Wisdoms Edge

www.wisdomsedge.com

Vol.1 No. 1 | April 3, 2006

This week • Monthly expenses cutting into your budget? Here’s an easy way to make cuts.... • Is this common painkiller causing your asthma?... • Avoid the 3 biggest mistakes parents make.... • If you could ask Zig Ziglar one thing, what would it be? Here’s what I asked him.... • The secret that made King Canute so successful.... • When it’s good to give your opponents ammunition to use against you.... “The Bible teaches that Christians are totally different from anyone else.” - Peter Jeffery, Evangelicals Then and Now

Finance A simple way to cut your monthly expenses One of the most successful business models in the corporate world is also something you should look for to cut your monthly expenses. The business model is a system of recurring revenues. Recurring revenues are a wonderful way to make money if you own a business. To best understand this system, think about your cable or satellite TV. Each month, you send a payment to your provider to receive your programming. How many times did the provider have to sell you on their service? One time! How many times do you pay for the service. Every month. Of course, the company has to provide you with excellent service and programming every day, but they only have to sell you once. After you buy, you’re most likely going to remain a long-term customer. That’s how recurring revenues works. When a company sells you on their service one time and you send in a check every month, they make a fortune. So how can this help you cut your expenses? Simple. Look for services you’ve subscribed to once and continue to send in money every month. Then look at how many of those you really need. If it’s tough to cut some out, think about this: If it’s a great money making system for the company, it’s a huge money-draining system for you. Sure, some of your recurring revenue accounts are indispensable, such as water, electricity, and gas. In those cases, look for ways to cut back on your usage to lower your monthly costs. But here are some of the most overlooked monthly bills that you could easily cut back: * Extras from your phone company, such as call ID, call forwarding, voice mail (it’s much cheaper to buy an answering machine than to pay monthly for voice mail), etc. Look over your phone bill and ask yourself, “Do I really need this service?” These little add-ons really add up over time. * TV. Move your cable or satellite service to a lower subscription rate. Or, better yet, try going without it for a while. Yes, you can live without TV ... and probably should if things are tight. Let TV be a reward you give yourself when you’re in better financial condition. * Your cell phone subscription. These can be some of the biggest money hogs around. See if you can lower your rate plan. You can usually do this without incurring any charges. * Internet. Look for a cheaper monthly plan. Many of the cheaper services offer awesome service at a much lower monthly rate. Shop around and see if you can lower your costs. And some people pay a lot for hosting service for websites that aren’t producing any income. Ask yourself if you really need the websites. * Financing. If you think about why companies offer financing on their products, it’s not just because it offers you a convenient way to pay. It’s because they make a lot of money on the deals. Any time you buy a product on finance plans, whether it’s a car, a refrigerator, or anything else, you’re choosing to pay more for the product. Of course, 0% interest loans are a great tool, but some of these come with hidden charges, so you have to be careful. Try to pay in full all the time. You’ll save big. There are many other subscription plans that sell you once and bring in money every month. Go through your bills and see which ones have a recurring revenues type model. Then evaluate each one and see where you can make cuts. And remember, you’re not just making a one-time cut. It’s a cut you’ll enjoy every month from here on out! – Steve Kroening

Health Did This Drug Cause Your Asthma? Did you know the number of people using inhalers for asthma has gone up significantly in the last 35 years? Between 1970 and 2000, the number of people suffering from asthma has nearly doubled! Doctors have been baffled by the dramatic increase. But now, it appears researchers have figured out what is causing all the new cases of asthma. Before 1970, parents typically gave their children aspirin when they had a fever. However, the aspirin was causing the children to come down with an even worse disease ... the sometimes fatal Reyes Syndrome. Around 1970, doctors began telling the parents to switch to acetaminophen, the common ingredient in Tylenol. That solved the Reyes Syndrome problem, but now researchers have discovered that the acetaminophen is causing asthma. A huge study, called the Nurses Health Study, followed 122,000 women for several decades. Each woman was to keep a record of all the drugs she used, as well as the development of any new health problems. The study showed that those women who used acetaminophen regularly have a significantly higher risk of developing asthma than those who never used it. In fact, those who used the painkiller more than two weeks out of the month were 63% more likely to acquire the respiratory disease. Next week, you’ll learn about an easy way to reverse the problems caused by acetaminophen. – Steve Kroening Source: Prescriptions for Healthy Living, July 2005, 800-728-2288.

