Perhaps considered one of the most negative cards in the Tarot deck, The Tower is the card of chaos and upheaval. Its contemporary tarot card meanings often refer to disruption, instability, transformation and the inevitable truth. When the Tower card appears in a tarot reading, one can anticipate the total deconstruction of one’s beliefs system. The Tower brings forth an unacknowledged truth. It is an indicator that one’s faulty perceptions have caused the creation of an unreliable foundation. It is a warning that one’s thought processes are not in alignment with a higher truth. It always signifies the commencement of an emotional purging.

However, there is much more to the Tower card than the concept of destruction. In truth, the Tower is a card of liberation and freedom. It is there to ensure you that if you choose to shed yourself of your faulty beliefs; you will experience an inner freedom. In its place comes a new level of consciousness. This heightened awareness is a direct result of new channels of communication with the higher mind or divine spirit. In a Tarot reading, the Tower elucidates the parts of our own inner beings that we have been reluctant to examine. It is this denial that causes our actions or behaviors to be in conflict with our personal truths. In the end, when we find the courage to look at our misconceptions, we are freed.

What is so frightening about the Tower Tarot card is the sense of inevitability. During a Tarot reading, the Tower informs us that disorder and confusion can not be avoided. There is the need to delve into the unknown. The unknown represents our greatest fears. It is here that we must surrender to uncertainty. However, true freedom lies in the act of surrendering. Instead of trying to will our lives in certain directions, we have the opportunity to merge with our higher consciousness and let the Universe be guide us. There is nothing more liberating than relinquishing our concept of control. On some level, we must come to accept our powerlessness and finite natures.

Symbolically, the Tower represents the power of the Divine. This is represented by the piercing lightening bolt that knocks down the top of the Tower. Here it reminds us that we do not have the ultimate authority. Our concept of power comes from our ego. In Tarot reading, The Tower suggests that there is something much greater than our selves. There is a Universal law that we must honor and respect. As we take this into consideration, we find ourselves humbled. Our old ideas no longer work for us. We must, in the end, be willing to come to terms with the fact that our concept of self power and control is unreliable, ego-centric, and faulty.

Finally, the Tower card refers to narrow-mindedness. The Tower informs us that we have outgrown our old ideas. Our past perceptions and value systems have become too small-minded. We are, at last, ready to expand our perspectives. As we begin this process, we come to learn that we were prisoners of our own making. The Tower liberates us from self-imposed incarceration and ensures us that a false self-image will be replaced with self-knowledge. Although there is a great deal of fear and chaos with its arrival, in the end, we always discover a new freedom.

For more on Tarot Readings and Tarot Card Meanings please visit Carolyn’s blog.

“Practical Steps to Financial Freedom and Independence: Your Roadmap To Exiting The Rat Race And Living Your Dreams” by Usiere Uko is a good book on basics of managing your money, making the most of your life, and living your dreams with a little motivation thrown in.

If you have not read any books on this topic, this is a good place to start and you’ll most likely enjoy the book and gain from it. If, on the other hand, you have read a number of books in this field, you will most likely recognize many if not all of the lessons this book contains. I was in this latter category. Right from the start, I felt the book was influenced by Robert Kiyosaki, and not long into the book the author states that reading Rich Dad Poor Dad helped him on his way. There are twenty books listed in the Recommended Reading section, and I’ve read all twenty, so I guess that is why much of the book felt familiar. Topics included your mindset, spending below your income, good debt and bad debt, setting financial goals, making your talent pay, taking baby steps, planning your estate and more.

With that said, Uko does a very good job of presenting the information he presents, and even if it is similar to those books that influenced him, he put his own spin on it. So, again, if you have not read a lot of books in this genre by the likes of Robert Kiyosaki, Brian Tracy, George Clason, Richard Templar, and others, you’ll enjoy and learn from this book. If you have read a lot of others, you’ll find reinforcement, but nothing new.

And like many of those other books in this genre, this book does a good job of motivating you to do things differently, but many people will need additional help to figure out just how to do what the author recommends. For example, it is easy to understand that you want assets that put money into your bank account each month, but how to you actually acquire those assets from where you are right now?

If you want a motivating, easy to read, inspiring book to change your mindset about money and point you in the right direction, give this book a chance. It will do just that. If you are looking for something new or technical and step-by-step, this is probably not what you are looking for. I recommend it to that former group.

