The path to personal wealth follows a simple equation:

Wealth (Income) = Revenues – Expenses

There’s only two ways to change this equation. First, increase your revenues or sources of income. Second, reduce your expenses. If you live above your means, you are in debt. If you live below your means, you have savings. Living below your means over time will equate to savings.

There are many ways to increase your revenues.

1. Increase your pay – Whether you are an employee, business owner, or freelancer, you must find ways to get paid more. Working at McDonalds does not a wealthy man make. This can be accomplished either through putting in your dues and climbing up the ladder or investing in yourself through education/training and making yourself more valuable in the marketplace.
2. Invest your income – Your pay alone is guaranteed to be what you expect it to be. Investing it in the stock market, bonds, or other investments creates opportunities for your money to work on your behalf. Retirement accounts can be used to reduce the effect of taxes.
3. Create cash generating sources – Your primary income through a job is your first source of income. Other activities can generate additional streams of cash. For example, rental income, writing a book and creating sales, creating a side business that generates cash.

There are also many ways to reduce your expenses.

1. Spend only what you need – Reduce the money you spend on things you don’t need. Be frugal. Watch your subscriptions and automatic expenses, they easily add up. Cut your cable. Eat at home more often. Do less costly activities.
2. Reduce your debts – Interest expenses are money out of your pocket for no purpose. If you had to go to debt to purchase something, you shouldn’t have in the first place. Pay off your debts with vigor.
3. Change your lifestyle – You’ll be surprised how little someone can live on. In fact, most people live on very little. They won’t have luxurious vacations. They don’t eat out. They won’t go to bars. They live very frugal because they must.

Also, save an emergency fund, no matter how small. When you have little, any of life’s misfortunes can quickly bury you back in the hole again.

Eliminate debt with passion. Debt is the shackle and chains of the modern era (and the past as well). Debts in all forms, mortgage, credit card, student loans, hold you back from your dreams. Listen to yourself. Debt locks you into your job, whether you like it or not. Debt keeps you from moving to a new location. Ask anyone that’s underwater in their mortgage. Debt keeps you poor while the rich only get richer.

Build a huge pile of cash. Many will tell you that money that’s not working is wasted money. However, Mark Cuban disagrees. Money that’s fully invested in the stock market will follow the waves of the market, controlled by large institutional investors. Money dumped into an overpriced home can easily tumble as many have unfortunately learned. Money that’s available can be dispatched to buy your dream home at the bottom of the housing market. Money that’s available can be used to buy investments at the bottom of the stock market. These once in a decade events rarely occur but windfall comes to those who have patience and the cash waiting at their side.

Finally, my best advice to anyone is to not follow the advice of anyone. No one cares more about your money than you. Hold it tight. Stop wasting your money buying advice. It’s free, whether online, through this post, or at the local public library.

This is a beautiful video made by Tanya Davis on how to be alone. I personally have a fear of watching a movie at the theater alone or eat along at a restaurant. The first I haven’t done yet but the latter I have.

If you’re wondering how all these young people are always on and always connected, here are a few ways they do that.

• Using mobile devices – They use their smartphones that come with social media apps. This makes updating, uploading photos, and sharing much faster, especially on the go.
• By text message – They use text messages, a lot. Texting is forgiving of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Just mash the buttons and get the thing out.
• Using specialized software – They use software like TweetDeck to monitor tweets. They can slice their streams up into different subjects. Using software, they can also access multiple accounts and make updates.
• Multi-task – They can do more than one thing at a time. They rarely do only one activity at a time. Eating together means a mix conversation of live talking with interactions on their phones.
• Multiple windows – Windows and Macs allow more than one application open at a time. With a second monitor, it makes it even easier to keep an eye on things.
• Automation – Social media sites can be integrated. A post on one site can automatically send a post on another site. They’re not posting one account at a time.

Gamestorming, a set of best practices compiled from innovative approaches authored by Dave Grey, Sunni Brown, and James Macanufo. The book contains 80 different “games” that can be played to develop new ideas, innovate, and create.

My new project is to take each of these games and create a playing card or self-contained kit.

We can’t pay for everything on our cell phones, yet. Today, Starbucks announces that it has launched nationwide its mobile payment system. Using a smart phone app, a bar code shows up on the phone’s screen and the user holds it under a scanner.

I’ve personally used the payment method at a trial Starbucks in Seattle. The first time was to just do it. The second time, I left my Starbucks card at home and only had my phone with me. A couple clicks later, I paid for my coffee.

The app has the ability to store your credit card information so you can quickly “reload” your card, check your balance, and check your rewards. The barcode scanning method still does seem like digitizing an antiquated system (bar code). Watch out for Google’s upcoming mobile payment system using near field communications (NFC).

Cycle Chic Manifesto

Gordon Gekko is a fictional character. For most, he’s known for his Greed is Good speech. However, he never literally says that greed IS good.

Below is the speech in its entirety. It’s a shame to take it out of context and say that greed is good. Instead, I believe that Mr. Gekko is pointing out a true fact of our modern economy. Management, the leaders that lead our country and the leaders of America’s corporations do not have a financial stake in the companies they run.

Gordon Gekko: [at the Teldar Paper stockholder’s meeting] Well, I appreciate the opportunity you’re giving me Mr. Cromwell as the single largest shareholder in Teldar Paper, to speak. Well, ladies and gentlemen we’re not here to indulge in fantasy but in political and economic reality. America, America has become a second-rate power. Its trade deficit and its fiscal deficit are at nightmare proportions. Now, in the days of the free market when our country was a top industrial power, there was accountability to the stockholder. The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men that built this great industrial empire, made sure of it because it was their money at stake. Today, management has no stake in the company! All together, these men sitting up here own less than three percent of the company. And where does Mr. Cromwell put his million-dollar salary? Not in Teldar stock; he owns less than one percent. You own the company. That’s right, you, the stockholder. And you are all being royally screwed over by these, these bureaucrats, with their luncheons, their hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden parachutes.

Cromwell: This is an outrage! You’re out of line Gekko!

Gordon Gekko: Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell, Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can’t figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I’ll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents. The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated. In the last seven deals that I’ve been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.

Wall Street – {IMDB}