After seeing the strong ratings for the show, Us Weekly was the first to put the girls on a cover. “It was the right combination of a large enough audience that was passionate that could drive a sale for us,” said Lara Cohen, news director at the magazine. And the decision paid off, she said: Us Weekly had one of its biggest sales of the summer with that issue.
For MTV and entertainment magazines, cashing in on the show’s success is business as usual. But for the teen moms, their success and popularity, not to mention their show’s integrity, rely on a narrative that highlights their struggles and hardships, and the notion of suffering the consequences of one’s poor decisions.
“Teen pregnancy is not easy,” said show producer Morgan J. Freeman, and it’s clear the onus is on Teen Mom to underscore that fact. The girls “have an enormous amount of responsibility. The focus is on that.”
Since the series’ origins in 16 and Pregnant, it has hewed to a story line familiar to high school classrooms across the country. And as the girls have graduated to become teen moms, one fights to get a GED, another juggles school and a full-time job, and a few battle for custody rights and child support. Viewers, and the media, would be reluctant to embrace a show that compromised that narrative.
“It certainly would change the dynamic of the show if they had money to spend on nicer houses and nannies,” said Cohen of Us Weekly. “It would ruin what’s really interesting about the show. The whole reason that we wanted to cover them to begin with was that their struggle was compelling and very real.”
If anything, the show’s message combined with MTV’s packaging mean that Teen Mom works as a very clever and glorified public service announcement, for which the network has received considerable praise. Petite Maci laments losing her virginity to ex-fiancé Ryan, whom she broke up with after it was clear he was too immature and selfish to be a responsible and caring father. Dark-haired Farrah flip-flops between relying on an abusive mother for economic and emotional support and flailing for independence. In the season’s first episode, Farrah and her mother are trying to find a way forward after Farrah’s mother struck her. Then there’s Amber, who was captured on camera punching her daughter’s father and trying to push him down the stairs. MTV quickly turned the incident into a domestic-violence teaching moment. When Us Weekly featured all four girls in an issue, the piece was packaged under the headline “What We’ve Learned.”
Today Y Combinator is holding its sixth Startup School, where a roster of Silicon Valley’s most experienced and successful founders and investors come together to lecture hundreds of eager entrepreneurs. The event is always extremely popular, and today is no exception — the lecture hall on Stanford’s campus is packed to the brim.
Today’s event will feature eleven talks, including lectures from the likes of Paul Graham, Mark Zuckerberg, and Ron Conway. The first session — which featured Andy Bechtolsheim, Paul Graham, and Andrew Mason — just ended. You can find my notes from each talk below, and we’ll be posting more later today on each cluster of speakers. You can also watch a live stream of the event right here.
Andy Bechtolsheim
Sun founder Andy Bechtolsheim’s talk revolved around innovation. He kicked off with a brief history of the incredible changes we’ve seen in the computer industry in a brief period of time, with the number of transistors on a chip increasing a million fold since 1970 and networking technology seeing similarly impressive gains.
Bechtolsheim says that there are a few key lessons from what’s gone on in terms of web innovation: first, the time from innovation to adoption can be remarkably short (see Google’s rapid adoption, for example). And the key to success isn’t to be first (after all, there were many search engines available before Google came out). Instead, it’s important to be the first to solve the right problem.
So why is there so much focus on web companies? Bechtolsheim says that it’s primarily because starting one is so cheap, relatively speaking. You no longer need to have your own infrastructure — with AWS, you can get up and running for cheap. It’s also cheaper than ever to raise awareness due to the proliferation of blogs, Twitter, etc.
Paul Graham
YC founder Paul Graham’s talk focused on one of the all-important problems facing budding startups: raising money. And he had good news, at least as far as entrepreneurs are concerned.
There’s an increasing tension between so-called Super Angels and Venture Capitalists (which manifested itself in AngelGate). Unlike traditional angel investors, Super Angels are investing other people’s money, which makes them similar to the VC camp. But, unlike VCs which have historically invested large sums of money (usually $1M+), Super Angels are happy to make many, much smaller investments.
