Kimbro Believes It’s Courage and Not Cash Key to Wealth
Dr. Dennis Kimbro’s
Dr. Dennis Kimbro is best known for the classic book Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice. In his latest book, The Wealth Choice: Success Secrets of Black Millionaires, Kimbro shares the results of an exhaustive study of the success secrets of 1,000 Black millionaires
The Wealth Choice: Success Secrets of Black Millionaires By Dennis Kimbro
The Wealth Choice: Success Secrets of Black Millionaires By Dennis Kimbro
Posted: Friday, June 14, 2013 6:30 am
|
Updated: 1:42 pm, Fri Jun 14, 2013.
The Dallas Weekly
An unshakeable passion to see people do better financially is how many describe national bestselling author Dr. Dennis Kimbro’s over 20 year career motivating others to change their lives. Best known for the classic book Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice, Kimbro has spent decades studying the economic conditions of African Americans. The statistics are alarming. According to his research, the average household income of Black America stands at $29,000, barely above poverty and more than 35 percent of Black children live in poverty. And because Kimbro believes your net worth equals your self worth, the figures concerning net worth are more astounding. Nearly 35 percent of African Americans possess zero net worth. Is it a lack of knowledge or a lack of opportunity? For Kimbro, it’s neither: the real issue is courage.
”As a race, unfortunately, we don’t pay homage to our financial elite. Wealth is the result of a conscious choice, action, faith, innovation, effort, preparation and discipline,” notes Kimbro. In his latest book, The Wealth Choice: Success Secrets of Black Millionaires, Kimbro shares the results of an exhaustive study of the success secrets of 1,000 Black millionaires. “Over a seven year period, I interacted with nearly 1,000 Black millionaires; wealth creators who started with nothing, built a financial empire without the use of a microphone or a ball,” explains Kimbro. In a recent phone interview with The Dallas Weekly, the Clark Atlanta University professor enthusiastically stated that their inspirational stories about how to build wealth must be told.
Courage and a determination to passionately pursue dreams were the most common traits among those he interviewed. “This work is not about ‘cash’—it’s about ‘courage.’ It takes courage to chase your dream; it takes courage to save 10 percent of your earnings; it takes courage to forsake today in search of tomorrow; and it takes courage to find a new set of friends because your current friends either disempower you or don’t believe in your future or your abilities,” reflects Kimbro.
Hoping to revolutionize how African Americans view wealth, Kimbro is on a crusade to convert those who struggle with believing they can attain wealth. He brings that crusade to the Dallas Fort Worth area June 19th – 22nd. One way to change that mindset is get people to stop thinking about wealth simply as income. He explains that “Money follows people who respect it and who will use it the right way.” He firmly believes that once the African American community is better informed, the community will start making better choices. Kimbro notes, “If you know better, you can do better. If the average African American knew the current data surrounding the financial condition of his or her race, it would cause him to shudder.“ According to Kimbro’s research, Black America is either in last place or next to last place when it comes to indicators that lead to financial success. These include credit worthiness, employment, home ownership, education, marriage and family stability, and savings. “And, as WEB Du Bois stated in The Negro in Business written in 1899, ‘The man or woman who won’t control his finances will control little else,’” Kimbro laments. Despite these sobering statistics, Kimbro is hopeful that African Americans can improve their finances and become wealth builders. He encourages those who want to transform their finances to do the best they can. “If you can’t save 15%, do the best you can,” he suggests.
Kimbro’s book discusses nine primary factors that lead to success and wealth building. “After seven years of empirical research, I can unequivocally state that wealth is not a function of circumstance, environment, luck, or the cards you are dealt. Starting with the simple question of”What’s the key to generate a seven-figure income?” Kimbro found that the answer wasn’t just education or hard work but a combination of 7 best practices including faith.
One fact that Kimbro learned from the millionaires he interviewed like Tyler Perry and Bishop T.D. Jakes was that a key component to success was a deep rooted religious belief. According to Kimbro, faith encompassed their belief to not be afraid and to not give up. “Faith is a verb and must include action steps,” he notes. Most importantly, Kimbro’s research for the book shows that acquiring wealth was not a matter of chance but a matter of choice. According to Kimbro, “Rich people make money and while the rest of us make excuses.”
