Avoidance Vs. Confronting
The Investment That Never Crashes
How to Build a Cash Reserve
A Powerful Success Techique
Avoidance Vs. Confronting
What do you avoid? What projects never get done? What situations do you hate?

Managers and business owners who avoid computers are less efficient, less informed and work harder than those who take the time to learn and use this incredible tool. Managers who avoid staff confrontations have problems with staff. Business owners who avoid asking their customers what they want fail to produce useful products and services.

Parents who avoid their children's problems end up raising juvenile delinquents. Spouses who avoid discussing their marriage problems get in arguments or worse.

Anyone who avoids working ends up stressed out, unhappy and broke.

"The person who studiously avoids work usually works far longer and far harder than the man who pleasantly confronts it and does it." - L. Ron Hubbard

Let's say you have a stack of paperwork to do. Instead of simply taking a few hours and doing the work, you avoid it for a few weeks. The stack increases and now includes requests wondering about the delayed paperwork. A two-hour project becomes a ten-hour problem.

Avoidance never works. If you avoid discussions about money, you end up with more money problems. If you avoid telling people how you really feel, you become lonely. If you hate change, you miss opportunities.

If you want to feel powerful and in control, list out what you should be doing. Make a complete list.

Next, decide which item is the hardest, the most difficult to do. Which job do you hate the most?

Now, go confront it and do it as soon as possible! Better yet, PLEASANTLY confront it and do it.

Force yourself. Ignore those excuses. Make it your highest priority. Do not stop until it is done.

As a result, you will discover two facts: The project itself is not that hard to do and, because you got the most difficult action out of the way, everything else you need to do will be easier.

This may seem like a brutal way to create improvement, but it is fast and guaranteed to work.

To create a better tomorrow, pleasantly blast through your most difficult, most challenging problems today.
The Investment That Never Crashes
People who inherit money, win the lottery or accidentally become wealthy certainly enjoy their money. But they also get obsessed about keeping their money. Once the money is gone, it's gone. The stress can be deadly. Fortunately, you don't need this type of stress.

You might think your most valuable asset is your home, business, possessions or savings, but they are not. Unlike many people, you can lose everything you own and still prosper. You own a golden goose.

Conditions of Success

"The conditions of success are few and easily stated.

"The ability to hold a job depends, in the main, upon ability.

"One's intelligence is directly related to his ability. There is no such thing as being too smart. But there is such a thing as being too stupid." -- L. Ron Hubbard from the book The Problems of Work

Your ability to hold a job, to produce a valuable product or service, is your greatest asset. Your personal skill is your golden goose.

Because of your skills, the stock market can crash and burn. All your assets can be lost or stolen. You can even wake up broke in a strange city and you'll still be fine. All you do is start producing.

Thanks to Aesop's fable about the golden goose, you would never think of cutting open a goose if it started to lay golden eggs. You would take special care of that goose. You would get it the best goose feed, the most comfortable goose nests and the nicest goose ponds that money could buy.

Because your skills and abilities are your greatest asset, investing in your future is easy.

The Best Investment in the World

Professional investors are constantly searching for investments with three qualities:

1. The investment must be safe and secure.

2. It must produce extraordinary growth and income.

3. Opportunities to buy the investment must be everywhere.

Your best investment fits all three qualities.

1. No one can ruin your skills and abilities. Some idiot might try to kill your goose with criticism, attacks or back stabbing. Yet once you bounce back, your skills start to produce again. They cannot disappear.

2. The potential income from your golden goose is astonishing. For example, consider your education costs as an investment. Without your education, how much money would you earn per year?

For example, a dentist spends $90,000 on education and then earns $180,000 per year. He or she earns twice the education cost every year. How many stocks can do that?

As another example, say you learn a new sales technique. You pay $5,000 for the classes and travel costs. You come back to your business and increase your sales by just $1,000 per month. Your $12,000 annual return is 240%. Compare that to real estate investments!

You might complain that you only got one good idea from a $199 management seminar. But if that one idea improves your bottom line by just $33 per month, your yearly return is 50%. And it pays off year after year for the rest of your life. You only need a small improvement to get an excellent long-term return.

3. Skill-enhancement opportunities are all around you. Professional investors spend most of their time looking for golden geese. They are happy if just 60% of their investments make money.

You can add a specialty, improve a current skill or learn a new technique. You can improve your people skills, computer skills, finance control skills, staff management skills and so on. Seminars, books, consulting programs and more are everywhere. Because you get some improvement from each opportunity, you have lots of upside potential with no real risk.

The safest, most profitable investment decision you'll ever make is to invest in you.

For more information on developing your work skills, buy and read The Problems of Work. $33 plus shipping. Check it out at www.tipsforsuccess.org/problems-of-work.htm.
How to Build a Cash Reserve
What is your net worth? If you had an emergency or wanted to make a major purchase, how much cash could you raise?

If you can save money, your chances of succeeding in the future are much greater.

A cash surplus has many advantages. For example:

You can negotiate better purchases if you do not need to borrow

Emergencies are less stressful when you have plenty of cash

You can help the people you love with their emergencies

You do not feel trapped by your job if you have enough savings to live on for a few years

You have the option of getting into activities you enjoy

You have more choices of where to live

You feel more secure

For most people, saving money is very difficult. Your immediate need is more stressful than your future need. You do not have enough to cover current bills. You like to enjoy your money now.

