Terrorists love to do things on dates that are memorable from a number standpoint. You can’t get much more memorable than 7/7/07. Will we have an attack today? It’s a little after midnight now… we’ll see, I guess. Hope not!

Meanwhile… some updates on all the projects I’m working on:

MegaSticky.com - This is my over sized sticky note business, that sells 1 foot by 1 foot sticky notes. It’s coming along nicely. We just recently got some mention somewhere since business has picked up dramatically. Right now, it’s doing about $100 to $500 a day in business.

LetsFax.net - Prepaid faxing service. This was just launched a couple weeks ago. Very slow since no one knows about it yet. I need to do some press releases…etc. Income is negligible.

BiggestOnEarth.com - We’re in the middle of revamping this site to offer the awards free of charge, with an upgrade option of buying a hard copy certificate. So, the site is non functional right now. Once we get it back up and running, I suspect it’ll start slow and build. Maybe $20 to $100 a day in revenue.

Great American Collectibles - This is one of my businesses that has languished, when it comes to my efforts to grow the company. But I will be putting more effort into it in the coming months. We’re going to be coming out with a new line of miniature carved collectibles. The characters will only be 1.5" tall and will be just about as cute as you can get.

Right now we have the following lines of collectibles… Uncle Sams, Old World Witches, Old World Santas and a line called "Flatys".

EbookPrintouts.com - Without even trying hard, this company is doing about $40K in annual revenue. I need to flesh out the infrastructure more to facilitate more clients and this could easily grow to well over $250K a year within a 12 month period.

Sticky123.com - This is one of my businesses that is too labor intensive to grow. So I’ve allowed it to stop growing. We still get an order every once in a while, but my plan to automate it has fallen through. I was going to get some help from a Chinese outfit, to perfect my methods of getting stickys printed through a more efficient method, but I can’t find a company that can do it to my specifications.

Twitmoney.com - This is an exciting project that is not completed yet. So, there’s nothing at the site. But it’s one of my most promising ideas (in my humble opinion) and I can’t wait to launch it. Can’t wait. Stay tuned.

I have other business ventures that I don’t mention, only because of business confidentiality. But they are all going along smoothly.

You just gotta start small and work each and every idea that comes to you, to at least some degree or another. But be discerning. If an idea is not fleshing out to be potentially profitable, drop it like a hot potato and move on.

Watch your back today. Don’t go to a major city and if you live in one… get up early and take a drive into the country. Never hurts to be too careful. 

Got a message from Dane Carlson, regarding Chuck Huckaby’s suggestion to send a business book to a prisoner. What the heck… why not? I have about a million of them and if it can motivate a person to make something of their lives, it’s postage money well spent.

Find a business kind of book and send it along to:

L.Haddock
Pre Release Program
South Central Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 279
Clifton, TN 38425-0279

Cheers!

Dan 

I’ve been receiving emails from readers of my blog asking when I’m going to post again. This blog is near and dear to my heart, but it’s so easy to let it slip because of how busy one can get. I like to think that if an entrepreneur has time to post to their blog, they aren’t working hard enough or spending enough time on their ideas. Haha!

We’ve also just had a new baby. Here’s our new daughter, Zoe Belle Sherman. (This drawing was done from a picture taken when she was about 10 days old. Yep, she’s that hairy!)

She was born on May 16th and is healthy. Now we have two girls and that’s it. No more for us. :-) 

Meanwhile, in case you’re interested, here is an update on all my businesses:

Sticky123.com - Going good. I’ve neglected it a bit only because the logistics are not set up to do MAJOR sales with this business yet. However, I’m changing that and so I’ll be able to ramp this business up a bit. Current annual revenue from this business is about $3000.

Gr8American.com - This business is still solid. Just finished this year’s line of Old World Santas. I think they’ll be great sellers this year. (New guys aren’t posted on site yet.) Current annual revenue from this business is about $175,000.

EbookPrintout.com -  Gang busters. I’m working on an add on to this service, for author’s of ebooks that will make it even more appealing for them to use our services. Amazingly, the site isn’t even live yet and we already are making about $25,000 a year off this business.

