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What Are You Lying To Yourself About?

June 16, 2009 By
liarliarposter

Iliarliarposter spent my 20′s earning–and spending–a lot of money.

I earned money from being a Real estate agent, and I spent money on nothing.  I had the ostrich head in sand problem for a long time.  Have played at this, but never DONE it.

I’m not unusual.  I have some cash in the bank, but when you take the IRS, the people I borrowed from to bail myself out of the IRS, and everything else, my net worth is -89,000.   That’s negative.  I’m 89,000 in the hole, and happy that I’m not in jail.  In the last 9 years, I’ve only had 2 years that were under six figures.   The bulk of the damage, the state and IRS tax bill that was once $170,000 is now down to $25,000.  It’ll get knocked out. And it’ll make a good story.

I honestly believed it to be less till recently.   I had made a $25,000 clerical error.  A GIGO problem.  A spreadsheet that I worked on had bad data.  But it was interesting, I think.

I hid this stuff from people.  Mostly myself.  I knew how to earn money, and I paid some lip service to frugality, but it was a ruse.  I didn’t care, I figured I’d be a millionaire soon.  Phil Hodgen, International Tax Lawyer (and good friend) says, that the “second you don’t need a Mercedes anymore is when you’ll get one.”   The dissipation of every bit of money I had on stupid schemes that would get me out of the last failed plan was kind of how I lived.  I was grasping for whatever.  When we got rid of the real estate and moved into a dive, things changed, our focus changed some.  Hopefully it’s not too late.

I didn’t spend a lot of money on advertising, I pissed it away on restaurants, shiny tech gadgets, clothing for my wife.  Oh, yeah, and rental properties that were a Bad Idea for anyone to own, that I didn’t care about.  The whole time, I hated my job.  There’s plenty to like to being a Realtor, I just didn’t have the passion for it.

Anyway, I lied to myself for a long time.  See, I had income.  Things are fine, I’m still a smart kid.  I made money, so I can’t be failing.   I’ll fix it later.  Who cares, everyone has these problems.  Thing is, they are preventable.

In the long run we’re all dead.  That’s what Keynes said.  But the thing is, how we lived matters.  I can’t endure the stress of it.  Deal is: I had all the means to have a good pile of wealth now.  Somehow, my ego never let me feel this.  I always find some excuse, some reason that everything was still OK.

It’s not OK.  The debt is suffocating.  I’ve taken it from $150ish (realmoney) to $89.  Now it’s time to home stretch this thing and get this smoked forever.  It’s all survivable, and it’s all a distraction.  You can’t operate with debt, not like you can in reality.  Think about this:  At 10% (my average interest) I’m paying $9,000 a year, or $750/month to debt.

Think about that.  That’s before I do anything, I gotta pony that money up.

It’s fixable, though.  I’m earning at a good clip.

I’m pretty sure at this point that there aren’t going to be any other ‘surprises’.  I honestly had believed that the debt was down below $20k.   And it’ not, and so this thing is going in a google doc.  that google doc is gonna get iframed into the sidebar.  And I’ll be updating it once a month.  All the component parts of the debt will get added in.    I’ll do this tomorrow.

I want to be transparent for selfish reasons.  I’m not bragging.  I’m currently doing pretty well.  I collected up all my debts and spreadsheeted ‘em.  I’m going to get rid of them one by one as fast as I can.  The first goal is a $4800 loan that costs $200 a month and is at a ghastly 14% interest.    I can do it.

Here are some personal finance bloggers:

The Simple Dollar – more consumerist than I’d like to be, but better than I am.

Five Cent Nickel – opinionated.  Tough.  And good.

Filed Under: Achieving Goals, Start Here Tagged With: , , ,

Speed, Freelancing & More.