WordPress site hacked. If it happens to you, it’s tempting to panic. In this post, I’ll help you identify if your site has been hacked, take you through steps to clean your site and help you make it more secure.

Finally, I’ll give you some tips to prevent your WordPress site from being hacked again in the future.

Ready? Take a deep breath, and let’s get started.

WordPress Hacked: Signs Your WordPress Site Is at Risk

Your WordPress site isn’t behaving as it should do. But how do you know that problem is due to a hack? Let’s take a look at some of the signs that your site has been hacked:

• You can’t log in.
• Your site has changed without you having done anything (for example, the homepage has been replaced by a static page or new content has been added).
• Your site is redirecting to another site.
• When you or other users try to access your site, you get a warning in your browser.
• When you search for your site, Google gives a warning that it may have been hacked.
• You’ve received a notification from your security plugin of a breach or an unexpected change.
• Your hosting provider has warned you about unusual activity on your account.

Let’s take a look at each of these in more detail.

You Can’t Log In

If you can’t log in to your site, it may be a sign that your site has been hacked. However, it’s more likely that you’ve just forgotten your password. So before you assume you’ve been hacked, try resetting your password. If you can’t, that’s a warning sign. Even if you can, you may still have been hacked and you’ll have to do a bit more investigating.

Hackers sometimes remove users or change user passwords to prevent access. If you’re unable to reset your password, your user account could have been removed, which is a sign of hacking.

Your Site Has Changed

One form of hacking is to replace the homepage with a static page. If your site looks completely different and isn’t using your theme, it’s probably been hacked.

The changes may be more subtle, maybe adding spurious content, or links to unsavory sites. If your footer is full of links that you didn’t add, and especially if those links are hidden or in a tiny font size, you could have been hacked.

Before you assume you’ve been hacked, check with other site administrators or editors, to be sure they haven’t accidentally made the changes.

If your theme isn’t from a reputable source and you’ve recently updated it, that could be the culprit.

Your Site is Redirecting

Sometimes hackers will add a script that redirects people to another site when they visit yours. This will probably be a site you don’t want your users being taken to.

This happened to me when a school site I managed was redirecting to a dating site. As you can imagine, my client wasn’t pleased and had to drop everything else I was doing and fix it straight away. It turned out that it was an insecurity on the server, not on my site, which is one reason to only use quality hosting. I switched hosting provider as soon as possible and fixed the hack almost immediately.

Browser Warnings

If your browser is warning that your site is compromised, it could be a sign that your site has been hacked. It could also be due to some code in a theme or plugin that you need to remove, or an issue with domains or SSL.

Refer to the advice given with the warning in your browser to help you diagnose the problem.

Search Engine Warnings

When you search for your site, if it’s been hacked, Google may display a warning. This could mean that the sitemap has been hacked, which would affect the way Google crawls your site. Or it may be a bigger problem: you’ll need to do the diagnosis below to find out exactly what’s happened.

Why WordPress Sites Get Hacked

There are plenty of reasons why WordPress sites get hacked, but here’s an overview of the most common factors.

1. Insecure Passwords

This is one of the most frequent causes of hacking. The most commonly used password in the world is “password”. Secure passwords are necessary not just for your WordPress admin account, but for all your users and all aspects of your site including FTP and hosting.

2. Out of Date Software

Plugins and themes, as well as WordPress itself, are subject to security updates which need to be applied to your site. If you don’t keep your themes, plugins, and version of WordPress up to date, you’re making your site vulnerable.

3. Insecure Code

Plugins and themes that aren’t from reputable sources could be introducing vulnerabilities to your site. If you need free WordPress themes or plugins, install them from the official theme directory.

When buying premium themes and plugins, be sure to check the vendor’s reputation and get recommendations from people and sources you trust. Never install nulled plugins, which are premium plugins from free sites, designed to cause harm, or collect information.

How Does WordPress Get Hacked?

If you want to know more about how WordPress sites get hacked (and you aren’t rushing ahead to the steps to take if your own site has been hacked), here are the main routes hackers take to get into your site:

• Backdoors – these bypass normal methods of accessing your site, e.g. via scripts or hidden files. An example was the Tim Thumb vulnerability in 2013.
• Pharma hacks – an exploit used to insert rogue code into out of date versions of WordPress.
• Brute-force login attempts – when hackers use automation to exploit weak passwords and gain access to your site.
• Malicious redirects – when backdoors are used to add malicious redirects to your site.
• Cross-site scripting (XSS) – the most common vulnerability found in WordPress plugins, these inject scripts that then allow a hacker to send malicious code to the user’s browser.
• Denial of Service (DoS)- when errors or bugs in a website’s code are used to overwhelm a website so it no longer functions.

