Tyler Jorgenson

I was thinking today about how depressing the unemployment numbers are. Almost as sad are the number of people that are under employed or who are working well below their potential. Most bosses, at least the ones worth working for, don’t enjoy letting people go. They especially don’t like letting good employees go. I’m a member of a network on Forbes.com and this poll was on the sidebar today. The question was asked to a forum of CEO’s.

How does this information give you the edge in being the most useful and valuable employee? Could acting on this information effectively potentially save your job?

For the record, I agreed with the majority of voters. I hate red tape.

I’ve always been frugal.  I can remember going grocery shopping with my Mom when I was a kid and pointing out the items that were lowest price per ounce.  I also learned how to get a lot for my money in many ways, truly trying to stretch each dollar I had, which was never as many as I wish I’d had.  It seems gas prices have been causing people to think about buying new cars, scooters, carpooling to work, etc.  It’s always good to think of ways to save a buck, but it often takes a nudge like gas prices approaching 5 clams to prod us along.

I’m really glad that I only commute 10 miles each way to work.  My truck gets a solid 8 miles to the gallon around town so it still costs me $10 just to get back and forth.  I remembered a website that somebody shared with me a while back where you can enter your zip code and find the lowest priced gas in your area.  I ran a quick search for my zip code and here’s what I found.

Now this may not seem earth shattering, and it’s really not, but here’s the math on the potential savings.  I usually pump at least 20 gallons of the refined black gold into my behemoth every time I fill up and the difference between the lowest and highest priced stations in my search was 22 cents.

.22 Savings per gallon
x 20 gallons
=  $4.40 per fill-up – For some of you $4.40 isn’t much but to me it’s a free spicy tuna roll next time I’m eating sushi.

$4.40 per fill-up
x 52 fuel stops a year (if you’re lucky to only stop once a week)
= $228.80 – Now that’s a lot of spicy tuna rolls!

My Dad probably fills up 2-3 times a week so just making sure he hit the right station could save him as much as $686.40 a year.  He gets better mileage than me, and has a smaller tank so these are just numbers for examples sake, but it makes a decent point.  To drive it home I’m going to take it a step further.  Let’s say that you are in a 35% tax bracket, that $686.40 you would have spent by not hitting the cheaper station would have taken $926.64 of earned income to buy.   Lastly, if I were to invest that $686.40 savings every year into a interest bearing account earning 6% by the time my oldest daughter would be turning 18 (14+ years from now) the account would have nearly $15,000.  All of that just by making sure you pull into the right pump.

Here’s another list of ways to save money on gas, not endorsed by me but it’s out there on the ‘interweb’ so it must be true.

I heard about this company about 4 months ago but I was pretty skeptical. I mean who would really give you $25 just for signing up by creating an account on their site?

I clicked on the link and started to fill out an account when I noticed that it asked for my SSN. I didn’t like that, so I closed the window and forgot all about it. A couple of weeks ago I saw the website mentioned on a more reputable blog and the author showed her check for $22.50 (the $25 – $2.50 check fee. You can opt to add a bank account and have it transferred in for free). I decided to do a little research. The company is a legitimate startup run by Steve Case and they are using their advertising dollars through this referral program instead of commercials, print, billboards, etc.

So, here’s $25. It’s free if you take the 30 seconds to sign up.

My account took about 24 hours to be verified and then I just clicked to accept the $25 from revolution money exchange and it was credited to my rme account. I added a bank account and once that’s verified I can transfer the moola over to WaMu.

Enjoy! ONE MORE THING – I forgot to mention that this is a limited time deal. Because I didn’t jump on this some may miss the chance. The offer expires on May 15th (my birthday) so you need to click on the green button below and sign up today if you want the $$.

And here I thought Eastvale wasn’t as affluent as other cities. I never saw one of these in Chino.

*sorry, it’s not mine.

Pain or Pleasure?

A friend of mine has a great post about motivation. His friend is building a mansion in Santa Barbara as a speculative investment and is considering moving in rather than selling, even though the market is hot enough to sell, so that the mansion will motivate him to achieve greater goals. Deyl asked: Do you think there is anything wrong with a material thing like a house being a motivator to work hard and smart? He has received some great responses so far.

