Jimmy’s House

Before I tried to start my own company I was convinced that anyone out there that was successful had stumbled upon their success. That it was by chance that they made money or was doing well. I had a gamblers view of business. I figured that all these successful people had just rolled the dice and voila, MONEY!

Most people who win the lottery, if they don’t change their spending habits, will be back to where they started eventually.

The chances are that anyone who has had that kind of success in business will probably end up back where they started as well. I think our current economy is proof of that. There are a lot of businesses closing up around here in the Kansas City area. I’m talking about construction based businesses. I’m talking about cabinet shops, electric companies, trim companies and so forth. During the tornado of construction that existed during the end of the ’90’s and the first half of the 00’s many turkeys were flying quite well. I’ll call these lottery companies. All you had to do was call back whoever called you. It was so busy here in KC and there was such a shortage of labor and product supply that all you had to do was return a call to get work. That’s a lottery company. Very little effort had to be put into a construction business to experience success.

So, lottery time is officially over, for a long time if not forever. If you think you can start a business by just opening the doors and doing little else you are wrong. This isn’t the lottery. You can’t just patent something and expect everyone to buy it. You can’t just copyright something and expect everyone to buy it. You can’t just write one great book and expect to retire and just collect checks.

You are the missing element in your own great idea. Quit looking around for that one break to make your idea into a household name. It’s not out THERE, it’s in YOU. Only YOU can make YOU successful. You can hire all the coaches in the wold to give you advice but if YOU don’t get out there and work on YOUR idea it won’t be successful.

Business success doesn’t happen by chance, it happens by force.

If you’ve been in business for more than 5 minutes you’ve had thoughts of giving up. I’ve had plenty of them over the last 5+ years of running my business. None of those moments were as strong as a couple of weeks ago.

A couple of months ago we had a snafu on a job. It was supposed to be union wage rate and no one told me. We were ready to walk away except the project manager told me not to worry, this happens from time to time and they would be sure to compensate me. Well, I should have seen the writing on the wall. I didn’t and now I’m only getting $2,200.00 of the $5,100.00 that I needed to charge. When I got the call a couple of weeks ago telling me I wasn’t getting the right amount of money I was ready to just pull it all in and quit. This isn’t the best time for me to take a $3,00.00 bath. This was officially a HUGE test of my faith.

Well, I needed to come up with some solutions. Now, be warned some of these solutions will make sense and some of them are just….well….silly, but it worked.

The first thing I did was go to the bookstore. I needed a book encouraging me to persist. I needed a book that would tell me not to give up. I needed a book that would tell me that tough times are what it takes to even find success. In a conversation with Kevin Miller he mentioned a book.

Yeah, how’s that for a title? I’ll tell you right now that I’d put that book right at the top of the list of books I’ve read in my life. I feel like Mark Batterson wrote that book for me, for right now. It encouraged me in ways I never planned. Look, I’m not a fancy writer so what I’ll do is sum up this book by quoting some of the best from it.

“Faith is the process of unlearning your irrational fears.” “Lion chasers have a high threshold for fear because they have built up fear immunity.” “The cure for the fear of failure is not success. It’s Failure. The cure for the fear of rejection is not acceptance. It’s rejection. You’ve got to be exposed to small quantities of whatever you’re afraid of. That’s how you build up immunity.” “Satan has two primary tactics when it comes to neutralizing you spiritually: discouragement and fear. He wants you to focus on past mistakes you’ve made” “The goal is to muster the moral courage to chase lions” “Lion chasers choose fear”

If you are afraid to step out and get started doing the work you love, read this book today!

Ok, so, what was another thing I did to get myself back on track? Now, try not to laugh too hard okay? I went to see the new Miley Cyrus movie! Are you done laughing yet? Hey, I have four daughters under the age of 12 okay! These are the kinds of movies I go to see. To be honest I was expecting it to be decent. I feel like Miley actually has a chance to be the kind of role model I won’t be ashamed of some day. She sang a great song at the end that really hit home and ties into that book big time. Here is the video per youtube.