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Friday, June 14, 2013 6:30 am.
Updated: 1:42 pm.
To increase sales ‘think about what you think about’
In 1937, Napoleon Hill wrote his landmark book “Think and Grow Rich” after being commissioned by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie to study the world’s most successful people. In his book, Hill outlined 17 principles that were common among the men that pioneered the Industrial Revolution of the early 20th century. If you want to succeed in business today, Hill’s principles are invaluable tools to help you move beyond the day-in and day-out struggle of just getting by, and experience transformational success in your life and business.
Recently I was honored to partner with sales training legend Tom Hopkins, “Chicken Soup” author Mark Victor Hansen, the Napoleon Hill Foundation and 48 of the world’s leading “success” thinkers to update the Hill’s principles for the 21st century. We found that the principles are as relevant and necessary to financial and business success today as they were 100 years ago.
Napoleon Hill wrote that “thoughts are things” and that our businesses and financial results are reflections of our habitual thoughts. If we expect to be successful, we are. If we expect to struggle, we do. Today we have neuroscience to understand this phenomenon and we have learned why Napoleon Hill was a man ahead of his time when it comes to conditioning the mind for success.
When we have a thought, an electrical impulse goes into a part of our brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus then secretes a chemical which triggers an emotion. The emotion then drives our actions, which in turn drive our results. It’s a linear process that cannot be short circuited because it’s an automatic response: thoughts trigger emotions, which drive actions which determine results. It’s a very reliable and simple model of the factors that determine our business results.
For example, suppose one of your sales reps has the basic thought that the economy stinks and homeowners only care about a cheap price. What emotion flows from that thought? Very likely it’s a defeated state that gets reflected in body language and tone of voice. You simply cannot short circuit the neurology that connects thoughts and emotions.
Now ask yourself what actions does the sales rep perform on the sales call? Does he truly serve the homeowner with passion and purpose? Does he take the time to demonstrate why his company delivers superior value over competitors? Does he take the time to fully explain the benefits of investing in cutting-edge technology and high efficiency? Of course not! Why would he? After all, in his mind homeowners don’t care about anything but a cheap price!
Predictably, the sales result that flows from that sales call is a low-margin deal on a basic system. Ironically, the sales person mumbles to himself as he walks out the door, “I knew it. I knew they only cared about a cheap price!” Our pathetic friend has become the quintessential self-fulfilling prophecy and the company’s financial performance remains at the mercy of his self-defeating thoughts.
I have taught thousands of sales professionals how to be powerfully effective at the kitchen table. Yet in my training programs I teach how to “Get the Mind Right” before I teach the actual sales process. Without the Prosperity Mindset, the sales process doesn’t matter. The sales process is useless without a mindset that is programmed to thrive in the face of economic and competitive challenges.
A huge component of the prosperity mindset is the conversation we have with ourselves when the inevitable bad things come our way in life and business. Having a prosperity mindset means asking ourselves the right questions when a problem creeps up on us. Winners ask themselves, “How can I improve the situation.” Whiners complain and belly ache. For example, it’s easy to lament the cheap competitors who seek to undermine our success. That’s what a whiner does. A winner will figure out how to outperform the cheap guy and communicate superior value and service to homeowners.
Ultimately, whining about a bad situation serves no purpose, but to allow us to wallow in misery. Figuring out how to transcend the bad situation always guarantees a more profitable and productive outcome.
Emerson said, “We become what we think about all day long.” If you truly want massive transformational success in business, you must “think about what you think about.” Take a close look at your thoughts about the economy and your customers. They will both reflect the thoughts you have about them. If you expect to find success you will. If you expect to find struggle you will.
Of course the mindset alone is not enough to be successful. Winning in the HVAC and plumbing business requires having a systematic approach to the sales process.
It’s an interesting phenomenon in our industry that we have specialist for service, install, accounting, etc., yet we often throw any warm body on a sales call. To dominate your market you must commit resources to training and developing a professional sales force and implementing a sales process. What worked for our father’s generation is not going to cut the mustard in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace.
