Today I will like to share with you 3 tips for saving money.

Let me be honest with you. I am sure that you are just like me at times when it comes to your money. You work in a job, you make money and then at the end of the month you wonder where all the money went. Can you relate to this? So do I!!!

It is very important that we begin to save money because if we don’t have a plan in place for this we will tend to feel guilty after the end of each month because we don’t know where our money went or what we should have done with our money. It is also important to get this handled because sometimes we may encounter emergencies and if we do not have money during those times we could find ourselves in really serious situations e.g. our children can die because we chose to spend all our money on entertainment and we didn’t plan for sickness.

So you do know that money is important and without money we cannot do much because everything we want and need requires some form of money.

Here are 3 tips for saving money.

1. Learn to live on only 70% of your net income – I know that you are thinking that is hard but believe me it is possible for you to live on only 70% of your net income.

2. What to do with the other 30%? – Here is what you are going to do. The first 10% you are going to give it away to help people. For me I give the first 10% to a church. You may decide to give it to charity. Make sure and give it away. The 2nd 10% you should use it for savings/investing. Put it in a place where it can yield you a good return in a few years. The 3rd 10% you should use it to buy something and sell it for a profit. Get into the entrepreneur spirit and learn to feel what it is like to have a small part time business.

3. Keep track of where your money is going – Get a journal or make a simple excel spreadsheet and start writing down where the money is going. This way you will know what to do the following month to ensure that your money is being used wisely and not wastefully.

I encourage you to try this simple principle for at least 1 month and see what happens. Commit this month to write down everytime you buy something and how much you paid for it and then review this at the end of the month. This simple technique will work wonders for you.

I appreciate your feedback on this topic and a good book that is recommended by all financial experts on this topic is The Richest Man in Babylon. Talk to you soon.

3 Tips for Saving Money is a post from: Brian's Motivational Blog

In this video one of my mentors Alex Mandossian talks about learning stuff when you are in your car. University on wheels…..I am sure you will enjoy this as most of us young adults are constantly driving all over the place

Click here to view the embedded video.

How to leverage your learning is a post from: Brian's Motivational Blog

As young adults we all tend to whine and complain a lot. Listen to this poem I heard from Og Mandino. It will change how you think about whining and complaining…

Today upon a bus I saw a lovely girl with golden hair. I envied her – she seemed so gay – and wished I were as fair. But suddenly she rose to leave. I saw her hobble down the isle, she had only one leg and wore a crutch, but as she passed, a smile…

Oh, God forgive me when I whine,

I have two legs, the world is mine.

I stopped to buy some candy. The lad who sold them had such charm. I
stopped to talk to him, he seemed so glad – if I was late could do
no harm. As I left he said to me, “I thank-you, you had been so
kind. It’s nice to talk to folks like you, you see,” he said, “I am
blind.”
Oh, God forgive me when I whine,

I have two eyes, the world is mine.

Later while walking down the street, I saw a child with eyes of
blue. He stood and watched the others play, he did not know what to
do. I stopped a moment and said, “Why don’t you join the others,
dear?” He looked ahead without a word and then I knew, he couldn’t
hear.
Oh, God forgive me when I whine,

I have two ears, the world is mine.

With feet to take me where I go, with eyes to see the sun-set glow,
with ears to hear what I would know.
Oh, God forgive me when I whine,

I am blessed indeed, the world is mine!

God forgive me when I whine is a post from: Brian's Motivational Blog

Let’s face it. We all have stress some times in our lives. As a young adult we have stress when it comes to our peers, our jobs, our looks, our money and lots of other things. It is vital that we handle the stress in our lives because too much stress can cause us to have a decline in our productivity and most importantly it can cause our health to deteriorate and worst case scenario is we can die due to stress.

In this article you will learn 3 simple tips to reduce stress in your life.

1. Get enough sleep- This is vital. You must get enough sleep each and every night. You should be getting at least 8 hours of sleep each night. If you aren’t getting 8 hours of sleep your whole day will be filled with stress as you will have problems concentrating throughout the day and you will feel irritate. Avoid caffeine and sweet stuff when it is close to night time as this affects your sleep.
2. Plan your day in advance- Before you go to sleep at night you should plan all the things you need to do the day before. Think of everything you need to do and write it down and carry it with you to school or work the next day so that you don’t find yourself in the middle of a meeting only to remember that your wife or girlfriend needs you to drop them to a certain place at a certain time and you will be forced to cancel on them. This does not look good on you.
3. Laughter- Laughter is another great way to reduce stress in your life. Most people are too uneasy and take things to seriously that they forget how to laugh and have fun in life. Go into a dvd store and rent a nice comedy every week and learn to laugh when you are feeling stressed. Get a good joke book to read as well. It is said that 1 minute of laughter is equal to 15 minutes of workout so learn to laugh.

