Say "Let there be . . . "

Simplify, Outsource, Kick Debt

2010-01-23T18:40:00.000-08:00

Last time we talked about managing the cash in your life. Well, did you do the calculations and set up the accounts we talked about last time? If you did and will be consistent in dividing your money into these accounts, you will see your money grow. Let’s not stay at our break-even level. Let’s get more income flowing. People are made with the ingenuity to come up with new ways to develop new resources. Don’t be pessimistic. Don’t listen to those “no” voices that say, “Where’s this extra money gonna come from?” You don’t need to worry because there are many, many ways to generate new streams of income. Look up. Think positively and say to yourself, “I can do this. I can move on and grow.”

So, this program is all about finding that added income where you may not expect to find it.

SIMPLIFY

First of all, think about how to simplify. How to trim off stuff that is costing you more than it is earning you.

How much do you really need to live on? Well, some people kind of dabble in this, but you can be pretty creative in acquiring . . . only what you . . . need.

A great American pass time for decades has been to go out to the mall and shop. This may be phasing out as the money gets more scarce, but what we used to do was come home with some doo-dad, that we maybe didn’t really need, but we were just kind of “treating” ourselves. If you track how much this kind of spending is actually draining your income, you may discover a sizable pocket of money. What if you altered that pattern a little? . . . Or, a lot? But, do you have the will power to do it?

Your Vision Motivates You

Go at it like this. First, make a habit of imagining your grand vision every day. What will it be like when you are experiencing that vision in real time and space? What will you be smelling, hearing, saying, feeling when your vision is actually happening? Use your imagination to pray for it to come to pass. If you daily imagine this, you will be motivated to hold off on impulse spending. If you live with your vision on your mind, you will postpone the goodies and treats that take your money away and begin to acquire not only what you need to live well, but also what you need to support your mission.

Your mission is your passion. It is one of the most positive things to guide you up and out of bad habits. It will motivate you to avoid liabilities.

Liabilities

Liabilities are things and activities that consume your time and money so that you have less to spend on your vision, less available to make the vision a real mission. Liabilities can be possessions you have to store and take care of, or expensive activities which divert funds from the thing you’re passionate about (are some liabilities coming to mind?). Liabilities are possessions and activities which delay saving up your working cash.

Remember, last time I told you it is mandatory that you have a play account out of which you treat yourself regularly. So, I’m not saying to become a miser, or cheapskate who never enjoys life.

But, just be honest about how expensively you are living. I’m not making any judgments of people. It’s different for everybody. One thing is needed by one person and not needed by another. Your mission may be more expensive then my mission, but you must be honest and judge for yourself what is really important. These needs will change as you change. You may eventually eliminate something you now feel you need and start needing something you now have no need of. Flow with this. Hold lightly to the things you have. It is your vision and mission which is important, not your things. God looks at the real you, not at all your things.

Let’s do a little exercise. Here are some pictures of some really good things. And you need to think, what about this picture is telling me to maybe live more cost-effectively? None of these pictures are wrong or bad in themselves, but let them give you ideas of the expenses they represent, expenses you might be able to minimize in order to free up more cash.

Okay, imagine your car. It has a huge spectrum of expenses doesn’t it? How often do you have to feed it at the gas pump? How expensive is it to register? How often do you have to buy new tires? Do you have it detailed? What about parking costs? Oh, the list could be endless about cars.

Do you like to go to Starbucks, or that special place? Ahhh, can you smell the aromas? It’s always nice to stop and have refreshment. How often do you stop and buy there? Multiply the price of that refreshment by the number of times you buy it per week; per month. What if you made coffee at home and brought it with you? How much cash would be freed up by a less expensive refreshment just half the time?

And what can you do about remodeling that living room? Let’s stroll through the furniture store. When are you scheduled to replace that couch? Look at this one; so classy and, ooo, comfortable. And those drapes are perfect with it. And the coffee table matches the end tables. What a difference it would make in our place. We’d have to get that HD wide screen TV. Of course, that requires a new sound system.

There’s a program called “Design on a Dime,” and they show you ways you can do beautiful remodeling that looks great but without spending mega-bucks.

Oh, there’s Madge the waitress coming down the aisle with your order. . . . smells so good. This restaurant makes the best omelets. My mouth is watering. Don’t ask me how often I come here instead of cooking at home. It’s just too yummy.

oo . . . Look at that sleek car, how the light just flashes off the chrome and the glassy rims. Gotta get a second car. We’re both going different directions every morning. And you need a nice one to keep you feeling good in that long commute.

What do you say we eat out tonight. It’s too hot to cook.

So these pictures give us some ideas on how we might be able to economize. And that practice is an essential part of managing our money better. Simplifying. That’s the whole area of discipline. It can be fun to figure out better ways, more economical ways, to get more for our money and spend less of it.

OUTSOURCE

There’s another subject that’s going to become more and more important as your income grows: outsourcing. This has to do with working smart, putting your time, energy and resources to work where they will save the most and produce the most. This also includes setting up systems and routines which make efforts more efficient.

Say you have a task that takes too much time away from income generating activities and could be done more inexpensively by someone else. You might want to think of getting somebody else to do it.
For instance every month I put a lot of quality time into preparing a monthly e-newsletter. Making it look nice with graphics and links and special features takes a lot of time. Then I have to go through the routine of testing it and then sending it and monitoring who opens and which links are clicked. Maybe I should just write the main article or two and have someone else do the rest according to a pre set template and routine. In the time saved by outsourcing I could be doing something that only I can do, such as building relationships with my collaborators, or income generating activities such as finding clients and meeting with them.