If you’re running an ecommerce site, make sure to read our in-depth guide on Ecommerce Fraud Prevention.

These all sound pretty scary but there are steps you can take to protect your WordPress site against them. First, let’s work through the steps you need to take when your site is hacked.

WordPress Site Hacked: What to Do (Step-By-Step Guide)

If your site is hosted with Kinsta, we have a hack-free guarantee, which means we will work through your site and remove the hack. If you’re with another hosting provider, you’ll need to involve them, but you may need to do much of this yourself.

The steps you need to take will depend on the way in which your site has been hacked, and you may not need to work through all of these. The steps we’ll go through are:

1. Don’t panic
2. Put your site in maintenance mode
3. Reset passwords
4. Use the Kinsta Malware Removal Service
5. Update plugins and themes
6. Remove users
7. Remove unwanted files
8. Clean out your sitemap
9. Reinstall plugins and themes
10. Reinstall WordPress core
11. Clean out your database

Step 1: Don’t Panic

I know that the worst thing you can say to someone who’s panicking is “don’t panic”. But you need to have a clear head if you’re going to be able to diagnose and fix the problem.

If you can’t think straight, simply put your site in maintenance mode and leave it for a few hours until you’re feeling calmer. Which, again, sounds easier said than done yet it’s crucial here.

Step 2: Put Your Site in Maintenance Mode

You don’t want visitors finding your site in its compromised state and you also don’t want them seeing what your site will look like while you’re fixing it.

So put it into maintenance mode, if you can.

If you can’t log in to your WordPress site right now, this won’t be possible, but as soon as you can, come back and do this.

A plugin like Coming Soon Page & Maintenance Mode will let you put your site into maintenance mode, making it look as if it’s undergoing scheduled maintenance rather than being fixed after a hack.

Once you’ve done that, you can relax a little knowing that people can’t see what’s going on.

You can configure the plugin to add a logo and customize the colors or you can just type in some quick explanatory text and leave it at that.

Now you can see your broken site but other people can’t.

Step 3: Use Kinsta Malware Removal Service

To save yourself the hassle of all the steps below, you can purchase the Kinsta malware removal service for a one-off fee of $100 if you aren’t an existing Kinsta client. Important: if you are a Kinsta client, this is included in your plan!

If you don’t want to do this, or can’t afford to, read on to learn more on how to clean up your hacked site.

Step 4: Reset Passwords

Since you don’t know which password was used to gain access to your site, it’s important to change all of them to prevent the hacker from using them again. This isn’t confined to your WordPress password: reset your SFTP password, your database password, and your password with your hosting provider too.

You’ll need to ensure that other admin users reset their passwords too.

Step 5: Update Plugins and Themes

The next step is to make sure all of your plugins and themes are up to date. Go to Dashboard > Updates in your site and update everything that’s out of date.

You should do this before attempting any other fixes because if a plugin or theme is making your site vulnerable, any more fixes you make could be undone by the vulnerability. So make sure everything’s up to date before you proceed.

Step 6: Remove Users

If any admin accounts have been added to your WordPress site that you don’t recognize, it’s time to remove them. Before you do this, check with any authorized administrators that they haven’t changed their account details and you just don’t recognize them.

Go to the Users screen in your WordPress admin and click the Administrator link above the list of users. If there are any users there who shouldn’t be, click the checkbox next to them, then select Delete in the Bulk Actions dropdown list.

Step 7: Remove Unwanted Files

To find out if there are any files in your WordPress installation that shouldn’t be, you’ll need to install a security plugin like WordFence, which will scan your site and tell you if there are any files there that shouldn’t be, or use a security service such as Sucuri.

Step 8: Clean Out Your Sitemap and Resubmit to Google

One cause of a site being red-flagged by search engines can be your sitemap.xml file being hacked. In one case we fixed at Kinsta, a sitemap had been infected with spurious links and foreign characters.

You can regenerate your sitemap using your SEO plugin but you’ll also need to tell Google that the site has been cleaned. Add your site to Google Search Console and submit a sitemaps report with Google to tell them you need the site to be crawled. This doesn’t guarantee that your site will be crawled immediately and can take up to two weeks. There’s nothing you can do to speed this up so you’ll have to be patient.