Family & Relationships 3 Common Mistakes in Parenting Raising kids can be fun. It also can be a traumatic experience. Here are some guidelines that can help. These are common mistakes that many parents make, but they are easily fixed. (1) Failure to have family worship daily in the home. Of all the good advice I’ve received over the years, this has been the best. Fortunately, it was given to my wife and I when our first child was born. And we have continued the practice now for 25 years. Nothing will give parents a better opportunity to deal with the children, especially in later life, than establishing the practice of family worship – morning and night!. It teaches the child from an early age that God is at the center of the family. If parents are out of the home during the day, it gives them a chance to catch up on what is happening, and bring everything to the Throne of Grace at the end of the day. It allows the day to be started with Bible reading and prayer, and establishes the idea that it is God who needs to direct our activities. It does not need to be long; in fact for young children it needs to be short. And, most importantly, it demonstrates early just who is head of this home. If yours is a family where there is not family worship, do not put this off. Start today! (2) Changing standards. My wife has a little plaque in the kitchen which says: “Attention teenagers. ‘No’ is a complete sentence.” When we tell our children something, then slowly give in as they wear us down, we’re displaying that the standards we set can be compromised. Children will soon learn this and manipulate the situation to their own advantage. A similar problem can occur when mother and father have different standards. Parents need to spend time together to make sure that they present a unified front on issues. This is not always possible, but in so far as the important things in the family are concerned, there should be one standard. If Dad and Mom cannot agree, then the Bible has some guidelines: “wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord” (Eph. 5:22). (3) Mixing the education of the child. Christian parenting requires us to teach our children the “the fear of the Lord” is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom (Prov. 1:7; 9:10). If we are not careful, we can put our children in an environment where God is left out of the learning process. This teaches the child that he doesn’t need God to learn math, English, history, science, or anything else. This is humanism, man-centered learning. In many schools, the idea of education is to leave God out of the core subjects, or maybe let Him have a place in religion classes, or simply treat Him as one good idea among many. This type of education should be out of bounds for Christian parents. Find a good Christian school or begin home schooling. No one ever said parenting is ever easy. But you can make life a lot easier on yourself by avoiding these three mistakes. – Ian Hodge

Success Zig Ziglar’s #1 Tip for Achieving Success I had the opportunity to speak to Zig Ziglar the other day. I thought it would be appropriate to kick off Wisdom’s Edge with some of the wisdom he’s gained through the years. So I had to ask him what was the number one thing he’s learned in his experience about success. Here’s what he told me: “Here’s the biggest thing that I’ve learned over the years. The same character qualities that make you a good parent also make you a good employee or employer. “For example, most people will acknowledge the fact that, as a general rule, the day before they go on vacation, they get twice as much work done as they do on a typical workday. I ask this question at conferences and most of the heads in the audience start nodding. Then I say, ‘Tell me if I’m wrong on this, but the reason you get all that done is because the night before, you got out a sheet of paper and wrote down everything you had to do that day. In other words, you had to plan.’ And everyone’s head nods in agreement. “Well, working off a particular list means you had a plan of action as to how you’re going to use your time. You can’t be everything to everybody, so you need to prioritize what is really important. You’ve got some ‘need to do’ things and then you’ve got some ‘want to do’ things. Well, when you do the things you need to do when you need to do them, then you can do the things you want to do. But take care of the needs first, and then you can move into the other things. “Roger Staubach told me something that I think bears repeating. He said that when he was in Annapolis during football season, he made his best grades because his time was so scarce and so valuable. When practice ended and he was done with his shower, he instantly got his books out and began studying. He said that every moment was so precious that he didn’t waste any of it. It’s not a lack of time; it’s lack of commitment and direction that people suffer from today. Think about planning your life. Think about what that would mean. Wouldn’t that make all the difference?” It definitely would – and should. Just make sure your priorities are God’s. Next week, I’ll share another bit of wisdom from Zig. This time, he’ll share a great way to get ahead while you drive your car. – Steve Kroening

WHO IS KING CANUTE? “Canute the Great (995-1035), born in Denmark, became not only king of England (after a successful invasion in 1015) but also Denmark (succeeding his brother in 1019) and Norway (ousting Olaf II in 1028). The more powerful he became, the more he found himself surrounded by sycophants who did nothing but sing his praises. “Sick of the constant flattery, he decided to teach them a lesson. Legend has it that he had his throne carried to the seashore when the tide was coming in. He asked his adoring subjects, ‘Do you think the tide will stop if I command it to?’ Of course, they enthusiastically said ‘yes.’ And so King Canute gave the order. Needless to say, the waves kept on coming. That’s when he said these famous lines: ‘Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings. For there is none worthy of the name but God, whom heaven, earth, and sea obey.’” Source: Quoted from www.earlytorise.com, June 7, 2005.

Word for the Wise “Our word ‘hypocrite’ came originally from the world of the theatre. In ancient Greece, actors wore masks and were known as ‘hypocrites.’ While he is on stage, the actor does not reveal his true self. He plays a part. It is all just a performance. Some preachers are like that. By contrast, Paul was wonderfully transparent. He freely admitted that he had passed through a stressful time in Ephesus, even though the admission gave his unscrupulous opponents ammunition to use against him. He was a man completely without pretense. What you saw was what you got. Paul understood that God desires ‘truth in the inward parts’ (Ps. 51:6). Do we?” – J. Phillip Arthur (Quoted from Strength in Weakness)

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