I have been listening and reading through A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life(affilaite link), and in it Donald Miller provides a very simple framework for thinking about your life: your life is a story.

The basic premise is that the same rules apply to your life as they do to stories.  The stuff that makes a good story makes a good life.  If your life feels boring then the story that you are telling is probably boring. Nobody sets out to tell a boring story, they often just happen because we aren’t intentionally trying to tell a good one. The idea is to live a page turner.

A simple question that really helped me gauge where I am at in my story is “what would the back cover of the ‘Your Life, the DVD’ say?

This is what I came up with for mine:

From food stamps and a young but devoted mother, Frank “The Happy Rock” successfully navigates a turbulent childhood into college where he meets his wonderful wife.  Together they conquer $70,000 in debt, get good jobs, and create a beautiful life for their two children.  You never know what kind of action his days will bring as he attempts to have patience with his children and tries not make his wife mad at him. Tune in to watch as he earns money and buys stuff.  Will he make it? Will he survive?

I know that doesn’t speak to how blessed my life is right now(it really is), but it is true to how I feel and yet still accurate at the same time.  As I look back at my life as though it were a story it was a real page turner.   Being born to a young mother and addict father, escaping poverty into the middle class, moving from isolation into marriage, and journeying from selfishness into parenthood is the stuff of good stories.  It didn’t feel like it at the time, but somehow that part of the story now reads like best seller.

When I look at where the story is heading now, the picture is much less engaging.   We ‘made it’, but the irony is that’s the problem. My wife and I have pretty much the freedom, money, and skills to do most anything we want, yet our life consists of Target, Netflix, Gardening, and going to the park.   Don’t get me wrong, it is a good life, but it isn’t one that keeps you on the edge of your seat.   There is virtually no conflict, no plot twists, and no chance of failure.  It isn’t a page turner and it certainly isn’t sending the message I want to my boys.

One motivating part about framing your life as a story, is that you are the author.  You get to change the storyline. In life you can’t change what happened, but you get full control over where the story is going.  The question is: What are the new story lines that you want to tell?

I would love to hear what everyone else thinks about their story lines?

Original content from The Happy Rock: Your Life Is A Story, So What Does The Back Of Your DVD Say?

I know this may not be the inspirational pie in the sky post you want to hear, but it is reality.  If you are already a part time entrepreneur, solo entrepreneur, or blogger you can probably empathize with this list.  Better yet it might help you gain some insight into your own circumstances.

For those that are considering embarking on such a journey, this is fair warning.  This article isn’t an attempt to discourage you at all, but rather an attempt to prepare you for what lies ahead.   It may discourage you, and if it does then you probably aren’t ready yet.

Anyone attempting to augment their income through their own creative effort WILL have to deal with these issues.   This article isn’t an attempt to solve these problems, as I can’t claim success…yet, but I can claim to be actively attacking each one of these obstacles to success.   This article is an attempt to take ownership of the baggage that I have been carrying since I started.  If I am not honest with myself, I am only setting myself up for failure.

The inspiration for this list comes from my 6+ years of seeking extra income through a variety of avenues: online poker, stocks, blogging, web development, and running a service website.  I have also connected with others marching on their own journeys.  All of these are common roadblocks that will be faced by all types of entrepreneurs.

29 Roadblocks To Solo Entrepreneur Success

1. Too much to do. The todo list is relentless and one person can only accomplish so much.  There will always be more you can do.
2. Not enough time. This isn’t just because your todo list is 100’s of items long, but because you have the rest of your life to live.  A spouse, children, friends, career, shopping…that list goes on for miles too.  The couple of hours you have each night and on the weekends won’t feel like enough time to get the critical stuff done let alone the stuff you want to do.
   
