Morning Spiritual Ritual… very good stuff; and working with him I noticed my fears of money, relationships, family, etc… all drifted away. I also landed big-money clients that I actually got along with, visited some pretty cool places and even got to go to the Rose Bowl and watch my Buckeye’s Win! (It was the greatest day of my life). But while the big-fun-stuff was entering my life, the mechanics of my life were still being mis-managed and overlooked. Now I’m back to where I was in September and I’m ready to fix it, only this time doing it better.

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