AboveBlack.com - My book is still selling. It’s been out now for 9 years, so sales have slowed of course. But we just printed our 6th print run and we’ve now sold over 10,000 copies. Annual revenue is about $6,000. But this revenue is essentially all plowed back into advertising. I wrote the book not as a money maker but as a tool to educate the public as to what is going on in certain circles of the US government.

PurpleStreet.com - (The site is a template right now… we’re doing development on it so what is there now is nothing like the actual final site.) This is a new site I’ll be launching soon. It will be a service for micro businesses that have one or two products to sell and don’t want to spend lots of money on an online store, getting approved for a merchant account…etc…etc. With this new service, they can upload their product to this ecommerce enabled website, in their own category, and then just link to the cart from whatever one page sales copy they have on the internet. The cart is REALLY professional looking with the ability to track orders, process payments, do sales tracking, ROI…etc. This kind of service is way over due on the net. I don’t know of one place on the net like it for real goods. It’s all inclusive. All you have to have is an inventory of products and a picture of the product. Now that’s simple ecommerce. :-)  Estimated annual revenue by December 2007: $250,000.

MegaSticky.com - (Site not functional yet.) I will be selling sticky note pads that are just like 3M’s Post-It Notes, but BIGGER. Perfect product for schools and businesses alike. Imagine having a 1′ x 1′ (that’s "1 foot by 1 foot" folks) sticky pad in your sales arsenal or in your day care or in your classroom. Estimated annual revenue by December 2007: $750,000 to $1.5 Million

OrderDept.com - (Site not functional yet.) I’m building a database system for small businesses. Most small businesses get orders and fulfill them. They don’t think much beyond that. Most can’t even begin to imagine actually pulling data from their database and doing follow up marketing based on certain criteria…etc. Of course, everyone has differing levels of competency with database manipulation…etc, but for the most part, small businesses do not even come close to optimizing their current customer base the way they could if they had an easy way to do it.

With the system I’m building, a small business can simply forward their cart’s order notification emails to us and we’ll store their customer’s order data, just off that notification email. Then, we’ll have an online interface they can log in to at any time and it will provide an EXTREMELY easy way for them to extract lists from their customer base, from selectable criteria. The cool part is, we’ll be compiling this data into one location. A lot of small businesses may have several different systems going at one time. They’ll use one cart for one thing and another system or cart for another and to get all that data working together is a nightmare. We put it in one location, regardless of what cart system they are using to collect the info. They can even move their entire operation to another cart system and not worry one bit about all their historical customer data. It’ll all be safely tucked away into our system. Once they start up at the new cart, they just continue forwarding order notifications and everything continues like they hadn’t moved at all.

Also, it’ll help small businesses keep their database "clean". Meaning… let’s say you have a customer order a Widget X and then right after that, they discover Widget Y and they order that. With all the data going into our system, we’ll recognize that customer as already having ordered another product and just add this new purchase to their existing customer record. So, when you go to query the database, you’re not going to duplicate your mailing by sending something to this same customer twice and you’ll know that they ordered both of these products without having to compare your product purchases against each other for duplicate customer records. Of course, if you have a cart that requires registration and for the customer to have an account, that won’t happen. But MOST small businesses don’t have carts like that. Estimated annual revenue from this business as of Dec 2007: $25,000 to $50,000.

Mystery Business - I have one business that I’m reluctant to discuss in detail. It’s too sensitive to competition and right now is our biggest money maker. So it would be silly of me to expound. But I at least wanted to let you know that it exists and definitely makes money. Projected 2006 revenues (not profit, revenue): $500,000. 

ForSaleByColor.com - (Template right now.) This is a new blog I’m having designed at the moment. I’ve alluded to this business in the past. Yes, it’s a blog. So why create another one when I don’t have time to add to this one… right? Well, it’s because ForSaleByColor.com will actually make money (butt loads of it.) Plus, my assistant, Francy, will be doing much of the actual blogging, I think. At least once it gets rolling. So, keep an eye out on that one. It might get some high profile attention when it launches since it will be a faily new take on the blogging concept. Estimated annual revenue as of Dec 2007: $50,000 - $150,000 (Lot of "what ifs" on this one.)

CarSticky.com - In early stages of conceptualization. Not much to report at the moment.

