Earlier this week I had a brief break from ‘boring mundane task #1’ and ‘boring mundane task #2.’ During this time I had to accomplish absolutely as much as possible in this amount of time as I could.

One quick note, when I say boring mundane task, I am referring to something that is obligated to be done, but won’t increase your wealth.

As BMT1 wrapped up, I immediately went to work attempting to get one step closer to my dreams. In this case, it was two important phone calls and tweaking some code. Both of the phone issues still need a follow-up, but the other item on the list is good forever.

Of course every time that I get a break it doesn’t end up as productive as this one, and hopefully I can have more such as this one in the future. Life takes planning, and there is an element of strategy involved as well. So when your 15 minutes comes around be ready for it. Have your time planned out and go accomplish things!

For those of you who read my article last week regarding my fall-out with my friend in Virginia, I am back to report that I spent my time off visiting a close friend in North Carolina. My friend Carrie lives in the “sticks,” about an hour’s drive from the Outer Banks, and her family confirmed my belief that people who are least able to afford life’s luxuries are also the most insistent on making their guests comfortable and meeting their every need. The principle of creating a hospitality savings account (see my earlier article) seems to apply to the majority of true Southerners, especially those who work hard for what they have and take pride in being able to share their modest, but well earned comforts with guests. Carrie’s mother told me that from the time she was a child, she was taught to make every guest feel like a “queen” even though her family was barely able to scrape by. For these people, hospitality is one of their greatest virtues.

Carrie’s family lives in the poorest county in North Carolina with the state’s (and for that matter, the nation’s) lowest ranked public school system. In order to offer their three children a chance at a better life, Carrie’s parents denied themselves luxuries many of us take for granted so that they could send Carrie, her brother and sister to parochial high schools and then to college. I was amazed at this family’s commitment to education, a commitment that on one level is even stronger than in the greater Boston community in which I grew up where 95% of the kids in our public high school matriculate at four year colleges. I was not considered successful for going to college- it was simply expected and to do otherwise was unthinkable. I would have only been a topic of cocktail gossip if I had gone to Harvard, and even Harvard is considered “normal” around here. Yet, for families like Carrie’s, getting into any college is a major achievement and their dedication to education is so pervasive because they can’t afford to feel otherwise. They have seen the alternative first hand, while the people I grew up around were hardly aware that most Americans were living a different reality.

It seems to me that the working poor and working classes are more conscious of the value of money than any other socioeconomic group. They put in long hours to earn their small paycheck. Consequently, they value every dollar much more than a single mother on welfare whose monthly government check reflects tax payer’s dollars and not her own labor. Carrie’s father works at a paper mill and while I was down there this week, he was working the night shift every day so I barely got to talk to him. However, he asked me to let him know if there was anything he could do to make my visit pleasant. The working poor may not know the ins and outs of CDs, 401Ks, and IRAs, but they do know how to use a savings account and they put money away for things that have lasting value like education and a comfortable, welcoming home as opposed to saving up for an Ann Taylor suit as I did once in high school. If I had grown up like Carrie, there wouldn’t have been any Ann Taylors within a 100 mile radius and I probably would have been using my earnings at McDonalds to help pay for my private school tuition if that opportunity was within my reach.

So the next time you lament about not being able to afford a new car or a bigger house, think about families like Carrie’s who are struggling to afford their mortgage and the rising cost of gas. When I offered to pay them back for the cost of the gas to and from the airport, her mother said “don’t be silly. You are our guest.”

This week I had an emotional fallout with a friend I had planned to visit over something as simple as the following:
she wanted me to pay for my own groceries and half of her gas while I was at her house and I thought that was too much to expect of a guest. In fact, I thought it was downright rude. She in turn, thought I expected too much of her as a host. The end result is that we are no longer on speaking terms, but the cause of this altercation was so basic and avoidable had I been in an Aridni mindset when I talked with her: it all boiled down to money.

I was raised in a family where knowing how to be a host was essential to the success of my father’s business. When I was growing up, we regularly had visitors from other countries stay at our house and we wined/dined them, took them to see tourist sites in Boston and did everything possible to make their stay comfortable. Had I not been hospitable towards these guests, it would have hurt our family’s solvency and my father’s reputation. More importantly, as my mother always emphasized, it is important to treat your guests the same way you would want to be treated if you were in their home. It all boiled down to respect. Now, if I am visiting a casual friend, I don’t necessarily expect them to buy me caviar, but I do expect that since I am the one paying for the plane ticket, they will cover some of the other expenses of my visit.

Now, my ex-friend in Virginia has different financial expectations. As she put it, “friends don’t pay for friends… No one owes you anything and if kindness is given, it should be appreciated but not expected.”