Imagine going on a service call or install and the homeowner starts telling you how you should do your job. You wouldn’t allow that. In fact, if a homeowner began telling you how to do your install you might have some choice words for him.
Yet when we go on a sales call we often allow the homeowner to dictate the process. If they want a price while we are in the driveway, we give them a price in the driveway. If they want us to go look at the equipment first, we go look at the equipment first.
We wouldn’t allow the homeowner to dictate how we do an install and we can’t allow the homeowner to dictate how we run a sales call. We rely on a process to do installs because that ensures consistent high quality. If we want consistent sales results we must implement a consistent sales process. A random sales process can only produce random sales results.
What breeds success in today’s economic environment are not the same factors that led to success in the past. The economy is different. The competition is different. The homeowner is different. To think that we can succeed without changing is foolhardy. And if you think change is difficult, try extinction, because that is the reality of many companies who have not developed the skills and strategies to overcome the challenges that face every business today.
Exceptional financial and business performance requires developing a prosperity mindset that is programmed to prosper in the face of adversity and implementing a proven sales process that is designed to communicate superior value to our homeowners. If you think the right things and do the right things you will only create the right results.
Weldon Long is a New York Times Bestselling Author and an expert in growing residential HVAC companies. He grew his own HVAC company from $0 to more than $20,000,000 is sales in just 60 months. In 2009, his HVAC company was selected by Inc Magazine as one of “Americas Fastest Growing Companies.” He is the founder of The Residential Sales and Business Academy where he teaches HVAC sales and business professionals how to dramatically improve sales and business performance. Long’s work has been endorsed by Tom Hopkins, Dr. Stephen R. Covey, Tony Robbins and the Napoleon Hill Foundation. For more information on The Residential Sales and Business Academy visit www.HVACSalesBuilder.com.
Middle East’s rich see assets grow to $4.8 trn
Wealthy individuals in the Middle East and Africa saw the value of their assets rise by 9.1 percent to $4.8trn in 2012, a study by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) showed, as strong economies and rising equity markets fuelled regional growth.
If current trends continue, wealth in the region could rise to $6.5trn by 2017, said the survey, published on Tuesday.
Global wealth managers have flocked to the region in recent years, lured by its rich energy and commodity reserves, relatively higher economic growth and rising population.
At the same time, Middle Eastern investors are becoming more comfortable investing domestically even though the percentage of assets held off-shore is relatively high, said Markus Massi, partner and managing director at BCG. Wealth held in equities grew by 18.3 percent in 2012 in the region, the survey showed.
“You see less money getting invested in outside jurisdictions but this can change pretty quickly if political conditions worsen,” Massi said.
Private banks like Julius Baer and Sarasin Alpen, now compete with Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan Chase and UBS in the region. Royal Bank of Canada expects to double the number of wealth management employees in its Dubai office in the near future, and is open to opportunities for acquisitions, a senior executive said last year.
But only those offering unique investment products and catering to specific asset classes are gaining traction among Middle Eastern investors, said Massi.
High net worth individuals in the Gulf Arab region continue to allocate heavily on cash and prefer regional stock markets when they invest in risky instruments, the report said.
The Gulf Arab region ranked highly among countries with the highest percentage of millionaire households with Qatar leading the global list with 143 millionaires out of every 1,000 households, the study showed.
Middle East’s rich see assets grow to $4.8trn
Wealthy individuals in the Middle East and Africa saw the value of their assets rise by 9.1 percent to $4.8trn in 2012, a study by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) showed, as strong economies and rising equity markets fuelled regional growth.
If current trends continue, wealth in the region could rise to $6.5trn by 2017, said the survey, published on Tuesday.
Global wealth managers have flocked to the region in recent years, lured by its rich energy and commodity reserves, relatively higher economic growth and rising population.
At the same time, Middle Eastern investors are becoming more comfortable investing domestically even though the percentage of assets held off-shore is relatively high, said Markus Massi, partner and managing director at BCG. Wealth held in equities grew by 18.3 percent in 2012 in the region, the survey showed.
“You see less money getting invested in outside jurisdictions but this can change pretty quickly if political conditions worsen,” Massi said.