DanSherman.com - This blog actually used to make money with AdSense, but about a year ago or so, they started serving crappy public service ads ALL THE TIME on the site. So, I just removed them. So, DanSherman.com used to make about $1500 a year in just AdSense revenue, but it doesn’t any more. Perhaps I’ll rethink my monetization plan for this at some point.

Various Affiliate Links - Over the years, I’ve signed up with affiliate programs and displayed them on various sites of mine. (Some of them I haven’t even visited or worked on in over 4 years.) I just get checks in the mail every so often for these programs and for the most part, I have absolutely no idea how I made the money. Annual revenue: $1000

So that is the status of the Sherman Empire such as it is. Every day is another challenge. But challenges that I cherish and wouldn’t change for the world.

Be different and never give up. 

I just read on Drudge that the opening receipts for King Kong were the 21st best Wednesday opening in history. It didn’t even do as well as the Pokeman movie when it was released on a Wednesday.

I had to laugh. Only because I was reading all these glowing reviews and how it might become the biggest blockbuster in history…etc. All the while, I had absolutely no interest in it whatsoever, myself and I couldn’t imagine many people having an interest in it either.

The days of big monster movies are gone. We waved goodbye to that era when “Apple” was only something we ate. Jurassic Park was an exception only because they were monsters that actually roamed the earth. They were real, which lended a certain curiosity to it.

Just because you spend a LOT of money on a movie doesn’t mean people are going to want to see it. Even if it does have a compelling story and critcs fawn over it. It doesn’t matter. If the public in general doesn’t have an interest in the overriding subject matter (large apes), it’s going to flop.

There has been much press recently regarding the decline of readership for newspapers. I’ve been tracking this for a while now. Even had a blog dedicated to it (until the reality of lack of time hit me in the face!)

I just got a call from our local rag called the Oregonian. We recently subscribed to the sunday paper for the ads. (My wife promised that she’d use the coupons… um, yeah, okay.)

So, I get a call from an ENTHUSIASTIC lady who wanted to let me know that because of my being such a good customer (been one now for about two months, mind you) that they were going to GIVE ME the daily paper for free. Gee. I sure was lucky, huh?

I told her to PLEASE not send me the daily paper. It was a complete waste of time and resources to send me the daily newspaper.

Guess what I had in my driveway the very next morning? And it wasn’t Sunday.

This industry is just about done. Put a fork in it.

We recently wanted to get rid of a Little Tikes desk complete with chair that my daughter used all of about 10 times. So, I went to Craigslist for Portland and placed the ad, complete with a couple of pictures. The post took me about 10 minutes including the taking and uploading of the pictures and I was done. That was about 2pm on Thursday last week. By 4:30pm, the same day (that’s about 2.5 hours for those of you in Rio Linda) the desk was gone and I had a $10 bill in my hand to replace it.

Craigslist rocks!

About a week before that, I found a sleeper sofa on Craigslist (actually, I found a dozen or so) and bought one at a great price.

About the same time, I needed an assistant for my Santa business to help out a couple days a week. I found her about 4 hours after placing a Craigslist ad for help. (The best employee I’ve had to date, bar none.)

A little before that, I needed someone to come and fix my sprinkler system. I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working. I placed an ad on Craigslist. I had my sprinkler system working about 5 hours after I placed the ad, that same day.

I also recently used Craigslist to find some people to pass out my new linkpaper, door to door. I found 8 people in a matter of a few hours after posting it on Craigslist.

Message to newspapers… when a core part of your revenue stream (classified advertising) is holding on by a thread and ONLY because of the ignorance of your readers (they don’t know about Craigslist or are not web centric yet) you have a major problem. I mean a MAJOR problem.

Did I mention all that amazing advertising I used was FREE?

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If you own stock in companies that depend on newspaper advertising in any way for their income, SELL, SELL, SELL, SELL, SELL!

The Arizona Republic recently reported on how Craigslist is kicking **s and not taking any names in the process.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know my mantra is “creating value in exchange for money” is what we entrepreneurs do for a living. I’ve just read a great example of what entrepreneurs do for society and how they do it. We can trace every single standard of living increase in our society to the actions of entrepreneurs. Without us, we’d all still be living by the rivers, hunting and fishing for our own food with flint arrows and crude spears.