I have to remind myself to enjoy the ride or as Miley puts it enjoy the climb. I think we can all take that advice. It’s not whats easy that makes us valuable in the market place. It’s overcoming the challenges.

Ok, so, finally here is the last one. This is a sermon by Andy Stanley. I love Andy Stanley’s stuff. If you are on iTunes and don’t listen to at least his monthly leadership podcast you are seriously missing out.

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Andy summarizes this entire blog post so well in this lesson. God’s hands are not tied and He, not you, is responsible for the results. We are to be faithful in what God has sent us out to do but He is responsible for the results. That was so freeing to me. I have realized that I need to just persist and let God handle the results. He is in control and He has amazing plans for me. He has not brought me this far to just let me fail. He will see me through this because He wants me to be a lion chaser.

It’s so easy to get too busy with life and forget to have some fun. I don’t mind being serious but sometimes I have to remind myself it’s ok to laugh.

Well, in my opinion, no one is funnier than Brian Regan.

Well, this seems to go along quite well with this theme I’ve been following around here lately. I’ve been talking about how important hope is in our lives.

I’m really excited because Dave Ramsey is holding a live broadcast this Thursday evening focusing on why the world is NOT coming to an end no matter what the evening news tries to tell us. This broadcast will be shown in over 4,000 locations nationwide.

You can click on the above image and find somewhere near you to watch this presentation. Dave wants this to be completely free to the public. He has given what he calls ‘great American businesses’ a chance to provide sponsorship.

I couldn’t resist so I went ahead and signed up my company as a sponsor. There is a lot of expense pulling something like this off. I find it a pleasure to offer a few dollars of my support.

I am hearing news that this will be broadcast on Fox Business Network as well so you may be able to catch it there if you have cable/satellite.

I think this video speaks for itself. Thank you Gary for sending me the link!

The Kings Firecrackers are a performance jump rope team made up of talented 4th-8th graders from the Kings Local School District in Ohio. Coached by Lynn Kelley, they perform at venues across the country. Some noteable past performances have been at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a Presidential Inauguration and an appearance on The David Letterman Show.

Ok, well, it’s not exactly new but you can’t live without it.  Not everyone wants to sell it to you but if they have integrated it into their product then you may just spend money with them.

What is this new product?  Well, I’ll get to that at the end.  Until then let’s see if you can figure it out through the course of this post.

Let me introduce you to my new board of directors.

Chuck Bowen Small Business Coaching

Kevin Miller Brand and Positioning Coach (discover your purple cow)

Dan Miller Business, Career and Life Coach

Dave Ramsey Financial Coach

Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, so I read THIS story at Yahoo.

You can read it if you want but I’ll be glad to sum it up real quick for you. Washington wants to give another 15,000,000,000.00 (billion but you need to see the zeroes) to banks and ‘encourage’ them to loan that money to small businesses to help us out.

So, the same people who forced banks to loan money to people who couldn’t pay it back are now going to force banks to loan money to people……who…..might….not…..be….able….to…..pay…..it….back.

Look, if your business has to borrow money to make payroll then maybe you don’t have a business. How in the world does a company, who can’t make payroll without financial assistance, plan on paying back a payroll loan? Look, I’m speaking from experience here. I tried to borrow money once to help me make payroll. That worked for about a month and then something strange happened. I got a bill! Imagine that, those crooks wanted their money back! To this very day I’m making interest payments on payroll from two years ago!

Borrowing money to ‘fix’ your business is just hiding the problems. Let me explain. Last spring I decided that I was going to save my company. After listening to Dave Ramsey I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to borrow myself into profitability. I won’t go into great detail here because the details are boring. I’ll just say that I cut everything I didn’t need to keep the doors open. I completely quit borrowing money. I spent hours and hours digging through my P&L statements trying to figure out where I was losing money. I had to make A LOT of hard choices. It included cutting my income in half and therefore causing us to move out of our brand new home. By the end of last year I was able to cause a $150,000.00 swing in our P&L statement. I did this on the exact same revenue as the year before. There is no secret formula for this kind of success. It’s exactly what Dave teaches. As a business owner you have to figure out how to get your business to live on less than it makes, too!

