Signaling for a Change Up

Like you, I was taught early in life to work hard, get a good secondary education and land a good steady, secure job with good benefits and a pension. I was taught that our goverment was there to protect us, and that large corporations that grew out of the industrial age were rock solid institutions that would never deceive the general public and that they all had our best interests at heart...and many of those companies did, although many did not. I was told to believe these things because this was "how it has always been done", and I bought it, hook line and sinker.

Well, like many folks from my generation, we got mixed messages. In my formative years, we also had the Vietnam war, Woodstock, assisinations, impeachments and resignations of presidents, free love, drugs, civil rights and rebellion. The result of these events were a sesmic shift in our belief that all was well, and that our government and our leadership and corporations could be trusted and taken at their word and that we should always do things as they had always been done. At least that's what I took from it. Not only was my faith shaken, but I had to learn that grown ups didn't have all the answers, that sometimes you had to think and decide for yourself and that "because it has always been done that way" wasn't always the best way to keep doing it.

And not too long ago we had the 9/11 terrorist attacks and other bombings and acts of aggression aimed at us both foriegn and domestic and that shook our personal security to the core...at least it did mine.

And most recently, we have had the vast majority of our financial market wiped out by greedy and short sighted practices that have left many of us grasping at air like we are following off a cliff, deperately and vainly reaching for a rescue rope that just isn't there.

And don't even get me started on the BP- Gulf of Mexico Oil Disaster...we are yet to feel the long lasting effects of that. That was just one big ol' cluster f___ !! And still is.

My point is this, we have to educate ourselves. When we see bull-sh*t, say that it's bull-sh*t. What we need is to stand up and think for ourselves and re-examine and question what we have always been taught. But most of us stick our heads in the sand, and get zoned out on TV, and wrapped up in entertaining ourselves, still clinging to the old status quo, that isn't the status quo any more. I'm sorry ya'll but it just isn't. It's like we are in mass denial.

This is a GREAT country. This is still the land of opportunity. We just need to wake up and realize that there is a need for new and fresh thinking. We need to wake up to the fact that what has always been true, isn't true any more. We have to quit feeling sorry for ourselves and ignoring the elephant in the room.

And what I am here to talk to you about is this, there is hope. There is security, but it is up to you/us, the average everyday citizen to create it. No longer can we depend on the government to be the "do all, be all" fix to our problems. We can no longer count on getting a "secure job" any more. A "secure job" has gone the way of the unicorn and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow...it has joined the ranks of myth and legend. Even if you have a high paying corporate job now or any job, do you really have security, do you have any time to enjoy life? Are you being paid what you are worth? Or are you just a highly paid slave? And if you own your own business, do you own it or does it own you? Do you have to keep pumping money into it to keep it floating like so-o-o many of my personal, traditional business owner friends are doing just trying to stay above water, barely making payroll? I've been down both these roads, I know the answer and I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to be this way.

And what about real estate? It's always been safe, right? Real estate investment is no where close to being fruitful any longer. There will be a predicted 3.9 million new foreclosures this year, that's up from 3 million last year and 2.3 million the year before. That's a lot of houses and properties out there. And because of the simple basic supply and demand concept, their values have tanked. I'm not just talking to be talking here, once again I have experience in this area as well.

Well what about investments? Where would you invest? There is opportnuity here but it is a HUGE risk. You might as well take your chances at the track or Vegas if you're looking at investing in the stock market.

Take a moment and think about it. Face facts. Where are you going to go, what is your plan? The bottom line question is this "what 'cha gonna do about it"?

Are you going to do what most people do and whine and complain for the rest of your life? Oh, that's productive. That activity doesn't put money in the bank or bread on the table. Or are you going to just lay down and die? Are you going to pray for God to deliver you? Because chances are if you have been praying for an answer, he has already delived it to you...you just had your head so far up your own ass and throwing too much of a pity party that you ignored it. Or maybe you were waiting on a cooler answer, something you could brag about down at the bar...waiving off God's answer like a pitcher in baseball nodding off the catcher's signal for a change up when the pitcher wants to bring the heat.

If you look around you for just a second, get your face out of the tabloid news stories, turn off the TV for a minute and get out of "Farmville" and sever your ties to the "Mafia Wars" family, you will see that there are some very smart, assertive people throwing you a rope in reality and pointing the way...you just have to be brave, open minded to new concepts and want to improve your situation. (Read "The Business of the 21st Century" by Robert T. Kiyosaki or "The New Wellness Revolution" by Nobel Prize winning author Paul Zane Pilzer (these would be some of the "smart and assertive people" I mentioned))

I for one am going to use my American determination, and the real world education that I have been blessed to receive, including my time at Clemson University that taught me to seize a good opportunity when it presented itself, not to just be a slave to a wage, and to my life experience growing up as a poor kid of a divorced family in Charlotte, NC. And I am going to listen to these very "smart and assertive people" and learn as much as I can from them and others that ARE succeeding in this economy. I am going to surround myself with positive, people and we are going to work together and not compete against each other for jobs. I am going to utilize what I have learned from my past successes, and more importantly from my past failures and strive and push and learn and grow and do what I have to do to turn myself, my family, my community and my country around. And I am going to share and teach others to do the same, so that we may all have the possibility of the real American Dream, to be free. I want to help create the new Status Quo. To bring back prosperity to those I love and care about. How about you?