Even if you manage to save some money, you end up spending it. You have an emergency. You find something you really want to buy. You promise yourself you'll pay it back, but you never do.

Saving money takes more self-discipline than most people have. It is very difficult to put money aside each month into savings.

The Key to Saving a Surplus of Cash

"When a surplus is made part of the 'need' by disguised outgo, a surplus occurs. Only then will it occur. It will not happen otherwise." - L. Ron Hubbard

You make it into a bill. You disguise a savings plan as a bill.

For example, you buy a house with a mortgage. A small part of your house payment goes toward the purchase and is "saved" in the real estate. Unfortunately, a large part of your house payment is interest.

Another example is to arrange a monthly debit from your checking account into a saving account. Any bank can set up a savings plan for you.

Certain credit card programs allow you to make monthly payments into an investment account, such as savings accounts with banks or insurance companies. The amount you authorize is automatically charged to your credit card each month.

You can sign up for your company's payroll savings plan or retirement plan. You tell your employer how much to save for you. Your savings is withheld just like your tax payments.

You can pay money toward a future purchase by making an agreement with the group you want to buy from. For example, some colleges allow you to freeze the tuition if you make monthly payments.

Summary

Find one or more ways to disguise a savings plan into a bill or debt. By making the monthly payment to this "bill," you build up your savings and your future prosperity.
A Powerful Success Technique
Your ability to learn determines your success. If you can easily learn new subjects and master new skills, your opportunities expand significantly.

L. Ron Hubbard discovered several reasons people have a hard time learning. Instead of placing the blame on teachers, society or the lack of education funds, his solutions revolve around study habits.

The most important habit is to use a dictionary.

The Misunderstood Word

This study technique involves the most important study habit you can form. This one habit will allow you to successfully learn any subject, no matter how advanced.

To use this tool, you will need a dictionary. If you do not own one, you must buy one.

The best dictionary uses simple, easy-to-understand words in the definitions. It's also helpful if the dictionary shows you the roots (derivations) of words.

Get out your dictionary and look at a few definitions. Are they easy for you to understand? Do they use simple words in the definitions?

If not, consider buying a simpler dictionary, such as a student or intermediate-level dictionary. If your dictionary is too simple, and does not give you derivations, get a more advanced dictionary.

Here is an explanation of this powerful study technique:
"The only reason a person gives up a study or becomes confused or unable to learn is because he or she has gone past a word that was not understood.

"The confusion or inability to grasp or learn comes AFTER a word that the person did not have defined and understood.

"Have you ever had the experience of coming to the end of a page and realizing you didn't know what you had read? Well, somewhere earlier on that page you went past a word you had no definition for or an incorrect definition for.

"Here's an example. 'It was found that when the crepuscule arrived the children were quieter and when it was not present, they were much livelier.' You see what happens. You think you don't understand the whole idea, but the inability to understand came entirely from the one word you could not define, crepuscule, which means twilight or darkness. (Note: Read the crepuscule sentence again now that you understand the word.)

"It may not only be the new and unusual words that you will have to look up. Some commonly used words can often be misdefined and so cause confusion.

"This datum about not going past an undefined word is the most important fact in the whole subject of study. Every subject you have taken up and abandoned had its words which you failed to get defined.

"Therefore, in studying be very, very certain you never go past a word you do not fully understand. If the material becomes confusing or you can't seem to grasp it, there will be a word just earlier that you have not understood. Don't go any further, but go back to BEFORE you got into trouble, find the misunderstood word and get it defined." -- L. Ron Hubbard
Which areas in life do people avoid? Government, taxes, investments, law, medicine, electronics, high tech and so on.

Which areas have the most difficult words? Government, taxes, investments, law, medicine, electronics, high tech and so on.

When people cannot understand the words, they hate the subject. When people understand all the words in a subject, they can master the subject.

For example, if you wanted to learn about forming corporations, you could master the subject on your own. First, you would go to the library and check out several books on forming corporations. You would then go home with a good dictionary and slowly read the first page of the first book. You would use your dictionary to clear up every word that you weren't sure about. You would probably start with the word "corporation." (Do you know what "corporation" really means? Look it up!)

Knowing where words come from (the derivations) also increases your understanding ("corporation" and "corpse" both come from the Latin word "corpus" meaning "body.")

If you had this study skill while reading your first book on corporations, you would never go past a sentence that didn't make sense. Never! You would look up the definition of every confusing word. If the sentence still didn't make sense, you would look up other words. You would not skip the sentence until it was perfectly clear to you. As long as you were using the proper definitions for the words, the sentence would then make sense.

Learning about corporations might take a few days, but by the time you finished the first book, you would have a good understanding of corporations. By the time you finished the fifth book, you would know more about forming corporations than 99% of the population.

You could then form a complex corporation. Instead of paying an attorney $2500 to form it for you, you would pay an attorney $200 to check over your work.

Imagine what you could do if you understood all the words in a subject. You could read a book or manual and do anything!

You could build a web site, repair a car engine, prepare your own tax return, operate a bulldozer, understand diseases, do legal work and handle investments more easily.

Understanding the correct definition of every word in a sentence guarantees you correctly understand the sentence. Understanding every sentence you hear or read opens the door to mastering any topic.

So get out your dictionary and use it!

Your success depends on it.
For more information about L. Ron Hubbard's study technology, visit Applied Scholastics' website: www.able.org/applied.html
Copyright © 2003 TipsForSuccess.org. All rights reserved. Grateful acknowledgment is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard. Programmed in the United States.