You delegate the job that somebody else could do more cost effectively in the long run so that you can be free to put more quality time into something only you can do.

Collaborate

Now, I’m not saying hire your own staff, necessarily. Outsourcing is more about collaborating with separate companies which specialize in the piece work you need. They take care of their own overhead and personnel. Volunteer groups are also a source of workers for non-profits and charitable organizations. But, you treat volunteers as respectfully as regular employees and with a level of expectation which motivates quality, on-budget, on-time work.

So, there you have another way to analyze the strategic use of your time, energy, and resources for the greatest productivity. The people you outsource to are potential members of the community you want to develop around your vision. Whether you are paying them, or providing them an opportunity to give as volunteers, you are benefitting more people than if you just tried to do it all yourself. The result is growth of your community and, well-managed, it can lead to increased income.

KICK DEBT

Let’s move on to a larger subject which is dark and intimidating to most people, an area that we avoid because it seems so insurmountable in millions of lives. It is about the giants who keep their hands on our stuff, and about how we have to keep throwing little dollars at them, but they never seem to go away. One giant has his hand on our house. Another giant has his hand out for payment on everything else. This is the old slavery problem we’ve gotten ourselves into, the prison of debt where so many of us are embarrassed to admit we are locked up.

You’re Not Alone

Many think they are among a minority who have little hope of getting out of debt, feel shame and keep it a secret. But let me just stop that illusion right now, friends. The average American has thirteen credit cards carrying an average of thirty-thousand dollars of debt. Many of these people also carry large debts on cars, student loans and a house. The attitude of most Americans for many decades has been never to expect to get out of debt, but just to push it ahead.

But, debt is one of the primary blocks to realizing our vision. Saying that makes it hurt even more, doesn’t it? Especially if we have little hope of being free from it. If you want to realize your vision for life, here is the way out of the debt prison.

The Interest Trap

First of all, realize you are paying interest payments that exceed the initial amount you borrowed. It is not uncommon for credit card rates to be 18, 20, 26 percent. With interest rates like that you could pay what you borrowed many times over before you’re rid of that debt.

Mortgages are designed to make us pay first about as much interest as the price we agreed to on the house. On a thirty-year mortgage the interest is paid off during about the first 20 years of payments. Only after that do you finally apply payments purely to the principal you borrowed.

If we could just get a hold of a mechanism that would blow these giants away, some system that would use our money more effectively then just tossing a few dollars at them each month. We need to accumulate large amounts of money to fire more strategically at the principal. Reducing the principal would force interest to be calculated on less. That would cancel out lots of interest payments.

To do this we would need a super calculator to constantly factor all our bills, interest, principal and the variables of our income and expenses. We would need an expert to coach us in the perfect times and payment amounts to maximize our money month-in and month-out.

That Mechanism Exists!

Just such a super calculator and financial coach were developed in the form of software during the first few years of this century. If you’ve visited our sponsor, Grace Proceeds.com, you will know the name of this incredible software. Tens of thousands of households in the U.S. and Canada have cut the pay-off time of their debt to as little as one-half to one-third normal time using this system. And they are doing it with little to no change in their normal spending. It sounds too good to be true, but it is documented.

The factorial math and coaching of this program has enabled people to use the income they already have more strategically rather than to refinance, or radically change their normal budget.

But, perhaps the best benefit of this program is that it educates you in how to make your money do more for you right now. Just using this software raises your financial intelligence. That’s something we could all use.
To realize your vision, you must eliminate bad debt as fast as possible. The fastest way is by using the program I have been describing. There is no other program that comes near to matching its capabilities. You can learn the details and even begin using this program by contacting our sponsor directly. They will run your financial picture through this software and give you projections for how soon you could be out of debt using the program.

So, here is your homework: call and ask for your free financial report before our next talk. The report is completely free of charge and requires no account numbers or credit reports. Call for an appointment at 760-765-3879, or any other number you are directed to on this or our other web pages.
If you’d like to start your financial analysis on-line, go directly to our sponsors’ web site, http://www.graceproceeds.com and follow the links labeled “Free Analysis”.

As soon as you start reducing your debt, your discretionary income begins to be freed up to do better things then support the banks. And that leads us right into the subject of our next talk. This will be an exciting program because we will describe several types of income which build phenomenal wealth. It will be about making money earn money faster than you can earn it by working for it. We will discuss actually being your own bank. So, don’t miss this introduction. It could be part of major changes in the pursuit of your vision.

The Cash Flow You Control

2009-12-05T11:43:00.000-08:00

Cash flow management is a complete field of knowledge for which professionals get degrees and certification. I do not plan to try and tell you everything about it here. But, I will tell you some things I am learning from experts about handling my own cash.
I know I am talking to a lot of artists who really are not interested in running a business. I can relate to that completely. For a long time I wanted to do just my art and not hassle about money. But I am learning that business can be a sort of artistic medium in itself, like a multi-layered theatrical work, a film, or a fully functioning symphony orchestra. So, do not let business chase the artists out. Artists have fresh perspectives on orchestrating projects.