If you're tired of listening to all the whining and crap, and hearing all the excuses, and if you know that the government isn't about to give you a bail out, and the the banks aren't eager to give you money and if you realize that the only helping hand you can count on is at the end of your own arm, and if you are just sick and tired of being sick and tired and you want your life back, then I invite you to join me. But either way, with or without you, I'm pushing forward and I just wanted my friends to know that when you see me whizzing by, I did offer and that what I offered may have been God answering that prayer...I just may be that catcher signaling for the change up.

Freedom Is Not Free

On this Memorial Day, let us not forget those who serve and those who have served to protect our rights and defend our great country. Let us also be thoughtful of the thousands of mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, wives, children and friends who sacrifice so much so that their loved ones can be off defending our liberties.
On this Memorial Day, let us not forget that Freedom is Not Free

"I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine saluted it,
and then he stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
He'd stand out in any crowd.
I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers' tears?
How many pilots' planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No, freedom isn't free.

I heard the sound of TAPS one night,
When everything was still
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That TAPS had meant "Amen,"
When a flag had draped a coffin
Of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom isn't free."

---Kelly Strong

Moving Madness

In the current economic climate, a person may have to make choices he or she never would have dreamed of in the past. That is the case with our home and our decision, against our up bringing, and at risk to our very high credit scores, to let it go back to the bank.

And we are not alone. Our experience in this matter seems to be a more common happening than we are led to believe. Not a day goes by that someone doesn't regale me with their own tales of loss and surrender. I am not sure if is to make me feel better about our choices or to make them feel better about theirs, but I'm guessing a little of both.

But we are fine. We built this house as an investment. We had no intention of staying here long term. Don't get me wrong, we have enjoyed it. We packed a lot of life into the 3 years we where here. It was kind of like living at a resort for three years...even if it was a resort where we were the maid service and the grounds keepers as well as the guests. But now it is worth $600K less that we owed on it and a $1M less than it was appraised for in 2007. It was a financial decision, pure and simple, and was made without much hesitation or debate. Or as they say, "business is business."

We are cool with it. Yes, we really are. I know this may sound strange to some of you but we are actually really excited about moving from a 6300 sq ft lake house to a 1900 sq ft townhouse. Keeping a house up that is this size, just for the two of us, is massively time consuming. And if time is money, it is costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential business. And we have come to discover that the more stuff you have the less time you will have to enjoy it.

I'm not gonna lie to you, there has been some emotion that comes into play, some brief second guessing as to the decision to let our house go back to the bank after we tried and failed to sell it. But that quickly gave way to the reality of how sore our feet, knees and back were after toting box after box, table after table, sofa after sofa from one residence to the next; up and down three sets of stairs here and another there. (Thank goodness for Monavie!!) I wonder if we can put our gym membership on hold until after the move because we are getting PLENTY of cardio in this process.) My second guessing has given way to my sense of self preservation.

There was a moment however, when I actually fought the idea and the whole process of letting go of a lot of our accumulated material possessions...that is until my wife pointed out that resistance was futile and then we had to pack, load, unload and unpack all of the previously mentioned items. I am now a materialistic convert...LESS is the new MORE.

It was at that point that I decided that I have WAY to much useless crap for me to use in the remainder of my life and that I should shower my friends and family with these "gifts". I can just see Christmas 2010, our unsuspecting family members opening the presents from under the tree, and flashing a brief if not confused forced smile and exclaim, "Thanks Marshall, I always wanted used random yard tools, black light bulbs and a dot matrix printer....you shouldn't have...no REALLY you shouldn't have". Or when they look in their stockings only to find "Spuds McKenzie" or "Charlotte Hornets" paraphernalia that I collected God knows when.

I honestly believe that a little madness creeps in as you sort through your belongings and unwittingly and for no reason what so ever, justify why you need to keep the 5 boxes of used Sports Illustrated with the false illusion you will ever find the time to sort through them, and organize them into anything that resembles "organized" and that someone else would ever buy your collection.

I am beginning to feel a little like Gollum, in the Lord of the Rings and his unhealthy desire for "my precious". If anyone sees me squatting down by the lake, snatching up, beating on a rock and tearing into a still live and thrashing fish of some kind, feel free to give me a good shake or smack on the head and get me back to reality, OK?....It's Moving Madness...I'm just saying.

But could I interest you in a box of random "koozies"?