If you're willing to expend just a little more energy than everyone else, you will reap rewards exponentially beyond them. I realized this when I was thinking about real estate auctions. You could do them online, from home, like everyone else who doesn't want to go in person. The demand will spike, causing prices to skyrocket. But if you go in person, if you do the due diligence and expend the effort it takes to find one, get your financing together, and adhere to the bidding rules, you have a much higher choice of finding a cheaper or better property. Perhaps this can even be said about personal property auctions online. With the amount of effort it takes to list each and every item, the best items probably don't even hit the online market.
The absolute worst and most sinister thing you could teach your children is that they can't survive without you. As a mother and father, your main goal is to teach your kids how to grow up and survive on their own. You give them the tools and knowledge you acquired throughout your life, so they don't have to make the same mistakes and struggle the way you did. And if you're a good parent, you give your children knowledge and a sense of self worth so that they can exceed your own limitations financially, emotionally, and/ or in entirety. It goes against human nature to kick the stool out from under your child every time they begin their own journey and to punish their independence by hoarding your resources to ensure they feel below you and dependent upon you.
If you set a boundary and someone says, "You don't have to be a bitch about it," do not defend yourself or say that you're not being a bitch. Let them know that is just a taste of being a bitch and if they pull that again, you'll ruthlessly attack. Let them be afraid of you. As a woman, this portrayal may as well be a cloak of protection. There is a Nigerian folktale about the rooster and the fox that perfectly encapsulates this:
There was a time where the fox was scared of the rooster with its red dangly thing upon its head. The fox thought this creature had fire upon it without burning so he kept his distance. One day the fox approached the rooster and asked how it was not burning under the fire. The rooster said, "Oh this? This isn't fire! You don't have to worry about little me. I'm not dangerous." Then, the rooster became the fox's dinner.
The moral of the story is for women to let people be afraid of them. Do not shrink when confronted, because you telling someone not to worry about you may just as well be the green light for them to surpass you, abuse you, or become superior to you.
If you focus on what you want to feel like and/or achieve, rather than what uncomfortable feeling you're trying to avoid, your life will be shaped by your desires rather than your fears.
The busiest and most successful people always answer their phones quickly. They're ready to make deals and accept any business. It's the people who aren't successful that don't answer the phone. To them the phone feels heavy. If this is you (and honestly, at times, this is me), reframe the phone from a burden to an opportunity catcher.


