Are You Listening To…

December 20, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

This sucks. You’re broke. You can’t do anything fun. It’s all their fault. If you hadn’t married them you’d have plenty of money to do whatever you want. You two haven’t even talked about money for months because all they ever care about is what they want. Who do they think they are? You work just as hard as they do.

You should just leave. Who cares what your family or friends think. You deserve to be happy. Don’t even worry about how it affects anyone else – they’ll get over it. It isn’t going to affect them nearly as badly as it’s affecting you. Get out now while you still have some time to enjoy your life.

…the voice in your head?

Filed Under: Money, Personal Growth, Relationships

Thanksgiving 2011

November 22, 2011 by Mark Asbell 1 Comment

Other than the most important thanks I give every year for God’s mercy, My Wife, Family, Friends, Health, and Wealth, here are some particular financial-related things I’m thankful for this this year at Thanksgiving:

We got debt free this year (except for the house)
Savings in the bank
Promise – that God will provide

What do you have to be thankful for?

Filed Under: Faith, Family, Health, Money, Personal Growth, Relationships

Gabby Giffords & Mark Kelly

November 15, 2011 by Mark Asbell 1 Comment

The story of the miraculous recovery of congress woman Gabrielle Giffords was told last night on TV. January 8, 2011 she was shot in the head with little chance of surviving but she is once again full of life. The story fascinates me not only because of the miraculous recovery but because of the relationship between her and her husband Mark Kelly. Truly amazing.

Here are the things that stood out most to me as I watched the story:

Faith – Mark videod the recovery because he expected it was going to happen.

Failure is not an option – Mark set goals for Gabby to challenge her natural drive and he was there every step of the way. He told her things like “You have not been beaten, you’ve just been beat up.”

Positive attitude – Mark put up a sign outside the room telling everyone “no crying” and another one to himself to remind him to take a deep breath and stay focused before he entered the room.

Unity – Mark was united with Gabby’s mother and they shared their hope and all the efforts toward recovery.

The sky is not the limit. Mark is an astronaut and that is one of their mottos. Both Mark and Gabby are aiming for what seems like impossible goals. We just have to believe it’s possible.

Tough as nails. When asked to describe Mark the words Gabby used were “tough as nails”. He feels the same about her. Their love for each other is sp obvious and strong, tough as nails… We all can be inspired and encouraged by their story and example of how marriage should bedding better or worse.

Filed Under: Faith, Personal Growth, Relationships

Greenville Mud Run and Some Life Lessons

November 14, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

Several weeks ago I had the privilege of torturing myself through a 3.5 mile and 35 obstacle US Marine style course called the Goodwill Mud Run. It was a blast considering the cuts and pains, the fact that I was not in shape for it, and the mud in places I didn’t know mud could go.

As I look back on that experience I’m reminded of a few financial relationship principles we need to keep in mind:

Sometimes It Ain’t Pretty

The crazy thing for me about the mud run is the obstacles weren’t the hard part. I was fine as long as we were on an obstacle. I can push right through that sort of exertion. It wasn’t the cuts and pains or even the mud that made it difficult for me (although I did get about a gallon of it in my mouth on the very first mud-hole). Where I struggled the most was during the running from one obstacle to the next.

I hate running for the sake of running, so I just don’t do it enough. There’s really only two things that effectively motivate me to run – Shawna (when she is running), and playing ball (usually basketball). When it comes to the constant and steady pounding of the leg muscles for running long distance, I suck.

Needless to say running 3.5 miles with zero training before the event was not pretty for me. It didn’t matter that I had mud in my bleeding cuts and every time I spit there was as much mud as saliva. I felt like my lungs were refusing to absorb oxygen in protest of what I was putting my body through. My chest had that awful cold feeling you get after running hard in cool weather for about four days after the event. It was terrible.

Sometimes working through life’s challenges is going to be ugly and we’re going to have to do things we don’t like to do because it is necessary to reach the goal.

