I’ve wanted to post this video for a few years because it’s an amazing 15 minutes. If you haven’t seen it, you must. If you have, it’s worth seeing again.

Flying home today not only gave me time to write, but it’s impossible to leave a college graduation without feeling at least a little inspired. Congrats to my sister for earning her bachelor’s degree!

The three lessons:

It’s impossible to connect the dots looking forward

When I first heard Steve Job’s commencement speech, this comment didn’t really sink in. I didn’t understand just how true this was. In 2007, I found this speech when I was searching for ideas for my own MBA graduation speech.

I had just left my career as a police officer to take a year away from work to earn an MBA. I had a rough idea why I was returning to school, but in all honesty, my primary motivation was that I just wanted to. I was following my heart more than my head.

It turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made, but I wouldn’t understand exactly why for several years. As it turned out, the degree and the things I learned, were not the benefits of my education.

Instead, it was discovering the confidence to do what I wanted—not necessarily what “should.” That led me to discovering Steve Job’s second lesson. 

The only way to be truly happy is to do what you believe is great work

At some point in life we’re told to stop following our dreams and instead to be realistic. Never in those words, but the message is the same.

Perhaps it’s around high school we’re taught that being a rock star or an astronaut is not as practical as being a prisoner in a cubicle. We learn it’s more important to buy a house, cars, have 2.3 kids, and chase carrots—>> the ladder in your field?

College graduations are so inspiring because the students are not yet beaten down with the “realities” of life. Those realities when employees stop feeling they contribute to a greater cause. It’s when they begin punching a clock or just serving their sentence in between weekends.

It’s inspiring to wake up each morning believing that what you do matters. That your contribution is important.

The enthusiasm of youth disappears the day we accept we are replaceable cogs in a giant machine. This is why most “lead lives of quiet desperation,” as Henry David Thoreau so accurately put it. (Circa 1800’s)

Instead, as Jobs says, “Don’t settle” and instead:

Live each day as if it’s your last

One of my greatest strengths happens to be one of my weaknesses. My natural tendency is to forgo today for something greater tomorrow. The benefits of forward thinking are not always obvious, but it happens to be one of the top 10 distinctions between millionaires and the middle class.

However, like everything in life, balance is important. I didn’t always understand this, and sadly, it’s often death opens people’s eyes most. For Steve Jobs, it was the false alarm of his pending death. Hearing him speak of his own death now is a bit eerie, but the lesson is even more powerful. 

Children often take unnecessary risks because they haven’t witnessed the consequences.  As you grow and experience life, the risk becomes more real, especially when it hits home with friends and family. As scary as this may be, it can also be a source of liberation.

Ask yourself each day, if you knew you were going to die tomorrow, next month, or next year, would you do anything differently today? If yes, then you should probably change what you’re doing. That’s a game changer.

Now, I hope you’ll enjoy the video.

“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

 Photo:

National Police Officers’ Memorial Day is May 15^th. It’s the day we formally remember the officers who’ve paid the ultimate price. We remember those who lost their lives in the line of duty.

We know how dangerous the job is when we begin…but do we really?

Unfortunately many of the greatest risks are hidden, unknown, or just flat out ignored. According to CopsAlive.com, a website aimed at protecting cops from the hidden dangers of the job, 73 officers are murdered in the line of duty each year in the United States. But more frightening is that 400 – 450 officers take their own lives each year through suicide

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I can see their eyes glaze over when I warn them. The “kids,” as we refer to them, don’t want to hear about the hidden dangers of being a cop. I remember having similar thoughts years ago when I heard the same warnings.

“Maybe it will be a problem for someone else, not me.”

At 21 years old, all I wanted to hear about were guns and car chases; the same things young police recruits are intrigued by today. Nothing has changed.

They said, somewhat in jest, “Boos, Broads, and Bills” is what will get you. It’s the same three B’s that have been passed down from generations of cops.

It wasn’t until many years later that I realized just how true that really was. When I take inventory of the law enforcement friends I’ve lost to death, disability, stress, or being fired, statistically those three B’s are very high on the list of causes.