This gives entrepreneurs more control — they can raise exactly how much they want instead of having to take a giant Series A round. It’s also led to larger VCs making small (~$100K) investments to compete more directly with the Super Angels.
This has another consequence: because VCs are mostly price-insensitive at this point (they view these seed investments as options to invest larger sums down the road), they don’t mind if the startup valuation grows higher than it would have. Which is great for the entrepreneur, but is bad for Super Angels who do care about the startup’s valuation. This, Graham says, could lead to what looks like another bubble with skyrocketing valuations, but hopefully without the pop at the end.
In the long term, this probably isn’t sustainable — Graham says that VCs and Super Angels will increasingly become one and the same, as the top VCs who add value are weeded out from the rest. But he thinks that process will take time, since the VC industry moves at a “glacially slow” pace. Until then, we’ll keep seeing those sky-high valuations for companies that appeal to both VCs (who think the company has a chance to IPO) and Super Angels (who think the company has a chance at an early, lucrative exit).
For more on this topic, see our post on The $4 Million Line. Graham will also be publishing an essay covering his talk, which we’ll post a link to as soon as it goes live.
Andrew Mason
Groupon founder Andrew Mason decided to take a different approach with his talk: he gave an old pitch for his original startup The Point, which eventually evolved into the wildly successful Groupon. The Point was a collective action platform that would let users take action together — for example, to raise money to build a dome around Chicago to block out the city’s frigid winter weather (yes, this was an actual initiative on the site).
But Mason’s (old) pitch wasn’t a good one, and The Point never really gained traction. So what went wrong? Mason pointed out some of the original company’s main flaws: it was about a vision more than making a tool that was actually useful. Mason was thinking of what the Point could become five, ten years down the road, without figuring out how to get people to actually use it.
Another problem: you need to recognize and embrace your constraints, and figure out what’s practical. You also need to realize that you’ll probably fail. Many people who are thinking of launching startups are very smart — they’ve succeeded in the past and the notion of failure isn’t really conceivable to them (Mason fell into this camp when he was working on The Point). Now, at Groupon, he constantly reminds himself of ways he could fail — the company has a bunch of magazine covers hanging on the wall near the entrance featuring companies that have gone downhill after massive success, like MySpace and AOL.
Image by Robert Scoble/Scobleizer on Flickr
robert shumake twitterScott Ashjian calls himself the “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate for US Senate, but he tells ABC News that he would be “at peace” knowing he helped re-elect Harry Reid by siphoning votes away from Sharron Angle. The Note, authored by ABC ...
In its editorial endorsing Jerry Brown for governor, the Daily News allows that he's not the ideal candidate, but clearly better and more prepared to be governor than political neophyte Meg Whitman. The editorial notes that Brown met ...
A study has drawn attention in media circles by suggesting that stories on "serious topics" such as the Gulf oil spill draw more revenue for media outlets than stories about celebrities like Lindsay Lohan. But the reality is a little ...
robert shumake hall of shame
After seeing the strong ratings for the show, Us Weekly was the first to put the girls on a cover. “It was the right combination of a large enough audience that was passionate that could drive a sale for us,” said Lara Cohen, news director at the magazine. And the decision paid off, she said: Us Weekly had one of its biggest sales of the summer with that issue.
For MTV and entertainment magazines, cashing in on the show’s success is business as usual. But for the teen moms, their success and popularity, not to mention their show’s integrity, rely on a narrative that highlights their struggles and hardships, and the notion of suffering the consequences of one’s poor decisions.
“Teen pregnancy is not easy,” said show producer Morgan J. Freeman, and it’s clear the onus is on Teen Mom to underscore that fact. The girls “have an enormous amount of responsibility. The focus is on that.”
Since the series’ origins in 16 and Pregnant, it has hewed to a story line familiar to high school classrooms across the country. And as the girls have graduated to become teen moms, one fights to get a GED, another juggles school and a full-time job, and a few battle for custody rights and child support. Viewers, and the media, would be reluctant to embrace a show that compromised that narrative.
“It certainly would change the dynamic of the show if they had money to spend on nicer houses and nannies,” said Cohen of Us Weekly. “It would ruin what’s really interesting about the show. The whole reason that we wanted to cover them to begin with was that their struggle was compelling and very real.”