Private banks like Julius Baer and Sarasin Alpen, now compete with Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan Chase and UBS in the region. Royal Bank of Canada expects to double the number of wealth management employees in its Dubai office in the near future, and is open to opportunities for acquisitions, a senior executive said last year.
But only those offering unique investment products and catering to specific asset classes are gaining traction among Middle Eastern investors, said Massi.
High net worth individuals in the Gulf Arab region continue to allocate heavily on cash and prefer regional stock markets when they invest in risky instruments, the report said.
The Gulf Arab region ranked highly among countries with the highest percentage of millionaire households with Qatar leading the global list with 143 millionaires out of every 1,000 households, the study showed.
Gary Barnes Reveals Why Some People Spend and Grow Rich and Others …
Gary Barnes Reveals Why Some People Spend and Grow Rich and Others Spend and Grow Poor in his Latest
Although the majority of Americans are still shaking off the effects of the Great Recession, they continue to spend 110% of what they earn and allocate 100% of their income. In his new book titled, “Spend Grow Rich,” successful entrepreneur and business coach, Gary Barnes, reveals how smart spending can actually help us grow rich. “While everyone’s income is different, the one thing that we all have in common is that we spend money,” says Gary Barnes, founder of Gary Barnes International. In his book, Barnes identifies five first steps that lead to spending money and growing rich.
· Knowledge Empowers Us. Knowing where we are is essential to finding a path to take us where we want to go. Sometimes, we discover things are worse than we thought. Other times, we find out that they are not as bad as we were afraid.
· You Are (Already) A Millionaire. It’s not about how much money you make that gives you the financial freedom that you desire. Implementing a system that helps you maximize the power of the dollars that come into your control creates financial freedom.
· Balanced Spending. Master the art of balancing spending by:
· Using your money wisely
· Accumulating wealth that will serve you well into your retirement years.
· Learning the differences between people that successfully manage money and those who are always in financial stress. The way money is allocated both before and after monthly and necessary expenditures is the foundation of the Two-Tier Spending Plan.
· Make a Plan Together with Your Partner. If you are married or have a significant other who has his or her finances combined with yours, it is very important that you both be involved in gathering the information and in the decision-making, implementation and accountability phases of the Two-Tier Spending Plan. You will have different spending habits and different perspectives on many issues. If you both go through the process together, discussing at a non-emotional time, you can avoid many emotional or heated discussions around finances later on.
· Assets and Liabilities. Before you can start to eliminate your debt, it is important to know your monthly income and total assets before moving onto debt elimination. List your income sources, your financial assets and your intangible assets such as your desire for a better life, your determination, your family and friends, your health, etc, then evaluate your liabilities.
“’Spend Grow Rich is a simple and practical plan that is meant to help people get their financial lives on track with a few easy steps, affirms Barnes. “By following the steps in my book, it is my goal to motivate and empower people to be able to eliminate the mindsets that constrain them from receiving financial abundance.” Gary Barnes is a passionate author, business coach and former financial planner for over 30 years with a mission to help people. To learn more, visit www.garybarnesinternational.com.
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At universities, too, the rich grow richer
Although many
Americans believe their universities are places where administrators and faculty
members coexist on a fairly equal basis, the reality is that this is far from
the case.
According to
recent surveys by the Chronicle of Higher Education, 35 private university
presidents and 4 public university presidents topped $1 million in total
earnings during the 2011-2012 fiscal year. Among the public university
presidents, Graham Spanier of Pennsylvania State University received $2.9
million for that year, followed by Jay Gogue of Auburn University ($2.5
million), E. Gordon Gee of Ohio State University ($1.9 million), and Alan Merten
of George Mason University ($1.9 million). Overall, the presidents of public
universities – the poor relations of their private university counterparts – had
a median annual total compensation of $441,392.
This very
substantial income does not include many additional perks. According to the New
York Times, President Gee is known for “the lavish lifestyle his job supports,
including a rent-free mansion with an elevator, a pool and a tennis court and
flights on private jets.”