There are certainly those who pay the price to shootings and other violence, but the numbers are small when compared to stress, injury, alcohol, drugs, sex, marriage, and financial issues.

The data is hard to find, but I suspect the percentage of cops who start and finish a 30 year career is very, very small. It’s those hidden dangers that get to most cops, yet the percentage of time, money, and training devoted to those risks is almost nothing.

Now that I’m retired, I teach one class at the police academy. It’s my way of giving back and I enjoy watching their wild-eyed enthusiasm. I can only hope that a small amount of the life lessons I share will sink in, but if they’re anything like I was at their age, they probably don’t want to hear it.

Of the three B’s, one has become my second career. I wrote the book “How to be Rich: The Couple’s Guide to a Rich Life Without Worrying About Money” and it’s Free to Cops during National Police week.

By a cop—for cops. It’s a fast, entertaining book that will show you a perspective about you and your relationship with money that you’ve never seen before in print.

The 5-star book has been rated #1 in the introduction to investing category at Amazon and has received over 50 rave reviews.

You can order the book at full price at Amazon

OR

Get it FREE

During the National Police Week, I’ve partnered with Cops Alive to give 100 copies away Free to Cops. If you’re interested, just help me out with the shipping and handling and I will ship you a free copy.

Here is what only one of the over 50 reviewers at Amazon said about the book:

“It’s not often I pick up a book and have a hard time putting it down…but that’s exactly what happened with How to be Rich.

What’s brilliant about the book is how Chuck Rylant tells a great story that keeps you interested in the topic. It’s a very clever way to use a story to get a point across. If he had just started out saying save, invest, mutual funds, blah-blah-blah, I would not have been able to finish.

But instead…he uses a great, interesting story to get the point across. So I was being entertained and learning at the same time.

In the story, you notice the financial mistakes that the characters are making and then you realize that YOU are making the same financial mistakes. It’s the kind of thing that you reject if someone tells you but you accept when you realize it for yourself.

If you are having any financial difficulties whatsoever as a couple, I recommend the both of you read this book and follow the recommendations. If you tell your partner to change, they probably won’t – but if your partner realizes things for themselves, the change stands a much better chance of happening.

This book will have a positive impact on your finances and more importantly, on your relationship.” S. Cartwright.

To get the book shipped to your house, fill in the form below to get started. You will need to provide your shipping details and then just help me out with the shipping and handling and I will ship it off to you. Stay safe!

Name:

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How can you miss the 6404 5-star average reviews in Amazon. If you’re a writer, you can’t ignore that. I immediately ordered it having no idea what it was about. Anything that popular must be doing something right and there’s likely something to learn from it–at least from a writing/promotional perspective.

I still hadn’t cracked the book (how do you say that with a Kindle?), but then I read an email from my friend and estate planning attorney Martha Hartney. 

I enjoy Martha’s writings because we often share similar views on raising kids. We both question motives behind those who make rules for out kids’ education. Sometimes, you are better off if you do not listen to authority, or at the very least, you ought to consider questioning it.

Enter Martha Hartney…

For months, my son had been telling me to read it. Then, in hushed, conspiratorial “you’ve got to read this book” tones, every mom I knew said I should. By last winter, every teen, tween, and mom I knew had. I caved when my other son begged me to too.

Boom. I was hooked. Just like that. I inhaled it more than read it. Three weeks, three books.

Suzanne Collins’ work has haunted me ever since. How is it a book about kids killing kids has gotten under my skin so deeply, and seemingly everyone’s else’s too? What makes it so compelling, so perfect for this moment in our history?

It must strike a cord deep within us.

A mining town—dusty, dirty kids just eking by, resorting to living off the land, base, vile, grubby. District 12—home of the beloved heroine Katniss Everdeen, where parents are in every way powerless to make a better life for their kids. A geographically removed, hyper-privileged ruling class calling all the shots; so much so that they force their citizens to offer up their kids for sacrifice. A sacrifice to ensure the continued supply of materials for their cushy lives. To remind the nation of their fragile grasp on their humanity.