Finishing The Race Eventually is Better Than Not Finishing At All

The Mud Run is very much like a Marine training course. They even have real Marines in uniform out there yelling at you all through the course. I don’t know the background on the Mud Run, but I guess in the spirit of the Marine way you don’t run this race as individuals – you do it in teams.

My team was awesome. I was not. My friend organized the team and must have either thought I was in better shape or he wanted to get me in better shape – all at once.

I was the slowest runner on the team. What little ground I was able to make up by going through the obstacles faster than my teammates was quickly lost by running so much slower than them from one obstacle to the next. I tried my best to keep up but about halfway through I realized if I didn’t slow down to a pace I could sustain my legs might give out, I might hurl, or worse (my family has history of heart issues and I already have the cholesterol).

It didn’t feel good knowing that I couldn’t get there faster. I could have pushed it and might have been fine, but I had reached a level of pain that was as far as I wanted to go. It felt like as much as I could bear at the time.

Sometimes we need to push ourselves harder, but sometimes we need to accept that reaching a goal is going to take longer than we want it to. It’s better to get there eventually than to not get there at all.

Finish The Race Together

My three teammates knew we had to finish the race together, and they were very good sportsman to me – the team anchor (not in the good sense – like I was an anchor they were having to drag 🙂 ). They challenged me to push myself and they encouraged me to keep going. That helped me more than they know. If it wasn’t for them I might still be out there meandering my way through the course and asking myself “Why am I doing this?”.

Surprisingly enough my friend who invited me to be on the team asked me to do it again in the Spring. That is either true muv (man-love) or he doesn’t know anyone else dumb enough to say yes. I accepted the challenge and promised I will be in better shape for it next time (maybe a lighter anchor).

It matters that we have accountability in our lives. It matters that we have support around us. It matters for whatever goal is in front of you now and whatever the next goal is after that.

Work through the ugly stuff, make steady progress toward the eventual goal, and finish together.

Question: Have you ever participated in a mud run or other race and had a similar experience as me? Will you hold me accountable to getting in better shape for next time?

Filed Under: Health, Misc, Money, Personal Growth, Relationships, Stories

Time Value

October 25, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

Time is Money! We’ve all heard that expression. It is so true even though we don’t think about it that way very often. But time is a very real commodity that all of us get the same amount of and we have to use it wisely. So it is one of the factors that comes in to play when Shawna and I are making financial decisions.

I recently saw this movie trailer that got me thinking about my time as money.

So I decided to calculate my per hour earnings based on about how many hours I work on average per work day, and I used the past two years of my Quicken data to do this. I went through all our spending categories to drill down how much each is costing me in terms of time. Then I consolidated it all into the summary lists below (Alphabetical and Most to Least):

I left the Automobile category split into subcategories to show that number is still being significantly impacted by our latest family minivan purchase at the end of 2009. That van has also been the worst vehicle ever for repairs. I’m still betting by the time we’re done with this van I’ll still be winning The Used Car Gamble. I also wanted to point out that gasoline (category Auto: Fuel) is by far the most significant portion of our overall auto expense. We drive a lot. Can you imagine how much our auto expenses would be if we added car payments along with higher new car insurance and registration? Auto expense is one area of our finances we have been pretty smart about from the beginning of our marriage (unlike some other categories).

There are categories on here that are encouraging to see how they fall in the time-value. One of them is tithe. I already knew the dollar amounts and that it is 10% of gross etc etc. But seeing that it is also 10% of the amount of time I work is another way of affirming my obedience to God.

Another encouraging category is a special investment I was able to make as soon as we got debt free. I don’t have saving on here because the report I generated in Quicken is only for spending. If I had included saving it would probably be near the top of the “Most To Least” list and would reduce every other time value by about 10%. Yes – I have made saving a priority even while paying down debt.

That brings me to one of the most encouraging categories to see – debt repayment. I could look at it as a depressing thing that sucked my time for the past two years, but I’m actually psyched out of my mind to have almost 2hrs a day of my work going from debt repayment to more productive things. I’m gonna be out of control when I get my house paid off – hopefully in the next five years.

