“You are a cheater if you play the stock market.
You’re putting your money up in a speculative manner hoping with no work and no effort at all that the value of your stock is going to go up.
The very thought that something like that could be a way to make money, to be a way to survive, to get ahead- is a ridiculous concept.”
Family
Well, my friends, last night it happened. The Christmas tree came out. Yep. Amazing thing. We have this incredible tree, gigantic thing, and boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff. I mean, just every year Christmas comes right after our birthday season, which is an entire month of celebrating birthdays one after the other for three of us in a row. And then we go on vacation and do Thanksgiving away from home, and then we come back to give Thanksgiving at home during the Christmas season.
I think Christmas is a perfect time for the family—not for the reasons that most people think about it. Yeah, people like the gifts. I like to give gifts. I am not that big on getting them, because they never seem to be exactly what you wanted. And I always feel bad that people give you a gift that they thought they had to give you but you didn’t really enjoy anyway.
So I’m not so big on getting gifts. I like giving gifts. You know, then of course I’m sure they feel the same way — they don’t like getting my gifts, so it’s not really about the gifts. You know, for little kids the toys, whatever, but at my point in my life Christmas is about family, and it’s about a lifestyle.
Expectation
It’s about a way of life. It’s about an expectation. It’s about what you’re going to decide is important in life. And to me, boy, when you brighten up that house with that Christmas spirit, start playing the music, my whole mindset changes. It just reminds me about how lucky I really am.
And when I think of that, I’ve always asked myself, “Why am I so lucky? Why was I so successful financially and physically healthy enough to survive many years of being really bad on my body and you know living a crazy lifestyle? How did I get by, end up with a great family? What brought all this on?”
And then I read this interesting little quote by Napoleon Hill—he has this thing called the Thought of the Day—and then it all dawned on me that there is no luck in my life because I do not rely on luck. I rely on setting goals, diligently planning to work on those goals, taking action on those goals, redirecting when the action isn’t perfect, and consistently and diligently following through until I accomplish the goals.
Cheaters
Now, here’s the Napoleon Hill Thought of the Day that really set me off. It says, “People who gamble for money are potentially cheaters because they’re trying to get something for nothing.” Think about that.
You are a cheater if you play the stock market. You’re putting your money up in a speculative manner hoping with no work and no effort at all that the value of your stock is going to go up. The very thought that something like that could be a way to make money, to be a way to survive to get ahead is a ridiculous concept.
You’re putting your money in a 401(k) because the boss matches that money. There’s something for nothing out of that, isn’t there? Yet the outcome is that you cannot get the money, you can never get the money. And when you finally get the money, they tax you through the nose to get the money. But ultimately it never ends up being enough to retire on. It’s not a complete panacea Savior. It’s just something for nothing.
Chance
And so as you read on there’s a whole explanation of this. It just reeks of people who blindly close their eyes and throw their money at the stock market hoping that some day they’ll get something for nothing. Goes on and says, “Anyone who risks his or her wealth upon the fickle whims of chance is usually not the type of person you would like to have for a business partner.”
Well, I wouldn’t want to have them for a business partner. I wouldn’t want them for a spouse. I wouldn’t want to have them for a kid. I wouldn’t want to have them for an employer or an employee, because anybody that is that type of person that risks their wealth on something like it says “as fickle as chance” is really stealing from his own family—is stealing from himself or herself. Because the reality is is there is no such thing as something for nothing. There’s the belief, but it’s not a fact.
It goes on and says, “They are individuals who are almost likely to yield to the temptation to cut corners on product quality, overlook unsafe working conditions, and generally fail to deliver on their promises.”
Cutting Corners
We know people like this. They cut corners, people cut corners, businesses cut corners. They create a bad product and try to overprice it. And what happens with these people? Ultimately they go out of business.
Here at Lifestyles this year we had a couple investors that actually quit Lifestyles and said, “We are not going to do it the right way; we’re going to do it our way.” And they abandoned their mentorship and the leadership and they went out there and they cut corners. They went out there and did things their way, and now they’re in dire straights, may even lose their deals.
And what do you have to say about that? Is it to say that real estate is bad? No. The other 99 percent of the people that are doing it aren’t losing their properties, are not having these same problems. Yeah, everybody—it’s a tough economy, don’t get me wrong.
Promises
But there’s a major difference between those kind of guys that don’t have product quality, don’t have correct accounting, have unsafe living and working conditions at their apartments—they failed to deliver the best product at the best price and hence they can’t deliver their promises to their partners that they’re going to make money either because they’re doing it wrong.
It goes on and says, “It’s impossible to get something for nothing for a sustained period of time.” Yeah, you can get out there and you can “fake-it-till-you-make-it” type thing for a little while. You can get out there and get away with it, but somewhere along the line there has to be some substance or you are going to lose.
