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I unintentionally caught Brad Emmert off guard…

Monday, March 8th, 2010

…during our conversation on the show on Saturday with one of my questions. I asked him to explain an example of how the compensation plan of the network marketing company he represents has created more millionaires than Wal-Mart. This was a dramatic illustration that Brad used to give in his training talks. However, I didn’t realize that he hadn’t used this illustration in years!

walmart-2

So, I’ll explain it here because I believe that it is a great example of why, if someone is serious about becoming financially independent, they should not dismiss network marketing as a viable means to those ends.

What Brad used to do was divide the room – which consisted of approximately 200 people – into two halves. One half represented Wal-Mart and the other half represented the network marketing company Brad represents. Brad would then address the first 5 people in the front row of the “Wal-Mart half” and ask them to stand up. He then pointed out that those 5 people represented the sum total of millionaires that Wal-Mart had produced. (The real life Wal-Mart millionaires are members of the Sam Walton family, by the way.)

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He then would address the second half of the room and ask them all to stand up. They represented the number of people who had earned over $1,000,000 in commissions from Brad’s network marketing company compensation to that point. (I believe the number is over 200, now.)

So, the visual is this: on the Wal-Mart side of the room, there were 5 people standing at this point. On the network marketing company side of the room, there were approximately 100 people standing.

The question to the audience was this, which compensation plan gave you a better shot at becoming financially independent? The Wal-Mart plan – which, by the way, can be substituted for by any large corporation’s compensation play – or the network marketing company’s compensation plan?

The visual contrast made it clear as to the answer.

TO LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW GO TO http://www.kjmastaw.com .

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Tags: brad emmert, Network Marketing, Wal-Mart
Posted in Network Marketing, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

The Little Man in My Head has been SCREAMING at me to POST SOMETHING!
Friday, February 19th, 2010

So, here’s the first in what will be several (I promise) posts about our trip to Japan.

Our two weeks in Japan, visiting Tokuko’s mother, was a true vacation. We didn’t stay up late but we got up late, every day. We spent the mornings sipping tea and coffee. Tokuko would read the newspaper. I’d read Vince Flynn or John Grisham. (I managed to finish 5 novels – 2 x Vince Flynn, 3 x John Grisham). I’d also logon to the computer and play games.

In the afternoons, we’d do our sightseeing or friend visiting. Much of that time was actually spent on trains, usually to Kobe, Osaka, or Kyoto.

In the evenings, we’d eat dinner with Aimeko (Tokuko’s Mom) and watch the English-dubbed newscast at 7. The big news over there was much the same as it was here except with different players. Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa is eing srutinized for an illegal, $4,000,000 land deal. (Yes, Democrats in Japan are no different than the democrats in the U.S..)

The big story is the fall of a national sports hero. Not Tiger but Mongolian grand (sumo) champion Asashoryu was forced to retire early after hitting a guy while drunk a month back.

I’ll be posting more on our travels in the coming days.

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Tags: Asashoryu, Ozawa
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Even though I’m on vacation, I can’t help but work – just a little…
Monday, January 25th, 2010

but, then again, my “work” is oftentimes play.

Yesterday, my wife and I went to the Kaiyukan Aquarium in Osaka to see the otters. At this aquarium, they have both river otters and sea otters.

I could watch the otters play all day. In many ways, I think this is how we should be living our lives.

It bothers me to see people go through their days in obvious misery. Why is that? If it’s your job that’s doing that to you, then quit.

Find something that’s fun for you and then do that. Play. Life is too short. Live life like the otter.

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Tags: Kaiyukan
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On the BlogTalkRadio show on Saturday, Tim Cummings started the discussion..
Monday, January 11th, 2010

… by saying that you have to “speak your vision” first. You have to put your goals into words. Then you have to put those words onto paper. And then you have to write out your plan to get there.

This has been proven in my own life. In college (the first two years, anyway) were very successful because I always had a study plan. Before training for my first marathon, I had a plan in place 6 months in advance. Same thing with finishing my first Ironman. In each case, there was a written plan in place. The first two years of my Market America business were successful because – guess what? – I had a plan. Written down. On paper. That I looked every day.