Here’s the article. It’s a great read. Thanks, Chuck.

Are you one of my young readers? If so, here is a short and sure fire way to stay out of poverty in the USA.

While guest hosting Rush Limbaugh’s radio program this morning, Walter Williams said something similiar. But this is my version:

1) Graduate High School
2) Don’t have children until you’re 30+ years old. When you do have children, do it AFTER marrying and stay married.
3) Take out 1 credit card to be used for things that require a credit card for buying… like renting a car… etc. Should be paid off at the end of the month when it is used.
4) Pay cash for everything except a house. If you can’t buy a car with cash, don’t get one. Period. It might be a clunker, but you don’t need anything you can’t pay cash for.
5) Work. Doesn’t even matter if it’s minimum wage, for someone else or yourself. Just work. Whatever you do work at, do it like the world depends on whether you do it correctly or not.
6) Never, never, under any circumstance should you say these two words… “I know.” Not until you’re at least 35 years old. Even if you actually do know what someone is telling you. Doesn’t matter, just nod and say thanks.
7) Never talk more than your conversational partner, whether at work or at play. The more questions you ask someone else about themselves, the more liked you will become. The more liked you are, the further and faster life will take you down the path.

You notice none of these steps are hard. Anyone can follow them. Even inner city youths. It doesn’t require special knowledge, money or heritage. It doesn’t even require college. It just requires good choices. That’s it. Just good choices.

If you do those seven things, consistently and don’t do stupid stuff in the process… like, oh, let me see… go to jail, kill, steal… etc, your life will be nothing but roses and by the time you are ready to retire, you will be sitting pretty.

I was going to the store today and came to a four way stop that ALWAYS has someone at the corner holding a sign, begging for money. But for some reason, this time, no one was there. So that got me to thinking.

I realized that I had NEVER seen a migrant or immigrant worker on the corner begging for money. It’s always some middle aged white guy who looks perfectly capable of putting in a good day’s work. Even though we have a ton of Mexican migrant workers in our area because we live in a part of Oregon that has a lot of agriculture industry. Even more telling is the town I was in when I noticed this is a town known for having a heavy migrant Mexican population.

So, why is that? I guess you can assume that if someone were here illegally, he’d/she’d prefer to not be conspicuous. But what about the legal workers that are relatively poor? Why aren’t they camped out on a traffic light corner?

Because they have pride. This has a lot to do with what I wrote about in one of my previous posts about the rich getting richer and the poor getting lazier here and here.

The poor in this country are so well off compared to the poor in other countries that I guess some of them figure that it’s easier to stand at a street corner and beg for money than it is to go out in the field and do some hard work or flip a burger… etc.

We don’t know the situation someone is in… whether it was a result of poor choices in their life (chances are good that’s what it is) or they’ve been dealt some really bad luck, health wise… whatever. But I would assume these bad situations would also happen to Mexican migrant workers in the same town. I mean, come on. The chances are pretty good, some of them need more money than they have that month to make ends meet.

But I’ve never once seen any of them beg.

Is it a mystery or a difference in societal norms? Where is the American pride? Sadly… gone, in many. It has nothing to do with economics. It has to do with cultivating a welfare mentality. We’re not as far gone as most European countries. (They don’t have to stand on a corner to beg… their governments will give them money while in the comfort of their own government subsidized homes.)

I mourn the loss of rugged individualism and relying on yourself to get by. Since I’ve been an adult, I have never ONCE received unemployment or welfare in any way, shape or form. Even though I’ve been unemployed earlier in life.

If you live your life under the impression the public or government owes you something, your life isn’t yours anymore. It belongs to those that you rely on for help.

You show me one person on unemployment who has a butt load of self confidence and is able to hold their head high when walking out their front door and I’ll show you someone who is acting out of sheer desparation to keep whatever dignity that they might have once had.

If you’re always trying to create value in what you do and you make good choices throughout life, you’ll never have to worry about standing on a corner, begging for money.

Back to the migrant question. Here’s why I don’t see them begging. They’ve come from a place where they know TRUE poverty and hardly any hope to change that. They probably look at that corner beggar with more disdain than your average American. Because to them, that beggar is standing in the middle of an island of hope and opportunity, just waiting to be grabbed and all they can think to do is grab a sign and beg.

