Fall has finally arrived. As someone living in near Dallas, it was a very welcome change. This summer we broke our record of the number of triple digit temperature days in a year. We even had a last gasp of summer on the 29^th of September with 102.

With the change in seasons comes a change in thinking. Instead of trying to avoid the heat, people around here are looking forward to the State Fair, crisp mornings and Halloween with Thanksgiving around the corner.

This could be a season to change how you think about your life. Many people look towards others for the major requirements in their life. A job, either having one or looking for one, to pay for the things you want gives your power to other people. This is especially acute when you are looking for a job in these times. Like Blanche DuBois, you are dependent on the kindness of strangers.

This dependency shrinks your dreams. You shrink them to fit your income. You take a “staycation” instead of a memory making vacation with loved ones.  You drive a car that fit your budget, not your fancy. Your living accommodations are “cozy” instead of breath taking. All the while, you rationalize to yourself that it will get better “someday”.

I challenge you to change your thinking. Expanding your income to fit your dreams is not only possible but so much more rewarding. You can be your own boss. You can have a carpet commute. You take back your power and control. If you want a raise, you can give it to yourself.

Look at starting a profitable home based business. You can do so for relatively little. Even in down times, people can be successful in business. In fact, down times often force people to come up with ways to be successful because of the lack of alternatives.

Some of the things it has brought me are the two most important things to people at the end of their lives – memories and relationships. Many parents feel they are sending a stranger off to college because they don’t know who their child has become. I have been involved with my sons’ lives especially during their critical teen years. Before that, I was working much too long hours. My youngest still remembers when I would come home when they were finishing dinner.

I have chaperoned a choir trip to Walt Disney World. I have chaperoned band trips. I am often the only dad that’s chaperoning. I have been there dropping them off at school and more importantly, picking them up afterwards. I have confidence in my son’s driving because I had the time to teach him and log the required 20 hours before he got his license.

I have built relationships with my sons and provided foundations for having great relationships with them as they mature into adulthood because I had control of my time and my life. That’s often called time freedom and lifestyle freedom.

I am urging you with the change of seasons to change your thinking. Interrupt the “get a good job” mantra and take control of you life.

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I have been transferring some family memories into the digital age. These are VHS-C tapes that were shot in 1994 & 1995 right after we bought our first camcorder. I’m transferring them to DVD. It’s a window back to another time. This was before the Internet hit big, before 9/11 and before I worked for myself.

In these videos, there are images of people who are no longer with us and an absence of arrivals since then. Many people say that at the end of their lives, what really counts is relationships and memories.

At the time of the filming of these videos, both my wife and I were working more than full time jobs. We had our routines of dropping our son off at day care in the morning and picking him up when we could in the afternoon. The day care providers got to spend more time interacting and influencing our son than we did.

Things changed when our second son came along. My wife became a stay at home mother. This allowed us to raise our kids but put the burden of income squarely on my shoulders. In an effort to make up the losses and to capitalize on the then tech bubble, I got a new position with a new company. To this day, my youngest son’s recollection of that job was that I came home during or after dinner.

The dot bombs hit soon after and eventually, I was laid off. This actually was a good thing in the long run as it helped me get the courage to work for myself. Since then, I have been actively involved with both my sons’ lives. Often, I am the only dad at my youngest son’s elementary school parties and I was the only dad to chaperone my oldest son’s choir trip to Walt Disney World.

What has made this possible has been my home based business. I had started working my business while I was still working and I had a Plan B in place when the time came. Making money from home has allowed me to spend quantity time with my kids. When you spend quantity time with your kids, the quality time appears more and more.

A home based business like mine can be started on a part time basis and grown until you can fire your boss. It can take an hour or two per day but the results are worth it, especially if you have young kids. My oldest son was 2 and 3 in those videos. Now he’s ending his junior year in high school and will soon be starting his adult life. Being able to be a bigger part of his life has created memories that will last both of our lifetimes.

If you would like to find out more about if a home based business would be right for you, go to FreeRKCDForYou.com to get a freed CD from Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, called “The Perfect Business”. Get yours today.

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Self Improvement success is something that a lot of people are looking for. If you go to any major bookstore, you will see an entire section called self improvement. People are searching to make their lives better. I have a fairly sizable self improvement library myself.

It’s one thing to read about self improvement, it’s another to put that self improvement theory you read about into practice.

Network marketing is life compressed. What I mean by that is that it compresses events in your life into a a relatively short time. You can experience a lifetime of rejection, pain and growth in 1 to 2 years of putting yourself out there. It also gives you a lifetime of feedback as well. You know very quickly where you are good and where you need improvement.

Many have described network marketing as a self improvement course where you get paid to learn. Self improvement success results from the successful implementation of the coaching, techniques and theories you learn along the way.

What do you get as a reward for achieving self improvement success? How about time freedom, money freedom, a lifetime residual income stream lots of great relationships. When was the last time you got something like that for making your life better?

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My youngest son’s 5th grade class wrapped up a poetry unit in school and held a ‘poetry cafe’ event where they stood up and read poems. The parents were invited. I noticed that I was the only father there that did not have an access card dangling on my person. On other words, I was the only father who did not have to rush back to a job.

This is not an isolated incident. At his Winter Party in December, I was the only father there.

With my oldest son, I will be 1 of only 2 dads that will be chaperoning his choir to Walt Disney World in March.

Being my own boss allows me the flexibility to control my schedule. I get to spend more time doing what I want to do which to me means spending more time with my family. At the end of your life, the main things that matter are you memories and your relationships, not how many hows you spent at the office.

Another important fact in this economy is that I am in control of my income. I can’t be laid off.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those that sacrifice freedom for security will receive neither.”

Technorati Tags: access card, job, memories, poetry cafe, relationships, things that matter, walt disney world, winter party

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. It is one of my favorite times of the year. It brings back a lot of good memories and makes me consciously think of the blessing in my life. My blessings are bountiful.

Thanksgiving Day has its origins in dark and hard times. The first official holiday was proclaimed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It was in the middle of the American Civil War. The Battle of Gettysburg had been fought earlier that year with it’s carnage on both sides. The war’s end was nowhere in sight. Lincoln proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving to point out that while there were bad things going on, there were good things as well. Bountiful crops, population increases, prosperity were all things to give thanks for.

In this day and age, when all the news outlets are proclaiming all the negativity going on, there are still things to be thankful for. We, as a whole Earth population, are much better off than we were 100 years ago. Medical advances have all but wiped out the top 10 killers from 1908. The food supply has grown to allow the population to greatly increase.

In your personal life, think of the things you want and have such as shelter, food, health and relationships and be grateful. Think of the things you don’t want and don’t have and be grateful.

Things that you are grateful for in your life increase. Don’t limit your gratitude to just one day a year, do it every day. As the song goes, “Count your blessings. Count them one by one.”

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