August 27, 2009
Adventure+Risk=Reward
Posted by Jay
August 24, 2009
The Plan B in all of us.
What is the entrepreneurial spirit? Everyone of us has the entrepreneurial spark, some just need a financial kick in the ass to ignite it into a raging fire.
Since childhood, our imagination, dreams and hopes have shaped not only who we are, but what we do. More importantly they have shaped what we dream to do. Often, in adulthood, what is needed is the proverbial “financial kick in the pants” to spark the entrepreneur in all of us. Today I came across a fantastic article in the New York Times about how the current economic climate has sparked a wave of entrepreneurial energy across America. Most compelling was the statistic that over half of our current Fortune 500 companies were started in a recession, including Starbucks and Microsoft!
When circumstances are most dire, the most glaring opportunities reveal themselves. It has been, and will be, the entrepreneurial spirit that lifts the global economy from our missteps.
Click Here for the full article from the NY Times.
Best,
Posted by Jay
August 14, 2009
No Matter How Big, or Small.
It was three nights ago, I couldn’t sleep, as is often the case on warm nights. New York in August feels like a wet blanket fresh out of the oven. It’s hard not to sweat just bending over. My fiancée had gone out to her parents for the night, and the quiet in the house was peaceful, but incomplete. Truth be told, I just can’t stand to be away from her. Television didn’t do it, 25 minutes of baseball highlights later, still restless. A few books I’m in the middle of didn’t provide any repose either. I wondered, why the unrest? An incessant pebble of anxiety was rolling like a marble through my stomach. It was 1:30am; I sat in my backyard trying to enjoy the serenity of the calm hot air, barely rustling a tree.
How it came upon me, I’m still unsure now as I write this, but it did. It wasn’t rousing or electric, rather a subtle beckoning. “What can you do for someone else right now?” It’s a question we all would be well served to ask ourselves daily, if not hourly. But admittedly is difficult to do so consistently, sometimes even harder to remember, and yet even harder to execute with all of the daily demands and responsibilities we have.
For whatever reason, it came to me then, and I set out to try and satisfy this late night necessity. I pondered for a couple minutes about what I could do. I realize now my thoughts immediately were inordinately large in scale. Donate to a couple of charities online, maybe try and structure a new non-profit, bring those older clothes in the hall closet to Goodwill maybe? Neither of these, or the 7 other “big” ideas I had seemed satisfactory.
I decided then it’s never the scale of the action, it’s the intention.
I threw on some shoes and left my house. I ran to the local bodega where the keeper has set up an elaborate, and noticeably ingenious, mini-fan situation keeping him cool behind the tiny counter. I asked for change for a $50 dollar bill and set back out into the balmy night.
New York is a place of supreme opulence, the wealth that you see here at times is so staggering, it’s almost impossible to fathom. But what makes New York unique is amongst all of this privilege, often right on the street below a glass or brick tower of extreme abundance and luxury, sits heartbreaking poverty. In the summer the streets are littered with the sleeping less fortunate. Under bus stops and freight elevators, park benches and subway entrances. Every possession they own surrounding them like sentinels against the indifference of the city.
I set off that night and placed a few dollars as close to every sleeping homeless person I saw, as I meandered through lower Manhattan. Each time, was a needed and humbling reminder of the living blessing most of us share in everyday. I had not walked more than ten blocks before I was out of cash. I got some more and continued on my trek.
When I got home later, as the sun was beginning to peek over the east river and the day’s emails began to roll in, I sat thankful for lesson I had stumbled upon this sleepless night. We have an enormous opportunity, as human beings, to be a gift to each other. It doesn’t have to be money, I am lucky and grateful to help in that regard, but that is just one of a myriad amount of ways we can be a daily or hourly gift in the lives of others. It could be a supportive compliment at the end of an email, a quick text to let someone know you are thinking of them and hoping for their success, an extra minute or two of listening even when you are exhausted and crave nothing but ten minutes of silence. It could be simply holding the door open for someone or telling them they look nice that day.
Let’s try to remember it matters not how big or small our actions are, it’s the intention that counts.
All my Best,
Posted by Jay
August 11, 2009
The American Dream Downsized, or Upscaled. Your choice.
Today’s news is filled with doom about the economy and dire predictions about a permanent downsizing of the American Dream. It’s as if our futures have become foretold. To me, this is precisely the time to talk about building wealth.
The mind numbing tidal wave of financial collapse does not have to engulf you. To avoid it, however, you have to have an evacuation plan that leads to higher financial ground, and you have to choose when to put that plan into action. When it comes to wealth building, it always starts with a choice.
I recently heard of man who died at 53. He had been a quadriplegic since being in a car crash when he was 20. Over 300 people crowded the church for his memorial service and hundreds more counted him as a friend. Not just a friend, a good friend.
