Cash Christmas

CashChristmasI just have to say as a first for me in my professional adult life this is the very first Christmas where all our Christmas gifts for friends and family were paid for 100% with cash.  No debt for this Christmas season and it feels damn good!  This is just the start of moving forward with a cash flow lifestyle where we will no longer go into debt to pay for something again.  That kind of mentality especially in today’s economy where people have 148% debt-to-income ratio doesn’t come naturally and sometimes we need a mentor in our life that can give us just a little perspective and help move us in a more positive direction.

I am so very thankful for the mentors Lindsay and I have in our lives that have helped get us back on the right track with our finances to the points we are a handful of months away from being debt free and not becoming a part of that absolutely stupid statistic above.  We were part of that statistic last year and I have the right to call myself and that statistic stupid.  I look back and we were just going nowhere fast, racking up Mr. Visa and soaking up the Line of Credit, all for what?  Just so we could look good and put on that superficial happy face that “everything’s okay” (chest puffed out).  What a joke we were back then, honestly.

For us personally I chalk it all up to World Wide Dreambuilders and the association we have with them.  Naysayers can say what they want but on paper we will be debt free and it’s because of association.  You need to watch your association in our out of this business.  Without it, you may just end up like we were with 90K in consumer debt.  FUN TIMES!

Anyway this Christmas has really been a change of pace for us and doing it in cash has to be the most liberating experience because come January when a lot of people get their credit card statements we will not have to worry to make the minimum payment because none of those purchases will be on there.  I challenge most of you out there to try and do the same as it will be a pretty amazing experience and will make your Christmas just that little bit better.

Gotta Avoid Negativity

Doing what we do we are constantly bombarded by negativity because of the mistakes, misguided and mistrusted people before us.  People are constantly stuck in the past unwilling to move forward and it’s those people that continually look backwards that will never move forward with their lives.  It’s these people that constantly drag up old stuff on the internet, old people’s experiences, and old ways things were done and like I said these people will just continue to be stuck in the past.

I really think people don’t fully understand what we do here in Alberta.  I don’t mean to put anyone else down by any means but I think what we do in Alberta is quite different then what others have done in the past and what people even do today.  You have to keep in mind that Amway Global and World Wide Group are neutral companies, it’s the PEOPLE that end up giving them a bad name.  Yes there were a lot of douchebags in the past that ended up keeping people’s bonus’s and really doing bad things, but I can tell you that’s not the way Amway Global is these days or how World Wide Dreambuilders operate.  We build business with trust, friendship, honesty but most of all integrity.  We build business a bit slower then most of North America but it’s because we invest a lot of time into people to make sure there is a right fit and that they get all the information and are ready to accept the offer to go into business.  That process could take 4-5 weeks depending on the person.  So you cannot tell me we just “sign people up” because that’s a lie.  We want high quality people who want more out of life then what the average is currently giving them. These are those 2%’ers I talk about.  This is just part of how we build business here in Alberta.

You can read a ton of negative things on what we do, but I’ll tell you what, you’ll find negative stuff about just about anything. Mother Teresa, The Pope, Obama, Canadian Tire, Any Successful Company, etc… You’ll find negative for just about anything if your looking for it.  Google is the bathroom wall of the world.  If you look you’ll also find positive,  which is one of the reasons why I decided to write this blog.

This blog is about my personal experiences with World Wide Dreambuilders and Amway Global, two companies that we choose to contract with.  Amway Global doesn’t give us the training and mentorship at all, they give us a membership and say thanks, see ya later.  World Wide Dreambuilders is a company we choose to use for training and mentorship through a business model.  The key word is we choose to.  Are we held at gun point and told to buy this tool or that tool or do this or do that? No.  LOL.  We are free people who choose to do what we think is best for our organization.  We’ve seen the people before us, the people that directly coach and mentor us and what they’ve achieved.  We’ve also see the kinds of marriages, the kinds of relationships and the kind of personal growth they’ve had and we choose to associate with that because WE LIKE WHAT WE SEE.  I love treating my wife like she is a queen, I love serving my wife and reading a book that helps me understand her love language so that I can serve her better.  Was our relationship bad before?  No, it was/is a good relationship, however I don’t want average, I don’t want just good, I want GREAT, I want an amazing relationship and I see that with every person that is coaching and mentoring us in this business.  This is just one prime example of what World Wide Dreambuilders has given us.  I would be willing to pay a hell of a lot more for what we get out of this.  An amazing marriage for one thing is priceless. 

