21st Century Academy

Jamie McIntyre came to learn a very important lesson that we all need to embrace before we can move on to wealth and prosperity. Continuing on from the last discussion, Jamie goes on to say,

“At the time, I did not realize it, buy by letting go, moving on, and forgetting about it I was creating the space for a lot more new money to come into my life. In the same situation, many other people would have been tempted to hang on and be upset, angry, and peeved off about what happened to them. I am not the only person that has been taken advantage of financially in one way or another, probably half the population has. For those who have not, what do you think is likely to happen in the next 10, 20, or 30 years? The question is how will you deal with it?”

–Jamie McIntyre, What I Didn’t Learn At School But Wish I Had

The Potential Is There For Everyone

The potential to find a reason in the past for our current lacking or limited success is there for all of us. As Jamie says, at some point in your life there is a great chance that something unfortunate will happen. The risk of these unfortunate events is not in the event itself, but in how you deal with it.

If you continue to dwell on the past or focus your energy on unfortunate occurrences, you do two things:

1) You use up all your time and energy wishing for something you can never get back, and
2) You fill up your life with that failure, leaving no room for anything better.

It is easy to feel sorry for ourselves and dwell in the past, and let someone else be to blame for the way we are today. It is far too easy. But it is painful, too. As I like to say,

“Life is not short. It’s the longest thing you’ll ever do!”

You deserve to do it well, and to enjoy the time spent doing it!

To Your Continued Success!
Sean Rasmussen
21st Century Academy
Universal Wealth Creation © 2004 – 2009

In the last post, we talked about how blame and excuses hold us back from creating wealth. In a future post, we’ll talk about the implications of looking to the past and dwelling on the reasons and excuses for our past failures and current positions. But first, let’s take a minute to clarify the difference between the two; because most certainly, even though there may be real reasons for your current state, there is a difference between a reason and an excuse.

Reason Versus Excuse

For this, we’ll go straight to the dictionary definition of a reason and an excuse:

• Reason: a: a statement offered in explanation or justification b: a rational ground or motive c: a sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defense ; especially : something (as a principle or law) that supports a conclusion or explains a fact
d: the thing that makes some fact intelligible : cause

• Excuse: a: something offered as justification or as grounds for being excused bplural : an expression of regret for failure to do something c: a note of explanation of an absence

There isn’t actually a lot of difference between these two words or definitions. The one difference that does stand out is the presence of the word “fact” in the definition of Reason. A reason has a basis in fact, whereas an excuse is simply a justification—one explanation for a current state of affairs, but not one that is necessarily based in fact.

Why Split Hairs?

This may sound like we’re splitting hairs, but there is an important difference here. The difference matters because when you excuse your action or past inactions, you justify your current state of affairs. When there is actual fact involved there may be real things to look towards to improve upon. This is where there is real potential for change. It is up to you to grab hold of that potential with both hands and make the most of it.

Now, all of this being said, there is only a limited usefulness in looking to past reasons before you start blocking your own path to success once again. That’s where we’ll pick up the next post, with more words of wisdom from Jamie McIntyre‘s millionaire mentor.

To Your Continued Success!
Sean Rasmussen
21st Century Academy
Universal Wealth Creation © 2004 – 2009

“…you can make excuses in your life and you can make money, but you can not do both at the same time.”

–What I Didn’t Learn At School But Wish I Had

We are continuing today to move on through Chapter One of Jamie McIntyre’s book, where the discussion is centered on why people fail to be wealthy. We are looking for the answers to why 96 percent of people (the people Jamie calls the “96 percenters”) end up dead, broke, or dead broke by the age of retirement. One reason for this that cannot be ignored is blame and excuses.

There’s Always A “Reason”

It seems almost human nature to create excuses and blame other people and situations for what we have not achieved. Mind you, when we do achieve and succeed, we are much less likely to do this, and much more likely to take the credit, but in the case of continued financial failure there is always a “reason” why things are the way they are (of course, these aren’t really “reasons” but excuses, but we’ll get into that later).

For example, Jamie used to say that the reason he wasn’t wealthy was that he was owed too much money by other people, or that he needed money to make money, or had too much debt, that he wasn’t born into money or handed a leg-up, or simply because he wasn’t interested in money (but we’ve already talked about living in financial denial). Or he would imagine that the solution was evading him, and if someone would just help him out, or if he could find the “right” career, then everything would fall into place.

A Familiar Feeling

I’m willing to bet Jamie’s litany of excuses sounds familiar to you; it seems as humans we are not all that original in finding excuses for why we are not wealthy. But whatever it is you are telling yourself, you need to start realizing that those are not reasons for your lack of wealth.

The only way these sorts of excuses become reasons you are not wealthy is because you give over your power to them. You allow them to become hurdles to success, but only because you choose to. These are hurdles that are easily removed because all you have to do is stop playing the blame game and stop making excuses. It may be a familiar and comfortable place, but it’s not a productive one, and it will never make you wealthy. Take back your power and start putting it to better use.

To Your Continued Success!
Sean Rasmussen
21st Century Academy
Universal Wealth Creation © 2004 – 2009