I recommend that you get good help for cash flow management. Even though you should know enough to appreciate how it works, that does not mean you have to be the expert in charge of it. Find a bookkeeper and a certified public accountant who love your vision and invite them to be on your team. Notice I am recommending people who love your vision. Be careful who you pick. Interview them and present your vision. Ask them how they might be able to help and note the attitude of their answer. Do they have the attitude that you and the company exist to serve the bill collectors, or that money is to be your servant? The right accountant will catch your vision, and see how to apply their knowledge and skills to make your cash work most efficiently for you and your vision. The basic principle to keep in mind is for money to work for you and your vision, not you and your vision to work for the money.
Do you know that good money management actually makes the amount of money grow? If you give it the attention it requires to get the best use of it, new ways to gain money will open up. With diligence this can accelerate. One of the most basic ways to manage anything is to divide it into categories and deal with each grouping individually. In money these groups are called accounts and each account has its own task to accomplish. Keep them organized and on task.
Many experts say to divide your money into three accounts: giving, saving and investing. Others say to divide it into more accounts that address more areas of life. I like that idea. So, let’s talk about dividing income into six or seven accounts.

Let’s say, out of all the money that comes in, you put 50% towards all of your regular necessities. You say, “Wait a minute! Whoa! I need every penny I get to cover my bare necessities.” Well let’s just think beyond that. Think about if we only had to put 50% of it down for our regular necessities. This suggestion makes many people react angrily that they can’t afford it. Others just laugh like it is some impossible fantasy. I’m challenging you to use your imagination. Think beyond the boundaries you are accustomed to even if it is risky.

Imagine with me that if you only use half of your income for month-to-month necessities, you could start another account for investment. Put 10% into an investment account. This is an account where you are developing what we might call a nest egg, something that you never ever spend. You never spend this your whole life. Why not spend it? Because that money is going to work for you in bonds, stocks, banking policies, maybe real estate, other things that make your money work for you, instead of you working for it.

That account is going to be throwing off dividends and income that you don’t have to work for. That’s your “smart money.” So, you never spend it, but you get to spend what it creates for you. Thinking about it that way might motivate you to begin imagining ways you can cut back on monthly necessities in order to have more for the investment account.

Well, let’s keep imagining here.

Another essential account which also causes growth in your income is your giving account. 10% of everything that comes in to you, you give. Some people give it to their church, some people give it to charities. Whatever. You’re giving it away. You’re being generous. We’ll talk more in-depth later about the role of generosity in your financial health. For now I’ll just say that when the habit of generosity is established, as people all over the world for eons have discovered, more comes to you so that you can keep overflowing to others. So, 10% of your income into your giving account.

Now, these percentages are a goal. The important thing when starting this habit of dividing money into accounts is that you put something into each account. You’re gaining control of the money and you’re training your mind to make the money work for you, not for the bills and banks.

Another account is long-term savings. 10% of everything that comes in is put into long-term savings. This is for things like emergencies, or for large items that you need to save up for. But, I emphasize that this savings should not just sit in a bank savings account. If you leave it there, technically, it will shrink in value due to factors such as inflation. Banks do not pay enough interest to counterbalance inflation. So, keep savings in places that pay enough interest to make it grow faster than inflation.

What is another recommended account into which you should divide your income? Education. 10% of everything goes to education. This should be a lifelong discipline. You are made with the natural tendency to grow. You are made to grow wiser. The world and its rules never stop changing. Knowledge has been called the new money of this age: the information age. Because of this, you should intentionally keep learning in the many ways available: buying books, buying audio series, going to seminars, maybe enrolling in a class. Most things you do to keep growing and learning cost money. So, you should have an account for that.
Are you catching yourself thinking how you can cut back more on your 50% monthly necessities account so you can put into these other accounts? I think that’s a good sign. But, also be brainstorming on creating more streams of income.

Here’s an account that will motivate you to increase your income: the play account. I’ve been told that I am required to spend this account every month; required to spend 10% of everything that comes in on play, celebration, fun, parties, whatever. This is to reward you for keeping your discipline of the money management accounts. If you never allowed yourself any recreational spending, keeping these accounts would get boring. You would get tired of it and stop doing it. You need to reward yourself. Life is not drudgery and behavioral discipline. We allow ourselves to relax. It makes us do all the rest of it better if we know that we’re always allowed to go play on a regular basis.

Donna and I have another account that we thought about adding here. We thought, well what if we reduced our regular necessities account to 40% and put another %10 towards our mission? Our mission is Horizon Gate Productions and it’s part of our life’s passion. We want to be able to contribute a lot to that. Well that just spurs us on to create more income.

You see how using these accounts makes us think creatively about doing more than just breaking even every month. We’re not just mindlessly amassing more money for who knows what.

Now, we’ve been told that it’s a good idea to put these accounts in some kind of visible display and live with them in our home; maybe an envelope for each account kept in a jar on the kitchen counter. Living and interacting with these keeps reminding you of your concrete goals and this helps change your behaviors in handling your money. You begin to control the money and make it increase, or use it more strategically. The overall effect can be very positive.

