The Bush Brothers

Here on January 24, my wife’s birthday, I sit with a lot of excitement.  We had dinner with some of our friends this evening and we had a really nice time.  Our children enjoyed each other’s company and our adult conversation was fun, too - albeit abbreviated because of children’s bedtime requirements.

I sat and thought how nice it was and if it hadn’t been a work night, I might have celebrated a little more.  What’s a worknight?  Is that a night where you have to get up early the next day for work?  What defines one?  Who says that working between 6am-4pm is best?  Why 5 days/week?  Why 40 hours?  Why not 6 hours, 7 days/week?  Or 12 hours 3 days/week?  Imagine if you could choose.  I say we can and I plan to.

Please don’t get me wrong.  I have a day job and I like it.  I’m good at it.  I’m not unhappy when I’m there.  Still, the irrepressible urge to “non-conform” is driving!  My family comes first.  That’s natural for most of us.  Anyway, this is not the place for philosophy.  If you want that, check out some of the other categories or just look at our recent posts from other categories and you’ll find plenty.

From here on, I’ll be reporting on progress (and, occasionally lack, thereof).

I’ve been dabbling in “free” lately.  http://freecycle.org/ is a large group of people that post items online that they do not want.  Items must be free.  Members of FreeCycle can also post when there’s something they want for free.  When an item is taken, the offeror posts as much.  It’s really quite simple.  I was unable to find anywhere in the rules that says you can’t sell that which you receive for free - you just can’t sell things on the website that offers them for free.  They also like you to offer items of your own so that you’re not just “taking.”  I can do that, right?  Well, I began “taking” things.  I now have a wooden table made of pressboard and laminate, a phone stand that wobbles more than Weebles, and four antique chairs, three of which I wouldn’t trust to hold me up.  Oh - the other thing about FreeCycle is, they don’t take too kindly to “shoppers.”  If you say you’ll take it, it’s advisable to take it.  Otherwise, I might have left most of the above upon seeing it.

My plan for all this stuff was to take it to the auction and sell it but I have a couple of reservations:  1) I think the concept of FreeCycle is sort of “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” but I don’t believe they mean “after converted to gold.”  2)  I know that I’d feel funny running into the previous owner of something that I got for free under the guise of using it myself.  I’m more likely to hand them “their” money and apologize!  That said, I’m not throwing the idea away.  I don’t think it’s immoral - just a little deceptive if you can have one without the other.  I will take my items to the auction and see if they fetch me a penny or two.

A penny saved is a penny earned - but a penny earned earns many.  I think Ben Franklin’s credited with the first part of that even though he probably took it from a Babylonian.  The second part of that is all mine

Happy earning.

Let’s agree on a period of time - I’m thinking 3 months from your acceptance, during which we seek to generate income for the purpose of satisfying our own immediate, intermediate, and long-term goals.  Yours will be different than mine because I’m looking for more income now and passive income for the future.  You’ll probably focus more heavily on the passive income immediately since you’re not hurting for money right now.

Rules:
- Partner with anyone or noone, use resources you have already or those that you generate by borrowing, earning, etc. - the point of this exercise is to improve our position, financially (and maybe to write a book)*
- All activities must be reasonably (not necessarily) sustainable and not “one time” to win the challenge.
- All activities must be ethical
- Sign a contract to participate and agree to Journal entries at least 3 times weekly with whatever you want to write about (”no activities”, successes, failures, boredom, each other, etc. are all allowable for entries)

After the challenge period ends, we collaborate on a letter to many admired authors or moguls (Kiyosaki - rich dad, Robert G. Allen - One Minute Millionaire, David Bach - finish rich, others?) and some poor dads, and other family members - especially your successful in-laws, and ask them to critique our efforts.  After three months waiting for feedback (and we can even tell our letter recipients how long we will wait for a response), we decide who won.

The prize? a trophy-like bottle of dirt. (I’ll entertain an alternative)

Make no mistake, this is a real challenge.  Barring that, what do you think of these ideas?  Ideas that popped into my head just from this email:  1) My Letter to Robert Kiyosaki book that documents the creation of this game and becomes part of the Rich Dad series - 2) a game that starts with one person like you or me sending out prefabbed invitations to participate in this game to friends, family, co-workers at investment firms [certainly people that should practice what they preach but don’t], and others.

I’m making you a no-lose offer to be my partner by not necessarily being my partner.  If you want to change, you can’t reject this offer.  You can only decide when to accept it.  One dollar earned can be a success by measurable standards and if you don’t play this game, what will get you started?

I was thinking about proposing that we start on January 1 but I’ll be no less busy.  I’ll still be working on my basement, being a dad and husband, going to the dentist, dr., etc.  There’s no time like the present to step out and do something different.  Finally, as you’re well aware, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.  How about it?

Here it is!  You’re the catalyst for my action.  I’ve installed the weblog on our namesake.

The perpetual quest for knowledge, wealth, and great people happens here!

Stand by for Getting Started:  In the Beginning…

Cheers - Michael