Trust me, there is negative everywhere in life, you will always be surounded by it and you need to make a choice of what you do to deal with it.  I try to be a positive influence on the people who read this blog and the people I come in contact with. It’s something that I have to continually work at because I was one of those negative, skeptical, ignorant people out there that used to write bad things about companies and alike.  I’ve since learnt that got me nowhere and I was never moving ahead.  Now I can happily say I am moving forward in so many different ways that negativity just doesn’t phase me.  Say what you will :)

Reasons Why

Last night we had some people over for our own “Guthrie Open”.  I had a guest plugging in and most of our team was there as well.  Once the guest left our coaches asked everyone to share a little bit about why they’ve decided to build this business.  We’ve got amazing team members because they shared their hearts!

What I love is that everyone has a different reason for building this business.  It’s really what makes our team unique.  We have a team that really has seen what this business can offer and they know they will be able to achieve the goals and dreams they have.  Some people have monetary reasons for building this business and yet some people have completely different reasons such as getting around some amazing association.  They fully understand that you are the product of the people you hang around, so if you want to be successful guess what, you hang around successful people! It really isn’t rock science, it’s success principals and you can read them in a lot of different books.  So don’t take my word for it :)

I was listening to our team talk and it really just fires me up and fills me up with what they want in life.  What’s awesome is that we have the ability to help coach them through some amazing personal growth and then apply that personal growth to a business model that will allow to obtain whatever dreams and goals they have.  They all know it’s not easy but are willing to do whatever it takes to reach their goals.  They understand that price and prize correlate and some of our team members have big prizes they want. HAHA. 

I just love being able to give back to these people and invest some amazing time into them and really help them through whatever it is they need help with.  Coaching and mentoring people is quite fulfilling and before I started this business I never fully understood what it meant to really mentor someone, now I do and our team thanks us for it every time they see us.  Because we have such servant hearts we’ve attracted the same qualities in the people on our team and they will just duplicate what we’ve done and attract the same type of people.  Those 2%’ers :)

You really need to find a coach or mentor in life.  Find one that has the marriage you want, find one that has the type of relationships you want, find one that has the financial success you want and get around them.  Ask for their mentorship and coaching.  Sometimes you will need to earn it, but when you do, soak it up because it’s worth it.

So are you building a business of your own?  Do you have a reason to do more with your life?  What are your reasons?

Dreambuilding with Friends

Last night we had some amazing friends over who are building this amazing business with us and we asked them to share what their dreams and goals were and why really they are building this business.  It was pretty inspiring and you really don’t fully understand your friends or people for that matter until they open their heart and share the dreams and goals they have for life and where they want to end up. 

We also had the chance to share with them because they had asked us and when I watch my amazing wife share what she wants in life it’s pretty amazing.  She really opens up her heart and ends up getting teary because she wants it so bad.  That’s what it takes, you really need to want something bad enough that it hurts in order for it to come to fruition.

It really got me thinking again about our goals and what we want in life and I figured I’d put those things down again.  I always love writing them out because it really gets me thinking and honestly just shows you the kinds of things that will be available in what we are doing.  We know this because we’ve seen it first hand in our coaches and also their coaches and beyond.