May 13, 2009 By

I’ve got three projects, nearing completion.  Days away they represent two things: the last of my ‘freelance’ projects where I’d take any work possible, and also a hefty sum of money.   These projects have been in some version of nearly done forever. They have been an irritant and a distraction because all are–for various reasons–late.   Speed matters, and the customers are–in all cases–at least partially responsible for the delays.  I’m also partially responsible, and that sucks.  I have good clients though that generally understand the way things are, and that they had a role in this stuff.  I don’t feel like I’m exposed to a default risk.

But still–and I will joyfully honor my word–I would not have taken the projects had I known then what I know now.  Stuff that can’t be delivered and done fast, open ended stuff….makes me into more of an employee than I have a stomach for.  On the one hand, I have a commitment to honoring the people that are affording me to get out from under a pile of debt, that are supporting me financially.  I have to honor the money they sent and earned.  That means that I have to take a yoke and bear it.  And that sucks.

When I deliver a product I created, I’m selling someone else.  I’ve put them in my world, and I’m offering it to them.  When I apply for a job, it is me trying to accommodate another.  Oh, to be sure there is some give and take there, but fundamentally, there’s a difference between blog sales guy and freelancer.  I’m still a freelancer, but I’m selling what I want, not what I can find.  It’s easier, selling what I want, too because I can build a personal brand around it.

The revision hell that I’m in now is due to not having a finite ending to a project.  It’s hard to take control after the fact…

The thing I’m working on today is a little project (incidentally lagging behind but not part of the above three projects) for International Tax LawyerPhil Hodgen that I thought would be done in March.  He was in Dubai for much of that time.  It should be done & revised tomorrow from my end, possibly today.

Then I’ve got to come up with a coherent, form based design interview that takes 5 minutes or less and allows people to express themselves.

Filed Under: Business Building, miscellany Tagged With: , , , ,

Don’t Go Halfway to War: Focus on What You’re Passionate About.

February 24, 2009 By

If you’re having trouble hitting a goal, maybe it doesn’t matter that much to you.  Or maybe, you’re not being honest about the reason that you want it.  Or maybe, you’re too afraid to hit it.  In either case, I’m learning that it’s correctable.  At any given time, people have loads of goals.   You probably don’t focus on your goals as much as you should, and you probably have too many goals that burden you that matter too little.

If you’re not willing to be passionate about a goal, give it up.  You can’t win the game by going halfway to war.  You’re just going to frustrate yourself, and spend time doing things that don’t energize you, don’t make you better, and dissipate your energy.   WHEN you focus on something that doesn’t matter to you, you will be less likely get a decent outcome.   That means whatever energy you spent on it will be put into a sieve, and just burned up, and wasted.

Focus Only On What You’re Passionate About

Instead–focus on the few goals that you’re passionate about, for the real reasons.   I’m passionate about a few of things: 1. helping people be independent and free from big institution collectivism,  2. getting fit, 3. raising my kids to be kind, generous world beaters.   (Under these ideas are things that I gotta do, and sub goals and projects that I’m working on, but nothin’ really matters beyond this).   Nothing else should matter.   Any connection, flirtation, other part of that is probably a distraction.  Any other goal (earn $50,000 a month) might be nice, but it’s not a focal point unless it supports the other goals.

For a long time, I (and maybe you) have focused on all the ‘nice to have,’ BS goals, and I didn’t hit them with any regularity.  Partly because I wasn’t willing to be passionate about it.   The word passion’s origin from Late Lattin: physical suffering. Do you want your goal so bad that you’ll give up something for it?  That you’ll work your ass off?  That it’s more important than food, sex, sleep?   If not, then you probably don’t want it that badly.   If not, it’s not at the core of your being.  And if not, you gotta figure out how to connect with the stuff that really matters, nto the stuff you want to matter.

You can’t win by going half way to war.  You’ll lose, you’ll be beaten because you have to give up everything to the goal.   Having something that would be nice someday isn’t going to get you there.   Simplify, drop from your list some things that don’t matter, and focus harder on the few things that do matter.

Easier said than done, I know, but doing starts with saying, with writing, and it’s time for me to put that together.

Filed Under: Achieving Goals Tagged With: , , ,