Carrot on a stick

The Horse:

“I know that I’m a lucky horse,
For every day I’m blessed.
A crispy carrot I’ll get to eat,
If I pass my daily test.”

“I’m not required to do that much,
The reward seems worth the sweat.
I’ve always earned it by day’s end,
It’s a safe and secure bet.”

“When I awake on each new day,
I feel the hunger pains.
This causes me to look around,
For a carrot to take the reigns.”

“Just before I give up hope,
I spot it hanging low.
Dangling just above my nose,
And tempting me to go.”

“So I arise and get a taste,
Mmm…sweeter than a peach!
But just before I bite again,
It jerks beyond my reach”

“Of course this is expected,
For it happens every day.
I work all day to catch the prize
And it always runs away.”

“I’m not really worried though,
The prize is always caught.
True, at times, it seems too small.
After all, I’ve done a LOT.”

“I’ve hauled, I’ve pulled,
I've sustained a lot of stress.
I’ve been yanked and jerked around,
Hmmm… But I digress…”

“This is what I’ve always done,
I see no need to change.
I’ll follow where the carrot leads,
And fight off the hunger pains.”

The Rider:

“I am a lucky man indeed,
For every day I’m blessed.
I’ve planned ahead and found a way,
To excel beyond the rest.”

“I push myself to reach new goals,
And at first I had to sweat.
But now the plan is paying off,
And my future’s not a bet.”

“When I awake on each new day,
And I feel those hunger pains,
I’m reminded of the goals I’ve made,
And resolve to take the reigns.”

“In order to maintain my wealth,
I learned this long ago;
Ignore the fads and trendy things,
And be not tempted so.”

“Instead I’ve found more value,
In the pit than in the peach,
Potential lies within the seed,
That’s worthy of my reach.”

“To cover the great distances,
Of where I go each day,
I ride astride my trusty horse.
Which makes work seem like play.”

“With just one simple carrot,
I’ve got this horse well taught.
To be contented when we stop,
And eat what he has sought.”

“I’ve never seen a written rule,
That work should cause me stress.
Instead of hard, then, I’ll work smart
And ensure that I progress.”

“Striving for expiring things,
Means temporary gains;
And following where the carrot leads
Brings tomorrow’s hunger pains.”

The "Sick Leave" Ambush

Reason #3,628 to not work for someone else:
The "Sick Leave" Ambush

Will someone please explain to me the logic behind "sick leave?" I've found this concept to be a complete trap. Make no bones about it, everybody gets sick. Some get sick more often than others, but we all have those days when we'd rather just stay in bed and feel miserable all by ourselves than come in and LOOK miserable in front of everyone else for 8 hours.

The theory behind sick leave is well enough intentioned. When we're first hired on with a new company, most of us attend some type of orientation where a million different policies and procedures are fired at us. By the time we leave this "orientation" meeting, however, most of us feel much more disoriented than when we went in, despite the HR rep's reassuring, "Don't worry, it's all laid out for you in the handbook!" While drinking from this fire hydrant of information, you might hear them whiz through some policy regarding paid time off. This, for the average working American, is the needle in the haystack. The light at the end of the tunnel. It’s the one piece of this meeting that gives us something to look forward to. Don't kid yourself, you're already looking forward to the next paid holiday, or vacation that you qualify for. After all, not many of us are working just for fun. Ahhh...time off. But I digress...

Let's say, after you've been with a company for a probationary period of 30 days, that every pay period you now accrue 3 hours of "vacation time" and 3 hours "sick time." Now, let's say that you've been working for this company for about 6 months and have never taken a day off. Assuming it were possible, you would now have about 36 hours (nearly 4.5 days) of each. Ever wonder what would happen if you used all your vacation time at once? Probably nothing more than a little extra paperwork to catch up on by the end of your vacation, right? On the flip side, however, what if you were to call in sick every day for a entire work week? What would happen then? Chances are, your boss would start to make negative assumptions about you, don't you think? "He's faking it to make a vacation out of the long weekend!" "He's got interviews with other places on COMPANY time!" "He's milking the company!"

Although it is never said aloud, most people know that "vacation time" can be used without any worry about their reputation. Why is it then that those 3 hours of time, when used as "sick time," will usually negatively affect the way your employers judge you? The only difference between "vacation time” and "sick time", after all, is the amount of time we have to notify our employers that we'll be using it...right? Aren't vacation hours and sick time hours both GIVEN to us to use? Why then, for the love of Pete, should we feel guilty or looked down on when we actually DO use it...even if we use ALL of it?!

Although I've got a great boss now, and this isn't a current issue, in the past I've actually been dangerously close to getting canned just for using the sick time my company has allotted me. This doesn't make any sense to me. If I were to ask my previous boss whether or not the sick time I had acrued was actually mine to use, surely he would say, "yes"...wouldn't he? It's not like I had ever dipped into borrowed time off in order to be out sick.

I suffer from migraine headaches. I generally get a really bad one about once per week, and almost always have about 3 or 4 less severe, but nagging headaches during the rest of the week. Sometimes they're just annoying enough to make me miserable while I'm at work, while other times they're capable of forcing me to stay at home where it's quiet and dark. Someone like me can't just NOT work. I've got to make due with what I've got...

With the last company I worked for, which will go unnamed, this happened a lot. However, because I usually wake up with my headaches, I would pop a pill in the early morning, call in sick, and then lay down to sleep it off. More often than not, I'd feel well enough within a few hours, and be able to make it into work by about 11:00 am or noon. Granted, with a situation like this, the biggest problem is that my employer is expecting me to be at work until he gets my message. With vacation time, it would have been planned in advance. I can understand that. But they did GIVE me those hours to use....didn't they? I mean, they are allowed, right? It doesn’t make much sense to me to give someone "time off" hours (regardless of what you're calling them), and then get disgruntled when you take them up on their offer to actually use them.

