Why We All Need to Start Our Own Business… ASAP!

Okay, to begin, I was never a business person. In fact, I just wanted to make art for my entire life and not care what anyone thought. That is, until I realized that all of us are in real trouble. At the job that I’ve been at for nearly 3 years, I’ve hardly gotten a raise and make about 45$ working a full eight hour shift. SOMETHING IS TERRIBLY WRONG HERE. Thinking of this, that is when I started to do my own research and this is what I came up with:

In 1968, the federal minimum wage was $1.15 and the cost of gas was, on average, $0.34. This means that the price of gas was one-third of a person’s minimum wage. Now, comparing that to now, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 and the cost of one gallon of gas in 2013 was $3.49 (http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/31/news/economy/gas-prices/). This means that the cost of travel has gone up from being one-third of minimum wage to one-half. This may not sound like a huge change, but think of it this way: we are spending a larger percentage of our wages to get to our jobs that now pay us less than 50 years ago relative to inflation. This trend has been going on for nearly fifty years… do you think it will change anytime soon?

My answer to that would be a big N-O. According to a recent study, if minimum wage had gone up with inflation as it was supposed to, then the federal minimum wage today would be $10.74 (http://www.raisetheminimumwage.com/facts/). Another study, done by the Huffington posts speculates that if minimum wage had kept up with the cost of living in general and worker productivity, it would be a whopping $21.72 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/13/minimum-wage-productivity_n_2680639.html)!!We would be living the good life then!

Oh, wait, but we wouldn’t… because we would still be trading irreplaceable time for dollars! In today’s world, we are so encouraged to do this, though, that we don’t even question it. I never did! That is, until I took a look at these facts and realized that no matter what, this system doesn’t work. Trading hours for dollars will never get us anywhere. However, building an asset once that will continually bring us wealth is the answer to this problem. This, my friends, is why we all need to build a business. Doing this will help us all to lead happier, more fulfilling lives where we can spend our lives doing things that we want to, rather than doing things that others want us to!

-Monica and Kenneth

Why Think Positively?

When you think about business, going to school, or really anything that you do in life, one thing that you don’t typically associate with success is eternal positive thinking. But why not? Thinking positively can seriously impact your entire life! Not only does it help you succeed because you’ll be more motivated, but it will help you succeed because in the world, people like happy people.

Up until recently, I used to be the complete opposite. I was grumbling about how bad my day was gonna be long before my feet even hit the ground as OI stepped out of bed. Heck, my first thought when I got to work always mirrored that of my boss’s thoughts: “Is the day over yet?” But by doing this, I was literally setting myself up for failure. Of course my day will be bad if I start out thinking of it that way! By realizing this, I started taking the babiest-like steps in the right direction: I waited until I got out of bed to grumble to myself about the bad day I would have, I forced myself to find something to smile about in the mornings (cute puppy pictures online will do the trick if nothing else), and I would say to my boss at work “Well, I suppose this day will be good” (although the first time that I did this, he all but keeled over from shock).

The point is, though, I did it. I didn’t want to at first, but I did. I always thought positive thinking all of the time was for the resident lunatic hippies, but I’ve since changed my standpoint.

Ever since I made this shift in my mindset, the smaller problems that used to make my life a trainwreck don’t seem all so bad anymore. My workplace isn’t my favorite place to be, but by not thinking negatively about it, it has seemingly become a better place to be. And get this! It’s rubbed off on my coworkers! We all now have enough tolerance for our jobs that we can become normal friends instead of being friends that only have one common interest which is spending our time ranting about work.

To wrap up, I would like to challenge all of you morning grumblers to wait 30 minutes after waking up to complain about life, to smile first thing in the morning, and, if you’re really ambitious, make a goal each morning relating to one thing that you think negatively about currently and how you can turn it into a positive thing. Just taking small steps towards thinking positively can lead to a happier and more successful life.