If anything, the show’s message combined with MTV’s packaging mean that Teen Mom works as a very clever and glorified public service announcement, for which the network has received considerable praise. Petite Maci laments losing her virginity to ex-fiancé Ryan, whom she broke up with after it was clear he was too immature and selfish to be a responsible and caring father. Dark-haired Farrah flip-flops between relying on an abusive mother for economic and emotional support and flailing for independence. In the season’s first episode, Farrah and her mother are trying to find a way forward after Farrah’s mother struck her. Then there’s Amber, who was captured on camera punching her daughter’s father and trying to push him down the stairs. MTV quickly turned the incident into a domestic-violence teaching moment. When Us Weekly featured all four girls in an issue, the piece was packaged under the headline “What We’ve Learned.”
Today Y Combinator is holding its sixth Startup School, where a roster of Silicon Valley’s most experienced and successful founders and investors come together to lecture hundreds of eager entrepreneurs. The event is always extremely popular, and today is no exception — the lecture hall on Stanford’s campus is packed to the brim.
Today’s event will feature eleven talks, including lectures from the likes of Paul Graham, Mark Zuckerberg, and Ron Conway. The first session — which featured Andy Bechtolsheim, Paul Graham, and Andrew Mason — just ended. You can find my notes from each talk below, and we’ll be posting more later today on each cluster of speakers. You can also watch a live stream of the event right here.
Andy Bechtolsheim
Sun founder Andy Bechtolsheim’s talk revolved around innovation. He kicked off with a brief history of the incredible changes we’ve seen in the computer industry in a brief period of time, with the number of transistors on a chip increasing a million fold since 1970 and networking technology seeing similarly impressive gains.
Bechtolsheim says that there are a few key lessons from what’s gone on in terms of web innovation: first, the time from innovation to adoption can be remarkably short (see Google’s rapid adoption, for example). And the key to success isn’t to be first (after all, there were many search engines available before Google came out). Instead, it’s important to be the first to solve the right problem.
So why is there so much focus on web companies? Bechtolsheim says that it’s primarily because starting one is so cheap, relatively speaking. You no longer need to have your own infrastructure — with AWS, you can get up and running for cheap. It’s also cheaper than ever to raise awareness due to the proliferation of blogs, Twitter, etc.
Paul Graham
YC founder Paul Graham’s talk focused on one of the all-important problems facing budding startups: raising money. And he had good news, at least as far as entrepreneurs are concerned.
There’s an increasing tension between so-called Super Angels and Venture Capitalists (which manifested itself in AngelGate). Unlike traditional angel investors, Super Angels are investing other people’s money, which makes them similar to the VC camp. But, unlike VCs which have historically invested large sums of money (usually $1M+), Super Angels are happy to make many, much smaller investments.
This gives entrepreneurs more control — they can raise exactly how much they want instead of having to take a giant Series A round. It’s also led to larger VCs making small (~$100K) investments to compete more directly with the Super Angels.
This has another consequence: because VCs are mostly price-insensitive at this point (they view these seed investments as options to invest larger sums down the road), they don’t mind if the startup valuation grows higher than it would have. Which is great for the entrepreneur, but is bad for Super Angels who do care about the startup’s valuation. This, Graham says, could lead to what looks like another bubble with skyrocketing valuations, but hopefully without the pop at the end.
In the long term, this probably isn’t sustainable — Graham says that VCs and Super Angels will increasingly become one and the same, as the top VCs who add value are weeded out from the rest. But he thinks that process will take time, since the VC industry moves at a “glacially slow” pace. Until then, we’ll keep seeing those sky-high valuations for companies that appeal to both VCs (who think the company has a chance to IPO) and Super Angels (who think the company has a chance at an early, lucrative exit).
For more on this topic, see our post on The $4 Million Line. Graham will also be publishing an essay covering his talk, which we’ll post a link to as soon as it goes live.
Andrew Mason
Groupon founder Andrew Mason decided to take a different approach with his talk: he gave an old pitch for his original startup The Point, which eventually evolved into the wildly successful Groupon. The Point was a collective action platform that would let users take action together — for example, to raise money to build a dome around Chicago to block out the city’s frigid winter weather (yes, this was an actual initiative on the site).