I want to go back and say a few more words about giving: generosity seems to breed more abundance. You know, when I go to a restaurant and they’re really skimpy on portions, I kind of resent that and I don’t like to go back there. But when the portions are generous, I think, “Oh this is a good place.” I’ll think the food is better and the waiters are nicer. You know, generosity makes people come back and participate in your vision too. Generosity is also the basis for wealth building. Why get wealthy? Is it just to spend on all our appetites and desires? No. It’s to overflow, to get more than we need because some people at that time don’t have enough. So, generosity keeps us free from greed.

Many of the highest missions on earth are not profit making. Take, for instance, famine relief. You don’t expect those who are feeding starving people to charge them ten bucks for a 6 buck meal. No. They aren’t in it for profit. That’s one of the areas where your generosity overflows to fill the gap of that famine.

Another area that’s close to my heart is the arts which carry the inspiration to save people. The arts need the generosity of the world around them because, whether or not they make a profit, artists are working hard to provide inspiration and revelation which enriches the minds and souls of the masses. That’s why we maintain our non-profit organization Horizon Gate Productions.

If you go to the web site for Horizon Gate, you’ll see on the home page, a button to click labeled “donate”. You’ll find similar buttons on thousands of web sites of worthy, charitable organizations. That’s another way for your generosity to overflow.

Become a well-informed giver. Research where your money will do the good you want it to do. Make sure the organization is truly using your donations well. But, the main thing about giving is the attitude of letting go. Give away without trying to control it in the same way you control the rest of your cash flow.

The Next Installment

All this talk of accounts has been dancing around the big question of income. In an article coming up we are going to describe various kinds of income. But, before we can increase income we need to talk about maximizing what we already have. You might be surprised how far you can push what you have right now. I am going to give you some ideas. So, do not miss the next exciting installment.

Here is your assignment to get ready for it. I want you to set a goal for each of these money management accounts. How much would you like to have in each account? By when would you like to have that amount? You’re going to have to think about how much you need per month and then think of finding 10% more for one account and 10% more for that other account, on down the list. Let your imagination come up with ways to economize and ways to create new streams of income. You’re setting wonderful goals to aim for. Calculate your goals and imagine attaining them. You are not as far from your goals as you may think.

To help you with your assignments we have a worksheet which reminds you of important principles we have been talking about. You fill in the blanks with your personal details. To get this worksheet just e-mail markanddonna [at] horizongate.org. We’ll send you the work sheet in reply.

Does this installment challenge you? Please write and tell us about it in the comments box below. Don’t forget to check out the incredible debt elimination and wealth building tools on www.GraceProceeds.com. I look forward to our next time together. May God bless and prosper you.

Describing Your Vision as a Project

2009-11-22T13:51:00.000-08:00

We’ve been talking about taking your vision to another level beyond just inside your head and heart. Last time I invited you to think of your vision as a real project. I encouraged you to have a vision big enough to make a series of projects that build upon each other and that this could continue for your entire lifetime. Think of your life building from one project to the next realizing your vision. With each project you discover more things about what you can do. With each project you develop various parts of the vision. You learn more and more that makes your vision more glorious and more possible.

Now we will discuss specific aspects of your vision in which the project will cause growth. Did you do your homework assignment? Think of a part of your vision in which you need to learn more, gain more skills, or get more experience. Write that down and start imagining a project which would cause that kind of growth in you.

You can still order our free worksheet which reminds you of important principles we talk about and gives you blanks to fill in with your personal details. To get this free worksheet just e-mail markanddonna@horizongate.org. We’ll send you the work sheet in reply.

The Mission

You should be thinking about your mission. You are planning a mission: both the immediate work of this project, short term, and how this project fits into the larger mission of your big vision, long term. What are you inspired to do. That’s your mission. That will carry you through all the hard work and problem solving. It will unify all your partners and keep you all progressing together toward the common goals. If you write it down, everyone on the team will be able to check if they are on-track and you will all avoid getting side-tracked. So, make sure you set that guiding light.

The Knowledge
Every project you do should develop knowledge and experience in you. Make projects big enough to force you to have to look things up and ask more experienced people how they did it? This builds your knowledge in a way that most colleges can not do through lectures and books. Experience and skills come from doing them. So, include time in the project schedule for you and all involved to get whatever training and practice is necessary. Of course, the best practice is doing the actual work but don’t forget the preparation time. If you are making a music video or putting together a concert, actually performing for an audience teaches you much, but you obviously better practice the songs beforehand. If you are going to build a house, you have a lot to learn about a lot of things that make a house, not the least of which is finding the experts who know how to frame, plumb, put in electrical, roof and so on.

A good project will most likely teach you better management skills: managing money, managing people, managing time. So, choose projects that make you learn and go into them with the openness needed to learn.

The Tools

Another area which a project builds for you is your compliment of tools, your toolkit. Maybe these will be tools in hardware, maybe they’re tools of software. Tools to help you

produce the product and tools to help you administrate production. If you are making a film, the project might force you to acquire a new lighting kit, or a camera - hardware. Projects can build up your production equipment, or you may find that renting those tools is more cost effective.

You will discover the right computer programs to help in administration, marketing,
planning, research; these are the tools for the thinking work that guides all your hardware. Just learning software like this increases your knowledge and skills which will serve you in many projects to come.