This year we will have Lindsay retire from her job and never have to work for another man again.  She will no longer have to work for someone that tells her when she has to be in to start her day, no longer tells her when she can have lunch and really no longer has control over her paycheque.  Of course she will still work but it will be working on our future through our business. So maybe it’s semi-retired.  :)   Either way she will now be home to raise our kids when we have them and won’t need to drop them off at a dayhome or daycare.  WE will be raising our kids and instilling our values into them, not someone else.  That is goal number one for us right now and why we are spending a lot of time building our business. 

We also want to become debt free as some of my previous posts have shown and we will achieve that this year.  We are making some tough choices and really streamlining our life so that we can get the most out of it for the short term.  There will be some sacrifices however having a shot term mentality doesn’t work for us because we have HUGE long term goals and the old adage small term pain for long term gain really applies.  I know some people reading this know that for sure.

Moving on with our life we want to move out to Kelowna where we may end up renting for another year or two while we have our house built and paid for in cash.  Renting isn’t necessarily a bad thing as we will end up saving far more then what equity would be build up in our house and with how much we’d be paying down in our mortgage.  We will end up raising our kids out in Kelowna and either put them in private school or have them home schooled with a personal teacher.  Our kids will get first hand teaching instead of being in a school full of 30-40 kids where it takes 10 times longer to teach kids because the class can only go as fast as the slowest kid.  By this time I will have also walked away from my job and will be at home raising my kids as well.  Being able to take them out in the afternoon and go hiking or skiing for their physical education instead of a 60 minute class at school.  How cool is that?

Lastly family is key for us and we want to be able to spend a lot of time with our family so as we continue to grown our business we will help to retire our parents before they need to.  When you really look at what it would take to retire them you start to get a sense of, we can do that.  They don’t need to work or be on the “Work till you die program”.  We want our parents to enjoy as much time with our kids and our family as possible.  No longer will their be handcuffed to their jobs so they cannot see their grandchildren grow up. 

These are just some short term goals that we have in the next little while and as we continue to grow this business where the work we did a year ago is still paying us today, we will continue to help other people do the same as us and help them realize they too can achieve dreams and goals like this or whatever their dreams and goals are.  We fully believe this is possible and we will make it happen.

Obviously we have much more dreams and goals then this, but this is just the start for The Guthrie’s and we could not be more excited to be doing what we are doing.  We have been blessed for sure!

Fly Like an Eagle

Well Steve Miller captured it perfectly in his song “Fly Like an Eagle” which totally represents the goal we have recently achieved in our business. 

 

Yes we are “Eagles” which for 75% (EDIT: previously had 99.9% but there are quite a few of you who do understand) of you reading this will mean nothing to you.  However it means a HUGE deal to us because we’ve obtained a level in this business that only 5% of the people obtain.  We obtained it because we worked hard at something we 110% believe in.  There is nothing you can say to me that can tell us this does not work.  Oh it works alright.  We’ve seen it first hand in our direct coaches, their coaches, their coaches, and so on.  We are building an amazing team of people who want more out of life, people who are looking for coaching and mentorship.  You have no idea how amazing it is to sow into people that are so open and deserving of coaching and mentorship.  We are in the business of changing lives and we are doing that right now.  It’s very humbling.

We recently attended an organizational open for Mike and Brandie Wagner where David Payne came in to show us an amazing plan.  David spoke his heart out and really has sown so much time into Mike and Brandie and for that they’ve built an amazing Emerald business.  Without them building the business we would not be where we are.  We would not be investing time into people, helping people realize the potential they have and just helping them build amazing relationships with other people and with themselves.  We would not have the amazing marriage we have now, no it wasn’t bad before, however it’s 10x’s better now because of this business.  When you associate with people that have awesome marriages and that really serve each other as a couple, you become that.  You are the product of the books you read and the people you associate with.  I believe in that statement more then you can even know! 

We WILL achieve the huge goals and dreams we have set out because we have them written down and plastered over our condo, and we associate with like minded people.  We believe fully in what we do which is 95% investing into people by coaching and mentoring and 5% a business vehicle.

The Guthrie Train is moving on, and we have a Double Eagle vision!