One last thing to note about these lists is Shawna’s income is not accounted for in here. She does work and make a little bit of money, but her full time job is homeschooling our kids. So while I don’t have Shawna’s income or savings in the equation I do have an investment that was made with the savings in there and I do have categories that are business expenses that should technically be taken out of personal expenses. The net result is this is a pretty good way for me to look at what my time pays for.

Dr. John Maxwell is a bestselling author on the subject of leadership. He did a word-of-the-day on time that puts this whole topic in perspective. Watch it here.

Filed Under: Money, Personal Growth, Relationships

Practice What You Preach

October 11, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

Have you ever felt like you failed to take your own advice? That happens to me sometimes. My daughter, Skyler, is very energetic and she loves dance and gymnastics. At home she will often practice her cart-wheels, handstands, round-offs, round-house, upper-cut… The problem with that is there isn’t a lot of room for that kind of activity inside our house because there is either stuff or people to potentially break or hurt with flying arms and feet. So we’re constantly telling Skyler, “You probably shouldn’t do that in the house. We don’t want you to get hurt.”

Because I’m such a great dad I have practiced cart wheels and hand stands a little bit too (and everyone’s favorite acrobatic move I do is the cheerleader-style toe-touch, it’s fabulous). Of course where have I done this – in the house, exactly where we advise Skyler not to do the acrabatics. I’m normally pretty careful about choosing a safe area where no one is around and nothing is in the way, until a few days ago…

I don’t remember why Iwas in a goofy mood with about six excited children in the house that day, and I don’t know what I was thinking, but I decided to do a cart-wheel going in a different direction in the house than I had ever done it before. I had told Skyler many times not to do this. I had seen Skyler get hurt doing it. I had even seen Joe Sangl get hurt doing it (yes – he got excited at our house one time too and did a cart-wheel that didn’t end well – Skyler has such an influence on us to test our acrobatic inability). As I made the approach all of the red flags were flashing through my mind and in a split second I thought, “I shouldn’t be doing this” and “I got it, it’s ok”. Then…

WHACK!!

The bottom of my foot, at the inside part of my heel crashed onto the corner of our coffee table. Thank goodness I didn’t break anything, including my foot.. I rolled around on the floor in pain with my wife Shawna laughing at me the whole time, and then of course I got up quickly to act like everything was alright. I had made the same mistake I normally advise Skyler not to make. I wasn’t practicing what I had been preaching.

That can happen in lots of areas of our life if we’re not careful. In marriage it is important to live by the same expectations we have of our spouse. As parents it is important to set the example of what we expect our kids to follow. As leaders it is important to be living what we are teaching.

That is one of the most important things we teach financial coaches – to be living what we are teaching. It can be so easy to slack off and not be disciplined to stick to the plan or the budget. It can be so easy to put off reaching that next goal over and over again in order to do spontaneous and fun stuff whenever we want. In order to effectively teach others we have to be living what we are teaching.

When is the last time you slipped up and failed to practice what you preach? My heel still hurts 🙂

Filed Under: Family, Money, Personal Growth, Stories

My Thoughts on Catalyst Conference 2011

October 6, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

Unfortunately and quite sadly I am not attending Catalyst this year. Life has been crazy lately and I have family visiting from out of town, so it just made sense to skip the conference this time. However, that does not mean I haven’t been thinking about what I’m going to miss.

Since this post doesn’t closely relate to my normal subjects I should offer an explanation of what Catalyst Conference is and maybe a dictionary reference to the word catalyst for anyone who only thinks of the chemistry definition. As people/leaders a catalyst is a high energy status quo challenging game changing person or event. The conference is geared toward encouraging young leaders to be the next generation game changers.