What I find interesting about choice is that all of our choices in life come down to our desire to gain pleasure and our need to avoid pain. Think about it. From the very simple decisions in our lives to the most complex those two factors are at the root of our the choice we make.

Example

Ask a woman why she spends hour(s) every morning applying makeup and doing her hair. The answers are likely to be either because doing so makes her feel pretty (pleasure) or because not doing so may garnish some ridicule (pain).

You can go through any choice and break it down to these two factors. When the light turns red you stop to avoid pain. Even if you are certain no cars are coming you don’t want the pain of having to pay for a ticket and the serious agony of sitting in traffic school. If you give to charity, what is your motivating factor? Is it because you want the pleasure of helping somebody? Do you not want the pain of higher taxes and want the pleasure of a nice write off?

Understanding these two principals is helping me understand what drives me and what influence the decisions I make. I am currently in the middle of a few real estate deals that are generating a bit of stress, but the idea of the payout and the pleasure it will bring motivates me to make the deals work.

Just because we are driven by pleasure and pain doesn’t make us bad people. If the things that we associate pleasure to are being able to contribute back to society then that’s a good thing. If you get pleasure from knowing that you are providing for your family, creating employment, promoting commerce, etc then building a nice house for you and your (6) kids is a great thing. Especially if it’s going to motivate you to take on more ventures that are likely to continue the cycle even more. So, Deyls’ friend, build on and love your home. Enjoy the pleasure that comes from the sense of accomplishment and knowing that you are living in something that you envisioned from a bare lot and a bunch of sticks.

Recently I have been devouring self-help books, psychology texts and biographies of people I admire. I am on a bit of a self development kick and am loving the revelations that are coming from trying to better myself. One of the books I am reading is an old copy (1980) of Tom Hopkins How To Master The Art Of Selling. Here are a couple of quotes:

“People always choose the economic level they’ll accept – it’s never thrust on them.”

This got me thinking. When I was going through college I remember thinking that if I could get a job making $100,000 a year then my life would be amazing. I would be living in a land of milk and honey and money would be so plentiful life would be blissful. My first ‘real’ job was working for Washington Mutual as a loan consultant (I don’t count owning a little restaurant before that as a real job, nor the dozens of part time jobs either). The day that I got hired was the same day as an awards ceremony for the previous year. I was invited to the party and my wife and I sat there as the annual production awards were handed out. The top achiever for the year, and the man assigned to be my mentor for the next 6 months, had funded close to $200,000,000 in home loans resulting in a annual pay of over $1,000,000! All of a sudden $100,000 seemed paltry. I watched the attitudes and the resulting production of the different loan consultants that I worked with for the next couple of years and noticed that each of their production was limited to what they felt they could attain. The built their own glass ceilings. This leads to the next quote:

“You’re choosing a level of life that’s poor compared to what you could have with the extra exertion you are capable of.
It’s all on your shoulders, and there’s no way you can shift a bit of the responsibility to anyone else.”

I believe that I have limited my level of life in recent years and that my goals and attitudes need to reflect a higher focus. This leads me to a challenge and a question that I hope to get some feedback on:

Challenge: Raise the bar as to what you thought was possible in your work, relationships and personal achievements. Believe that you can attain greater job titles, production numbers, income; believe that you can have more meaningful relationships; believe that you can achieve great things. Then start out today to do so.

Question: Has there ever been a time in your life when you have had a similar paradigm shift? A time when you went from thinking that one level of life was acceptable to aspiring for something greater? If so, how did you make the change?

I leave you with an example of a different paradigm. I recently purchased a copy of Robb Report and read about a cell phone that cost $6,000, private jets, a yacht that costs $250,000,000, and cars that made my mouth water. An old friend of mine blogged about a family he is working with on a project to develop the private island they bought into fractional ownership luxury properties. That family obviously doesn’t accept the 9-5, 3% annual raise, get your pension paradigm.