Step 9: Reinstall Plugins and Themes

If your site still has problems, you’ll need to reinstall any plugins and themes that you haven’t already updated. Deactivate and delete them from your Themes (here’s how to safely delete a WordPress theme) and Plugins pages, and reinstall them. If you didn’t already put your site into maintenance mode, do that first!

If you bought a plugin or theme from a plugin or theme vendor and you aren’t sure how secure it is, now’s the time to consider whether you should continue using it. If you downloaded a free theme/plugin from anywhere other than the WordPress plugin or theme directories, don’t reinstall it. Instead, install it from the theme or plugin directory or buy the legitimate version. If you can’t afford it, replace it with a free theme/plugin from the theme or plugin directory that does the same or a similar job.

If this doesn’t fix the problem, check the support pages for all of your themes and plugins. It may be that other users are experiencing problems, in which case you should uninstall that theme or plugin until the vulnerability has been fixed.

Step 10: Reinstall WordPress Core

If all else fails, you’ll need to reinstall WordPress itself. If the files in the WordPress core have been compromised, you’ll need to replace them with a clean WordPress installation.

Upload a clean set of WordPress files to your site via SFTP, making sure you overwrite the old ones. It’s a good idea to take a backup of your wp-config.php and .htaccess files first, in case these are overwritten (although they shouldn’t be).

If you used an auto-installer to install WordPress, don’t use that again as it will overwrite your database and you’ll lose your content. Instead, use SFTP to upload the files only. If you’re on Kinsta and used our WordPress installer, you don’t need to worry about this step anyway as we’ll replace WordPress core for you as part of our hack fix service.

Step 11: Clean Out Your Database

If your database has been hacked, you’ll need to clean that out too. It’s a good idea to clean out your database as a clean database will have less stale data and take up less space, making your site faster.

How do you know if your database has been hacked? If you’re using a security plugin or service, running a scan via that will tell you if the database has been compromised (or you may have been sent an alert). Alternatively, you can use a plugin like NinjaScanner which will scan your database.

The WP-Optimize plugin will let you clean out your database and optimize it for the future.

How to Prevent Your WordPress Site from Being Hacked

So you’ve cleaned up your site and you’ve reset your passwords so it’s a bit more secure than it was before.

But there’s more you can do to prevent future hacks and avoid the same thing happening again.

1. Ensure All Passwords Are Secure

If you haven’t already, make sure that all passwords relating to your website, not just your WordPress admin password, are reset and that you’re using strong passwords.

A security plugin will let you force users to use secure passwords, or if you’re with Kinsta it comes built-in with your hosting plan.

You can also add two-factor authentication to your site to make it harder for hackers to create an account.

2. Keep Your Site Updated

It’s important to keep your site up to date. Every time your theme, plugins or WordPress itself are updated, you should run that update, as it will often include security patches.

You can enable automatic updates either by editing your wp-config.php file or by installing a plugin to do it for you. If you’d rather not do that because you want to test updates first, a security plugin will notify you when you need to run an update.

When you update your site, make sure you do it properly, creating a backup and testing updates on a staging server if you have one. Kinsta plans include automated backups and a staging environment for all sites.

3. Don’t Install Insecure Plugins or Themes

When installing WordPress plugins in future, make sure they’ve been tested with your version of WordPress and that you’re downloading them from a reputable source.

Always install free plugins and themes via the theme and plugin directories: don’t be tempted to get them from third-party sites. If you’re buying premium themes or plugins, check the reputation of the plugin vendor and ask for recommendations.

4. Clean Out Your WordPress Installation

If you’ve got any themes or plugins installed but not activated, delete them. If you have any files or old WordPress installations in your hosting environment that you aren’t using, it’s time to remove those. Delete any databases you aren’t using too.

If you’ve got old, unused WordPress installations on your server, they will be particularly vulnerable, as you’re unlikely to keep them up to date.

5. Install SSL on Your Site

SSL will add a layer of security to your site and is free. Kinsta plans include SSL for no extra cost. If your hosting provider doesn’t provide free SSL, you can use the SSL Zen plugin to add free Let’s Encrypt SSL.

6. Avoid Cheap Hosting

Cheap hosting means you’ll be sharing server space with hundreds of other clients. This will not only slow down your site, but it will also increase the chances of one of those other sites introducing insecurity to the server.