I don’t see paying for groceries to be a financial trade- I see it as hospitality, a kindness that is reasonable to expect if you are visiting someone. If I want something special that she doesn’t have, then yes it makes sense for me to buy it myself, but should I have to pay her back for half the spaghetti and meatballs we consumed? What if I get seconds and she doesn’t?

Now, after my friend had explained that she is very poor and sometimes can’t even afford her own food, I completely changed my expectations to accomodate the new information. Our similar, yet contrasting backgrounds could provide a clue as to the discrepancies in our financial expectations of eachother as host and guest. We were both brought up in well-to-do families, but her parents never spent any of their wealth on her–my ex-friend always had to fend for herself. My parents on the other hand, made sure I was never wanting for anything and at the same time, impressed upon me the importance of giving to others who were less fortunate.

The result? My friend thinks that everyone should fend for themselves and I believe in the phrase “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” She says she is too proud to accept “handouts” from people (i.e. a host paying for her groceries) while as a host I would be embarrased to charge my guests for their food. Who’s right?

If the tables were reversed and I was the host, I would most likely not extend an invitation for someone to stay at my house for a week if I did not have the means to be a hospitable host. However, if my budget was really tight and I was close to the person, I might say something like “I really would like for you to visit, but I just want you to know ahead of time that I can’t afford food for two.” That is very different than what my ex-friend said which was “you have to pay for your own food. Every last bit of it.” In fact, as I told her, if she visited me and I was living on my own on a budget, I would pay for her food even if it meant that I had to save up for it because those are the expectations I have of MYSELF as a host. But was it right for me to impose my expectations of myself on her?

The bottom line here is whether it was reasonable for me to place my own financial expectations on my ex-friend and vice versa. Were my expectations of her too high? She certainly thought so; I beg to differ.

What’s really sad is that we were very close friends, but because our financial expectations of eachother were so different, we both percieved eachother as being rude and unreasonable.

My advice: If you are living on a budget, next time you go to the bank, make sure you open a “hospitality” savings account so you can be prepared the next time you have a house guest. Either that or don’t ask for company.

It is quite possible that somebody has their eye on you now. Who exactly are they? And what exactly are they watching for? They are waiting for you to mess up.

Before you run off to pick up a tinfoil hat or label me as a conspiracy theorist, hear me out.

For the purpose of this post, ‘they’ are not necessarily people who would benefit from your business or your reputation going through rough times. This is all about managing your image really and the need to actively work to improve it.

Take for example Rockefeller. He was not a bad person; however by not controlling his image, he was not well liked. Anyone who makes massive amounts of money is easily targeted by those not as fortunate and Rockefeller was certainly no exception.

It took him years of philanthropic work to recoup the ground he had lost from the public’s eye. When he died in 1937, he had spent almost 40 years of his life trying to regain his image.

(Continue reading this article…)

Surrounded by my family for the past week, I have witnessed their immediate acceptance to my husband because of one thing… he made people feel important. People love to share their accomplishments, praise their passions, and most importantly, have someone take note of them.

Success in any avenue of life can come this way. Network with these people. My uncle Bill is obsessed with sailing; my husband asked him about sailing. My aunt Jan is paranoid about property issues around her land; we own land next to her—my husband talked about that. On and on until my husband had conversations with gobs of my family on topics he probably didn’t even care about. Sure they didn’t learn much about him at all. Yet the way into a person’s heart isn’t to boast about yourself. If you want to get with the big guys, talk about what the big guys love to talk about. The big guys in my family seem to love my husband!

Bottom line: make people feel important.

There is a story in my family about 20-25 years ago when my dad was in Toastmasters and was going to give a speech at the next meeting. He had two weeks to prepare but struggled very bad and couldn’t come up with anything at all.

He had collected data and done some research, but he was still having problems constructing the actual speech. With one week left he went to visit his parents for some advice on the speech. They gave him some pointers and helped to put his mind to ease, but ultimately he was still hitting a roadblock.

When the day came for the speech after a restless night (it probably didn’t help that baby Katie was crying the whole night through!), my dad woke up and thought well the speeches are voluntarily done so I’ll just skip this meeting and give the speech in two more weeks.

With the pressure off of my dad he quickly fell asleep. It didn’t last long though, because the phone began ringing. When answered, this is all that was said.

“Hi Tom. Are you coming to give your speech? Your parents are here to listen to it.”

With that my dad jumped out of bed and was off to give his speech that he had worked so hard on, but had nothing prepared for.

My dad planned out his entire speech in the 10 minute car ride to the meeting. When he got there the first speech was just finishing and he was next up.

He went up to the podium and began; there was no turning back now! So my dad went into overdrive, pouring more than 100% into his presentation.

Then it was finished. And the audience loved it. His parents loved it. His fellow members loved it. And even the Toastmaster heads loved it.

So I ask you now, If you had 10 minutes to piece together your speech, could you do it?