I paid $1,000.00 a month to match my employees Social Security and Medicare contributions last year. Do you realize how much money that is? For a small business in this slow down that is a lot of cash. Why is it Washington is willing to hand out 15B to a bunch of banks but won’t let me keep a portion of MY money! It’s because they want control of that money. They don’t think I’m smart enough to know what to do with it. Washington thinks I’m an idiot.

Well, I’m not an idiot. I did something with my business last year that Washington, with all their statistics and their big offices full of help, can’t seem to do. I balanced my own budget and made my business live on less than it makes.

Washington, get out of my way and stop offering ‘help’. I have work to do…

This weekend while in Franklin, TN I was able to stop by Brentwood, TN and stop in at Dave Ramsey’s offices.

Because of some work being done around the building I wasn’t able to see Dave while he was on the air. I didn’t realize this but right as you walk in the front door of his building they have these large glass windows where you can watch Dave while he’s on the air. Frankly, I was shocked at this fact. I can’t imagine being on the air and trying to help someone while people are watching me from a window and taking pictures. Here is what I think it comes down to.

Dave LOVES what he is doing. He is doing what God called him to do. When he is helping someone I believe it is effortless. Dave is doing the work he loves. When you can take what you love and do it for a living you will find yourself having a hard time telling when you are at work and when you are at play. In fact, here is Dan Miller’s favorite quote.

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both. -James A. Michener

Anyway, Dave paid for the building with cash that he saved up over a 5 year period. I just love that. He is 100% committed to staying out of debt forever. Well, this week I’ve been listening to Dave live, which I rarely do. I usually just podcast him. Well, he got a call from a guy that had spent a couple of years getting out of debt. Dave was really excited for the guy and then the guy did it, he told Dave that he found this great house (what would be his second house) that he wanted to borrow 200k for. I could hear the disappointment in Dave’s voice. Well, I couldn’t resist so I sent Dave an email. I had a pretty strong feeling that he would read my comment on the air and I was right. Incidentally this is the second time Dave has read one of my emails on air. The first time was February 29th last year at ,ironically, the exact same minute in the exact same hour as last year. Here is Dave reading my email and commenting.

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Most bad days I have around here can be traced back to my debt. Believe me, I have A LOT of debt I’m working through right now. When you are in business you have so much to deal with on a daily basis. A bunch of debt hanging over your head will effect your decision making. When you have a lot of debt in your business you give a certain amount of control of your company away to your creditors. I really identify with Dave when he talks this way. You can’t show me something I’d be willing to go into debt to have either.

I’m sick of it, I’m done! I’m not doing this anymore! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Debt is the slavery of the free. -Publilius Syrus (Roman author, 1st century B.C.)

Nothing happens unless first a dream. -Carl Sandburg

I had the incredible pleasure of spending this last weekend at Dan Miller’s House. Now, if you are a big Dave Ramsey fan then you already know who Dan Miller is. For those of you who don’t let me explain. I’m not sure if there is anyone who has more of a passion to help people find the work that they love. Dan Miller is the author of 48 Days To The Work You Love and No More Mondays. Dan really believes that the work you are most likely to love is the work you create for yourself. Simply put, Dan is an expert on entrepreneurialism.

A lot happened over these two days so instead of trying to write it all out in one post I will try to take the two days and break them up into 2-3 posts. Please check back soon for further updates!

First, let me give you some proof that I was actually there!

Ok, you got me figured out. I just wanted to show off. That’s ok, I don’t mind admitting it. Well, I’m not done showing off yet…

That, my friends, is the office of a New York Times best selling author (sorry Dan, I couldn’t resist). I don’t feel so bad now.

Ok, so I’ve spent the last few days trying to figure out what I wanted to share first. I finally figured it out.

This was a very small intimate group. There were only a total of 50 people allowed to register for this event. There was a very wide variety of people there. We all had one thing in common. We all want to be in business for ourselves. We all believe that Dan and his group of coaches have the knowledge and experience to help each and every one of us reach our ultimate goals. For the majority of the first day we were separated into two groups and each one of us was given 15 minutes to get up, introduce ourselves, and talk about our specific business and get answers to some of the issues we are facing.