Cheap hosting providers are less likely to robustly monitor server security or to help you if your site is hacked. A quality hosting provider like Kinsta will give you a hack-free guarantee and work hard to keep your site secure.

7. Set up a Firewall

A security plugin or a service like Sucuri will let you configure a firewall for your site. This will add an extra barrier for hackers and reduce the chances of hacks like DOS attacks on your site.

8. Install a Security Plugin

If you install a security plugin on your site, it will notify you of any suspicious activity. This might include unauthorized logins or the addition of files that shouldn’t be there.

Again, refer to the warning provided by the plugin to work out what the problem is.

Reminder: If your site is hosted with Kinsta, you don’t need to install security plugins. This is because Kinsta provides all the security features you need.

9. Consider A Security Service

If you aren’t a Kinsta user, you might want to consider a security service like Sucuri, which will monitor your site and fix it if you’re hacked again.

It’s not cheap, but if your website is essential to your business income, it can pay for itself. There are different plans that offer varying turnaround times for security fixes. Sucuri will monitor your site, alert you if there’s a security breach, and fix it for you. Meaning you don’t have to go through the process of cleaning your site yourself again.

Alternatively, Kinsta hosting plans come with security features including DDoS detection, uptime monitoring, hardware walls, and a hack-free guarantee, meaning that if your site is hacked, we will clean it up for you. If you switch to Kinsta, we’ll migrate your site for you for free and clean it up if it’s hacked in the future. Make sure to check our curated list of the best WordPress migration plugins.

OMG… Your site has been hacked! ????????What should you do next to clean it up? Here are all the steps you should mark off your recovery list to get your site 100% hack-free ✅ Click to Tweet

Summary

Having your website hacked is an unpleasant experience. It means your site isn’t available for users, which could impact on your business. It will mean you have to take swift action, which will impact on your other activity.

Here’s a recap of the steps you need to take if your site is hacked:

• Reset passwords.
• Update plugins and themes.
• Remove users that shouldn’t be there.
• Remove unwanted files.
• Clean out your sitemap.
• Reinstall plugins and themes, and WordPress core.
• Clean out your database if necessary.

And remember: following the steps above to prevent hacks will avoid you having to do all this again in the future: it pays to keep your site as secure as possible.

Anyone who has every gone through debt or is going through debt at the moment likes knowing all the different possible options possible in terms of how to pay it off, or how to pay it off with less monthly installments, for that matter.

Freedom Debt Relief reviews are important in order to separate the hype from the real deal. According to the ad on TV, you can reduce your debt by up to half making just one payment per month. The company states that it can help you get rid of your debt in two to four years without declaring bankruptcy or getting credit counseling. Rather, the company claims to negotiate with your creditor in order to lessen your owed amount.

According to a few Freedom Debt Relief reviews, however, some of those who signed u declared bankruptcy while others even encountered debt increase. A few reviews indicated that the company did not even get in touch with the creditors to negotiate lower debts.

Many consumers found that the Freedom Debt Relief Company had sent every account to collection agencies. Thus, many clients never overcame their debts even with years of service and administration fees paid to the company. To top it off, it turns out that Freedom Debt Relief did not even operate with a business license in the state of California.

The Bottom Line

Freedom Debt Relief reviews indicate that one consumer after another feels duped and at the very least, disappointed at the way Freedom Debt Relief gave out false advertising, did not do what they claimed they were going to do and even practiced in the state of California with no business license. It has lost all credibility and continues to charge administration fees to people who are already deeply in debt as it is, and looking for a way out. What should consumers do?

Based on the Freedom Debt Relief reviews, the first thing consumers need to do is to cancel their patronage to Freedom Debt Relief and then talk to creditors themselves to try and see if reduced payments will be allowed. Negotiate a principal reduction with a company that helps in debt-reduction. The way to know whether or not a company will help in reducing debt is to read various reviews and check with the Better Business Bureau as to whether or not they are working effectively and have good reviews from consumer reports.

The Medium for Influencing the Subconscious Mind

Until I started reading, actually absorbing Napoleon Hills book, Think and Grow Rich, I had forgotten that this is a skill my mother taught me for years, without me actually realising it was ‘auto-suggestion’, as described in Napoleon’s book.

Napoleon Hill’s book, Think and Grow Rich, Chapter Two, he insists that you write down your Desire’s, I believe the beginning of ‘one’s personal freedom’ is the process of writing it all down, it actually anchors your thoughts, it makes them a physical ‘being’ because these, your thoughts, are now ‘written’.

