There Goes the Ferrari…
Do you remember the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? If you haven’t seen it, Ferris, a high school senior plays sick in order to pursue a day filled with fun on the town. As part of the plot, he convinces his nervous hypochondriac friend Cameron to “borrow” his father’s prize possession – a newly restored 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California for their day off. Knowing Cameron’s Dad keeps track of mileage on the car, Ferris promises to erase any miles they put on the car by driving the car home in reverse.
The movie takes the viewer through a series of mishaps, humorous encounters, and a day in the life of two teenagers who pulled off the ultimate day of hooky. Along the way, two parking attendants borrow the Ferrari and rack up mileage. As their day of fun winds down, reality sets in for Ferris and Cameron. How will they possibly be able to reverse all of these miles? The solution? They jack up the classic Ferrari and place the car in reverse as they attempt to undo the damage. While doing so, Cameron rests his foot on the front bumper, the car slides off the jack crashes through the back door garage and lands at the bottom of a ravine. So much for Dad’s Ferrari…
Sometimes this is how we manage the money God entrusts to us. We live for today and forget about the consequences. We buy now and hope to pay later. We borrow more than we can afford, we spend too much, we give too little, and we do not invest enough. In other words, many of us use money foolishly, and then we attempt to fix things on our own, and end up making our situation more of a mess. In many cases we do this all without asking for God’s wisdom and guidance along the way. If this is you, do not worry! Though we cannot turn back the clock, we can move forward and make better decisions starting today.
In order to help people make better financial decisions, I dedicated much of The Faith-Based Millionaire helping the reader develop habits displayed by faith-based millionaires. As a financial advisor for the last 14 years, here are the twelve essential habits I highlight in the book:
Essential Habit # 1: Always place principles before profits. Take responsibility; seek profit, but do not compromise your values.
Essential Habit #2: Find your purpose and passion to create financial changes. If you do not get emotional, you will not change.
Essential Habit #3: Seek wise counsel. Find help for areas outside your expertise and have a sounding board.
Essential Habit #4: Establish a financial plan. Know what the end result should be and create an action plan to make it happen.
Essential Habit #5: Give generously to help those less fortunate. Accumulating wealth will enable you to help more of God’s people.
Essential Habit #6: Spend money frugally. Learn to live on less than you earn.
Essential Habit #7: Minimize your debt. Pay off debts as quickly as possible and incur only new debts that will bring long-term value.
Essential Habit #8: Save regularly; put it on autopilot. Build an emergency fund; save for your future. Set up automatic savings plans!
Essential Habit #9: Find sound investments that complement your faith. Find out where you are investing. Make sure the in¬vestment makes sense financially and does not contradict your faith.
Essential Habit #10: Manage risk. Take calculated chances to get where you need to go.
Essential Habit #11: Monitor the results. Track and monitor your progress and update your plan regularly.
Essential Habit #12: Trust God with the outcome. Put it all in His hands! With Him by your side, anything is possible.
The Faith-Based Millionaire is set to be released on October 26th. It is now available for pre-sale order on Amazon.com and jayperoni.com.
It features a foreword written by Dan Miller, best-selling author of 48 Days to the Work You Love and No More Mondays.
**From Dan Miller’s foreword: “I urge you to do something special for others and yourself–read The Faith-Based Millionaire.”
photo credit: Damian Morys Fotos
2 Comments
Jay,
Once again you seem to have made the complex simple…Not to mention a fun little trip back to the 80′s for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
I’m looking forward to reading more about the 12 Habits when the book comes out.
Essential Habit # 1: Always place principles before profits. Take responsibility; seek profit, but do not compromise your values.
Jay, you have hit on an area that we have just had to address. Our family is launching a line of designer Christian apparel and we just finished printing samples for a local apparel show. While I was making the Sales Catalog, I had to get a description of the material used in some of the shirts from the manufacturer’s website. Much to our surprise, the home page of the website had recently been updated and slideshows of models in various stages of undress started filling the screen. Some were completely topless.
Seriously?
Needless to say, we quickly stopped all the marketing and website launch to find another vendor for our t-shirt blanks. It has taken us a few weeks to retool everything; create new catalogs, adjust our prices, change design colors, order new samples and make sure our new vendor is comfortably aligned with our values and our faith. It wasn’t cheap. Or easy.
Necessary? We certainly think so. This apparel line is our passion and our means of sharing God’s blessings through our talents. If our voice is where our talent, passion, conscience and ability to meet a need in the world intersect, what message would we be sending by doing business with a company that has such low moral standards?
To make sure we don’t compromise our values and our faith, we have started a vendor questionnaire. The survey has questions we will ask future business partners about their marketing efforts, business practices, company values and the other clients they work with. I’ll bet this questionnaire ends up being several pages long and covers many more topics before we’re finished.
We are so glad we discovered this before it was too late. We did the next right thing and will continue to do what is necessary to protect our reputation and adhere to our principles, values and morals. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
~ Edmund Burke
“Doing nothing” is a such big part of our current problems. “Doing nothing” is something we cannot afford to do.
God Bless