Most of us know what we would do if we won the lottery.
And we think we know the method of winning the lottery:
- Get a dollar.
- Go to the store.
- Buy a ticket.
- Check your ticket.
- Win!
Pretty simple, right?
Until you look at the odds:
- 195,000,000 to one to win Powerball
- 700,000 to one of being killed by a meteroite
- 22,000 to one of becoming a professional athlete
- 12,750 to one of hitting a hole in one (if you’re an amateur)
But the odds I liked the best, in doing this research, was an odd of one to two. You see I have a 50/50 shot of having a successful business. One in two. That’s like choosing a jelly bean in your brothers left hand (vs. the empty right hand) as opposed to finding a diamond on a sandy stretch of beach.
What that tells us is that things we have control over are much more likely to happen.
If you would like to get out of debt, have much, much more money, and live the life you’ve only dreamed of, then you need to take charge of it. Plan it out, as if it is a big factory, producing.. let’s say..chocolate mints.
As the owner of our company, Yummy Mints, we know that we want to turn a profit of one million this coming year. We know that we make 25¢ for every box. We sell our mints to stores for $2/box. So, we need to sell 4,000,000 boxes. We also know that we produce about 70,000 boxes per week. We need to increase produce and sell more, by approximately 7,000 boxes/week, to make our goal.
Possibilities for doing this:
- Run a longer work day, staggering shifts.
- Add a third shift.
- Operate on Saturdays.
- Sell more to new markets (e.g. China or Spain or Mars…wherever.)
- Make a new 100 calorie pack/market it.
We are all like mini companies. We may not be selling candy but we are selling US. Our time, our knowledge, our skills and talents. How do we turn our dreams into realities? It takes three steps:
1. Determine, in terms we can measure, exactly what we want:
- In 18 months I will pay off Sears, Commerce and the car, a total of $22,350.
- In 30 months I will pay off my student loan, $23,000 (using the snowball method, of course.)
- In 36 months I will buy a new house, $20,000 for a down payment.
2. Make a list of options:
- Start a part time business
- Sell one of the cars
- Sell the house and live in an apartment for two years
- Get a new job
- Rent out a room/take in a roomate
- Ride the bus to work/take my lunch 4 days/week, turn off the cell phones, cancel the gym (in other words…cut expenses!)
3. Lay out a short term (1-3 months) plan for your first goal: $22,350 (profit)
- Cut monthly expenses, freeing up $375/month
- Sell the second car, $5,200
- Rent out our garage, $50/month x 2 = $100/month
- Repair computers on the side, $300/month
—-in three months’ time you would net about $7,525 towards your goal of $22,350 within 18 months.
You would have 15 months left (which, of course, is never written in stone) and you would have $775 extra paying down your debt which would leave you with $3200 to go on this big debt (make sure you use a debt calculator to determine the real cost–interest included.)
Adjustments here or there (perhaps a yard sale, applying tax refunds, etc.) will easily bring you to your goal and on to bigger and better dreams!
NOW HERE’S ONE OF MY FAVORITE QUOTES:
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
- Mother Teresa
Best of luck. PLEASE SHARE HOW YOU ARE DOING.
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