But Mason’s (old) pitch wasn’t a good one, and The Point never really gained traction. So what went wrong? Mason pointed out some of the original company’s main flaws: it was about a vision more than making a tool that was actually useful. Mason was thinking of what the Point could become five, ten years down the road, without figuring out how to get people to actually use it.
Another problem: you need to recognize and embrace your constraints, and figure out what’s practical. You also need to realize that you’ll probably fail. Many people who are thinking of launching startups are very smart — they’ve succeeded in the past and the notion of failure isn’t really conceivable to them (Mason fell into this camp when he was working on The Point). Now, at Groupon, he constantly reminds himself of ways he could fail — the company has a bunch of magazine covers hanging on the wall near the entrance featuring companies that have gone downhill after massive success, like MySpace and AOL.
Image by Robert Scoble/Scobleizer on Flickr
benchcraft company portland orScott Ashjian calls himself the “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate for US Senate, but he tells ABC News that he would be “at peace” knowing he helped re-elect Harry Reid by siphoning votes away from Sharron Angle. The Note, authored by ABC ...
In its editorial endorsing Jerry Brown for governor, the Daily News allows that he's not the ideal candidate, but clearly better and more prepared to be governor than political neophyte Meg Whitman. The editorial notes that Brown met ...
A study has drawn attention in media circles by suggesting that stories on "serious topics" such as the Gulf oil spill draw more revenue for media outlets than stories about celebrities like Lindsay Lohan. But the reality is a little ...
robert shumake twitterrobert shumake detroit
robert shumake hall of shameScott Ashjian calls himself the “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate for US Senate, but he tells ABC News that he would be “at peace” knowing he helped re-elect Harry Reid by siphoning votes away from Sharron Angle. The Note, authored by ABC ...
In its editorial endorsing Jerry Brown for governor, the Daily News allows that he's not the ideal candidate, but clearly better and more prepared to be governor than political neophyte Meg Whitman. The editorial notes that Brown met ...
A study has drawn attention in media circles by suggesting that stories on "serious topics" such as the Gulf oil spill draw more revenue for media outlets than stories about celebrities like Lindsay Lohan. But the reality is a little ...
robert shumake hall of shame
After seeing the strong ratings for the show, Us Weekly was the first to put the girls on a cover. “It was the right combination of a large enough audience that was passionate that could drive a sale for us,” said Lara Cohen, news director at the magazine. And the decision paid off, she said: Us Weekly had one of its biggest sales of the summer with that issue.
For MTV and entertainment magazines, cashing in on the show’s success is business as usual. But for the teen moms, their success and popularity, not to mention their show’s integrity, rely on a narrative that highlights their struggles and hardships, and the notion of suffering the consequences of one’s poor decisions.
“Teen pregnancy is not easy,” said show producer Morgan J. Freeman, and it’s clear the onus is on Teen Mom to underscore that fact. The girls “have an enormous amount of responsibility. The focus is on that.”
Since the series’ origins in 16 and Pregnant, it has hewed to a story line familiar to high school classrooms across the country. And as the girls have graduated to become teen moms, one fights to get a GED, another juggles school and a full-time job, and a few battle for custody rights and child support. Viewers, and the media, would be reluctant to embrace a show that compromised that narrative.
“It certainly would change the dynamic of the show if they had money to spend on nicer houses and nannies,” said Cohen of Us Weekly. “It would ruin what’s really interesting about the show. The whole reason that we wanted to cover them to begin with was that their struggle was compelling and very real.”
If anything, the show’s message combined with MTV’s packaging mean that Teen Mom works as a very clever and glorified public service announcement, for which the network has received considerable praise. Petite Maci laments losing her virginity to ex-fiancé Ryan, whom she broke up with after it was clear he was too immature and selfish to be a responsible and caring father. Dark-haired Farrah flip-flops between relying on an abusive mother for economic and emotional support and flailing for independence. In the season’s first episode, Farrah and her mother are trying to find a way forward after Farrah’s mother struck her. Then there’s Amber, who was captured on camera punching her daughter’s father and trying to push him down the stairs. MTV quickly turned the incident into a domestic-violence teaching moment. When Us Weekly featured all four girls in an issue, the piece was packaged under the headline “What We’ve Learned.”