     Now, tools can be very expensive, especially if you need lots of them. You will be forced to come up with creative ways to acquire those tools. The tools can seem so far beyond your capability to acquire and learn. That’s when the inspiration of your vision and your determination will have to push you beyond your fear, or skepticism, so that you can believe you will have the tools when they are needed.
     Getting the up-front money in creative ways will be the subject of a program to come. But, for now, just know that you are not as far as you may feel from acquiring everything you need.
The People
     The most expensive and elusive thing to acquire for your project is not the funding, hardware and software. It is the people needed to accomplish the work. The right people. You need a core team of the necessary skill sets united by a clear mission and possessing the ability to create the systems needed to reach the goals.
     Not everyone who likes your idea will be a good fit for the team, but they can be part of your supporting network. Think of the project having people in leadership, people doing the actual work and supporters, or fans. The project gives all your collaborators and support workers, your community, something to work on, something to rally around.
Cash Flow
     So, now you move on and you begin to have to describe your vision in terms of dollars and cents. I remember the first time I began to describe my first film in dollars and cents. It was a revelation; a whole new way to describe my intangible idea. And that’s when I really got turned on to math and budgeting. I really began to love that: figuring out how much it will cost, how much profit it might bring in; exciting stuff because you start seeing the potential of actually making a living, and then, you think, “Well, if I could make a living at

this, I might even be able to go beyond just meeting my needs and build the means to do more than projects like this.”
     We are talking about the essential component of cash flow which fuels your projects and your whole vision. If you can manage cash flow well, you will find that more cash flows in. That is the best arrangement, for more cash to flow in than is flowing out. Build things that generate enough cash to pay for themselves and more. That takes creativity and inventiveness. It can be a very challenging puzzle, yet very fulfilling to solve. We’ll discuss this in more detail next program, program four.
The Challenge
     One of the things you want each project to do for you is to stretch you as a person, not just be something easy. You want it to challenge you so that you learn more about yourself; to make yourself rise to the challenge and surprise yourself at what you can do. The project reveals your strengths and weaknesses and by the time you’re done with the project you are ready to do a bigger, harder project, to accomplish even more.
     If you set goals which you have already reached before, or that are below your potential, you may tend to do less than your best. You will probably lose interest and get bored. You were made to grow and growth requires trying the next challenge. I guess this says something about having a vision that is high enough, something that is out of reach but inspires you to keep trying for the next step.

     It also reminds me to enjoy the satisfaction of accomplishing each step. Enjoy the journey, my friends. Every project accomplishes something good in and of itself, even if it is only to draw your core team closer.
     Even if the project fails, it is a wonderful school to teach you many lessons in the process. In this school it is alright to fail and to make mistakes. Each failure or mistake is a valuable lesson which contributes to your ultimate success. You are growing and that is one of the most wonderful phenomena of creation. Be glad for that and cooperate with the process. Pick up the weight, and see how far you can heave it.
The Resulting Asset
     Let’s talk about your project creating an asset. You have something in mind which this project is going to create: a product or a service. This could be a physical object, or it could be some system that you develop. Think about the end product, or service as something which keeps working after you’ve finished the job. You set up a mechanism which keeps producing for you. It could be bringing in income; it could be opening up new opportunities; it could be finding people for you.

At any rate, it is an asset that supports you and your next project. You are building what you need for each step along the way toward realizing your vision. This is the wisdom: instead of reaching the goal of a project and then it’s all over, “Everybody go home. We made our chinkerbox and we’ll just set it up on the shelf here. Or, we created a system that proved successful at helping a bunch of people. Now it’s over and we’re just going to file it and look at it in the photo album. Wasn’t that nice when we got that done.”
Instead of just turning it off, consider giving it a life of its own which can generate support for you and others who want to move on to other things. If you don’t want to be responsible for the on-going management and operations, include in your plans the systems and people who would keep it productive and put you at the level of involvement which suits you. Your product or service could be a profitable business which you could sell to create other assets. The goal should be to create assets that keep benefiting you, rather than just making some finite amount of cash.
The Larger Picture
So you see that when you describe your vision in these kinds of terms:

mission, knowledge, tools, people,

cash flow, the challenge which makes you grow,

creating assets which keep paying you,

it grows from an intangible idea in your head to a real, material mission.
     But, get this: the people that are helped by your mission, knowledge, tools, team, cash flow, meeting the challenge and creating the assets, the people who are touched by all of that can count their blessings that you imagined and shared your idea and worked so hard and pulled others in to your vision. You are helping raise others to realize their visions too.
     So, I want to challenge you right now to start describing your vision in terms of a project or a series of projects.
What is the mission?
What do you need to learn?
What tools do you need?
List the people you need.
Next program we’ll get into cash flow management.
Choose the challenge you need to develop yourself
and come up with an ingenious product or service which could keep paying you long after the project is over.
In your goals start saying when you want concrete steps to happen.
     In the next program we will go deeper into this concept of viewing your vision as a project. We will discuss that critical foundation of cash flow management -- managing it so that it will grow and not disappear the way money tends to do. To get ready for this here is an assignment: make a personal budget of all your income and expenses to see what is coming in and what is going out. If you already do this, great. Go over it again and I’ll bet you’ll find adjustments you can make. If you haven’t been doing this, you will be amazed at how this changes your view of money and starts putting you in control of it, instead of it controlling you.
     To help you we have a worksheet which reminds you of important principles we have been talking about and you fill in the blanks with your personal details. To get this worksheet just e-mail markanddonna@horizongate.org.
     Well, it really has felt good to start talking about vision in concrete terms, hasn’t it? Please write comments below this article. I look forward to our next time together. May God bless and prosper you.

