Sunday night I flew to Dallas. While at the airport waiting to catch my flight I got my usual Starbucks and loitered around the bookstore to kill time. I came across this book, "The 4 Hour Work Week" and I couldn't help but pick it up. "Yeah right" I thought to myself as I skimmed the pages. The only things I got out of the quick skim was a transcript of a supposed call to John Grisham and how to hire your own personal assistant for five bucks an hour. Unfortunately, I couldn't see how either of those would help me work only four hours out of a week.
Then, on Monday night alone and bored in Dallas I once again stumbled into Borders and while there, I found myself looking for this book. It was like I couldn't get it out of my mind. I'm a dreamer and a realist and both psyches fight constantly in my head. So, I picked up the book and plopped down in a chair. I was going to try it before I buy it. So, I read the first few chapters and went ahead and bought it.
So, tonight I have made it through the first step: definition. I followed instructions in the book (which I never do, i.e. a million financial books that I've read and I'm still in debt) and I created the worksheets that I needed to.
Here's a summarized version of my plan:
After coming up with a 6 and 12 month dreamline, then choosing my 4 dreams.
1. New (to me) car (Having)
2. Grass in the backyard (Having)
3. Healthy (Being), Working out regularly (Doing)
4. Seeing Napa Valley during harvest (Doing)
I then had to set costs to each of these.
1. $450/mo
2. $3200
3. $0
4. $1500
Then I determined my Total Monthly Income to be $8400 or a daily $280.
I then created my today, tomorrow, and the next day action steps.
Today:
1. Price cars and financing online to see what I can afford
2. Get some contractor names to call for quotes on grass
3. Create a workout routine that I can follow daily
4. Determine when harvest will be this year and what the cost might be to go
Tomorrow:
1. Test drive some potential cars
2. Call contractors to arrange for bids
3. Follow my workout routine
4. Check on flights, vacation time, etc
The Next Day:
1. Secure financing and figure out how the heck I will pay for this new car (Guess I better read the rest of the book by Thursday)
2. Schedule visits from contractors (still wondering how I am going to pay for this...)
3. Follow my workout routine
4. Make reservations for our trip (again, wondering how I will afford all of this)
And so, here I am journaling my progress with this little book. Granted its like 2AM and I really can't do all of my Today action items I did do some which I agree does feel really good. And, when I look over at the sheet of paper with a list of actions it is very refreshing until the sensible part of my brain tries to figure out how and the hell I can afford any of this.
The first portion of the book throws out the conventional save now, spend later retirement mentality. He talks about the "New Rich (NR)" and how they live in the now. Again, I am agreeing with all of this with my left brain but my right brain is looking at me with one eyebrow up wondering what the hell I think I am going to be able to do. The right brain is just waiting to say, "I told you so".
I also have homework for the next 2 days...to stare into the eyes of as many people as I can and not to release eye contact until they do. Tomorrow should be an interesting day...
