Category: Josh Feingold Blog

This is a tough post, but bears taking a shot at.

Let’s start with relationships.  The goal in relationships is to become intimately related, but not become so attached that you become lost in the relationship.

Or perhaps we should look at fears.  Don’t be so fearful that you don’t take risks, but make sure that you have enough fear not to do something stupid.

Or perhaps we should think about working.  Work to earn enough money to live, but don’t work so much that it becomes what you are living for.

You get the idea.  We are constantly walking along a tightrope.  And one misstep can push us off in either direction, either of which is the wrong place for us to be.

The problem is that typically in the cases mentioned above maintaining the middle requires constant vigilance – and constant work – and many of us would rather stop the work, and just go to one side or the other.  However, if we do that, we fall off the tightrope, and hurt ourselves even more than if we would have focused and stay in the middle.

So realize that life, is about staying balanced, and in doing so, you will find continued happiness.

You can’t be fully engaged in this world, until you learn to take responsibility for yourself.

Of course, innately we do not want to take responsibility for ourselves, since that means we have no one to blame for our unhappiness.

But guess what.  We don’t.  And if you have been doing it for years, where has it gotten you.  Nowhere.

Pushing off responsibility is a defense mechanism.  It allows us to say, “I’m not at fault, when something goes wrong, I’m still perfect.” and walk away with our self esteem intact.

However, it’s a lie.  And intuitively we know it.  And it hurts because when we live with lies such as these, we know we are trapped, and the emotional energy it takes to keep our lives working on a day to day basis in its trapped form it much to hard to manage.

So step number one if you haven’t already done so is to admit that you are responsible for yourself, and that you have NO ONE to rely on but yourself.  You have no one to bail you out.  You have no one.  Except you.

Now, that is not to say, you can’t use your personality, skills, or even money, to cultivate friends and family that care for you, and that will be there for you.  But if they aren’t, well then, that’s your fault for not doing a very good job isn’t it.  Don’t go blaming anyone else.

If something in the world happens that you didn’t prepare for, well, you should have done a better job preparing.   If someone you know does something to you that you don’t like, you should have done a better job at choosing friends, shouldn’t you?

So ultimately, if you think about it, we really are responsible for everything that happens to us, and to believe anything else is not true.  And as we know, living with truth is the key to happiness.  So take responsibility for yourself, and see how it impacts your life for the better.

There are two ways to give in marriage.  Give and give and give regardless of what you receive back.  Or to make sure there is always a balance of giving and receiving between the two parties.

Both of these are false.

In truth, the person who is in love, isn’t keeping a tab.  It’s not part of the game.  I’ll explain.

You see, when you love someone, you accept them for who they are, for their good and bad traits – and love is a CHOICE that you make.  You choose the person on whom you will bestow your love – and once you choose that person, you can’t take it back (well, more or less).

Now this is not to say, you should choose who you give your love too easily.  You can only choose one person, and you better choose wisely.  Why waste such a precious gift on someone who won’t appreciate it.  Why give a thousand dollar bottle of wine to me as a housewarming gift, I’m happy with anything in the $10-$15 dollar range – that is a Merlot.

However, once you  choose your love object, the giving that you do is a physical expression of your love.

More specifically, giving is our way of connecting with our love object.  There is us, there is them, and the giving creates the connection.  So in our mind there is a connection, then the giving is the physical manifestation of the connection.

As we know, actions are all that really matter in this world.  So when we give, we are reconfirming our commitment to our love – and connecting to our love.

And you know what that is good for?  Our relationship!   And you know who the relationship is good for?  You!  So by giving to your beloved, you are really giving to yourself.  And in fact, if you can keep that in mind, it makes the giving oh so much easier.  So as you can see there is simply no place for keeping score in giving in love.

But you say, what if the person, doesn’t appreciate your gifts?  Well then find gifts they do appreciate!

Further, the more you give, the more invested in the other person you will become, and the more you will come to love them, and tighten your bonds to them.  So the more you give, the more you love, the more you give.  You get the idea.

Now having said that, if you are in a place where you are bitter about giving too much or want to keep score, what it really means is that YOU aren’t feeling the love in your relationship.  So you have a different problem.  Not one about not being given to, but one of not feeling loved.

So if that is the case, don’t lose the forest for the trees, and focus on what is really missing in your relationship from your perspective, but definitely, keep on giving!

Want to save an average of 15 minutes a day?  Stop checking your mail.

It’s easier than you think.  Much easier.

First, set up things so you can login online to see all of your financial statements.  (You already simplified down to no more than two brokerage accounts and one bank, right?)

Then sign up for an online bill paying service that accepts paper statements, like Paytrust (paytrust.com).  All of your bills go straight to them, and you pay them directly online.

Then pay everything that you can on your credit card (remembering that you are still budgeting to make sure you are paying down to 0 each month).

Since you have already set up your bills so that they are all due around the same time of the month, all you have to do is login once a month, and pay them all.  Then balance your checking accounts.  An hour of work a month, and all your bills are paid.

It’s that simple.  Really.

Oh yeah, once a month, remember to clean out all the junk mail for your mailbox, and around your birthday check if your Grandma sent you a birthday card – or did she go electronic too?

I am a salesman, but what makes me effective, is that I don’t sell.

I just can’t do it.  It feels manipulative, and dishonest.

I present options, and let my clients make up their mind.  If they want my opinion, I present it, and I can’t tell you then number of times I have given people suggestions that go against my own best interests.

When I was just starting out, someone told me that “business is relationships” and to a large degree it is correct.  As as we have discussed, relationships are based on honesty.  So the more honest one can be in a relationship, the better the relationship can be, and therefore the better the business can be.  It’s really that simple.

Of course, my relationships are multi-year.  In fact, I have clients I have worked with for over ten years now.  So I don’t know if this would hold true in a car dealership or electronic store.

Of course, that is probably, why I can’t stand going in there.