The country is divided into 12 districts, each having a primary product or service benefitting the ruling class—the absurdly posh living in the “Capital.” Of course, I was not surprised that the Capital of post-apocalyptic America known as “Panem” is nestled in my own beloved Rockies. I can almost picture an uber-privileged, conservative, militaristic upper class rising out of the ashes of a self-inflicted climatic upheaval not too far from of our military bases and Academy near Colorado Springs. It makes sense that Collins would locate the ruling class in a hard-to-reach, easy-to-defend mountain fortress. After all, America did just that when placing NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain.

Even more resonant, though, is how all of Panem regards its most vulnerable citizens—its children—as leverage to ensure obedience, silence, and conformity.

Panem’s children, from 12 to 18, are at the mercy of the state. Prepared from birth for a voiceless existence, without any power to object to the “reaping” of one among them to kill or be killed and every adult petrified to speak out against it.

Once a firestorm of uprising is started in Panem, though, our heroine finds that the answer, the other end of the socio-economic ideology is little better. From oppressive capitalism in which every cost of business is off-loaded (externalized) so that the rich can enjoy cheap products without ever having to see how they’re made, to a culturally uniform, drab, obedient communistic “liberation,” Katniss’ options are so limited as to leave her little choice but madness.

How different—how similar—is Panem really from our own culture, right here and now?

We’re so enthralled by The Hunger Games because it echoes of ourselves on anarchetypal level.

My son--in the out-of-doors while we still have it.

The way families are managed has changed in the last 50 years. Today’s parents have a harder time raising their children the way they see fit in ways that our parents never could have dreamed of. Yesterday’s parents, my parents, were the kings and queens of their domain. What they said went, and they meant what they said, and boy did we know it. Okay, I wouldn’t raise my kids the way I was raised, but I always felt my parents were in charge of me–were the final authority over me–and no one else. And if push came to shove in a family of ten kids, as it often did, my parents would have stood up for me and my siblings.

Today’s parents have a harder time raising children without an increased involvement of the state. It’s harder now to raise kids who are robust, vibrant, questioning rebels–in a country created by rebels. Today, children must be obedient to the State (with a capital S) to a greater degree than to their own parents, as expressed primarily through educational institutions whose authority has been growing, and creeping into the realm of the family more and more with each passing year.

Kids that don’t “fit the mold” that schools and society now require are medicated into submission where in the past, many were able to work or play off their energy throughout the day. They must sit for six quietly for six hours a day or more. That’s not new or unusual really, but now they come home to an hour or four of homework. I don’t know about you, but I hardly ever had homework and it was rarely more than 45 minutes. Perhaps I’m aging myself. Where school used to be where children would train their brains to create, invent, build; today they’re taught to be workers–drones that do not question, that can sit for vast stretches of time without complaint. They’re fed the pink slim the rest of us won’t eat, sugar, caffeine, and unpronounceable, barely edible foods and expected to perform poorly nourished. They’re taught to dishonor their bodies by rushing when they need to rest, to sit when they need to run, to be quiet, compliant, obedient little sponges.

All that wouldn’t be so bad or even that different from when we were kids, except that kids intuit that they are being prepared not for lives of greatness, but for jobs in factories or cubes where their hands will ache, their backs will give out, their faces droop and creases take their seat in their furrowed brows.

They know this because they see it in their parents. In us.

Sons watch their fathers slog off to work each day, sit inside buildings filled with florescent glare rather than warm, radiant sunlight; rub their eyes after staring at a computer screen for 10 hours a day. Daughters see their mothers get up, run two loads of laundry, fix lunches, do their hair, answer email, clean the kitchen, then go off to their jobs and come home with hunched shoulders, sighing deeply—then getting up to do it all over again. Kids may be living in McMansions but they sense their parents are collapsing under mounting debt and a loss of a passion to live and create.

Kids know that many of us went to college. They know that merely getting a degree does not guarantee a better life or joy. Not anymore anyway. They understand that they’re expected to conform, to sit quietly and not bother the teacher, to answer questions correctly rather than creatively, to assemble rather than to invent. And they sense, rightly, that they’re being prepared to serve the great monster—the 1% whose lives look so fucking fun on television—or to die trying.

