Passion Plus Profits

The Leading Cause of Poorness (Avoid This!)

There are a million and one excuses for the lack of money. It’s easy to blame the economy, current job, lack of education, environment, and anything or anybody else other than ourselves. Ultimately, we are all 100% responsible for our successes or failures in life. Those who choose not to accept this will continue to give up their control and play the role of victim.

If being poor is the effect, then what is the cause?
Every cause has an effect, and the leading cause of poorness is MAKING POOR CHOICES. If you aren’t where you financially want to be it is because you’ve made financially poor decisions.

Your current bank balance is a reflection of your choices. You can’t change your past decisions, but the good news is that you can make a conscious choice to start making improvements in your choices today which will affect your future results.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.― Jim John

How to make better financial choices.
It all starts with being honest with yourself and your past behaviors. Examine how you’ve been spending your time and money, then ask yourself these questions:

What are my spending habits?
Am I managing my money well or mismanaging my money?
How do I spend my free time?
Who are the 5 people I’ve been spending the most time with?
How am I investing in myself?
What’s the last book I’ve read or class I’ve taken to increase my financial intelligence?

Your choices today, no matter how trivial they may seem, will impact your future outcomes. If you want to experience wealthy results, then you must commit to making wealthy choices. Fortunately, success leaves clues and we can model our choices after those who have achieved financial success.

Know this: You have the power to choose to be rich.

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Develop This One Habit to Promote Yourself & Get Paid More

Whether you are working at a job or running a business, if you want to get paid more, then there is one specific habit that you will need to establish. This one habit alone will work for you regardless of your current position or role.

Here it is…
Develop the habit of doing more than you are paid for.

At first glance, the sentence above may sound overly simple, but please don’t overlook it. By developing this one habit, you will make yourself stand out from the crowd. The important thing is to deliver more value than you are expected, even if you are working in a position you don’t particularly like.

Most people will either only do what’s in their job description or will try to get by doing the least amount of work possible. Choose to be different.

From Lowly Cashier to High-Paying Salesman
I unconsciously developed this habit of doing more work than paid for at one of my first jobs as a cashier at a retail electronics store. This job was rather unchallenging and I knew that I wasn’t going to be there long, but instead of just getting by with providing the bare minimum effort (which everyone else was doing), I found other ways to provide value to the company.

As a cashier, I was doing all kinds of extra work that others didn’t enjoy doing like retrieving all the shopping carts in the parking lot, refilling the vending machines, helping carry out heavy merchandize, dealing with angry customers, and even selling vacuums. One day while I was in action, one of the sales managers witnessed my initiative and moved me up right away to a significantly higher-paying role in tv sales.

A few important things to remember while developing this habit of doing more than you are paid for:

Provide greater service to your company and customers without any expectation of immediate payment. Just know that one way or another you will eventually get financially reimbursed for your services; this may come from your current role or from other greater opportunities in the future.
You may not receive immediate financial reimbursement, but you will experience immediate benefit from what it will make of you to deliver greater service. You will also receive immediate rewards in the form of happiness and satisfaction.
You never know who’s watching and word of ambitious work spreads quickly. If you focus on consistently delivering more value than expected, you will certainly get noticed by someone who will appreciate your extra efforts.
Be ready for the opportunities that you will be offered. By establishing a reputation of being a person who delivers greater service than paid for, you will naturally attract opportunities far greater than your current role. Act with courage and be open to new roles you’ve never considered before. As a cashier, I never even thought of getting into sales, but I accepted the position and still exercise many of the lessons I’ve learned since then.

By consistently planting seeds of greater service, you will eventually reap benefits from opportunities that will seem to sprout out of nowhere.

Connect with me on Instagram: @PassionPlusProfits

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5 Ways To Attract Increasingly More Opportunities

For weeks now, I’ve been attracting increasingly more opportunities. Sometimes I find them on my own and many times others bring these wonderful opportunities to me. These opportunities are highly targeted and specific to my own needs. The beautiful thing is that I know that this is just the beginning.

Here are 5 ways you can prepare yourself to attract increasingly more opportunities into your life:

Know specifically what it is you desire to attract. How will you know if you encounter the right opportunity if you don’t even know what it looks like? Make sure you specify your own desires and not other people’s expectations.
Do something every day to move yourself closer to attracting your opportunities. What can you do daily to make yourself more attractive to your opportunities? For me, this process includes writing, networking, expanding my knowledge on specific subjects, meditation, and helping others along the way.
Build a magnetic team of advisors. Mentors and advisors are a powerful way to stay on the right path to attract your opportunities, especially if your advisors have accomplished similar desires.
Stay aware. Often times we search far and wide for opportunities, when the best ones are right within our reach. Also, be mindful of opportunities that may appear unattractive at first, as opportunities often cross our paths in different disguises (e.g. failure).
Enjoy the journey. It can be easy to get frustrated if you’re not immediately finding what you’re seeking. Continue your journey in a playful and pleasant manner; instead of coming from a place of neediness (very unattractive).

Connect with me on Instagram: @PassionPlusProfits

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Finding Self-Discipline in Defeat v2.0

UCLA football was destroyed in Palo Alto last Thursday (56 to 32) and my friends and I just so happened to be seated in enemy territory. We were a tiny sliver of blue amongst a sea of Cardinal. Fortunately for us, Stanford fans have a lot of class and are very welcoming hosts.

Experiencing such a crushing defeat allowed the opportunity to either walk around with our heads down or to consciously make the most of a bad situation (from UCLA’s perspective). The path of least resistance was a downward spiral towards negativity, while the path to positivity required self-discipline to rise above.

In defeat, I was reminded that self-discipline is largely a matter of directing our own thoughts.

Here are a few lessons I learned from finding self-discipline in defeat:

Real leadership consists of the ability to lift the spirits of those around you
There are always opportunities to connect, network, and learn from your “competition”
We may not be in total control of our outcomes/results, but we are in control of guiding our own thoughts
With the right attitude, defeat is only temporary and all defeats or failures offer valuable lessons
When feeling down, find a way to give more attention to those things that elevate your state
There is power in celebrating other people’s successes

In order to me to learn these lessons of Discipline, I had to be in a specific state of mind or feeling state.

Here are some of then negative feelings I first felt when encountering defeat:

Pride
Ego
Frustration
Anger

Here are the areas I consciously gave more attention to and which created more pleasing, positive results:

Gratitude
Understanding
Patience
Connection
Love

When facing defeat in your life how will You choose to respond?

Connect with me on Instagram: @PassionPlusProfits

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My Ambitions As a Writer

After a long day at work and arriving home late in the evening, I almost gave into the lazy thought of skipping a day of writing… Fortunately, I realized that I don’t have the luxury to be lazy right now. I’ve still got so far to go so I have absolutely no excuse to delay what can be done today. We’ve got to be the change we want to see, right? I choose to do the things I have not done in order to have the things I have not had.

So, instead of falling into bed and drifting aimlessly into dreamland, I’ve summoned the energy and awakened the commitment to continue moving forward on this path of creativity. This is seriously just the beginning and it’s up to me to keep up this momentum.

What are my ambitions as a writer?
I am committed to writing more on this blog (as well as others). I will get back to writing poetry, spoken word and releasing tracks. I will organize thoughts into speeches and outline powerful presentations. I will tell my story through these words. I will share what’s working for me and what’s not. I will document my failures and provide blueprints for my successes. I will single-handedly put each thought, idea, and word on the line.

I do believe that success leaves clues. It’s true that I write for myself, but I also write for You.

Connect with me on Instagram!