Our Love Affair with Stuff and How Materialism Actually Sabotages Your Success

Most of us live in a materialistic world that tells us we need stuff. We need stuff not only for personal satisfaction and entertainment, but for status and societal expectations. All that results in spending way too much money and having too many things we’re responsible for. Because the more responsibility you have, the more STRESS you’re going to have…and the more expenses you’ll have over time due to the need for maintenance, etc.

It really is a vicious cycle.

Here's an Excerpt from Our Minimize to Maximize Training That Addresses This Issue…

Let's look at how this plays out in our lives and how it can really sabotage our success, peace of mind and happiness.

For example, if you have a house and a yard…you’ve got to keep everything maintained. That’s a lot of work…plus equipment and services you’ll need to pay for over time. Of course, if that is a priority to you, by all means…I’m not going to try to change your mind…but it’s something to be conscious of.

Add to that, think about how these added stresses affect your relationship and other areas of your life if you're worried about money and too busy to do other things.

Last year, I personally went from homeowner to proud condo dweller and I absolutely love it. I no longer have to clean (or have a housekeeper clean) 3000 square feet of space. I don’t have to worry about a lawn. I also don’t have all that extra space to bring more stuff into. Now I have to think about all my purchases and decide if I really need them.

And then think about all the toys and status symbols we accumulate. Maybe you have a boat that you planned to use every weekend, all summer, but you don’t and you still have to maintain it. Maybe your kids convinced you that pool was a great idea, not realizing just how much work they really are.

In my apartment, we have a tennis court, pool, golf simulator, gym and all kinds of stuff I can use when I want and other than monthly fees that are shared among residents, I have NO responsibilities to maintain it.

Again, not trying to convince you, but trying to give you a new perspective. Think about all the STUFF in your life that gives you stress. Is it worth it?

For me, the stuff isn’t worth it and I’ve learned to focus on experiences. They don’t create clutter (avoid the souvenirs!!!) and they are even more life enriching. Living in apartment has allowed me to travel more and go off and do whatever I feel like…almost anytime I feel like it. And sure, travel can be expensive…but when you clear out the stuff and ongoing expenses in your life, you have more money. Plus, we’re going to talk about your hourly worth shortly and you’ll see more room for improvement there.

How you experience life is up to you. It might be travel. It might be pampering yourself. It might be enjoying concerts, culinary experiences or the theatre. It doesn’t matters…it’s up to you how you enrich your life. Yoga classes, martial arts, art classes…whatever.

And think about it. That boat you wanted and have to keep paying for to upkeep gives you just one experience and you probably aren’t having that experience as much as you’d planned. Think about how much more variety of experiences you can have with the same amount of money…or less!

But I get it, we want to look good. We’ve worked hard and we want to show our worth with our beautiful home and toys. That’s something that’s hard to let go of, but the less you care what other people think, the happier you’re going to be.

And think about it, who is the person you’d be more interested in talking to? Someone who has all the toys or someone who gets out there and does stuff and shares their experiences. You know it’s the latter. Opt to be an interesting person, rather than a status symbol.

And let’s talk about another added benefit to experiencing stuff…you’re more likely to be active and healthy. Of course, if your experiences are traveling the country to find the best fried culinary delights, that may work against you. But my point is you become a whole person who can choose an activities that are good for your brain and body…all without adding extra burdens to our lives.

To your great success,

Alice Seba
Your Partner in Easy Product Creation

How to Get More Done by Doing Less…
in Two Easy Steps!

When it comes to getting things done, most people work themselves just too darned hard. They unnecessarily take on too high expectations of themselves and work themselves into a stressed out mess. And when things go awry, instead of turning things around…they just make it worse. I've got a solution to all of this for you.

Here's an Excerpt from Our Minimize to Maximize Training That You Might Like

People often ask me how do you get so much done? And my answer is “by doing less!”

This is a philosophy I carry everywhere I go and with everything I do.

In session 1 of the Minimize to Maximize Your Life Training, we discussed hourly worth and outsourcing tasks and that’s just the first part of this. I outsource most business tasks, leaving me to focus on product planning and marketing. In my personal life, I have a housekeeper and happily hire people to do things that reduce my hourly worth or just plain old don’t like to do them. And of course, I have children for chores and if I’m putting something together in my personal life, I have learned to ask for help, instead of just trying to do everything myself. It took me a while to learn that lesson that people are often happy to help, but I'm getting there.

BUT here’s how I manage my daily life…outside of what I’ve hired or enlisted other people to do.

It’s so simple, but it’s something most people don’t think about.

BE OKAY WITH LESS WHEN IT GETS YOU THE RESULTS YOU WANT.

Let me explain.

We all make these grand plans. Whether we’re throwing a party, preparing for a product launch or organizing something at work. We imagine the ideal and we make plans around that.

And then when we put the plan into practice and find it’s not going well, we usually do a few things:

• Stress out like crazy
• Postpone and move deadlines
• Try to complete as much of our plan as possible, without bothering to make adjustments…resulting in an unfinished result.

Here’s what I do instead:

• Make the original plan.
• See how it is in practice. If I see I’m going to run out of time, I make drastic adjustments that will still result in a good end result instead of a half finished one (I’ll give an example in a second)
• Then I learn from the example and stop overdoing it when I do something similar next time.