Today Y Combinator is holding its sixth Startup School, where a roster of Silicon Valley’s most experienced and successful founders and investors come together to lecture hundreds of eager entrepreneurs. The event is always extremely popular, and today is no exception — the lecture hall on Stanford’s campus is packed to the brim.
Today’s event will feature eleven talks, including lectures from the likes of Paul Graham, Mark Zuckerberg, and Ron Conway. The first session — which featured Andy Bechtolsheim, Paul Graham, and Andrew Mason — just ended. You can find my notes from each talk below, and we’ll be posting more later today on each cluster of speakers. You can also watch a live stream of the event right here.
Andy Bechtolsheim
Sun founder Andy Bechtolsheim’s talk revolved around innovation. He kicked off with a brief history of the incredible changes we’ve seen in the computer industry in a brief period of time, with the number of transistors on a chip increasing a million fold since 1970 and networking technology seeing similarly impressive gains.
Bechtolsheim says that there are a few key lessons from what’s gone on in terms of web innovation: first, the time from innovation to adoption can be remarkably short (see Google’s rapid adoption, for example). And the key to success isn’t to be first (after all, there were many search engines available before Google came out). Instead, it’s important to be the first to solve the right problem.
So why is there so much focus on web companies? Bechtolsheim says that it’s primarily because starting one is so cheap, relatively speaking. You no longer need to have your own infrastructure — with AWS, you can get up and running for cheap. It’s also cheaper than ever to raise awareness due to the proliferation of blogs, Twitter, etc.
Paul Graham
YC founder Paul Graham’s talk focused on one of the all-important problems facing budding startups: raising money. And he had good news, at least as far as entrepreneurs are concerned.
There’s an increasing tension between so-called Super Angels and Venture Capitalists (which manifested itself in AngelGate). Unlike traditional angel investors, Super Angels are investing other people’s money, which makes them similar to the VC camp. But, unlike VCs which have historically invested large sums of money (usually $1M+), Super Angels are happy to make many, much smaller investments.
This gives entrepreneurs more control — they can raise exactly how much they want instead of having to take a giant Series A round. It’s also led to larger VCs making small (~$100K) investments to compete more directly with the Super Angels.
This has another consequence: because VCs are mostly price-insensitive at this point (they view these seed investments as options to invest larger sums down the road), they don’t mind if the startup valuation grows higher than it would have. Which is great for the entrepreneur, but is bad for Super Angels who do care about the startup’s valuation. This, Graham says, could lead to what looks like another bubble with skyrocketing valuations, but hopefully without the pop at the end.
In the long term, this probably isn’t sustainable — Graham says that VCs and Super Angels will increasingly become one and the same, as the top VCs who add value are weeded out from the rest. But he thinks that process will take time, since the VC industry moves at a “glacially slow” pace. Until then, we’ll keep seeing those sky-high valuations for companies that appeal to both VCs (who think the company has a chance to IPO) and Super Angels (who think the company has a chance at an early, lucrative exit).
For more on this topic, see our post on The $4 Million Line. Graham will also be publishing an essay covering his talk, which we’ll post a link to as soon as it goes live.
Andrew Mason
Groupon founder Andrew Mason decided to take a different approach with his talk: he gave an old pitch for his original startup The Point, which eventually evolved into the wildly successful Groupon. The Point was a collective action platform that would let users take action together — for example, to raise money to build a dome around Chicago to block out the city’s frigid winter weather (yes, this was an actual initiative on the site).
But Mason’s (old) pitch wasn’t a good one, and The Point never really gained traction. So what went wrong? Mason pointed out some of the original company’s main flaws: it was about a vision more than making a tool that was actually useful. Mason was thinking of what the Point could become five, ten years down the road, without figuring out how to get people to actually use it.