So, as we start 2010, here I am writing out my goals. And from those goals I will develop my plan.

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Being an engineer, this plan will be in an excel spreadsheet – a tab for each goal. There will be a tab for my income goal. There will be a tab for my health and fitness goal. And there will be a tab for my personal development goal.

Will I follow these plans, perfectly. Well, I’ve never been able to follow any of the previous plans perfectly in the past. But I’d always been able to acheive or get close to acheiving the goal. That’s a great feeling by the way. One that’s well worth the effort in developing the plan.

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Posted in Uncategorized, business development | No Comments »

I’m watching the dollar strengthen and profiting by it…
Thursday, January 7th, 2010

as I took a long trade against the Japanese Yen.

USD/JPY Jan 7 2010

Since taking the trade on December 30th, we’re looking at about an 80 pip gain – our opening price being 92.290. Stops have been moved up to the 14-day low of 91.127 which brings our risk on the trade down to 106 pips.

If the dollar continues to strengthen into the close, we may add another contract.

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Tags: Japanese Yen, U.S. Dollar
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Here are the 10 things that I’m going to resolve to do or do better…
Friday, January 1st, 2010

…in the next decade:

Listen more and talk less.

Read the Bible for 20 minutes each day.

Help 10 people (not including myself) improve their financial status each year

Learn to play the guitar. (I’ve been wanting to since I was a kid.)

Call my parents and my grandmother at least once per week.

Send my wife a card, every week, letting her know how much I adore and treasure her.

Send birthday and anniversary cards. (I’m terrible about this. Some of my relatives still haven’t received our Christmas card – for last year!)

Become more organized.

Go to bed early and get up early.

Run for at least 30 minutes at least 4 times per week.

How about you?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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Tags: New Year Resolutions
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The dollar is strengthening and we’re just going along for the ride..
Thursday, December 17th, 2009

The trade I have going with the dollar against the Swissie is moving along nicely. On Tuesday, the price closed above my intial entry + 1xATR and so, I added another contract putting me long 2 contracts USD/CHF.

USD/CHF Daily

I could have gone short the EUR/USD but because a) the USD/CHF broke the 14-day high, first, and then b) the EURO and the Swiss are closely correlated, they are, for all intents and purposes, the same trade.

What is driving the dollar higher? Inflation. Or more appropriately the worry of inflation. Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index, which were reported yesterday, showed a slight uptick in prices. (This should come as no surprise to anyone who is vaguely familiar with the way our government has been spending money lately. The real surprise is that it took so long!)

The way the thinking goes, if the Federal Reserve and “Time’s Man of the Year”, Ben Bernanke, start getting a wiff that prices may start rising, their job is to keep them from rising to quickly. So while for now the overnight interest rate (the rate the Fed charge banks for borrowing money to lend to you) is at 0.25%, the Fed not have any choice but to begin raising rates next year if prices continue to rise. This is good for the dollar. And, since forex is essentially the futures market, what’s happening now reflects what traders think will happen in the future – i.e. rates are going to go up. Looking at the Fed Funds Rate futures, it looks like traders expect the Fed to start raising in late spring, early summer – so the dollar will be a good trade through then.

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Tags: Dollar, Fed Funds Rate, swissie, USD/CHF
Posted in Uncategorized, forex trading | No Comments »

Obama is focused on paying down the U.S. debt but..
Thursday, December 10th, 2009

he’s going to try to do it using worthless U.S. Dollars!

I’ve been trying to figure out the logic behind the President’s recent moves with regard to the $200 billion, the Treasury Department reported, will be paid back early. According to the terms of the original allocation, any unused funds were to go to toward the national debt.

However, the “Illustrious Leader” now wants to do what all good politicians do when they think they have a little more cash in the till – they spend it.

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There seems to be no effort by the current administration or those in congress for that matter to do anything about the falling dollar. In fact they seem hell-bent on accelerating the free fall.