Moreover,
despite hard times, including pay cuts, for many Americans, university
presidents are rapidly increasing their income. President Gogue’s annual
earnings soared from $720,000 to $2.5 million in a single year. Between
2010-2011 and 2011-2012, the number of public university presidents in the
$600,000 to $700,000 income range jumped from 13 to 28.
Of course, it
might be argued that they “earned” these hefty incomes through superior
performance on the job. But is this true?
President
Spanier, whose $2.9 million income in 2011-2012 made him the best-paid public
university president in the United States, resigned his post in November 2011.
His resignation came five days after the arrest of Jerry Sandusky, the Penn
State assistant football coach, on child sex abuse charges – charges that
sparked nationwide outrage over that university’s failure for nearly a decade to
alert law enforcement authorities to alleged sexual assault on campus. Spanier
was himself charged criminally in an alleged cover-up of Sandusky’s crimes,
although he continues to maintain his innocence.
In most cases,
however, the bloated incomes of university presidents result from their
fundraising prowess. President Gogue, whose $2.5 million compensation placed him
second to Spanier, was lauded by Auburn University officials for his close
relationship with business leaders. “In basic financial terms,” a university
spokeswoman explained, “the return on investment is remarkably high.” Similarly,
Hollis Hughes, Jr., the president of Ball State University’s board of trustees,
justified the huge income of Jo Ann Gora, the university president – who, at
just under $1 million income placed fifth in the financial ranking of public
university presidents in 2011-2012 – on the basis of her success at
fundraising.
Cultivating
corporate and wealthy donors, of course, has long been a major task of
university presidents, but it has become an obsession in recent years,
especially as state governments have cut back funding for public universities.
The nation’s largest public university system, the State University of New York,
has gone from a situation in which the state paid 75 percent of the university’s
costs and student tuition paid 25 percent to exactly the reverse, in which state
support covers 25 percent of costs and student tuition covers most of the
remainder. In these circumstances, public universities are desperately seeking
to attract financial support from corporations and the wealthy, with obvious
consequences when it comes to rewarding the top fundraisers and setting campus
priorities.
Meanwhile,
faculty members are left out in the cold. Despite the fact that most faculty at
public universities have many years of graduate education, doctoral degrees,
publications, and years of teaching experience, their average annual salary is
just over $80,000 per year. These, of course, are the full-time, “regular”
faculty. Part-timers, a talented but cheap labor force who administrators are
increasingly substituting for full-timers, are paid, at best, a few thousand
dollars per course. Thus, even when they shuttle from campus to campus, cobbling
together the equivalent of a full course load, they are so impoverished that
they qualify for food stamps. These part-timers and other “contingent” faculty –
educators in temporary positions without job security- today constitute the vast
majority of those who teach at American colleges and
universities.
Nor do faculty
salaries seem likely to rise very much. At the State University of New York, the
faculty and professional staff are now voting on a new, five-year contract with
the state that will provide them with a salary raise of about 1 percent a year –
a raise that, when inflation is taken into account, will actually give them a
salary reduction. Although United University Professions, their
faculty/professional staff union that engaged in lengthy contract negotiations
with the state, fought until the end for a minimum salary for part-time faculty,
state negotiators – loyal to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s hostile approach to public
sector workers – adamantly refused to consider it. Consequently, although top
administrators can (and will) be paid increasingly outlandish amounts, there
will be no salary floor for those who do the teaching and
research.
On university
campuses, it seems, everyone is equal. But some are much more equal than
others.
ISH/KK
Stacey Alcorn to Interview Author, Visionary & Philosopher, Rob White
Napoleon Hill was the amazing visionary who wrote the book Think and Grow Rich. Hill considered 1908 a turning point in his life because he had the opportunity to interview Andrew Carnegie, one of the most powerful and richest men in the world. It was Carnegie who felt that it was possible to build a blueprint to success and he retained Hill to build it. With Carnegie’s introduction, Hill interviewed over 500 of the richest and most powerful people in the world. Hill did build the blueprint to success and it is outlined in Think and Grow Rich. Today, 2013, Stacey Alcorn is building her own blueprint by interviewing the visionaries of today. All of her interviews are recorded and archived at www.StaceyAlcorn.com so that she may share the secrets of the most influential people of our day.