Another problem: you need to recognize and embrace your constraints, and figure out what’s practical. You also need to realize that you’ll probably fail. Many people who are thinking of launching startups are very smart — they’ve succeeded in the past and the notion of failure isn’t really conceivable to them (Mason fell into this camp when he was working on The Point). Now, at Groupon, he constantly reminds himself of ways he could fail — the company has a bunch of magazine covers hanging on the wall near the entrance featuring companies that have gone downhill after massive success, like MySpace and AOL.
Image by Robert Scoble/Scobleizer on Flickr
robert shumake hall of shame
robert shumake detroitScott Ashjian calls himself the “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate for US Senate, but he tells ABC News that he would be “at peace” knowing he helped re-elect Harry Reid by siphoning votes away from Sharron Angle. The Note, authored by ABC ...
In its editorial endorsing Jerry Brown for governor, the Daily News allows that he's not the ideal candidate, but clearly better and more prepared to be governor than political neophyte Meg Whitman. The editorial notes that Brown met ...
A study has drawn attention in media circles by suggesting that stories on "serious topics" such as the Gulf oil spill draw more revenue for media outlets than stories about celebrities like Lindsay Lohan. But the reality is a little ...
robert shumake twitter
robert shumake hall of shameScott Ashjian calls himself the “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate for US Senate, but he tells ABC News that he would be “at peace” knowing he helped re-elect Harry Reid by siphoning votes away from Sharron Angle. The Note, authored by ABC ...
In its editorial endorsing Jerry Brown for governor, the Daily News allows that he's not the ideal candidate, but clearly better and more prepared to be governor than political neophyte Meg Whitman. The editorial notes that Brown met ...
A study has drawn attention in media circles by suggesting that stories on "serious topics" such as the Gulf oil spill draw more revenue for media outlets than stories about celebrities like Lindsay Lohan. But the reality is a little ...
robert shumake hall of shameScott Ashjian calls himself the “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate for US Senate, but he tells ABC News that he would be “at peace” knowing he helped re-elect Harry Reid by siphoning votes away from Sharron Angle. The Note, authored by ABC ...
In its editorial endorsing Jerry Brown for governor, the Daily News allows that he's not the ideal candidate, but clearly better and more prepared to be governor than political neophyte Meg Whitman. The editorial notes that Brown met ...
A study has drawn attention in media circles by suggesting that stories on "serious topics" such as the Gulf oil spill draw more revenue for media outlets than stories about celebrities like Lindsay Lohan. But the reality is a little ...
robert shumake twitterScott Ashjian calls himself the “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate for US Senate, but he tells ABC News that he would be “at peace” knowing he helped re-elect Harry Reid by siphoning votes away from Sharron Angle. The Note, authored by ABC ...
In its editorial endorsing Jerry Brown for governor, the Daily News allows that he's not the ideal candidate, but clearly better and more prepared to be governor than political neophyte Meg Whitman. The editorial notes that Brown met ...
A study has drawn attention in media circles by suggesting that stories on "serious topics" such as the Gulf oil spill draw more revenue for media outlets than stories about celebrities like Lindsay Lohan. But the reality is a little ...
how to lose weight fast robert shumake detroitrobert shumake twitter
robert shumake twitter robert shumake detroitScott Ashjian calls himself the “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate for US Senate, but he tells ABC News that he would be “at peace” knowing he helped re-elect Harry Reid by siphoning votes away from Sharron Angle. The Note, authored by ABC ...
In its editorial endorsing Jerry Brown for governor, the Daily News allows that he's not the ideal candidate, but clearly better and more prepared to be governor than political neophyte Meg Whitman. The editorial notes that Brown met ...
A study has drawn attention in media circles by suggesting that stories on "serious topics" such as the Gulf oil spill draw more revenue for media outlets than stories about celebrities like Lindsay Lohan. But the reality is a little ...
robert shumake detroit You have probably heard it said that anyone can make money, and I believe it is true. After all, just look at the young kid out there selling lemonade with their uniquely constructed lemonade sign and stand. So here is proof that with a little knowledge, and after applying oneself to a given task, that a child and even a bum can make money. However, the problem is not always in MAKING money, be it small or large, the problem is that most people do not know how to KEEP it. This is evident through the statistics done on many lottery winners around the world over the past several years who are rich today, but eventually wind up broke, busted, and disgusted tomorrow. Yeah, I know that's an exaggeration on my part. Well if not tommorrow, usually within a few short years, because before they know it their millions soon transform into pennies, and their wealth gone. Therefore, I have found that it will take our operating in WISDOM and DISCIPLINE in order to keep money.