That’s the definition of lazy. Not to mention, excrutiatingly pathetic.

I just learned a good lesson in blog ethics. If you want to go on a diatribe about something, you better check to make sure what you’re about to explode onto is justified.

I just deleted a post of mine that linked to what I thought was material given to kids in MA about gay sex… etc. I’m not going to link to it because I don’t want to give Article 8, the source of the information, any more exposure than necessary.

I did some major google searching and couldn’t find one reference to this literature that was supposedly being passed out to kids in MA.

So, I humbly apologize to you, my reader, for even bringing the subject up.

However, the literature was still very damning and a good representation of the deep lack of morality and decorum in the part of the gay community where this type of literature finds a home.

Thanks to a reader of the blog, William, for setting me straight on this issue. He lives near the school that was mentioned in the bogus information. He says:

I live about 3 miles from Brookline. The site you linked to is wrong. That gay pamphlet wasn’t handed out to kids at the high school — [at least] that’s what the actual students are saying and they are the ones who lack a vested interest, unlike the gay organizations and the anti-gay organizations, so I’m prone to believe them. Beyond that, the truth is uncertain as to its funding, or the specifics of its existence.

So, it is still possible it was handed out unofficially at the school, but this is a far cry from being officially sanctioned by the school. But for lack of any evidence such a thing happened, I must believe it didn’t.

He goes on to say:

If Newsweek had a responsibility to err on the side of America (in your opinion), then don’t you have a responsibility to err on the side of not believing a pure propaganda site like Article 8? It exists for one reason — to delegitimize gay people and negatively sensationalize everything having to do with them Just as all the gay organizations seem to exist for one reason — to not get out of my face and force everyone to love them.

He’s right in that I should have researched and errorred on the side of caution, of which I’ve already apologized.

However, I do not agree with William’s statement, “It exists for one reason — to delegitimize gay people…”

The site might exist to undermine the gay agenda of bringing the choice of who they sleep with into the category of being “normal” and forcing everyone to not only accept it but agree with it. (Yes, I said “choice” because we choose who to sleep with… perhaps not to whom we’re attracted to, but who we sleep with is a choice.) But “delegitimizing” isn’t the correct word. A gay person’s legitimacy should not be predicated on what they choose to do in their bedrooms (or public bathrooms), they are legitimized by the fact that they are human… like you and me and we already have rights for that category. Their gayness can neither be legitimized or delegitimized just as my love of chocolate chip ice cream can’t. That’s half the problem with the activist gay community’s agenda. They are seeking something that can’t be given. Because to give it would require people’s individual moralities to succumb to one group’s ideas of right and wrong and that just tain’t going to happen.

William also said, regarding a link to made to a man who was arrested for protesting what his child was learning in school regarding gay rights…etc:

That Lexington man wasn’t arrested for protesting homosexuality being taught in his kid’s school; he was arrested because he refused to leave and well, you can’t do that. It’s trespassing. The creation of mock persecution is a tool of both sides and it’s pretty obnoxious.

I agree that claiming persecution is highly irritating.

In this case, I would have done the same thing and would have been proud to be arrested. However, I would NOT have threatened or gotten violent with anyone. At least not at that point and I don’t get the impression that this parent did either.

But more to the point… why is a school teaching the things that this parent is irrate about? You can obfuscate and try your best to hide the real issue by having someone arrested for not leaving school grounds, but the issue is still there. Don’t teach my child stuff that goes against every moral fiber that runs through my household.

Reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmatic! How hard is that to stick to?

Oh, and thanks to William, I have found that people can’t post comments to my blog for some reason. I’ll look into that.

In my previous post, I wrote that the poor in this country aren’t getting poorer because of anyone but themselves, for the most part. I would like to qualify that statement by saying that those who are handicapped or cannot fend for themselves are by definition, not the people I am talking about. If the government should help anyone in need, it’s the indigent and helpless. Actually, I think people who can’t make the choices we make because of physical impairment should live a relatively well off life, financially, with the help of the government (us.)