Is it any wonder at all that so many children, boys mainly, seek an alternate reality in video games where they can move, run, shoot, hunt, explore? Why are we surprised that our sons have learned to hide out in a virtual world that is much more alive than the world we now offer them? Frankly, I’m not surprised at all.

On the other hand, children whose parents choose to not let them go to public school—not to participate in societal preparation of kids—are ostracized, treated as deviant, and sometimes even targeted by an ever-more powerful nanny-state that steps in when parents do their job differently than what the government (read: the Department of Education) says they should.

For instance, I have an “unschooling” friend. She is one of the most involved mothers I know. She spends every waking hour with her kids, not teaching them any particular curriculum. They’d be in late elementary and middle school were it not for the fact that they’ve never set foot in a public school. Yet these kids read and do math almost as well as other kids. And what they may not have in skill, they have in gobs and gobs of real world experience—they have been entrepreneurs, town mayors, strategy game champions, jewelers, actors, and inventors. Yet, if she were ever to get “on the radar” of the state, she would surely have to answer to a judge for lifelong truancy and perhaps risk having her kids taken away from her or her kids be forced into a public school.

No state has validated “un-schooling” as a teaching method. Frankly, I wouldn’t do it because I’d worry too much that my kids wouldn’t have the practical skills they need. But I find it difficult to challenge when un-schoolers and home-schoolers seem to get such good results. My point is that even a child who is home-schooled must adhere to a state curriculum and prove they meet the minimum standards of learning at each age level—even if the parent is highly participatory and wants to educate their child in a different way. Each child must be enrolled in something, somewhere. Tracked and tested according to the state’s learning schedule with little or no accommodation for differing learning styles, strengths or weaknesses.

Just a few more examples of an expanding state involvement in the family:

• Colorado’s Department of Education recently announced sweeping new regulations over every form of education with new rules that prohibit long-standing, well-respected techniques used in Montessori and Waldorf schooling. In hyper-regulating private schools, the state will squeeze out competition for funding by driving out of business schools that use these techniques, thereby channeling additional funds into the state’s educational coffers.
• Schools advise parents that they must vaccinate their kids, but parents are never told of the risks nor that it is may well be unconstitutional to require their children be vaccinated without exception. Professionals who speak against blind obedience to the growing “Vaccination Nation” are blackballed, or worse, subjected to professional discipline, civil and criminal charges.
• When parents choose alternate medical treatments for their kids rather than expose them to potentially damaging pharmaceuticals, they’re hauled into court and face having their children taken away from them.
• When parents grow their own wholesome, untainted, local foods, they’re hunted, stalked, and their home-based herds of livestock seized and slaughtered because they dared to deviate from the corporate food structure.

It is an express goal of every public educational system to create workers for the future. Plain and simple–a workforce prepared for service. That’s been that way for oh, what, 75 years or so. What’s alarming to me is how much more interest the state has in parenting, and how much harder it is to stand up as parents to advocate for what we believe is best for our kids. And–how aware kids are of that. Deeper and deeper the state dives into regulating families, in forming a work force that will do as it’s told, resonating of Panem. State vision and mission statements frequently qualify the “worker production” goal in terms of helping children be successful in a global market. But the increasing authority of the state to involve itself in the family and in the everyday life of the child seems to have had the opposite effect—of creating subdued minds not prepared to innovate, invent, adapt to rapidly changing events.

Not one to be an alarmist most of the time, I’m actually pretty nervous. All the more so because my children are growing aware of the social, legal, consumerist climate in which they live. I’ve been challenged that the state has always been involved in schooling and parenting; that nothing’s changed at all. But I think it has. Our culture has changed, our values have changed. Sometimes that’s in awesome ways (super liberal that I am). But in other ways, it’s anything but awesome. It’s scary.

In every child is a Katniss Everdeen. Or a Peeta Mellark. Or a Gale Hawthorne– kids who want more for themselves than what’s being served up to them now. But unlike the parents of Panem in this mythical future, we need to be careful to not lose the power to give it to them.