3. Learning. It takes a huge investment for on person to learn the vast range of skills necessary to succeed.  At least this list is finite though, although still humongous. Become a better writer, learn web development, practice networking, implement  marketing and advertising, craft your search engine optimization, research, accounting, customer service, and more.
4. Sacrifice. You can’t do it all.  Areas of your life will suffer and gather cobwebs.  If it is important to you, other things must take a backseat.
5. Discipline. Using time wisely. Getting to bed on time.  Being able to push through the dips and dead periods.  Discipline is required on almost all fronts.  You most likely don’t have enough yet.
6. The world changes. Just as you begin to get a foothold, things will change.  Recession comes, technology changes the way people relate to your product, Google changes it search rankings, and competitors get better.  The world is in a constant state of change, so you have to be ready to ride the wave.
7. Lack of feedback and accountability. Most people start their journeys alone.  Guess what, that means there is no one to provide helpful input or even constructive criticism on a regular basis.
8. Competitors. There are plenty of other people and businesses trying to do the same thing you are.  While they have to face the same demons in this list too, there are also changing, adapting, and trying to be better then you.
9. It’s consuming. At some point you will probably get so consumed with your side project that you won’t be able to stop thinking about it. You will be scheming at your ‘real’ job, as you go to bed, and while you are playing with your children.  It WILL take over your life.
10. Criticism. Most people won’t get what your are doing.  When people don’t understand or don’t agree they try to convince you to stop. People don’t like new things and most are more willing to lend you a dose of discouragement rather than a helping hand.  Ironically, they think they are being helpful.
11. So much you don’t know. This is related to learning, but uniquely describes the confusion and paralyzing effect that not knowing the right path can have on your side hustle.  There is no yellow brick road to follow.
    
12. Too many options. Being in complete control affords you the power go in any and every direction with every choice.  While this is quite freeing it often makes things much more difficult.  Choosing between the best of two options is much easier than coming up with 20 great options and then having to pick the ‘right’ one.
    
13. Luck. There is an element of luck that you really can’t control no matter how hard you try.  You can put yourself into the best position to get lucky more often than others, but you can’t fully control anything.  The person whose blog isn’t as good as yours may have randomly attracted the eye of a a major news outlet and get tons of traffic.  Stuff like that will happen.
14. Watching other’s success. Seeing others succeed can be quite encouraging, inspirational, and educational, but other times it will frustrate you to tears.  It can leave you lamenting and disillusioned.
15. No help. When you want go on vacation you can’t without major planning.  No breaks, you do everything.
16. Slow going. For most of us success isn’t achieved over night, but you are so eager for it to happen.  You want it to happen so fast that you even take shortcuts just to get some positive results. Even then you won’t be able to see the benefit of most of your actions take until much later in the future.  No one will read your blog for months, but if you don’t suffer through those times you can’t get to the good stuff. The disparity between what you want to happen and what actually happens is torturous.
17. Fear of failure. Trying to avoid failure is a recipe for failure.   You end up not providing enough value, because you are so focused on not losing rather than focusing on making your self irreplacable. The even more ironic part is that you will most likely fail. It is better to accept and embrace that fact now.
18. Fear of success. It may sound a bit strange, but you may not be willing to do what others are doing to do to succeed.  The margnitude and force of this list will grow as your own success grows and you don’t look forward to that.   Maybe you are afriad to get too big or too well known. People might really notice and search information that you don’t want to come out.  Maybe just maybe you think becoming big will destroy your love for what you do.  You see examples of successful people who still aren’t happy and are in fact more miserable then when they started.
    
19. Yourself. The same personality flaws that existed before you started will become even more visible.   Your procrastination will most likely get worse with more things to do.  Your shyness will hold your business back.   Without intentionally attacking your foibles, they will erode you chances at success.
20. There is only one you. It is pretty darn hard to teach someone else to be you.  You think you know everything about how stuff works and how things should be, but that just makes it hard to give up control and get help.
21. You can’t be perfect, although you want too.  You don’t have the time, knowledge, or money to make things exactly how you want them.  It just is, accept it. You have to be able to cope with making things that best you can in a short amount of time.
22. You aren’t passionate about what you do. This is a quick recipe for failure.  If you don’t love what you do, you won’t be able to battle through the tough times.  Even if you do love what every it is you are trying to do, it will still be tough.  Your passion will be infectouous, so don’t leave home without it.
23. Distracted by money. At some point you will start to lose authenticity and do things just because you can make money.  This isn’t something that is sustainable and often severely damages you long term goals.  Sometimes it turns a fun hobby that made some money into something that forces you to spend extra hours working each week.
    