Finding Your Vision

2009-11-13T12:18:00.000-08:00

     In the last blog entry and audio program I gave you an assignment to write in your personal journal about “Who am I really?” For some it might have been the first time they had thought about their own image of themselves, or about what they wanted to be instead of fulfilling everyone else’s opinion of them. I encourage you to keep writing about that as you discover yourself.
Self Examination
      This time let's start at the point where you wonder about having a vision for anything. This may not apply to everyone, but even if you have a vision, it is healthy to review where it comes from. To find or acquire a vision of your own, rather than always working for someone else's, you must look closely at yourself. Self examination is not easy and you have to give it time. In these times of introspection you should seek to observe yourself alone before God, completely independent of anyone else's estimation of you, free of everyone else's agendas for you, as if you are the first person of creation awaiting God's release into the world. Just you and your all-loving Creator.
      Many people avoid this kind of introspection, or are afraid to face God even in their imagination. But, the greatest and most wonderful accomplishments in history have come from deep inspirations, not shallow whims. I challenge you to dig deep, my friends. And I challenge you to change your expectations of God, if you need to, in order to believe that God is on your side. Believe that God is for your best intentions and wants to see you rise to your highest potential, that He created you for this.
Partnering with God
      I invite you to view yourself as God’s fellow worker. We find in scripture that God relates to people, not just as slaves or robots, but as fellow workers, as creators, as stewards of this beautiful place that God has made for us. We see this by observing the story of Adam and Eve, how God placed them as stewards of creation. The Apostle Paul wrote in I Corinthians chapter 3, verse 9, “We are fellow workmen (fellow laborers) with God.”
      In the book of Ephesians, chapter 2, verse 10, we read that we are God’s workmanship, God’s handiwork, made to do good work and live a good life which God prepared for us to do beforehand. We are like a poem, or a sculpture, or a beautiful work of art, which God has made; not just to sit here and be objects, but to actually do important things. I find this very affirming.
      You see, I am calling everyone to know yourself. Know yourself as what God made you to be. To look inside yourself and start thinking, “What am I made to be? What is my unique place in this whole creation?” I assure you that you can know this. As you spend time in prayer, thought and discussion on this subject, you will gradually know more and more who you really are. Know that you are made with many options and that you can choose these freely. Know that you are able to work around challenges which seem to block you from doing what you were made to be. Know that you have many ways in which to show who you are.
They Tell You “No”
      Of course all through life, from earliest age, we are told, “No. Be practical. You can’t do that. We can’t afford that. Get your head out of the sky and do this work I have for you. You’re not good at this. You just don’t have what it takes. So, you go do this instead.” And so we are always having to bow to people’s “No” attitudes. Those voices get ingrained into our minds until we develop fear that keeps us from dreaming and from stepping out to try. Well, I am inviting you right now to get rid of those “No” voices both in your mind and living around you. Think beyond the “No” and beyond the limitations. Quiet the “No’s” so you can listen for God’s eternal “Yes.”
      Imagine something you would like to try. Consider that God may say, “I made you to do this thing you’re imagining.” If you can imagine it, there is some way that it can be done. You can believe God will support you. God has made you to imagine it and has provided some way for you to do it. That does not mean it will be easy. The bigger the dream, the more you will have to learn and work at it.
      Neither am I encouraging you to do something stupid. We all occasionally think up something stupid! But not every idea is stupid. Tell yourself that. Okay, just because you imagine it, does not mean you are ready for it, or that you do not have to make adequate preparations. We will talk about how to develop ideas from the imagination stage to the finished product. But, right now I am saying that others saying “No” to you should not be allowed to stop your dreams. If they are against you, you still know God is for you.
Scripture tells us that God delights in us. God is very attentive to see how we choose our way. Is it not wonderful to think of God being very watchful of us, being interested in what interests us? It reminds me of how God put all the animals before Adam to see what he would name them. It’s as if God was stepping back thinking, “Oh boy, I want to see what these people will do.” With a father who is anxious to see what we come up with, we know that we have a greater likelihood of succeeding. God loves us and delights in us.
I grew up learning that God calls us to a profession. Of course, people had an idea of what they thought God was calling me to be and tended to make me feel obligated to be something because, of course, God had decided it. I still believe God calls us to do and be things but it’s much more open and fun than the way many have represented it to me.
I remember in college, I knew I was supposed to go into ministry. This was in my heart, not because others were pushing me into it. The thing was that “ministry” in those days had very narrow boundaries which were not very fun for me. All I knew in those days, was I should get a pre-theology degree and take sociology or something like that and that was not what I was made to do, to be a sociologist. I was walking across campus, with my head down depressed by this and I plowed right into a professor, Doctor Kingsley Povenmire. I couldn’t have collided with a better person because Dr. Povenmire was the pre-theology counselor and had his own story similar to mine as a young person. He asked me what was wrong, and I told him how depressed I was because I was pursuing things that I didn’t really want to do. Right there he told me how to make a special major that combined all the things that my heart wanted to do. I was suddenly switched that day from being limited, to being free, because I had been given permission to love life. That was a landmark moment in my life.
Do What You Love
      So, just as he told me, I am telling you, do what makes your heart glad. Because you’ll do it better if you love it. Do the options that you can be passionate about. What could you be passionate about, in your life? That is a likely candidate for what God wants you to do. What is your passion right now? What is your long-term passion? Contemplate that. Begin to imagine it. Describe it in detail: what it looks like; what it sounds like; what it smells like; how you will feel when you are accomplishing it. Your vision will begin to come out into the open and become a context for the choices you make in your life. That is a major way God works in you to give you good direction, especially as you dialogue with God about these passions. Integrate these dreams into your prayer life. Maybe they will motivate you to start a prayer discipline if you do not have one yet.
      In any discussion of a personal vision,imagination is incredibly important because imagination sees more possibilities then limitations. Remember all those “No” voices? You look beyond those limitations. It’s good to get good counsel, and have wisdom, but ultimately, your heart needs to lead you. If you can imagine something, you can usually work out a way to do it.
A Drawing to Contemplate
      Here is a drawing exercise to help you think about this. On a landscape oriented paper draw a head-and-shoulders profile on the left side looking right.