What is this?

On Tuesday April 10, 2012 at 1:00 PM (Pacific) I’m providing FREE online training to a limited number of people, where I will reveal my complete marketing blueprint for getting new customers and clients.

This will be packed with solid content. No frills and no fluff. It will last as long as it takes to show you everything from A to Z. It will probably be more information than you can absorb.

In the past seven years or so, I’ve studied just about every ounce of marketing training available. I estimate that I’ve spent near $100,000 in private consulting, seminars, books, CD’s and coaching to master this subject.

I’ve attended multiple $10,000 weekend seminars. I’ve paid as much as $1,000 an hour for private consultants to teach me what I’m going to share with you Free.

To say this is valuable is an understatement. 

What You Will Get

I’m going to walk you through, step-by-step, the formula I use with every business I start or consult with my clients on. It’s formulaic and repeatable. We will start with the high level overview and then delve into as much detail as time and questions permit. 

You will also get my latest thinking, testing and experiments. Believe me, there are more failed experiments than successes, but that’s the only way to find the winners. You will walk away with the template ready to tweak and adjust to your unique business.

It Works

I’ve implemented this exact formula across five different industries; within my own businesses and my clients’. It’s the same formula over and over and it works. Learning this will be the single best investment of your time.

Not only have I paid high prices to work with high priced consultants, but I’ve spent tons of money testing and making mistakes so you don’t have to.

The thing about marketing is there are no mistakes. It’s all testing, as long as you you keep improving upon the system. I’ve done a lot of expensive ‘testing’ so you wont have to. 

Why is This so Ugly?

Did you see how ugly those images were above? Well those are my slides for this training. I’ve been wanting to share this with you for a long time, but I keep putting it off because I’m busy.

Last night I finally sat down with pen and paper and scribbled out those “slides” for the webinar. I realized I could mess around for days making the slides pretty, but I would probably never get to it, and then you’d miss out.

They are ugly! Good enough, will have to be better than nothing. I hope you agree. If you need pretty graphics and animated slides to see value, don’t come to this training, I can’t help you. Frankly, no one can.

But if you want solid content that works, this is for you. You’ve been warned. This will be raw!

During the past two weeks I’ve been working like a mad scientist on two promotions. The first was to push my book “How to be Rich” to #1 book on the Introduction to Investing list at Amazon. That just happened the evening of March 28, 2012. 

Second, I’ve been helping my wife launch a fitness boot camp / personal training event in her business. Both have been very successful using this same formula.

This is all in-between my normal stuff. So I could either make fancy slides, or get stuff done that works. There are two HUGE lesson there if you’re reading between the lines. Let me know in the comments if you get them.

Why is this Free?

First, if you look around this blog, you’ll notice I always provide a ton of free, in-depth training and information. I like sharing and it pays off in connecting me with smart, like minded people like you. It also attracts clients in the long-run.

Secondly, and the main reason, is that I’m writing a new book that will cover this formula. I want to test the delivery of this information with you so I can get your live question. Your questions during the live training is the only way I can streamline the delivery of this information to make my next book a hit.  

Who is it For?

I’m primarily delivering this information to a group of financial advisors who have been subscribing to my updates for couple of years. That said, the formula works for anyone in the business of delivering service or information.

This system could work if you sell products, however, I’ve not tried it and it may not work very well if you sell a commodity item like microwaves. But why in the world would you  want to be in that kind of business anyway–you’re competing with China and others–too painful. 

What to Do

Enter your name and email below. Check your email immediatly and click the confirmation link that is in the email. You must do this to get the webinar link.

Between now and April 10th I will send you the webinar details. Bring a pen and paper and be on time because I’m going to go fast to fit in as much as I can.

Don’t miss it, because I don’t have any reason to record it. I’m looking for live questions that will help create the content for my next book. I’m looking forward to it. Talk to you soon.