24. Sleep. You have a love/hate relationship with it.  You need it, but since you have so much to do you never get enough.  Without proper sleep your performance and mental capacities diminish and that slows you down, but you can’t get more sleep because there is too much to do.
25. Imbalance. Your girlfriend complains that you don’t see enough of each other. The kids complain that you are on the computer all the time.  You can’t walk be the computer without checking something.  You can’t enjoy the weekend or vacation, because your todo list haunts you.  You eat out all the time because you don’t have time to cook.  You don’t exercise.  The sad part is that all of these types of concessions will effect your ability to sustain your output and desire  that is required for your long journey.
26. The business is intrusive. This is different than consuming which describes the internal state of being uber-busyness.  Intrusive is more about the external demands on your life.  The email that has to be answered right now.  The website that goes down during dinner.  The important phone call while you are on a date.  The business wants to be first in your life, and it will scratch and claw to get there.
27. Your other job. You will probably begin to despise it if you didn’t already.  It only interferes with your plans for world domination.  You will imagine all the wonderful things  you could do with all that extra time.   Or worse you will begin to use time at your career job to do side hustle stuff.  Amazingly it won’t be as hard to justify as you think.  At best this is a recipe for a horrible attitude at work and at worst would cause a job loss before you are ready.
28. Burn out. It will come.  How can it not with such a list of daunting demons lurking at your side and only one person fighting the battle.
    
29. It is hard. If anyone tells you differently, they were probably in the right place at the right time.  If you don’t think that it is hard after reading this list, than you better get started right away because you are destined for success.

Original content from The Happy Rock: 29 Reasons Why Being A Part Time Entreprenuer Sucks

I know that title probably doesn’t encompass your financial dreams, but take a second to think about your idea of financial success? A nice car, comfortable life, paid for house, retire at 50? We all usually have either vague notions or uber-grandiose ideas about our financial future. It is rare that I talk to any who has given thought to envisioning the desired outcome of all their financial planning and debt reduction. Have you?

I am not talking about random daydreaming, but rather devoting serious mental energy to picturing and defining a vision for your financial future. Your financial vision should be something that inspires you. A vision that adds meaning to all of the hard work. A vision that energizes you when you are having weak or undisciplined financial moments. A vision that serves as a checkpoint for all your financial decisions.

Still not sure if you care? Picture two women in seperate cars setting out on a road trip from New York City. One woman is going to make decisions when ever she comes an intersection or highway sign. The other dreams of seeing The Grand Canyon. The second car has a clear vision and creates an itinerary and directions that will get her there in about four days while stopping at a few other sites she has been eager to see.

Where do you think the first car will end up? Michigan? Brooklyn? Florida? Will she see anything of the really interesting places that she has always wanted? Most likely she will only visit exotic places likes Credit Card Debt and Stress on her way to nowhere in particular.

Which car are you? Do you know were you are going?

Original content from The Happy Rock: A Rolls Royce And Million Dollar House : Having Financial Vision

Think back. What are your fondest memories in life? One of my best was a 9 day white water rafting, hiking, and outdoor adventure down the Grand Canyon with my mom. A few other that come to mind are building snow forts with my Mom and friends, a little-league no-hitter, and the craziness that was my Freshman year at college. Take a few seconds and think about yours best memories…

If you are like most people the things that came to mind had little to do with stuff and a lot to do with people and experiences. We often go through so much trouble to make money or rack up debt just to get stuff. Billions of dollars in spending are finance through credit cards and debt each year, usually just to get that nicer TV or a new car.  Are you going to care about that stuff in a few years?

The lesson is.. don’t go into debt for stuff, but go into debt for vacations. We’ll remember those!

Ok, so I am kidding, but question still remains “why do we get distracted by stuff?”.

Original content from The Happy Rock: Forget About Buying Stuff, People Matter

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”

– Albert Einstein

The truth in that little statement is profound. If we truly want to succeed in our financial life and with our life goals in general, we must be willing to fully commit to our dreams. Often we don’t do much more than give lip service to the big things in life. Now, if you are happy have average or slightly better than average results, than go right on doing same things as everyone else. If you keep using those credit cards, leasing cars, buying cars and houses that our over our price range, spending frivulously, and not saving we can expect to end up like everyone else. If you don’t want to end up like everyone else then we need to stop acting like everyone else.