Where does the auto-suggestion come from then? Napoleon’s steps in Chapter Two, Desire, are concise;

1. Decide what the exact amount of money you want!

2. What are you going to give in return for this desired amount of money?

3. Decide a definite date by which this amount of money you desire will be acquired!

4. Create your plan – whether you are ready not, put this plan of desire into action now!

5. Write down a clear and concise statement of the amount of money you desire, how you plan to achieve this and by when and what you plan to give in exchange for this (remember give and thine shall receive or give nothing receive nothing!)

6. Read this statement to yourself morning and night out loud not in your head.

To show you how easy this can be, a plan could look something like this;

“In my first year of business I desire to earn $100,000. To achieve this desired sum, I will coach, mentor, and teach frustrated network marketers to become successful leaders: regardless of their company affiliation and I will do it for free. I intend to reach my desired goal by 31 March 2010 by working daily in my business, helping people to the best of my ability and working through the processes I have set in place to achieve this desire.”

All Napoleon Hills requirements are covered in the above, but acquiring this thought process, auto-suggestion, is not easy; it takes repetition, belief in you, commitment and hard work.

Napoleon Hill also recommends belonging to a group that ‘Masterminds’ his chapters weekly, this can assist learning from others, helps yourself and other ‘materminders’ to achieve and work through the same process, it can help the belief in yourself and can help them to believe in themselves.

As Napoleon says “thoughts are things, powerful things at that, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a BURNING DESIRE for their translation into riches or other material objects” this can come about.

As you begin to embark on your journey to financial freedom, one thing that you will discover, if you have not already is that there aren’t a lot of people who are going to support your efforts. You may have shared your desires with others and receive responses that may surprise you. For example, here are some of the responses that I have received…

“That is a pipe dream”

“You can’t do that”

“You are money hungry and greedy”

Why is it that many people seem to be against your desire to obtain financial independence? The reason why is because the steps required to reach financial freedom is too uncomfortable for most people. Most people would like financial freedom. However, they value security much more than freedom. As a result, they give up on their dreams of financial freedom for the security of a safe, secure job with benefits.

Security and freedom are not the same. They are actually very different value systems. For example, if you want to make money, you can make money the secure way, by getting a job, or you can make money the freedom way, by starting your own business. Let’s contrast the two methods.

Getting a good job is a very secure way of making money. When you have a job, you know that after a given time period you are going to get a certain amount of money. Every year or so, your money is increased a certain percentage if you do a satisfactory job and if you can learn additional skills you can get a promotion, which can increase the amount of money you take home. However, this security comes at a cost of freedom.

Your employer tells you what you have to do, when you have to do it and how you must do it. Your employer tells you what hours you must work, when you can take a break, when you can eat lunch, when you can take a vacation, how long that vacation can be, etc. If you choose not to do things the way you employer desires for them to be done, you will lose your employment and as such you will lose your financial security.

Also, even if you do everything to the desire of your employer, there are outside forces beyond your control that can take your job away from you. Generally, there is a certain pay range that you qualify for based upon your job and you cannot exceed that pay range, unless you develop skills for a different job. A good job provides you with security, but it costs you freedom.

Starting your own business is a very freedom way of getting rich. However, you give up security. As a business owner you are free to decide what you want to do, when you want to do it and how you want to do it. If you want to take a two hour lunch instead of a one hour lunch, you can do so and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. If you prefer to work 12 hours 3 days a week and take the other 4 days off, as oppose to working 7 hours 5 days a week, you can do so.

In fact, once your business reaches a certain level, you will be able to receive money, regardless of whether you show up to work or not. However, this freedom comes at a cost of security. As a business owner especially at the beginning, you are not guaranteed any amount of money. One month your business can bring in a large amount of money and then the very next month, your business brings in a 3rd of what you brought in last month even though you did the exact same thing in both months. Also, if you make mistakes, the money your business did make can be easily taken away from you through lawsuits, fines and mismanagement.

The large majority of people that you encounter have a secure mindset. That is why it is very important for you to seek out people with a freedom mindset to encourage you on your financial journey. One of the most difficult things I have had to discover on my journey is the difference between a world of security and a world of freedom. On my job, I know when I’m getting paid, on the 15th and the 30th of each month. I also know how much I’m getting paid.