Let’s say this is you.
You may look funny, but that’s okay because . . . Draw a star inside your head.

That star is an incredible idea or inspiration inside of you. That is your vision. Now, nobody knows that vision. Everybody looks at you and they think, “Hm. Their expression’s kind of . . . interesting,” but they don’t know what’s inside your head. That vision, or inspiration which is exciting your imagination could just stay there unknown by anyone except you and God. You may be agreeing with the voices ingrained into you that it’s just impractical, or you can’t afford it, or you might fail and look like a fool. So, nothing will come of it because it is safe in the secret place of your head. Are you playing it safe?
Let’s say you are going to take a risk. Draw an arrow extending from you out a little ways in front of you to the right. At the end of that arrow draw the same star floating out ahead of you.

Well, it appears you have done something with that idea. Maybe you drew a picture, maybe you wrote a poem, maybe you cut from a magazine a picture which looked like your idea. Whatever it was, it’s now out there in the open. It has taken on a more material form than what was in your head. Now draw to the right of the star floating out in the open another head and shoulders of a person looking at that floating star. What if someone you trusted could access your idea in some form. What if you could share with him or her so that they would think of the possibilities of this idea. Draw another arrow leading in an arch from the floating star to inside the friend’s head and draw the same star inside the friend’s head.

Now you have two people percolating on the vision. They are collaborating. They are building the idea and discussing how it could work and they are getting excited. “Yes!” is happening. You have a comrade and that’s the beginning of a community where the idea is passed on to someone else. Together, you begin to work it out.
It’s incredibly important to have other people that are of a kindred spirit in your life. Now draw three other head-and-shoulder people on the other side of the friend. Draw arrows from the friend to the new friends and put the same star inside each of their heads.
One person inspired by your vision leads to another and another. One person remembers someone that would like the idea, finds them and plants the idea in their minds too. They find somebody who wants to collaborate, and they find another guy who wants to collaborate and pretty soon the group has grown. But each one has to engage with someone else by sharing the idea.
Now, on the far right, draw arrows big enough to represent the whole group. Extend the arrows out to the right. The community of collaborators begins to realize that they have what it takes, and with a little grace, and a lot of imagination, they will be able to unite their forces, each person working on a different aspect perhaps, but eventually they work on the vision. Now draw at the end of the big arrow an elaborate, decorated version of the star that was originally just in your mind.

     The community that shares the vision creates it in the material world. The thing that was in your mind, unknown, intangible, eventually becomes a tangible, beautiful object, and maybe even has a little extra to it, because the people got together. This could be a crude picture of your progression. When you draw this for yourself you aught to sign and date it so that it is worth a lot of money hanging in the museum commemorating the beginnings of your historic work.
      Now, study your drawing. Translate it into terms of your own vision. Imagine yourself, doing your vision, going through this process.
      This describes what we are doing with this program. We are sharing our vision for a huge life together, of creation and developing wonderful things. We want to take it to another level beyond just inside our head and hearts. We invite you to take your vision and think of it as a real project. Now hopefully the vision is big enough so that it’s a series of projects that build upon each other. So, this could be happening throughout your entire lifetime.
Your Life As a Chain of Projects
      Think of your life building from one project to the next realizing your vision. With each project you will discover more things about what you can do. With each project you will be developing various parts of the vision. You will be learning more and more that makes your vision more glorious and more possible.
In the next program we will go deeper into this concept of viewing your vision as a project. We will discuss specific aspects of your vision in which the project will cause growth.
     To get ready for this here is an assignment: Choose a part of your vision in which you need to learn more, gain more skills, or get more experience. Write that down and start thinking up a project which would cause that kind of growth in you.
      To help you we have a free worksheet which reminds you of important principles we have been talking about and you fill in the blanks with your personal details. To get this free worksheet just e-mail markanddonna at horizongate.org. You can also ask for the worksheet and give us your safe e-mail address in a comment after this article. We’ll send you the worksheet in reply.
      This is exciting for us just to go over the process of creation, of your vision beginning to reveal itself. I look forward to our next time together. May God bless and prosper you.

Series Intro: Call to Action

2009-11-04T12:58:00.000-08:00

The series "Say 'Let there be . . .'" is an attempt to convey lessons from real life on pursuing your inspiration and making it a concrete mission. It is a call to action. It is calling you to do what God, the Creator originally did, to bring into being what was not there. The words "Let there be" are some of the first words of the Bible and represent the expression which God made to begin all that we know as reality. In this series we are drawing attention to the image of God in human beings, the likeness of God in us which empowers us to create what was not there before. We are not calling you to create something out of nothing. You already have a brain, a soul, a body, raw materials, society and all that is needed to bring your idea out into concrete reality. God knows that is hard enough.