On May 24th 2013, Stacey will be conducting an interview with author, philosopher, and storyteller extraordinaire, Rob White, where he will share remarkably simple ways to turn your mistakes into opportunities, and open your life to lasting confidence, happiness and success.If you have read either of Rob’s Books, A Second Chance at Success or 180-Climbing Two Ladders to Inner Strength and Outer Freedom, you know Rob offers sage wisdom on creating the life you have always dreamed of. Rob goes deep by showing you how to strip away the layers of lies that stop you from succeeding.
About Rob:
Rob White is an author, storyteller a motivational coach with a purpose. Rob created RobWhiteMedia.com as a way to provide individuals with all the resources they need to wake up to the power of WOW. Rob has dedicated his life to inspire individuals to realize and accomplish their own life goals by providing seminars, workshops, videos, articles, blogs, books and original animation shorts.
Rob is the author of 180, a guide to achieving “inner strength and outer freedom”, and A Second Chance at Success: Remarkably Simple Ways to Open Your life to Opportunities and Turn Past Mistakes Into Lasting Confidence, Happiness and Success. Rob is regularly featured on the Huffington Post and his original articles are published in dozens of print and online publications.
From his modest beginnings in a small town in Western Massachusetts, he built a multi-million dollar bi-coastal real estate business and went on to become a successful restaurateur. Rob is an expert in the fields of personal and professional growth. Drawing on 30 years of experience researching and testing myriad methods and tools for success, he has developed a concise and enriching program that unlocks the true power of human potential.
Stacey Alcorn is an empire builder extraordinaire. She currently owns the largest real estate firm in Massachusetts, as well a law firm and worldwide coaching and consulting firm. Stacey has published two popular sales book, Tuned In – Eight Lessons to Sales Success a Great Salesman Did Not Know He Knew and The Playbook to Healthy Time Management. Stacey regularly keynotes programs on entrepreneurship, customer loyalty, building brokerages, women in leadership, blogging, and building successful sales teams.
Stacey Alcorn
Expert in Building Amazing Businesses
Real Estate Brokerage and Mortgage Banking Expert
Boston, MA
(978)479-4053
www.StaceyAlcorn.com
www.HuffingtonPost.com/Stacey-Alcorn
Pray and Grow Rich
Many Vatican-watchers interpreted the election of Pope Francis
as Rome’s counter-offensive against the rise of neo-Pentecostalism
in the global South. Pentecostalism is the fastest growing sect in
the Latin America, where a third of the world’s Catholics live, and
is giving the established Roman Church a run for its money — so to
speak.
The latest figures show that the numbers of Pentecostals
throughout Latin America has soared since 1970 — when they
represented a mere 4 percent of the population — to nearly 30
percent. In Guatemala it is estimated that four in ten are
Pentecostals.
Reasons for the rise of evangelical Protestant denominations are
legion, but one popular theory states that the poor benighted
masses, many of whom recently left rural areas and relocated to
crowded urban centers, are drawn to neo-Pentecostalism’s prosperity
gospel with its charismatic leaders, boisterous worship services,
emphasis on signs and wonders, and promise of certain riches. Join
our church and God will make you rich, powerful, successful, etc.
It is a message with all of the grace of a casino billboard. It is
the opposite of indulgences. This time it is God who is pulling out
his wallet.
The idea is that God wants the righteous to be happy and
blessed. While this means all the usual stuff: grace, forgiveness
of sins, salvation, eternal paradise, it also means happiness for
the here and now in the mundane form of cash, cars, boats, vacation
homes. In a word, mammon. Exhibit A is the Rev. Joel Osteen, one of
the most vocal proponents of the prosperity gospel (though he
doesn’t like the term) whose net worth is estimated at
$40 million. Now that’s living right.
In direct opposition to the prosperity preachers stands Francis,
the first pope to take the name of Francis of Assisi, the
13th-century nobleman who was something of a radical in the Middle
Ages, embracing poverty while the Church wallowed in its own
crapulence. St. Francis, legend has it, was inspired to devote
himself to a life of poverty upon hearing the gospel of Matthew in
which Christ tells his disciples to go forth and proclaim that the
Kingdom of Heaven is near. They should take no money with them, nor
even a walking stick or shoes for the road. Apparently, the name
Francis has been taboo in the Vatican until now, but if one hopes
to stem the tide of the prosperity gospel in your homeland, the
symbolism is irresistible.