So who was the richest man who ever lived? The Bible says it was a man by the name of King Solomon. So how did he amass such a GREAT fortune? Was it simply because he was born into royalty and money? Yes and no. Yes, Solomon came from an affluent family, and likewise succeeded in inheriting the throne of his father, King David, and yes this definitely gave him a jump start toward financial success. However, Solomon was only just beginning. He was a novice. How would he govern a vast nation of people? Could he keep the family fortune that was now his and continue the regal financial legacy of his royal family? The answer, YES. We learn that this relatively young and inexperienced leader eventually far exceeded even the riches of his father and the nation by and large. How was this possible? Because, at his earliest beginning he sought after and asked only one thing from the Lord, and that was wisdom (i.e. not long life or riches). Yes, I said WISDOM! His desire was for godly wisdom and guidance to rule a nation, his family, and his finances and this is what has made his name reknown up until this present day. For Solomon himself, penned these very words,
"that wisdom is the principal or chief thing, so in your getting, get understanding"(Proverbs 4:7). So below you'll find just a few tips that I believe will help you hold on to your money longer. After all, they are working for me!
PROVERBIAL TIPS:1) Ask the Lord for wisdom every day in your decisions. "He will give it to you liberally" (Book of James 1:5).
2) Count or consider the costs before beginning or undertaking any type of endeavor or project (e.g. time, money, resources..).
3) Tithe and/or give generously to help your fellow man (e.g. charities, churches, organizations, community) "Give and it shall be given to you...." (Gospel of St. Luke 6:38).
4) Investments are great assets. So be sure to find a good one.
5) Save $100 or more when possible and place into a money market savings account on a regular basis so you can accrue a little interest. Besides even "the ant gathers its food in the harvest" (Proverbs 6:6-8). Now that is what I call insectual wisdom!
6) Do not max out your credit cards. Besides, having ownership of only ONE major credit card will ensure that you don't build up a long line of debt. Also, pay those bills early so that extra fees will not come into play. Remember, "the borrower is subject to the lender" (Proverbs 22:7). So be sure to watch your spending.
7) Use cash whenever possible. There are no interests, fees, nor debt pileup when using currency.
Here is one final word from the one of the wisest and richest men of his time,
"Labor not to be rich: cease from your own wisdom. Will you set your eyes upon that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven"(Proverbs 23:4-5). See there is a far greater and wiser investment to consider and to invest in, and that is the riches of ETERNITY.
For more information visit my daily-weekly newsletter/blog site at http://proverbsonmakingmoney.com or http://proverb2money.wordpress.com for my Wisdom2Money blogs.
robert shumake twitterScott Ashjian calls himself the “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate for US Senate, but he tells ABC News that he would be “at peace” knowing he helped re-elect Harry Reid by siphoning votes away from Sharron Angle. The Note, authored by ABC ...
In its editorial endorsing Jerry Brown for governor, the Daily News allows that he's not the ideal candidate, but clearly better and more prepared to be governor than political neophyte Meg Whitman. The editorial notes that Brown met ...
A study has drawn attention in media circles by suggesting that stories on "serious topics" such as the Gulf oil spill draw more revenue for media outlets than stories about celebrities like Lindsay Lohan. But the reality is a little ...
robert shumake detroitScott Ashjian calls himself the “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate for US Senate, but he tells ABC News that he would be “at peace” knowing he helped re-elect Harry Reid by siphoning votes away from Sharron Angle. The Note, authored by ABC ...
In its editorial endorsing Jerry Brown for governor, the Daily News allows that he's not the ideal candidate, but clearly better and more prepared to be governor than political neophyte Meg Whitman. The editorial notes that Brown met ...
A study has drawn attention in media circles by suggesting that stories on "serious topics" such as the Gulf oil spill draw more revenue for media outlets than stories about celebrities like Lindsay Lohan. But the reality is a little ...