But, we aim to help you take real steps in growth, to bring what is in your heart out to live and breath in the world at large. Of course, this is a life-long endeavor, but just breaking the process down into steps can help us unfreeze, help us get over what keeps us from advancing, or just accelerate our advancement.

To accompany the series, we are building a collection of resources to help you bring your vision out to the world. These resources are available through this blog. Here you will be able to listen to the audio programs that parallel these articles and to write your comments as well. As we get them posted you will be able to access our worksheets and bibliographies here as well as links to other blogs, web sites, webinars, training programs, businesses, books and articles.

Our Story

My wife, Donna, and I have lived a life in the arts, sharing a career of about 40 years expressing our faith through the arts. Some of that time has been in church and missions positions, some in Lamb's Players theater company. But, most of that time has been in the non-profit arts organization which we founded in 1981, Horizon Gate Productions. Our son and daughter were born and raised in this work and are now pursuing their own careers.

We have been in the performing arts, written, produced, directed and performed in our own original shows and plays as well as in other people's shows. We have produced film, video and theater, as well as taught how to do it in many countries spanning five continents. We have taught amateurs and professionals to express their faith on the streets, stage and screen. The growth in their lives has caused countless people around the world to draw toward God and come alive. Even after a lifetime of this kind of work backing up what we tell you, we see the years ahead being more productive creating our best art yet and helping many artists do the same.

Our Vision

As an introduction to this series we want to use our mission as a sort of illustration of things we will cover. As you read this description of the Horizon Gate mission try to imagine your own vision developing.

These days Horizon Gate work is in three areas.

The first pillar of the Horizon Gate vision is the "Production Gathering". This is where we build the community of believing artists through working together on films. We have a plan to start a regular gathering of artists in a retreat atmosphere centered around the production of very special films. Through our working together we will demonstrate community by collaborating, mentoring new artists, helping each other grow spiritually, artistically and professionally. Let us know if you are interested in being included in these gatherings.

The second pillar of Horizon Gate is the Film-Gallery-Café. We need a place to show the films and art we make at the Production Gathering. So, we are hoping to open this hybrid of a movie theater, art gallery and café. The general public will be able to sit and view the films and the physical art used to make them. The café atmosphere will encourage conversations about the meaning of the art and films displayed. In this way we will build the community of believers by stimulating dialogue about the art we make.

This place will also contribute to the third pillar of our vision: promoting "financial health" to fund the whole thing. This part of our vision is something many artists and ministries have neglected. That is why building the resources of our artists and arts supporters is a major part of this "Say 'Let there be . . .'" series. It is all about accelerating processes such as debt elimination, multiplying streams of income, building equity, and developing businesses.

So, in these three parts of the Horizon Gate vision: the production gathering, the film-gallery-café and financial health, our series about vision is foreshadowed. The three parts illustrate building your mission and creating your resources.

You Participate Too

This series itself is part of the process which we will be explaining. As you listen to the audio programs and read these articles we will invite you to call us and e-mail us to get more specific about your personal vision. This is part of the process of building a community that helps everyone toward their goals.If at any time during this series you want to meet with us individually, please call 760-765-3879, or any of the numbers you may be given on any of our web pages. You can also e-mail us at markanddonna@horizongate.org.

We will get together one-on-one and talk about various ways we can support each other and develop the resources for our dreams. If you are an artist or arts supporter, you may want to be a part of the community of the production gatherings and film-gallery-café.

In your own mission, as in Horizon Gate, you will get the most benefits from a diverse community including members such as business agents, clients, supporters, collaborators and support workers, all working together to care for, nurture and inspire each other toward your goals. The work we do, the way we work together and the art we produce will draw others toward the fulfillment God intended for us. All of it will draw people into the flow that perpetually helps develop everyone.

The Horizon Gate vision is a capsule of the inspiration for this series of talks. In this series we will start detailing specific components of the process and give you ideas of how to apply them to your own personal vision; how you can get in touch with it, how you can bring it out into the material world so that others will know it. We will spend a good deal of time talking about how to accelerate the development of your resources; the resources that make your vision come alive. And we'll always be keeping in mind how all of this is connecting with God to fulfill God's purpose for making us, how we are partners with God.

Please remember we are telling you things that we ourselves are learning. Even though we have learned much over our 40 year career, we never stop learning and growing. The world and society keeps changing. New rules replace old ones. New vehicles come into use as old ones are discarded. So, we are telling you some fresh things besides what we have experienced in the past.

The Next Installment

Next audio program and article will discuss where your vision comes from and the first steps in making it a reality. Perhaps you already have an idea. Maybe you've developed it a little. Maybe the original inspiration for your mission has faded a bit, or you may not even know what your vision is. Our next installment will help all of these situations.

To get ready here is your assignment: start a section of your journal about "Who am I Really?" Not who do others want me to be, or see me as, or expect me to be; not my obligations. But, if nothing were in my way, in being what and doing what would I be most fulfilled.

It is good to get started on this very important discussion. I look forward to our next time together. May God bless and prosper you.