THE GOSPEL OF PROSPERITY has been around for decades. It has
flourished in good times and — oddly enough — in bad. It was
first expounded in the 1950s by Oral Roberts in books like
God’s Formula for Success and Prosperity, but it wasn’t
until the charismatic Oral Roberts University-educated Osteen took
up the cause that the gospel really started to pay off.
Proponents cite chapter and verse to bolster the legitimacy of
their message. The Parable of the Talents. Much of Deuteronomy.
Opponents likewise evoke the Sermon on the Plain (“Blessed are the
poor for yours is the kingdom of God”), St. Paul (“I delight in
weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in
difficulties”), and the Book of Job in which the righteous
man loses everything. Between these two gospels, the gospel of
prosperity and the gospel of the cross, there is a great gulf.
Perhaps Beliefnet’s Scot McKnight said it best: “The problem with
the prosperity gospel is it focuses on ‘getting our wants.’ The
cross gospel focuses on ‘giving ourselves.’”
Living a Christian life would seem to be self-evidently
beneficial to success. That is if success means more than wealth
and power. A Christian life theoretically means you are living a
pious, selfless existence, while committing few of the vices that
would seem to militate against wealth and success, like sloth,
greed, lust, wrath, and envy. In other words, a man living a
virtuous life is guaranteed a better chance at success than the
lazy drunkard who cheats on his wife and gambles away her
paycheck.
Jesus certainly promised riches to those who followed his way.
But they were riches of a permanent kind. They were riches you
can take with you. Perhaps, eventually, the converts will
realize that the prosperity they were promised has failed to
materialize and they may as well return to their original homes
where the emphasis is not on material riches, nor on romanticizing
poverty, but on advocating for the dignity for the poor.
Temples grow rich in Andhra
HYDERABAD: Issues such as inflation, agitations, and political instabilities don’t impact the gods in the state. Revenues of many temples in the state never dwindle, but only increase by the year. As many as 133 temples across the state have reached super rich club of annual income up to Rs one crore in the recent assessment of the endowment department. The number of temples categorised under 6A have grown from around just 90 in 2008 to 133 now.
According to endowment department officials, another 30 temples will be added to the super rich category which includes 114 as of now. Temples are broadly classified into assessable (above Rs 50,000) and non-assessable temples with less than Rs 50,000 of annual revenue. “The increasing devotion is due to the increasing instabilities in the state” Swami Kamalananda Bharti said.
As per the endowment department rules, assessable temples are categorised into 6A (with an income between Rs 25 lakh to 1 crore), 6B temples (from income between 25 lakh to 5 lakh), 6C temples with income up to 5 lakh and beginning from Rs 50,000.
Gunter district has the highest number (13) of temples in the state, and Nellore with 9 temples and Krihsna with 8 temples stand second and third in the list. Srikakulam with one Rangareddy and Ananthpur have least number (2 each) of 6A temples. Curiously, Hyderabad has also only two super rich temples. Sri Venkateswara temples at Chikkadapalli, Balaji Venkateswara temple at Mehedipatnam in Hyderabad are under the list of 6 A temples.
Sri Karaka Chettu Ammavari temple at Peda Waltair (Vyzag district), Erukamba Ammavari temple at Vyzag, Sri Bala Tripura Sundari Sameta Sri Ramalengeswara temple at Suryarao pet Kakinada, Sri Durgalamma temple at Velam pet in Vyzag, Gurukula Tirumala Paarijata Sri Venkateswara Swami Devastanam at Jangareddy Gudem (West Godavari) are the some of the major 6B temples which have been reclassified into 6A temples recently, as their revenue increased. Officials said mostly the revenue come from darshan and other seva tickets sale and Hundi collection.