It’s important to understand that money is not static and owned/controlled by one person at a time. If you added up all the investment values, checking accounts, savings accounts, CDs, bonds… all the instruments that are tied to money, you will have a much higher total money count than what is currently in circulation. All that really counts is the VALUE of the instrument that you own or control. It’s not the physical paper money.

Anyone in the US that can drive to the store and back, turn on a computer and type, or have the intellect enough to watch All My Children and understand the plot line, can choose to not be poor in this country. Period. If you’re productive and don’t make stupid decisions that hamper your productivity, you’ll not get “poorer” as the doom and gloom Democrats like to say.

If you’ve read my bio on this blog, you’ll know that I had a very poor upbringing. It was about as poor as you can get, for the most part, without actually living on the streets. But I chose, from an early age, to not continue that way after I left home. I remember when I was 8 years old, telling my mom that I wasn’t going to be poor when I grew up. All through my childhood, it was a something that permeated everything that I did. I read books on wealth creation. When others were playing, I was reading real estate investment books. I was bound and determined to break the poverty cycle I was born in to.

My first choice to break that cycle was to join the US Air Force. I couldn’t afford to go to college so the military was my way to learn a trade and to get onto my feet but most importantly, to get me away from my life at home.

Another choice I made early on was to not marry early in life. It almost happened but I managed to not drink the kool aid. One of the biggest wealth defeating choices a young person can make is to get married. Your focus will be diminished a great deal and your chances of putting yourself in the path of financial success is greatly diminished. Not impossible, but hampered a great deal. It’s not so much the marriage… it’s the family that inevitably comes after.

While in the military I read and read and read. I was voracious. I would read anything having to do with business and creating wealth. I would start business after business in my spare time. Being in the military didn’t allow me to see my businesses through to success. But that wasn’t my goal at the time. I just wanted to get a taste for it and to work through concepts and ideas I had at the time.

The bottom line is, I tried really, really hard, to make choices that would bring me closer and closer to success.

I finally got out of the military and I got married soon after that. However, I was 33 by then and much more capable of continuing my focus towards wealth. I had an important conversation with my wife to be one night on the phone. It was early in our courtship. But it was so important for me that she knew and understood one thing. I said that since I was a child, I vowed that I would NEVER settle in life. I won’t “settle” for the middle class life. I won’t be the type of husband that comes home from a 9 to 5 job, lights up the barbecue and drinks beers with the guys, watching sports and playing on the bowling league. I will work into the night most nights, reading and working on my road to success. I’ll most likely get 4 or 5 hours a sleep a night. I told her that I don’t want to have kids until I feel it won’t hamper my (now “our”) journey to wealth. I just won’t do it. There will be sacrifices we’ll have to make and big risks that we’ll take and they’ll most likely make her very uncomfortable to think about.

She understood and has since said that those traits were a large part of what she loved about me.

The following image is the result of pasting together 3 or 4 screenshots from one of my business checking accounts. I did this back on the 5th of May and the online account only shows back about 72 days, so this is pretty much representing each day from Feb 23rd to May 5th. It’s a list of the deposits during that timeframe. I’ve grayed out private info displayed down the middle.

I don’t show you this to brag. I’m actually no where near my goals so in my eyes, there’s really nothing to brag about. But I want you to see what can happen in America, even for someone born to a 17 year high school drop out mother and lived a life of poverty with only a high school education. (Well, I have an Associates Degree… but that and $2.50 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.)

Don’t make bad choices, read EVERYTHING you can about success and creating wealth, do NOT create debt that is not furthering you financially, act on any and every idea that you’ve given at least 30 days thought to, even if it doesn’t succeed… and eventually you WILL succeed. It’s just a matter of time. Some of you will take ’till you’re 60 to do it, but you WILL do it if you persevere and never settle in life.

If I had to pick one mantra from the left that is the most annoying of them all, it’s the "rich getting richer, poor getting poorer" schtick. Of course, it’s true. We WANT our society to get richer and richer. But if someone who’s poor is getting poorer, it’s their own damn fault.