One thing that my entire group had in common was our desire to help others in our business. Every single person who got up made it very clear that ultimately, they wanted to help others. I believe that if you can integrate a passion to serve others into your business then you can create something that is truly special.

Well, that’s all for now. I have so much else I want to say but I need to break things up or I’ll start to ramble.

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to
enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and
with finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich
the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.
- Woodrow Wilson

One thing I’ll say about Dave, unlike many other talk radio guys (or gals) out there he doesn’t claim to know it all.  Because of that from time to time he will introduce his listeners to other people they can learn valuable lessons from.  One of the first people I learned about from Dave is Rabbi Daniel Lapin.  I am proud to call Rabbi Lapin my rabbi.  Now, before you start looking at me funny, no, I’m not Jewish.  As Rabbi Lapin would explain you don’t have to be Jewish to need a rabbi.  No, he would say that everyone needs a rabbi because everyone can benefit from being able to learn how the world really works.  How does Rabbi Lapin help everyone learn how the world really works?  By sharing with us ancient Jewish wisdom from the Old Testament of course.  As you can tell Rabbi Lapin is quite the interesting man.  He is an Orthodox Jew and created the “American Alliance of Jews and Christians”.  He has several great videos on his site which I would encourage you to go and watch.  I have a link to his site over on the right side of the page so hop over there a watch a little.  I think you’ll find him to be very insightful.

Well, let me move on to the main topic of this post.  I want to tell you about his newest book, “Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money”.  In this book Rabbi Lapin shares with us why Jews seem to be so disproportionately successful in business.  He takes some time in the beginning of the book to dispel several myths out there including but not limited to the myth that Jews cheat to get ahead.

Look, I’m not a fancy writer so let me just say this in simple James terms because that’s all I can understand myself.  I learned from this book that being in business and wanting to be successful at it isn’t evil.  If I manage to get some money it isn’t because I took advantage of someone else.  I didn’t mug some old lady or rob a kid of his lunch money.  I got that money because I served someone well.  See, if I don’t believe in the morality and dignity of business (commandment number 1) then how in the world can I expect to be successful at it?  If in my heart I think that business is evil and exists to take advantage of everyone then how can I expect to prosper?

Rabbi Lapin makes an interesting observation.  He notes that so often business and businessmen are the villains in movies.  Right now it’s more obvious than ever.  Not even a day is going by right now that we aren’t told how evil everyone on Wall Street is.  A year or two ago those guys were everyone’s heroes.  People all over America were trusting these men with their retirement/investment accounts.  These guys who were in charge of multi billion dollar mutual funds.  It was their job to make sure they purchased stocks that were growing.  In return they were paid and paid very well.  Nobody was complaining while things were going well.  Here recently things aren’t going so well and now all these men are just so evil.

In this book Rabbi Lapin explains that we are all in business for ourselves.  Some of us just have one customer, our employer.  We have to believe that we participate in a moral activity if we are going to be successful in that activity.  We have to believe that we are taking part in creating wealth.  Not only for ourselves but for everyone around us.  My business creates a lot of wealth.  My mechanic receives wealth from me because he services 4 vehicles.  I give wealth to all my suppliers.  My employees get wealth from my company and they in turn give wealth to the utility companies or to the local restaurants.  Yes, business exists to create wealth, not take it from others.

I took these ten commandments and listed them on a special page HERE. Please review them. I think you’ll find them very interesting. He also has his own radio show in San Francisco on KSFO. Just click on “Sunday” and click “Download” next to either 1pm-2pm, 2pm-3pm or 3pm-4pm. On Sunday’s when the Raiders play the second game of the day he is preempted but other than that he is taking calls and sharing his views on all kinds of things. Consider yourself warned, he is VERY conservative, but he is also very thought provoking.

Here is a video of Rabbi Lapin with Pat Robertson on CBN.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2823870820965510420