If you want to be successful in life then there is one principle you must learn first: Learn principles. What makes a chef great? They know the principles of cooking and flavors and how they balance and then they can take unlikely ingredients and mesh them together into a signature dish. What makes an engineer great? They learn principles and then take those principles and apply them systematically to their work. What makes money managers great? They learn principles, apply them and keep their finances in order and grow their net worth.

Elementary school and primary school, and unfortunately some college classes tend to be about rote memorization. The best teachers I ever had were the ones who took the principles behind the things I was memorizing and taught me those instead of merely cramming data into my head. As a web developer/programmer I have memorized a lot of coding things, but I didn’t begin to think as a programmer until I learned the principles behind smart programming (sometimes called ‘patterns’). My finances were a mess even though I had heard good personal finance bits and pieces, but it wasn’t until I learned the principles behind sound personal finance (influenced by blogs like the Simple Dollar, NCN, and Dave Ramsey’s “The Total Money Makeover“).

Smart, successful people will be able to think with abstraction. They’ll be able to identify the principles that make up great process and then merge those principles, where they apply, to their different areas of expertise. Recently I read a book called, “Critical Chain” and it had lots of good principles in it. It is how I run my budget (which I posted a bit about before, but I’m going to write a further detailed article later), but it wasn’t how I ran my budget before reading it because I hadn’t clearly seen the principle. Once I learned it, I was able to see how it could apply to other areas in my life.

Learn principles, learn how they can be applied across broad scopes of your life, and then forget about rote memorization. It could save you thousands of dollars, millions of dollars, your life, or a few minutes time here and there, but get past the short term rules and start thinking bigger.

I was just exercising.  For the first time in weeks if not months.  It is the first of two ways that I’m failing myself right now.  The second way I’m failing myself right now is by not being robotic about my finances.  By robotic I don’t mean to take the personal out of personal finances, but by cutting corners where I should be consistent every single day.

By not exercising I’m increasing health risks, allowing my heart to be weaker, letting my body potentially gain weight (though I have not ballooned over my holidays), and generally allowing myself to fall into a pattern of laziness.  If I exercise regularly the benefits are myriad and I usually feel better throughout the day.  Its a no-brainer, but I’m also feeling lower emotional motivation.  My wife can workout for two hours a day, seven days a week and enjoy it.  I work out once a day and its a miracle.  This isn’t a late new years resolution, I just need to be disciplined in principle.

Of course my second area of failure also shows a sign of lack of discipline.  I can blog regularly, and I think about my finances regularly, but it is easy for me to let things slide here and there so that my bills are paid on time, just not earlier than they could be.  I need to send finances to charities/individuals/ministries I support (which I will do once this post is published - if you’re reading this, the money has been sent).  I just put it off a little bit here and there, but it adds up.

I’m going to take control today and see what I can’t accomplish over the next week in discipline.

If you have something good happen, or learn something good, tell someone.  One of the ways that I envision the Credit Rate Reduction Rally impacting the world is that people will save money, pay less interest, and tell friends, family, or even total strangers.  Today as I walked through the airport one of the airlines (admittedly the one that I was flying on) had a booth set up to get folks to sign up for a credit card affiliated with their frequent flyer miles.  It struck in my mind that I should have created some fliers of my own and dropped them off in various locations to help tell people about the benefits of avoiding debt and increasing their net worth.  Of course it could also help to spread the word on the Credit Rate Reduction Rally.

When you have a good experience, when you find a good deal, when you locate a treasure: share it.  Tell someone.  There’s nothing wrong with being an evangelist for great service or good opportunities.  It may just help strengthen bonds or develop new friendships as people find you a knowledgeable source of useful stuff.  Share your wealth of knowledge and it may help you grow your wealth, too.