In addition to these rich temples, there would be new addition of around 800 6C temples. According to the officials, many politicians were interested to get the temples in their districts to get into 6C temples category. Addition of temples into assessable category will make them eligible to get common good fund (CGF) from the endowment department which can be used for temple development. State endowment department has about Rs 130 crore of CGF which is again contributed by temples from their revenues. Endowment department does not receive any fund from the finance department.
There are many temples across the state, which come under non-assessable category. With the addition of these new temples, the number of assessable temples goes from 36,000 to 37,000. Officials said there is 10 percent increase in the number of temples in last 5 years joining each of categories including 6B category, under which, there are about 1008 temples in the state.
Austin’s ManagerComplete: Be Stubborn
Apr 25, 2013 Tweet
In Jason Duncan’s favorite entrepreneurship book, Think and Grow Rich, the author tells the story of a gold mine owner who drills for years and finds no gold. Discouraged, he sells the mine to someone else – who then proceeds to find gold, just a few feet away from where the first guy drilled.
The lesson here is about drive and stubbornness. After spending 20 years in software development and running a sports apparel company, Duncan is using his own drive and stubbornness to build ManagerComplete, a software application for managers handling multiple office locations.
ManagerComplete claims to reduce managers’ work by two hours per week – and 30 percent of their emails – by improving office-to-office communications. Instead of playing tag over phone, fax, and email, everything can be done on their cloud-based application: overseeing employee shifts, inventory, repairs, and more.
Below, Duncan shares some of the lessons he’s learned about persistence, and why “failing fast” is a mistake.
Tech Cocktail: What’s the hardest lesson you’ve had to learn so far?
Jason Duncan: Hiring the right salespeople. My last guy spent six months getting up to speed then quit because he says he burned out.
Tech Cocktail: What common startup advice do you completely disagree with?
Duncan: Fail early and fail fast. This is just ridiculous advice. If the idea was such a flop in the first place, it should have never been attempted. Too many people rush to the word “startup” without having the discipline to actually do some business research first. Besides, when you fail, you only learn what not to do next time. The important thing is learning what to do right, and that often starts with smart business planning and research first.
Tech Cocktail: If you had an extra $1,000 to spend on marketing, what would you do?
Duncan: I would negotiate Visual.ly down from $1,500 to $1,000 for a infographic about how our product helps franchisees manage multiple locations.
Tech Cocktail: What’s your biggest personal weakness and how do you make up for it?
Duncan: My passion is relentless, and my vision is very clear. My drive is way beyond most other people so I have to be careful not to drive people too hard.
Tech Cocktail: What do you wish someone had told you about startup life?
Duncan: It’s like an endless sparring session: there is always something coming along that is new, challenging, and hard to navigate.
Tech Cocktail: What personality trait has served you the best as an entrepreneur?
Duncan: Stubbornness. You have to have this because it is very, very difficult sometimes. If you are not very stubborn it’s just too easy to throw in the towel.
Tech Cocktail: How do you unwind on the weekend?
Duncan: Pool or hikes with my family here in beautiful Austin, TX.
Tech Cocktail: What’s the weirdest way someone has used your product?
Duncan: One of my clients has about 90 locations in Houston. About once a month, they use our product to post Be On The Lookout alerts (BOLO) for criminals that are either robbing locations or passing counterfeit money. These criminals will go from one location to the next. Our bulletin alert system put a stop to that.
Tech Cocktail: What’s the most encouraging sign of success you’ve seen so far?
Duncan: Landing some national accounts with more than 100 locations.
Tech Cocktail: What’s your crazy, long-term, huge vision?
Duncan: I want ManagerComplete to be seen and recognized as the Salesforce.com of operations management.
Tech Cocktail: If your startup were an animal, which one would it be and why?
Duncan: Meerkat – social and agile.
Tech Cocktail: If your startup were a cocktail, which one would it be and why?
Duncan: Top-shelf margarita with a Grand Marnier floater. People like the way it tastes and it relieves pressure.
Tech Cocktail: What’s one quirky fact about you?
Duncan: I have a blue belt in Jiu-Jitsu and have trained with some of the top Mixed Martial Arts fighters in the world. I even got thrown around once by Randy Couture, two-time UFC heavyweight champ.
ManagerComplete was a showcased startup at our Tech Cocktail Austin mixer in April.