Even the actual call-in to the boss is a joke. I've had a boss actually tell me, while briefing me on their call-in-sick protocol, "When you call in, you don't need to try to sound sick. Just say you’re using sick time." I had to laugh at that one. Obviously, that employer was tired of employees faking a desperately frail whimper in order to sound legitimately sick. I'll admit it...I've done it before. I'd venture to say that most of us in the working class have done it at one time or another; You know, when you called in sick, and, at the risk of sounding too healthy to be taken seriously, gave an academy award-winning sick voice performance. Psshhh....we've all done it, dude.

Listen, not much is worse, in my world, than having to call some other human being (who is only my boss because they got there before I did) and inform them that I'm not feeling well. Nothing else makes me feel as inferior and enslaved as having to call-in. Whether I'm truly sick or just want the day off. That, for me, is a great reason to work towards my goal of working for myself.

I've learned
That if you ever feel like you need to take a vacation from your work, you're in the wrong field. Those who truly love what they do, never really work a day in their lives, and subsequently never need (or even want) to take a vacation from it. To them, vacations are just interrupting them from doing what they enjoy.

I'm glad
That the general public has not caught onto the great investing secret of precious metals yet. I've still got some time. Gold and silver are both performing terrifically, and folks are bound to notice it soon. By the time they do catch on, it'll mean it's too late to buy it at a good deal.

I wish
I was able to consistently focus on just ONE of my ideas and get it totally finished. This is my greatest challenge as an aspiring entrepreneur. I can't seem to just put new ideas aside until after I've finished previously conceived ideas. All of them seem viable, and none of them seem unimportant enough to prioritize lower.

I will
Have to push a lot harder if I'm going to finish the Virtual Vault before the baby-boomers retire. They'll start within this year. I think they'll be my target market with all the pensions, investments and assets they'll need to manage during their retirement years.

The Fragility of Small Business

Like any measurable thing, businesses can be categorized into scaleable and quantitative groups. For instance, they can be categorized by demographics, or by the amount of jobs they create. They can be sorted by the amount of revenue they generate, by the amount of stock holders they have, by the products that produce, or by their marketing budgets. There are the major league players like Microsoft, Wal Mart, and Google, there are the mid-sized businesses (that still seem huge) like Post Net, Big-O Tires, and Pier One, and then there are the little guys. I mean the really little guys. You know the ones who “claim” to be businesses and who just barely qualify on paper as “legitimate” businesses. Sure they produce products and provide services, but generally speaking, the only difference between them and the average employee is which hour you happen to catch them working. It is this latter category that, ironically, makes up most of America’s economy. Strange, isn’t it? The big businesses make more money when compared side by side, but collectively it is the small (sometimes only technically) businesses that drive the national economy. How is this possible? Well, there are just that many of us out there. Folks like me who have great ideas, dreams, and aspirations, but not much clout. Many of us are starting from scratch. it’s all about good timing and being ready to welcome opportunity when it knocks on our door.

They say that 90% of small businesses fail within their first year. After that first successful year, they say that 90% of those fail within the next 5 years. I think failure and success are both relative terms. At the risk of sounding cliché, the only true measure of one’s success or failure is one’s own goals and aspirations. Those goals and aspirations are determined by commitment, optimism, and patience. Like all the other non-believers of the get-rich-quick method, I’m in this for the long haul and I know it’s going to take a long time before I see the results I’m looking for. It’s takes time to build a strong business infrastructure and system. I don’t expect to be wealthy overnight, but I do expect that it’s somewhere along the path I’m on. I just need to stay on the path and push....hard.

I’m in my 2nd year of business as a corporation. However, I’ve been working as a hobby business for about 6 years now. One might say I’ve beaten the odds of surviving longer than the 1 to 5 year life expectancy of a small business. Although, one might also argue that I haven’t been involved in the real business world long enough to have any measurable track record. Again, I think it comes down to perspective.

Why is it that most small businesses fail so early on anyway? I mean, why is it that so many well-intentioned, hard working, smart, and talented people’s business ventures go belly-up shortly after beginning? Businesses are like trees. They start out small, fragile and vulnerable. Expecting a business to start out generating massive amounts of money right from the beginning is as about as smart as expecting a newly planted sprout to start producing fruit in its first season of growth. They need lots of attention at first. Attention and NOT much expectation. Just like a new plant needs lots of sun light, fertile soil and water to grow, a business needs dedication, ambition, optimism, and conviction.

So, why am I writing about the fragility of small businesses today, you might be wondering? Well, today I feel small. Determined and confident, but very small. I guess I'm probably still trying to establish my own roots in the soil I find myself in. I'm still trying to look at my business' potential instead of seeing the current status of my fragile sprout. I'm trying to remain satisfied my pace as the torus, and not the hare.

I've learned...
That inspiration comes when it will. While I don't believe you can FORCE yourself to have good ideas, I certainly DO believe that you can help the process along. The implementation of "The Breakthrough Principle" has worked just about every time. In a nutshell, this theory states that once you've exhausted your mental resources, you should "walk away" from the project. This will allow your subconscious to work out the block while you're otherwise engaged...similar to when you dream while sleeping.

I'm glad...
That I discovered CNDD and have been able to help other identify it in those around them.

I wish...
I had the tenacity to quit my job today and work full-time investing in my own ideas.

I will...
Try harder to distinguish between what is urgent and what is important...and then do what is important FIRST.