So there you have it. 3 Simple steps to reduce stress in your life.

What you need to do right now is just choose 1 of those tips I gave you and after applying it, tell me how you felt after putting it into action. I can bet you that you will feel a significant reduction in the amount of stress in your life.

So stop allowing stress to take over your life. Use these 3 simple tips to reduce stress and let it do wonders in your life.

3 Simple Tips for reducing stress that can work wonders in your life is a post from: Brian's Motivational Blog

As young adults, we all want to be free. I am sure you can relate to that. I hate having to go to work for 8 hours and get 1 hour lunch and then hardly have enough time to do what I want to do when I get home. I want to be free. We all want freedom to do what we really would like to do.

So what is your definition of freedom? Think about that for a second. Some say freedom is doing what you want to do, when you want to do it, with who you want to do it with.

What is your definition of freedom? Here is an article by an unknown author that I am sure you can relate to.

In the United States of America lies a large industrial city which is the site of one of the world’s largest slave labor camps.

Located in and around the center of this city are community settlements where the slaves live.

Each morning the slaves move herd-like from their quarters into the slave labor camps.

Each one is at his or her station by 7:30 AM. Here they report to their master for the day’s duties. And here they remain chained until 5:00 PM when they’re released to go home.

The slaves have no choice as to how many hours they must labor. Sometimes they are required to work overtime until their master tells them they may leave and go home.

Each year the slaves are told when to take their vacations, for how long, and when they must return.

They have little choice as to how much money they earn as they are paid not what they are worth, but what the job is worth.

They are allowed very little time for lunch and coffee breaks during the labor hours.

The slaves will remain in their chains in great fear because the master can punish them with the “firing” or “layoff” whip.

It is said that even some of the older slaves who have been good and faithful have felt the sting of the whip.

Day by day, year-by-year, the slaves toil and grow older until the master decides it is time to release them to the retirement camps where they’re forced to sit idle and wait for death.

It’s a well-known fact that the old slaves who try to keep working are sometimes whipped with a “stop-their-pension” whip.

I know these slave camps exist for I once was a slave.

But now I am a free man who lives among the slaves.

The reason I am free is because I am in business for myself as a Network Marketer.

Yes, I am truly free. I arise in the morning at the hour called for by my schedule.

I decide my own hours. I can even sleep in late while the slaves are at work.

I can vacation when, where, and for how long I please.

I’m free to take my coffee break and lunch when I decide.

And of course, I can decide my own paycheck because I am not a slave.

I can choose to work when and where I please and with whom I please.

I’m free to stay in the city for as long as I want, or to move on to greener pastures if I decide to.

I’ve seen many slaves sadly pack their belongings to leave their city in search of a new master, but it is always the same.

There is, however, a ray of hope for the slave.

He or she can buy their own freedom.

The cost is not high, yet it seems high to those who do not have the courage to pay the price.

What is the price?

ONE MUST BE WILLING TO BE ONE’S OWN MASTER!

Now this is a great definition of freedom

What is your definition of freedom? is a post from: Brian's Motivational Blog

Hi there people. How are you all today. Today I want to share with you a very strange but effective method of goal setting that I have learnt and it is from a guy named Raymond Aaron who seems to really know his stuff and he shares a method that I have never heard from any other success coach out there in the history of personal development and it is the MTO way of setting goals.

So I am sure you are wondering what the MTO stands for and it stands for Minimum, Target and Outrageous.

So what he suggests is that you have a monthly goal and you divide it up into these 3 categories.

1. Minimum means that this is the least you can do right now based on your past experience on a goal.
2. Target means its a bit over minimum but it is still a stretch
3. Outrageous means that you do not think you may be able to do it over the month

Here is an example to help you understand the concept better.

Right now I recently bought a mac and it has this really cool program called Imovie to make videos and edit them professionally so I want to learn how to use the program so that is my goal. Using the method I mentioned before

M- Go to lynda.com and get Imovie tutorial.

T- Watch 5 videos teaching me how to use the program

O- Watch all videos and make a video for a friend demonstrating how good I am in Imovie.

Now if you notice from the above example, the M is something that is very easy to do and you should achieve it. The T was a little bit of a stretch but it is doable. The O is the hardest of them all and may require you to do a lot more work.

The purpose of this exercise is for you to be able to at least get your Minimum met each month and that may motivate you to even go after the Target. If you are really zealous you may achieve the Outrageous.

The good thing about this method is that it allows you to make some progress over the month rather than being like most people who never even take 1 step forward to the achievement of their goal.

This is an excellent way to start writing your goals now and begin to work on the minimum each month and celebrating your small victories which will one day add up to a lot of success in your life.

A strange but effective method of goal setting is a post from: Brian's Motivational Blog

Today’s post is a very sad one for me to write today but I must write it and try to glean the lessons we can all learn about the brevity of life.