And that makes perfect sense if their plan is to continue to devalue the U.S. Dollar to a point where those who own the debt – us and the Chinese – are paid back with worthless currency.

Not a bad plan if it worked. However, it won’t.

With a depreciating currency comes higher inflation. No, we haven’t seen much of that – YET. But it will happen.

If you think it’s hard to pay the bills, now, just wait. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

FOREX UPDATE: In a touch of irony, I’m actually long the dollar against the Swiss Franc. But I expect this to be a short-lived trade. I’ll wait, though, before the signal to move out and reverse.

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Tags: Dollar, Obama, TARP
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German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, was wrong about a lot of things..
Monday, December 7th, 2009

..but he was spot on when he wrote, “what doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger.”

After participating in more than 30 marathons, two 50-mile trail races, and two Ironman distance triathlons , you’d think that I would be able to remember the pain and fatigue involved – especially in the later stages of those races. And I do.

However, the only pain I still “feel” is that of dropping out of the run portion of the my second Ironman.

I don’t still “feel” the pain of dropping out of my second 50-mile Ice Age Trail race. I was recovering from a bad cold and, at 50K, felt like I was going to pass out. Dropping out was the smart thing to do.

Likewise, I don’t “feel” bad about dropping out of the 2001 Grandma’s Marathon at mile 20. A sharp pain in my upper leg told me that something was seriously wrong and that going any further would risk more serious damage. I was right. A few weeks later, the doctor diagnosed a stress fracture in my upper femur and that, if it had been worse, he would have had to put in pins.

But I shouldn’t have quit with only 16 miles left in the 2005 Ironman Wisconsin. Yes, the heat index was in the low 100’s. Yes, many of my friends were dropping out and ending up in the medical tent. Yes, they had the highest drop out rate of any IM race at the time. And these were factors which played on my mind and told me that it was ok to quit at the time. But it wasn’t ok. Because it’s never ok to quit just because everyone else does.

It’s obvious that too many people don’t hold to this philosophy. I’m amazed at the number of people who quit whenever things “get uncomfortable” or if they don’t see immediate success. Whether it be a marriage, a business, a job, school or you name it, success is usually only found after experiencing the set-backs, disappointments, struggles and, sometimes, even pain – and then working through them.

Is it ok to take breaks? Yes. Is it ok to slow down? Yes. Doing either is not only acceptable but, in many cases, it’s the wise and prudent thing to do. But it’s not ok to quit.

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Tags: Nietsche, quit
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I’m really enjoying Sean Walsh’s blog posts…
Saturday, December 5th, 2009

at www.illusionsandrealities.com . In his recent post, he points out that every adult, at some point, will come down with what he calls “jobitis – a condition that strikes every adult at some point in his or her life.”

As Sean points out, this usually happens in your mid-thirties. No matter how much you lie to yourself and others that you love your job, you know it’s not true.

I’ve loved every job that I’ve ever held – for maybe a year or two. After that point, monotony sets in. I begin to realize that I’m not living my life. I’m living the life that the employer or job has defined for me.

It made sense to expect to spend your working life in one career and maybe with one employer. Now here’s the NEWS FLASH: Those days disappeared 30 years ago!

Americans have been slow to figure this out. Our public education system still hasn’t.

But only so much blame can be blamed on the education system. After all, most of us graduate high school at 18 and college before we’re 25. After that, we’re responsible for our own education.

And some of us do recognize that we always need to be learning and getting re-educated. The problem here, though, is what most of us choose to get re-educated in. Most of us choose to get re-educated to get another, albeit different, JOB!

What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over, again, but expecting different results.

There are tons of books, blogs, websites, etc. that discuss how to develop incomes outside of being an “employee” that don’t involve much in the way of risk. Push away your skepticism and start looking at a few. (A good place to start is Sean’s book “Financial Illusions and the Realities of Money.”)

I’m always looking for ways to prevent my and wife’s future from being dependent on the whims of an employer. You should be too.

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Tags: Sean Walsh
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

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