The problem I see for true young catalysts though is not their willingness to question the status quo and try new things. The problem they face is older or more senior level leaders ahead of them being unwilling to listen and give new ideas a shot. I believe one of the reasons for this is young leaders aren’t proving themselves valuable enough to challenge the status quo.

Catalyst conference is geared toward church world, which I understand pretty thoroughly from being a pastors kid growing up in church and to this day very involved in my local church, but I tend to think of the principles taught as they would apply in business world as well. Based on my experience in corporate world I know first-hand what it is like to be considered the young punk full of crazy ideas nobody wants to try…until I’ve proven myself.

For any catalyst out there who wants their ideas to be heard here are a few suggestions for how to prove yourself that I’ve learned along the way.

Work harder than anyone else. Smarter? Yes, that too. But just because someone finds a way to be more productive personally doesn’t prove anything about their value to the team. Work smarter to be personally productive and use the spare time gained to go above and beyond. It certianly helps, no matter how efficient someone is, to show demonstrate a work ethic that starts earlier than anyone else and finishes later than anyone else. Even when we think no one is watching, someone is noticing.
Become the best within the status quo. Whatever the process is there is always a way to become the best at it. Anytime I’ve become great at something just the way it is I’ve had no problem getting support to do it differently because everyone trusts that if I’m already good at it the way it is then I’m not going to make a permanent change that would make me not as good at it.
Get Results! Do work that affects the bottom line either through increased sales or decreased cost, and prove it by measuring (this is the has-been wanna-be engineer in me coming out).

No matter what there is always the chance that people will despise change. The key to determining when to be a catalyst is balancing how valuable we are vs how replacable we are.

On another note, here’s what I’m going to miss most by missing Catalyst this year.

These speakers: (not because I don’t like some of the others, these are just the ones I know I like)

Jon Acuff
Dave Ramsey
Andy Stanley
Mark Driscoll
Michael Hyatt

The fun and funny stuff. There is non stop fun and humor between every speaker, and during the speaking too every now and then.
The free stuff. The event comes with lots of great resources and the sponsors are very generous, all making the experience a bit more excellent.
The learning and encouragement. I’ve never left a Catalyst sorry that I went. There is always something new or refreshing to take away and apply to my life.

I’m regretting I won’t be there now. This might need to be one of those things that gets on my calendar for next year NOW and becomes off limits to any other scheduling.

Filed Under: Business, Personal Growth

The New Call of Duty Game

October 5, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

This is too funny, so I have to share it…

John Crist is my newest favorite comedian because he does funny stuff about church, and that is hilarious to me because of my experience with lots of churches of many types throughout my life.

He recently hit on a subject that is so true in our current culture. Married men are increasingly the primary demographic for video games. Particularly, the game Call of Duty is very popular. We can be manly men in that game, blowing stuff up and taking names, and still be home for dinner. And I’ve heard some great reasons for games being a good form of entertainment:

It’s relatively cheap compared to other alternatives (such as paintball, and that isn’t very manly compared to blowing stuff up)
It’s something our sons enjoy and can do with us (and some daughters, the tom-boy ones probably)
It’s a good release, me time, man time. I’ve read that men who get to watch a manly movie every now and then, or play a manly game, are more likely to be passionate husbands (that’s a good thing).

The problem, as is true with anything in life, is getting off-balance. When the hobby becomes an obsession that consumes massive amounts of time and energy. Let’s face it. It isn’t cheap anymore if we’re forfeiting the opportunity to work a few more hours and increase our income. It isn’t something good to do with our kids if it is the only thing we do together and they barely know us outside the game. It isn’t a good release if we’re more consumed with playing another round every night than we are going to bed with our wife.

I love games too, and if I wanted to I could let it be the only thing my son and I do because he is very in to games. But I just can’t do that, and honestly I’m not THAT in to games to even want to do that. I recently heard a statistic about kids who game all the time are a lot more likely to have problems with a long list of stuff later in life. That’s reason enough for me to limit how much gaming happens in my house. Anyway… Check out this video – John makes humor about the next Call of Duty game that might not be popular but we need to love it more than any of the others.