Early this morning I got a call from my cousin telling me that one of my past friends from our village was killed. It was very shocking. He was a young man with a young kid and was the chief breadwinner in his family. I won’t go into too much details as to how it happened for the sake of the family involved.

The main point I want to drive home to you all is that life is short. It is very brief and we have to ready to accept the fact that one day we will not be around in this planet any longer and we need to cherish life each and every day.

Life is one of the greatest blessings that we have and we are not to take it for granted. One day you will leave this earth and I hope that people will be able to speak highly about you. This young man taught me how to play the drums in church and I’ve been playing longer than him but I still am not as good as him.

We need to be careful of how we live our lives right now because what we do each day tends to affect our entire future. I want us to be careful of who we choose to be our friends because our friends have the capability to lead us down the wrong path and can put us into seriously dangerous circumstances like in the movie Taken.

We need to realise that life is a gift from God and we can either use it or abuse it. Some of you may have some friends who died at an early age. I’m not here to force my belief on anyone but I’ll just share that I believe that depending on how we live our life now will depend whether we see heaven or not.

Here’s what I want you to do.

1. Value life each day by making the most of each day
2. Spend time and think about what you want people to say about you when you are gone
3. Spend time and think about what happens to you after death and decide what you will do with that knowledge.

Realise that life is brief and live it to the full!!

Dealing with the brevity of Life. is a post from: Brian's Motivational Blog

Hello there. Today I will like to share with you briefly on why many people never achieve their goals. The reason is because they have not found their why.

This is a concept I learnt from John Di Lemme and it is very important that you find your why!!!

Now what do I mean by finding your why? There is a saying that says he who has a strong why can bare almost any how!!!

What I am trying to say is that the reason why most people never achieve their goals is because they don’t have enough reasons as to why they need to achieve their goals. That is their why!!! If we have enough reasons why we want to achieve it and they are strong we will go after the things we want without worrying about failure.

How many times have you started something and stopped when you met the first sign of failure. It was because you did not have a strong enough why. If you focus on the process you will be discouraged but if you focus on the benefits you will be able to achieve your goals.

The people who achieve greatly are those who focus on the ‘why’ and not on the ‘how’.

Here is your homework for today.

1. Make a list of everything you want to achieve.

2. Write all the reasons why you want to achieve those things.

3. Take a look at the reasons why everyday especially when you feel like giving up.

This exercise will help you decide whether something is worth pursuing or not. Many times you will realise that you are going after things that you don’t really care too much about and you shouldn’t waste your time on those things.

If you look at this couple you can see how excited they are. They found their why. They even make the shape of a Y as well. Their why must have been to have a great relationship together and they are having that right now by the beach.

Go after the things that you have a strong why for. This is one of the great benefits of finding your why!!!

Let me know what you think of this post!!!

Have you found your why? is a post from: Brian's Motivational Blog

Hi there. Today I will like to talk on the greatest power that everyone possesses right now. If you can truly grasp the meaning of this concept your life will be totally transformed and you can achieve and become almost anything you want to become.

Now what can be this power that everyone possess? Is there really such a power? I assure you that there is such a power. I don’t care if you are fat, thin, black, white, smart, dumb, deaf etc. Every human being possesses this power.

Ok I know that right now you are probably very curious as to what I mean. With this power you can be the smartest person on the earth or not, you can be the wealthiest person on the earth or not. You can be the happiest person on the earth or not.

Ok, enough Brian what is this power you are talking about!!!

The greatest power that every human possesses is the POWER OF CHOICE!!!

Yes, that’s right. All of us have the ability to choose to do something or not do something. If someone insults us we have the power to choose to be angry at them or not to be angry at them. IF we are hungry we have the power to choose to eat something or not to eat something.

If we want to live a healthy life we can choose to eat properly or not eat properly. If we aren’t living the life we want to live right now, we have the power to choose right now to take steps to make out life better whether it be by attending a gym, reading a book, taking a class, talking to someone close to us….

Oh we have such a tremendous power in our hands that we take for granted. If we as humans can really grasp this simple concept that our life is really a product of the choices we have made, we will choose to make different choices right now…

This is the greatest power that every human being possesses and that is the power to choose.

So here’s what I want you to do right now.

1. Think about some areas in your life right now that aren’t where you want it to be.

2. Now list the choices that you have made in that area. It will usually be bad choices

3. Now right down what you can choose to do in those areas to make it better.

4. Then start doing those things

Remember that right now you can choose to do this exercise or not. You can choose to become a better person or not because at the end of the day the greatest power that a human being possesses is the power of choice!!!

The greatest power that every human possesses is a post from: Brian's Motivational Blog

Okay well I know everyone is a fan of Will Smith. Here he gives some great advice on achieving greatness and being all you can be….

Click here to view the embedded video.

Get Motivated by Will Smith is a post from: Brian's Motivational Blog