• Sell the truck that you have a $20,000 loan on.
• Move to a place that will help you accomplish your dreams.
• Cut up the credit cards and stop using debt.
• Take a second job for a little while to get out of debt faster.
• Stop worrying about what people think or how much they have.
• Hang out with friends that will challenge you, not bring you down.
• Drive a reliable beater.

The list could go on and on and on. Personally, I don’t really care what the exact decision is…but that you are paying attention and making intentional bold decisions to advance you towards your dreams.

What bold decisions have been running from?

Post your recent bold decisions in the comments sections as public declaration and an added level of accountability.

Here are my bold decisions.

Original content from The Happy Rock: Go Big or Go Home – Why Success Requires Bold Decisions

“A merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavor to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit.” – Ebenezer Scrooge (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens)

The Christmas Carol contains some deep messages that are worth visiting during this precious time of year.

Accept that we can not change the past, realize that the past doesn’t dictate our future, and strive to leave a legacy that brings joy to those that we come in contact with. Scrooge changed his scrooge like ways, so can we.

I am off to spend a wonderful few days with family celebrating Christ, exchanging gifts, and reflecting!

Merry Christmas!

If you are looking for some finance advice to hold you over, feel free to search the archives.

Original content from The Happy Rock: Merry Christmas With A Lesson From Ebenezer Scrooge

Consumers planned holiday-related spending increased to $923.36” in 2007. Gift card spending alone was 24 billion dollars last year while the national spending average rises about 4.76% year after year.

The money that gets tossed around on Christmas is staggering. Debt  keeps us paying for Christmas well into the New Year. Gifts are often relegated to impersonal gift cards, because we don’t know what else to buy. We keep on buying though. Stress and frantic running are hallmarks of the season. Sometimes you can’t wait until it’s all over, so you can rest and recover.

I often wonder if we don’t spend ourselves into a frenzy to cover over our lack for the deeper things in life. Do we buy more to cover the lack of depth in our relationships with friends, children, and spouses? Do we spend enough time telling and showing people how valuable they are the rest of the year or are we trying to recover from a deficit with gifts? Maybe we don’t feel like the holidays have much meaning, so we buy to try to imbue the holidays with meaning through consumerism. I am not saying all or any of this is true, but I think it might be worth asking the questions.

Does it have to be this way? For those that want something more, what can we do?

Sources :

1. National Retail Federation(NRF) Report
2. NRF – Holdays Sales
3. NRF – Gift Cards

Original content from The Happy Rock: Can We Buy Meaning During The Holidays?

We recently talked about financially changing your family tree as financial motivation, but for those of us needed some more convincing here is evidence that our decisions about money go much deeper than just dollars and cents. Our choices are crucially importance to our children and this offers early stage evidence that our choices can cover over ‘bad’ genetics.

The researchers “studied 109 children who had been removed from their parents’ care due to reports of abuse or neglect and 87 control children with no reports of abuse or maltreatment.” The children also had two gene polymorphisms that put them at a greater risk for depression. The researchers also assessed each child’s support system and assigned each one a score for their support system quality .

I picked up three import things from the recap of the study. First, the effects of the depression amplifiers only held true for the children who were abused and neglected. Second, children with strong support systems almost completely escaped the effects of the ‘bad’ genes. Third, genes alone weren’t likely to make a child depressed, but maltreatment alone can.

Picture the ‘bad’ genes as little seeds. Give the seeds water polluted with mistreatment and lack of support and the ‘bad’ genes flourish. Nurture them with a safe supportive water and the children could likely overcome the ‘bad’ genes. At least in this small study the age old question of nature versus nurture is answered. Nurture wins .

To me, this is truly amazing! Think about the implications. Does it change how important we view sacrificing the BMW and huge backyard, so that we can have a stay at home spouse. Do you have to work 60 hours a week to support your current lifestyle? Is your debt stressing your relationship with your spouse and your children? Maybe we are sacrificing too much? Maybe we should be giving more time and money to support those willing to adopt and provide supportive homes for maltreated children? Hopefully studies like this help to illuminate which decisions are the truly important ones in life. What do you think?