But we need to define our terms here. The "rich" aren’t getting richer. It’s the "productive" that are getting richer in America. Our "poor" people are victims of our country’s own runaway success. Our "poorest" people earn more money than 75% of the rest of the world’s population. (Give or take.) The baseline for our idea of being poor is so much higher than the rest of the world that we’ve created an endemic unwillingness to make the choices one needs to be even mildly more successful. Because unless I’m motivated to be as productive as I need to be to raise my living condition, sitting in my comfy easy chair, inside my air conditioned house, eating chips and drinking diet pepsi, watching cable tv, smoking cigarettes that cost me $5 a pack… isn’t such a bad living, on the whole.

So, unless I start making decisions in my life that move me in the direction of success and which motivate me to being more productive than my current situation demands, I’m not going to get much richer and I’m more likely than not, going to get poorer over time. My kids will probably follow suit, statistically speaking.

Case in point. Let’s take Alice, a 41 year old waitress, mother of 4, in Mosquito Spit, Alabama. (Names have been changed to protect the poor.) She was raised in a family that made bad choices in life so she didn’t start off all that good to begin with. (Again, bad decisions tend to be passed down from generation to generation.) Alice MADE A DECISION to drop out of High School to attend a trade school. Now she’s limited her options in life. Okay… not an altogether disatrous choice by itself. Let’s move on… Alice MADE A CHOICE to have unprotected sex with her high school boyfriend and got pregnant. Now her options in life have narrowed yet again, in the absense of any other mitigating circumstances. (Like winning the lottery, for instance.) Alice MADE A CHOICE to marry a man who wasn’t particularly ambitious in life. Alice MADE A CHOICE to buy that brand new car because it sure was nice. She can handle the payments as long as nothing else in life happens. She’ll worry about investing for her retirement later. Alice MADE A CHOICE to run up some credit card debt and pay the minimum balances from now until the end of time. Alice MADE A CHOICE to just work at the diner and then come home and watch TV or go out with her friends and/or husband and not look for ways to improve her situation like going to school or starting a side business or SOMETHING. Alice MADE A CHOICE to have yet another kid when paying the car payment was a huge strain at this point in life already. Alice MADE A CHOICE to have yet another kid. Alice MADE A CHOICE to have yet ANOTHER kid… putting her husband and herself permanently in the category of what we call poor.

Starting with that first choice and following her choices throughout her life, is it any wonder she’s poor and without health insurance? Sure, if you look at just today, a 41 year old woman with 4 kinds and barely making it from month to month, we can have pity and wonder "what’s happened to our country that we can let this 41 year old woman and her family make so little and not have health insurance?… etc."

But, here’s the kicker, folks… she CHOSE her station in life. Plain and simple. So why should I be the one that foots the bill for her to raise her situation? Unless she’s been horribly handicapped and cannot take care of herself or her kids, it’s HER choice to be where she’s at. Period! Here’s where the rubber meets the road and what you absolutely NEED to understand. This ability to choose is the GOOD thing about America. Not the bad thing. We have a choice in this country to either make decisions that lead us to success and relative comfort or the other way.

So, back to the stupid saying, "the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer." What’s assinine about this statement is it assumes that if I am a "rich" person and I’m making $1,000,000 a year, that same amount of money is being removed from circulation and no one else can make that same serial numbered quantity of currency because it’s being made by me, the rich guy.

It helps to put this in context by removing the money terminology. All money is is a physical manifestation of productivity. If I am productive for 1 hour, I earn $X of dollars in exchange for my productivity. So, money = productivity. Another example of this is direct money productivity. If I put $100 into an investment, that money is producing a unit of productivity for the company I invested it in. It gets money in return for its productivity called interest. So, no matter how you parse it, money = productivity.

Now, let’s go over this saying again, in context. The rich (productive) are getting richer (more and more productive.) The poor (relatively less productive) are getting poorer (less and less productive.) The bottom line is, you need to make choices in life that get you in a position to become more and more productive. This will create wealth in your lifetime. Bad choices will hamper you from being more and more productive over time and you will become poorer and poorer as you spiral downwards. Now, of course, there are varying levels of success and "rich". But you get my point. Life is a series of little choices. All of them lead somewhere. Make the right choices and America is where you want to be because the sky is the limit. Ironically, America is where you want to be also, if you’ve made piss poor choices all your life. But the point is, it’s YOUR CHOICE as to what end of that scale you end up finding yourself. Next post, I’m going to tell you my story of choices.