With my business though, I don’t have a clue when I’m getting paid and how much. I can put an auction on eBay for three straight weeks and get no bids and then put up the same auction the fourth week and make the sale, without making any changes to my auction listing whatsoever. I can buy stock and lose money on 5 straight trades and then on my 6th trade I make all the money I lost back and make even more money on top of that. It takes time to adjust to a world of freedom when you have been conditioned to live in a world of security. As a result, you need people of the same mindset to encourage you on the way.

How do you want your later years to be like? Unfortunately, many people do not give serious consideration to how they want to spend their old age but not giving thought to this, comes with dire consequences; poverty, diseases, loneliness.

Do you want to be a kept citizen at your later years or someone who enjoys financial freedom in health.

Many do not understand what residual income is. And if they do, they really do not consider that they should work towards it. The rich is driven by the need for residual income and so they invest their time, money and energy into building it

It happens therefore that even when they have ceased to work, they continue to live in financial freedom. If you fail to understand the import of residual passive income, I’m sorry to say, you’re headed to financial difficulties at your later years.

From today, stop putting your future in the hands of your country’s political leaders.

How often have we put our hopes and aspirations on the Governments of our countries and how often have our hopes and aspirations been dashed by the same governments. Currently, there has been a consistent loss of jobs which results from high cost of doing business and which is also a direct result of Government in-actions. It seems like this global economic depression will go on for a long time unabated and many people are worried because they cannot face the future with hope.

In view of the foregoing, what should you be doing? First, you must seek to become financially intelligent through self-development. Second, you must find ways to build residual, passive income streams that will continually pay you whether or not the economy is taking a downturn.

Network marking happens to be the only cost-effective means ordinary people can build residual income and live in financial freedom now and in their old age. “Do something today that your future self can be thankful about”. This is one of my favorable quotes. There is need for you to join a Network marketing company with good compensation plan.

Have you taken a look at network marketing in the past or have you been involved in network marketing but did not succeed? One reason you did not succeed is that you failed to do it the right way or you set unrealistic expectations for yourself. And when you didn’t meet you’re expectations, you retired into your comfort zone and said it doesn’t work. To succeed in network marketing, you must be willing to work very hard for a couple of years. It is not a get rich quick scheme. Anything worthwhile takes time. Are you willing to give all it will take to succeed? If so, task your self at it and at the end, you will be happy you did.

Have a teenager? Finding the experience not, perhaps, unending simplicity and joy?

You’re not alone. Adolescence is a complicated time, during which the teen’s main job is seeking out his/her own identity separate from the parents’. The developmental tasks of adolescence are accomplished by the teen going to the extreme before s/he can return to the mean. One of the ways to help your teenager develop this identity is easier said than done-you need to allow your teen to learn by making his/her own mistakes.

This is a painful task for most parents, but it’s how true independence is achieved. Think through what it means concretely for your child, as I offer some examples.

One easy way to start is with chores. Provide ones that begin and end with your teen. First, she develops ownership, but second, if she fails, she herself suffers the consequences, which is the structure you want. Have her do her own laundry, clean her own room, change her own linen. It’s true her sheets might end up growing unidentifiable fungi–but she’s the one who has to bed down with them.

Let’s say it’s a more communal chore– emptying the dishwasher, or making lunches. You can’t force your teen to do these things; the ball’s in his court. But if he hasn’t done them, why don’t you wait until he needs you for something–and he will–and then tell him, without malice, you’ll be happy to oblige, as soon as X is taken care of.

There are certain things your teen will do that will have external consequences, and you won’t need to intervene at all, so the best you can do is bud out. If he refuses to wear a warm coat or boots, if she insists on staying up late on a school night–no one will be sorrier than your teen if you just let the scenario play out.

I see many adolescent girls from religious families in my practice, and the parents are, obviously, concerned about their children’s religious choices–in terms of modesty, praying, being with the right friends who encourage them spiritually, etc. It is painful to watch your daughter make different selections from those you value so highly, but you cannot force them to practice as you see fit. The best advice I have is to teach by example. I’ve found that most girls in religious rebellion are really angry with their parents and expressing it this way. If prayer time is an unhappy experience, you’re teaching that connection to God is unpleasant, no matter what you preach.

And remember this, too. You are the parent, the siblings are your children. Your daughter shouldn’t need to get married just to get a break from housework you give her. The girl who overdoes babysitting and chores may have as many issues as the daughter who refuses to help at all. Through learning from their own mistakes, your little babies move from childhood into adolescence–and beyond.

It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive.