Filed Under: Family, Money, Personal Growth, Relationships

Sick And Tired Of The Debt Debate

August 5, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

Am I the only one who is sick and tired of the debt debate? I mean how hard is it to understand INCOME minus OUTGO has to equal EXACTLY ZERO and the outgo needs to include generous programs, long term foresight, and paying down the debt… Is it that difficult?

You might think I’m talking about the US National Debt Debate that has been plastered all over the media off and on really for many years. It’s always a heated debate. But that isn’t the only debate I’m talking about. I’m talking about the debt debate that happens in most everyone’s household at some point. Should we finance this or that? Can we afford it? How can we do x, y, & z and still keep our budget balanced? Are we going to have the discipline to stick to this budget? Oh no, we’ve gotten in too deep, now what do we do? I’m sick and tired of families struggling with these questions. It doesn’t have to be this way.

The fights happening in American households about money are just like Democrats and Republicans fighting about who’s fault it is and why one plan is better than the other for dealing with it. Round and round it goes and nothing gets done about it until it’s too late. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Call me crazy but I believe at some point the US debt ceiling is going to be as high as our country can withstand. My family has experienced a maxed out debt ceiling first hand – when we hit it we almost lost everything. Why don’t our representatives understand that concept? I know it’s more complicated on the grander scale but the principles are the same. Why isn’t our government applying simple financial principles and why aren’t more American families understanding these principles and applying them personally? IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY!

Why isn’t government listening to the people’s concern for our country’s financial future? Why aren’t people reaching out for help with their personal finances? That question keeps me awake at night because I know so many people need help but don’t know how to get it or they aren’t willing to ask for it. My church offers FREE personal finance coaching and the I Was Broke. Now I’m Not. team has helped churches all over the country start coaching programs just like the one at my church. Contact me if you’re interested in connecting with a coach and I’ll do everything I can to help you do that. Maybe, JUST MAYBE, if we all start getting it right at home our government will find a way to get it right nationally. Until that happens I will remain sick and tired of the debt debate.

Filed Under: Faith, Family, Money, Personal Growth, Relationships

Part 4: My Parent’s 40th Anniversary

August 4, 2011 by Mark Asbell 1 Comment

For my parents 40th wedding anniversary I did a little interview and I’m sharing their wisdom. If you missed the first three parts you can read them here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

How did having kids affect things?

We wanted kids. We were so glad to have kids. It did change everything though. The biggest change was being involved in all the activities you kids participated in. But it also strengthened our marriage because there was a greater love than just the two of us. We HAD to work together just to keep up.

Would you do it all over again?

We would do it all over again but just do some things differently. There would be more emphasis on family and our marriage instead of so much emphasis on the church. Wish we had made better long range plans. Wish we had used vacation for fun instead of visiting family. We’ve been blessed and we’re thankful. In order to make it to 50 yrs we’re gonna take better care of our health and take it one day at a time. But we don’t live with any regrets and would do it all again.

Sometimes I wonder if the difficulty of having kids is just us or our generation. So it’s a little reassuring to know that even for our parents having kids was a challenge. I like John Maxwell’s quote that having grandchildren is the reward for not killing your children. My parents probably agree with that completely. Having kids is definitely a blessing we are very thankful for and I pray all the time that I become a better dad.

My parents gave Shawna and me a huge compliment about doing a good job balancing family, work, and church involvement. That is something we struggle with from time to time in order to keep on track. We’re making plans for our next family vacation and it gives us something to look forward to through the day to day hustle.

Shawna and I have only been married almost 11 years and we agree with my parents comment after their 40 years about doing it all again but doing some things differently. We’ve all made mistakes we would take back but I when I’m older I want to be able to say I don’t have any regrets. I believe that comes from having peace that God is guiding our lives along a path and everything is happening for a reason.

Filed Under: Faith, Family, Money, Personal Growth, Relationships, Stories