Confined to a wheelchair, with the use of one arm but not his hands, he had worked at maintaining those friendships, investing time and effort in learning what held meaning for each and every one of them. He had used technology to stay in touch with the world. His friends sought him out for advice. He never betrayed a trust he had earned. And he never complained about his condition. Not a day in his life went by without someone dropping in on him for some quality time.
I call that a wealthy man.
His wealth was not accidental. However you measure wealth, building it involves working towards certain fundamental principles. It turns out this man had always had good friends. After his crash and rehabilitation, he recognized how important they were to him – they were major assets – and he made a choice to work hard at having a wealth of them. He lived off of the joy and love they generated. When he passed, he had outlived his life expectancy by more than 20 years.
We all seem to have a deep down sense of what wealth is. We might agree, for instance, that it contains the passion of our relationships, the intensity of our experiences and all of those things you can take with you. We could also probably agree that wealth includes not only what you earn, but also what you are given and what you learn.
Wealth is not simply the sum of our assets and resources minus our liabilities and debt, it involves the choices we make in how to work with them to generate capital. Strangely enough, wealth only has value if it is used, and it is only worth having if it supplies the capital we need to live a fulfilled life.
One more thing we can probably agree on. While wealth involves more than money, money is likely one of the first things that come to mind when we think about building it.
How, then, do we begin to build wealth? For me, it started with choosing to find out how. That meant making an investment in my self – recognizing that I could use a little help in the form of knowledge – and making a commitment to that process. I pretty quickly discovered that time (a key ingredient for getting anything done) was essential to building wealth – and that I had better use it wisely because, let’s face it, who knows exactly how much time any of us has? (How many of us knew our retirement investments might be sliced in half so quickly, or that our employer might suddenly be considering layoffs?)
So, I sought out experts who could effectively and efficiently teach me fundamental principles of debt elimination, tax reduction, cash flow multiplication, asset protection, investment management and how to live on less than I made.
I found them at Wealth Masters International, through their m1 program, which takes the kind of holistic approach to wealth that I have been talking about. That’s where I also learned how to be responsible with money regardless of how much or how little I was making. And it’s where I learned that building wealth is directly connected to personal growth and growing beneficial relationships.
The decision to transform your American Dream into reality does not need to be triggered by a life-changing event. Choices must be made. Effort and time will be required, but less time than you might imagine. Your inner life will grow as well, and you’ll meet some remarkable people along the way.
Sincerely,
Jay Kubassek
Posted by Jay
August 9, 2009
Is Google Killing General Knowledge?
General knowledge, from capital cities to key dates, has long been a marker of an educated mind. But what happens when facts can be Googled? Brian Cathcart confers with educationalists, quiz-show winners and Bamber Gascoigne … From: INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Summer 2009
Posted by Jay
August 1, 2009
Write Your Own Story
I would say, without being an anthropologist, or any other form of society studying academic, that the act of story telling is most likely the most common denominator that we share as human beings. Since the dawn of civilization (possibly earlier depending on how you consider the context) the most common, simplistic and powerful form of communication is the art of the story.
Stories impart lessons of morality in our youth, inspire us in moments of anguish as adults, they animate our imagination with inner promise when it seems there is none to be found. Stories color the depths of our being, and recall the blessings of a life well spent when our Autumn arrives. What we often fail to recognize is that each day, when our eyes open to a new dawn and dusk, a fresh piece of paper is laid before us.
Like a journal of infinite pages, or a canvas that will stretch as far as you allow it to, each new day presents an opportunity for us to compose the story of our lives. The question that remains, is who will be holding the pen?
We are often told or taught, to visualize a goal. To see ourselves in accomplishment. Conceptualize the feeling that will ensue. But what of the journey, what of the pursuit?
I’ve often thought there is equal nobility in the labor, as well as the accomplishment, of our dreams. The moments of doubt, discouragement and triumph are all meaningful parts of how we shape the person we are, and the person we seek to become. What is often missed in this discourse is that story that unfolds as we strive for something, is under our control as well.
Ask yourself each morning, as your feet take their infant steps of the day, how do I want my story to bloom today. In this living theatre of ours, remember You are the director and the actors, You are the writer, the set designer, You are the audience to your own life.
I’ve spoken and written about leaving a legacy; what we as individuals do for the betterment of more than simply ourselves. However, what we all must realize is that a legacy is built everyday. It is built in the choices and moments that seem to have no consequence, the moments that are filled with tedious details, questioning and bouts with the reins of persistence as we do all we can to stay on track. A legacy is more than a trust fund or a inheritance, a summer house, or even a college endowment. Your legacy is the story of your everyday. What you do with the hours, minutes and seconds that you own, because they are your own.
I challenge each and every one of us to grab that pen, each and every day, put ink to the pages. The script is yours to create, yours to enjoy, yours to make real.
Remember this: “the impossible, is often left untried”
All My Best,
Posted by Jay
Over the last five years, JAY KUBASSEK went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing the internet based business industry with the 2007 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, an internet marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries co-owned by his business partner, Aaron Parkinson; and the successful launch of [...] [Full Bio]