~Thomas Mann~

I found it hard to digest the above statement. I was raised to believe that liberty and equality were both cornerstones of the American adventure. Yet looking back at the history of America and the experience of living here today, it is clear that we have a conflict between these two ideals.

The American Revolution took place with the goal of freedom from the tyranny and colonial control by the British Empire. Leaders of the revolution fought for the right to make their own decisions by casting aside the British yoke. Equality was not much of an issue. Although our founding fathers maintained that all men were created equal. Yet this equality did not include women, the natives we pushed aside or other people of non-European extraction. In particular, slaves imported from Africa were seen at best as three-fifths of a person for legislative reasons.

The issue of equality came into prominence in the mid nineteen hundreds. It boiled over in the Civil War with northerners fighting for equality of all people and southerners fighting for freedom to exercise their right to control others, namely slaves whom they viewed as possessions rather than people.

Freedom and equality have remained issues up until the present. Liberals struggle for the equal rights of all in terms of medical care, education and judicial fairness to name a few. Conservatives struggle to maintain their power and control leaving others to manage their own affairs. That may be oversimplified but I think it includes the main issues.

In recent years both sides have retreated to their corners insisting they are right and those in other camps are wrong. Once we were able to discuss our differences as individuals. Our representatives in government were also able to listen to each other and work toward agreements which would be at least tolerable to both sides. Now the struggle is seen as us versus them from both perspectives.

We have allowed the current power structure to erode our ability to listen to each other and seek ways to compromise. We have also allowed our country to be seen as abandoning our role as a world leader and focusing only on our self-centered interests.

As we face off with each other and with the rest of the world we run the risk of becoming marginalized in the conversation about how to move forward. We have the choice of continuing down this path or opening our ears to hear each other. What we choose will have serious consequences, good or bad, for the future of our society.

Action steps

• Learn to listen to those with whom we disagree.
• Look for areas of agreement upon which we can build.
• Seek areas in which we can negotiate.
• Acknowledge those who help us.
• Thanks Bob for inspiring me to write this article.

Bill and Mary Toohey, authors of The Average Family’s Guide to Financial Freedom, make average middle class salaries. Mary works as an office manager and Bill as a vocational rehab counselor for the state. On modest incomes, they have attained financial freedom and ensured that their needs will be met through retirement. Their book is a guide for others who want to achieve financial security despite today’s challenging economy. It’s my favorite how-to guide in my large collection of books about personal finance..

The Tooheys have achieved financial security by spending less and therefore saving more. In fact, they save 46 percent of their gross income. Think about that. That savings figure is based on gross income, not net. It is truly impressive given that they’re not making huge incomes.

How did the Tooheys do it? This book tells their story. They foster an attitude of gratitude and contentment. They don’t focus on what they don’t have. Bill and Mary describe their motivation as “building a money-saving mindset”.

A big part of the Tooheys’ success is their choice to live in a modest home. Too many of us stretch to buy a house or condominium we can barely afford and then go into debt to furnish, decorate and update our big new home. The Tooheys, on the other hand, bought a smaller house than they could afford. Rather than using it as a stepping stone to a larger home, they have stayed put and paid off their mortgage in just ten years. They estimate that they have saved more than $100,000 over the years by choosing their small house. A smaller house means that you spend less on utilities, maintenance, interest costs, taxes, and furnishings.

The authors look at the small expenses and the large in their efforts to spend less. No question about it, they are careful spenders. In their book they share tips for buying cars and groceries and for spending on entertainment and education. Learning is important to their family and they share their tips for going to college without going into debt.

Much of the Guide to Financial Freedom is devoted to how to be a careful spender and avoid financial mistakes in your day-to-day life. There’s also a great deal of solid, friendly advice about how to raise responsible kids, how to maintain your possessions, and how to set up a home office that will keep your family organized. There’s even a chapter on how to live happily in a one-bathroom house — something that too many people today think is impossible.

The Tooheys also devote several chapters to investments and to retirement. There is advice and information about where to invest and about the various forms of retirement plans. They freely share their own mistakes and what they’ve learned about investing.

You can’t help but really like Bill and Mary Toohey as you read this book. They seem like people you would want as friends or members of your family. There’s nothing fancy or convoluted about their advice. It’s solid, straightforward guidance from somebody you’d really want on your team. If you’re looking for financial advice and want to learn how to navigate today’s challenging economy you’ll want to pick up Bill and Mary Toohey’s book, The Average Family’s Guide to Financial Freedom.