Original content from The Happy Rock: Change Your Child’s Genetics By Giving Up The BMW

If you have ever listened to Dave Ramsey, there is a good chance you have heard him say “go and change your family tree”. It is a beautiful saying that paints a wonderful backdrop for our motivation to make healthy and wise financial choices. The idea being that the money choices we are responsible for now can and will affect your children and family. These are huge shoes to fills, and they get even bigger when broaden the perspective to grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Let’s not operate out of fear though. Be encouraged by that fact that if you stop your family’s reliance on debt, or align you decisions with your values, or even make wise investment choices, those choices will positively affect your family tree for generations to come. Think about being the grandparent that your great grandchild points to in photo albums and say he is responsible for changing the family’s relationship with money.

You can see that power of this principle at work when a couple’s perspective changes upon hearing that they are pregnant. The ensuing scramble to undo or right their financial ship is often frenetic. Too often those changes die and shrivel, as life, not us, starts to take control again.

The beauty of the saying is that is takes our focus off of us, and gives us something bigger and more wonderful to live for. When we hang on to those types of higher purposes, we receive long lasting sustainable energy. When we are motivated by short sighted and selfish goals, the changes are often short lived.

For those without immediate family, don’t be discouraged either. The trick is to find motivation from goals that are bigger than ourselves, and not on things that lose their appeal when the next new invention or model comes along.

Original content from The Happy Rock: Change Your Family Tree By Making Solid Financial Decisions

Here are the highlights of some research to add some discussion to the cable canceling experiment.

I found a great website called Trash Your TV. It is your one stop shopping experience for anyone thinking of canceling cable or getting rid of their TV. TV viewing stats, success stories, effects of TV articles, and much more.

Let’s start with some eye opening stats about the about some real costs of watching TV:

• Nielsen Media Research Inc. reports that the ‘average person’ watches TV for 4 hours and 35 minutes every day. Furthermore, the average household has a TV playing for 8 hours 14 minutes every day.
• That 5 1/2 days a month watching TV, 69 days a year, and about 13 or so years for an average life span. Even if I watch half that amount in a week, WOW!
• Exposing children to all that TV can affect the wallet by the Nag Factor. Marketers seek to brand your children and make them discontented. All that TV time could result in viewing as much as 30,000 commercials a year, which in turn influenced an estimated $300 billion in sales or $4,000 per pestering child a year in 2001.
• Number of hours of TV watched yearly by Americans: ~250 billion
• Assuming an average US wage of $7/hour that equates to S1.75 trillion dollars
• Average US cable bill in 2005 was $43.04. $783 for the primary TV in their home, and $176 on accessories. $22 billion total on TVs in 2006. Source
• A multitude of studies that link TV watching to obesity and weight gain. Cut out some TV and lose weight.
• Television viewing has been linked to ADHD.
• The American parent spends 38 minutes per week in meaningful conversation with their children.
• Children view on average 16,000 television murders before age 18.

These facts don’t even include other factors like opportunity cost, decreased energy, decreased brain activity, and peer pressure. Some of those time and money statistics are staggering.

Mike @ Prosperous Land left a good comment in the cancel cable and save post that linked to a recent article on The Street : How to Earn $1 Million by Not Watching TV.

One thing I found interesting was a recent study found that it would take $1,000,000 for white people to not watch TV for the rest of their lives. Second, although I am not sure I can vouch for the reality of his numbers, he argues that if you ditch the TV at age 25 and “instead invested this money and received a return of 8% compounded annually over 45 years until you’re 70 years old, you would have more than $3.7 million in your account.”

I think that little fact sheet may be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the drawbacks of cable and TV. Sure those numbers look a little high, but even if they are half or a quarter that much, isn’t that a lot? I’m not saying that there aren’t any benefits, but I am becoming hard pressed to find them at this point in my life. The more I think about it, the truth is I really don’t want to look back in 20 years and realize how much TV and cable really cost me. How much is it costing you?

Original content from The Happy Rock: Do Cable and TV Cost More Than We Think?