Let’s go through a couple examples…

• Arranging a party – I used to be really horrible for this. I TOTALLY overdid things and wanted everything perfect. Then I’d become a nightmare as the date came closer. I’d expect things of my husband and would get frustrated when he told me all this wasn’t necessary. I thought he was telling me that because he just didn’t want to help, but really he was RIGHT.

If you’re throwing a party, all that really matters is that your guest have a good time. That can be done with simple food, drinks and a guest list of fun people…and for you to be fun and connect people at your party while they’re there. If you’re too busy running around, you can’t even do that. Decorations aren’t necessary or just keep it simple.

Here’s how I run parties now. I don’t cook, even though I actually love cooking. I order platters that get delivered from my grocery store or order dinner in. Now that comes with an expense, so if you’re on a budget, do a potluck and have everyone brings something small. Or if I do cook, I’ll make something that can be made ahead of time…like lasagna or something that doesn’t need me in the kitchen watching during the party.

And dammit, I’ll use paper plates and compost them if there are a large number of guests. Plastic cutlery goes into the dishwasher and gets used again.

It is more important that I’m part of the party than I try to impress my guests with food, decorations and everything else and then end up busy the whole time.

Think about the things you overdo in your life. Can you see some of the tendencies I just mentioned in what you do and how you can simplify things and fix them?

Now, let’s look at an example from my business.

• A product launch – Whenever I launch a new product, there is a ton of stuff involved. I have to come up with the product idea and marketing plan. The product needs to be made, I have to make a sales page and the marketing plan needs to be executed.

Of course, you can bet I’ve already outsourced a lot of this and through experience, I know how much time is required to complete each piece, so I can confidently plan that. But I wasn’t always there. Sometimes I did the work…and I’m not always totally reliable to get busy work done (eye roll)… or I didn’t have a reliable team so I’d have to make adjustments. And really, when I first started creating products, I approached it like I did my parties, I overdid it. I imagined the most perfect, ideal product, but it wasn’t really feasible.

So I’d have to adjust. I’d have to look at everything I wanted included and figure out what was a must have, a nice to have, a not needed and change the plan. What would make my customers happy to pay the amount of money I was asking for? That’s all I needed to do. I could add stuff later and surprise my customers if I wanted…which is a great idea for customer satisfaction and strengthening a product offer later.

But most people would probably just postpone their launch deadline, working way harder than they have to and delaying their profits, so they could actually afford to give more to their customers.

I never change my launch dates. Okay, never say never, but it would be a very rare case where it needed to be done. Instead, I change my plan to meet the deadline and that is how you get stuff done without all the headache and stress.

We are our worst critics and we have the highest expectations of ourselves. Think about the people you’re serving instead…they probably really don’t care about all those little details that have you in a tizzy.

To your great success,

Alice Seba
Your Partner in Easy Product Creation

How to Calculate Your Hourly Worth and Increase It for More Freedom in Your Life

If you really want to know what your time is worth, this video shows you exactly how to do that. It also shows you how to stop wasting so much time and how to potentially increase your hourly worth, so that you can find more freedom in your life to do the things you love.

Here's an Excerpt from Our Minimize to Maximize Your Life Training:

Here’s an exercise that I think everyone should do. If you’re an entrepreneur, this is a really eye-opening opportunity to set yourself up for making a whole lot more money. If you’re an employee, you may be constrained by your salary, but if one of your goals is to improve your career…you have growth possibilities too.

As an employee making a certain amount, divide your salary by about 2000…which is the number of hours you work less a couple of week’s vacation. Or if you’re not working full time or have more vacation, make those adjustments in how you calculate. So if you make $75K per year, you earn roughly about $37.50 per hour.

So that means when you look at a lot of things you do in your life, you can see that you may be wasting time and not leveraging your hourly worth to the fullest.

For example, if you spend 2 hours going to the grocery store, shopping for groceries, coming home and bringing groceries to your house, you might be better off ordering online and having someone bring the groceries to your home.

Or carrying on with the grocery store example, if you take time to scan flyers to see which stores have the best deal and you end up splitting up your shopping experience…consider the time you’re putting into all of that.

Of course, you need to evaluate what is most important for you…TIME or MONEY. You also need to consider whether you tend to spend more money than you have…because if you do, it’s going to be a lot harder for you to make these time over money saving decisions. Well, at least until you have decluttered your life and you find yourself spending less. THEN these types of decisions will be easier for you to make.

Now, if you’re an entrepreneur, this determining your hourly worth is a good tool for actually INCREASING your worth. You can do the same exercise and decide how much you make per hour on average by looking at your earnings over the last year or so. Of course, you want to make more per hour, so set a goal.

Let’s say you average about $25 per hour when you calculate how many hours you put into your business (many entrepreneurs go well beyond the 40 hours). You can do the same daily decisions…on groceries. Or if you’ll drive further to save a bit more on gas. Or if you’re going to bake a cake for a party or buy one.

But you can also strategically plan how to earn more. To start with, you should start outsourcing any tasks you can hire someone to do for $25 per hour or less. That could be answering customer emails, writing content, simple bookkeeping, tons of stuff. As you outsource those items, you tend to focus on the higher level activities of your business like planning, marketing, etc..those tasks that actually make you money. As you do this more and more, you’ll earn more.

To your great success,

Alice Seba
Your Partner in Easy Product Creation