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We respect your email privacy

This article will show you how to invest in the Roth IRA and why you should highly consider using it. For many people, the Roth IRA may be your second most important investment. You may have already started the first, but if not, I will show you where to get that information too. If you’re not familiar with the benefits of the Roth IRA, read on.

First, three major benefits of the Roth IRA, then I will get into some of the nitty-gritty details.

1)      Money is hard to get

That probably doesn’t sound like a benefit, but it’s one of the greatest benefits of the Roth IRA, along with other qualified retirement plans like the 401k. Effectively managing your money is more about controlling your behavior than anything else. The more automated features built into your finances that are beyond your control, the more success you’ll have.

The IRS penalizes you heavily for early withdrawals, thus you’re less likely to withdraw the money for unnecessary luxuries. It also takes time to get to the money so most of your impulse purchases seem to fade in importance after a few days. This alone can protect your retirement nest egg.

The money is very hard for creditors to get to. That may not seem important now, but, it could be the difference between wealth and poverty. With rampant law suits, unemployment, debt, bankruptcy, and the possibility of a serious at fault auto accident, your money is almost bullet proof in the Roth IRA. You may never need this protection, but if you do, you can’t wait until it’s too late.

2)      Tax Free

Here’s the big one. Any money you invest in your Roth IRA, and any investment growth inside the account, is tax free when you withdraw it after retirement. It’s impossible to predict the future, but with the direction of the U.S. government, it’s probable that taxes will be higher in the future. It’s impossible to predict, but even if that’s not the case, paying no taxes in retirement is not only financially sound; it will give you peace of mind too.

3)      Larger investment

The Roth IRA contribution limit in 2012 is $5,000, or $6,000 if you are over the age of 50, but they change all the time. They both have the same annual limits, but in a way, you can invest more money in a Roth IRA than in a traditional IRA.

The limits are the same, but the difference between the two is that you would have already paid taxes on the $5,000 going into the Roth IRA. Effectively more money is going to work in the Roth IRA than the traditional IRA because of the difference in taxes when you withdraw it. The math is complicated, but just trust me. Because of the effect of taxes, more money goes to work immediately in the Roth IRA than the traditional IRA.

What is a Roth IRA?

The Roth IRA is an account established by U.S. law, where you can hold many different types of investments. Within the Roth IRA account, you can invest in things such as cash, certificates of deposits (CDs), stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, etc.

The same investments that you can buy outside of a retirement account can also be purchased within the Roth IRA account. The Roth IRA simply applies rules that protect your money and imposes tax laws (usually beneficial) to you and the investment.

For example, you can go to your local bank and buy a certificate of deposit (CD). You can also buy that same CD within a Roth IRA, but different rules apply regarding how it’s taxed and when and how you can withdraw that money.

Roth IRA vs. IRA

The primary difference between an IRA and a Roth IRA is when you will pay taxes on the money. When you invest in an IRA, you get an immediate tax deduction, but you will pay the taxes when you withdraw the money in retirement.

However, with the Roth IRA you do not get an immediate tax deduction, but when you withdraw the money in retirement, you pay zero in taxes. You also pay zero taxes on your investment gains. There are other differences, but those are the major ones.

There are many other investment options, and you should review them all with the help of a financial professional. It’s particularly important to consider your employer’s 401k plan, especially if they match a percentage of your investment.

Roth IRA Movement

This brief introduction into the Roth IRA was inspired by my friend Jeff Rose who started the ‘Roth IRA movement’ to educate and spread the benefits of this great investment tool. This is much bigger that you and I.

His inspiration for this began after speaking to a group of 50 college seniors. Not a single one had ever heard of the Roth IRA. I agree with Jeff, it’s disturbing that kids can go through 17 years of school and never once be exposed to one of the most important tools for financial freedom and living life on your own terms.

This led Jeff to set up the ‘Roth IRA movement,’ which will include over 135 bloggers who will be sharing a similar message on March 27^th 2012. It’s a fantastic idea that will hopefully help as many people as possible.

You Can Help

If you resonate with Jeff’s idea, simply share this article with your friends and family via email and social media and let’s see how big this thing can get and how many people we can help.