#recently i was talking to myself about budgeting better and putting my financial priorities towards My Priorities

[todayisafridaynight]

MOM WAKE UP NEW RGG PLUSH ANNOUNCEMENT

[theresas-sound-world-blog]

Theresa’s Sound World Interview

Person: Rosie Varela

Bands: EEP/ The Rosie Varela Project

Genre/s: Dreampop/Shoegaze/Indie

In my interview, I talk to Rosie Varela of US Dreampop Shoegaze band EEP and The Rosie Varela Project about music, inspirations, her music projects, the modern music industry and...Star Trek! ⭐️

❓When did you first feel the impulse to create music and why?

🅰️I wrote my first song around 1975, when I was 8 years old. I was inspired after watching “My Fair Lady.” I was the youngest child of five and a latchkey kid, so I was alone after school every day. I turned to singing and writing little songs to amuse and comfort myself. I had a little tape recorder I used to record little tunes with my vocals or on my flute.

Picking up guitar at 30 was an epiphany - I suddenly had a way to really write fully formed songs. And once I started, it felt like a flood of songs came pouring out. It still feels that way.

❓Can you name the top ten inspirations for your music? It can be anything, bands, songs, albums, books, poems, art, films, people...

🅰️1. AM/FM radio and shows like American Bandstand, Soul Train, and The Midnight Special.

2. My older brothers’ huge record collection that covered jazz, blues, oldies, rock, and latin music.

3. When I was a kid, I was inspired by The Beatles, Steely Dan, ELO, Fleetwood Mac, Tower of Power, Tom Petty, Motown, and Blondie.

4. Movies that have a focus on music - Woodstock, Blues Brothers, A Hard Day’s Night.

5. My first concert - Carlos Santana at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. A powerful and spiritual experience.

6. Raymond Carver’s short stories. Minimal and intense slices of life.

7. Movies that put characters in morally challenging situations like Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, The Big Lebowski, and Goodfellas.

8. In my late teens and 20s, I was inspired by the recordings of bands and artists like REM, Bowie, Talking Heads, and Peter Gabriel.

9. The Verve awakened me to what I call Proto Shoegaze. The textures and layers of “A Storm In Heaven.” And first wave Shoegaze bands like Slowdive, MBV, Ride, Catherine Wheel, and Lush.

10. The art and lives of Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’Keefe. Their independent and unapologetic dedication to their art has inspired me to do the same.

❓You’re known for your band EEP and more recently, your solo material in the form of the Rosie Varela Project, but can you say what you were doing before musically?

🅰️I think I spent from age 18-51 in a bit of a haze - working, raising my son, writing music in my spare moments, playing in cover bands here and there, and trying to find my voice as a songwriter. So I played every night in my living room and wrote a lot of songs that didn’t sound like me. It seems like I only recently found my voice.

So I’m a very late bloomer!

❓ Can you tell me a bit about how EEP got together?

🅰️I had been helping some musicians in El Paso to record their music, and through that met Ross and Sebastian of Brainville Studio. Because we worked so well together, we formed an experimental synth-based project called Something Something Sound System.

One day I wrote a shoegaze song for my husband that just came out of nowhere (in Spanish to boot!) and I recorded the whole demo at home in 2 hours.

“Hogar” was the first song I had ever written in Spanish. It felt really easy, fluid, natural, and everything just clicked into place organically. My husband Justin really loved it and encouraged me to talk to Ross about recording it as a one-off single. Ross, Seb and I started writing more songs and eventually I asked Serge and Lawrence to join us. The combination of our influences and ages made for a really great band dynamic.

❓How different is it working on a solo project without your bandmates?

🅰️The RVP is basically me taking songs I’ve written that don’t make it into the EEP catalog, in varied genres, and having fun producing them through a gazey lens alongside some of my friends in music. The big difference is I am learning how to produce my own music for the first time. My goal is to release 4 singles this year while I work on my 2022 solo album and so far it’s going well!

❓Have you found that Lockdown/ The Pandemic has impacted on you positively or negatively in a creative sense? Why do think this is?

🅰️For me, the pandemic has affected me positively. It forced me to adapt, modify, and accept a whole new model in making music. Songwriting and remote recording collaborations have had to become a bigger priority than rehearsing and playing live shows. I think EEP and I have pivoted pretty well in that aspect.

❓ I sometimes feel that although financially a lot of bands are struggling owing to miserly streaming platform revenue and (at the moment) no tours, getting music to an audience is easier than it was say, in the 1990s. It seems that social media is key. Have you any tips for bands/artists starting out in the modern music industry ?

🅰️I think figuring out your musical WHY is super important at the start. And every band member’s answer to that will build the collective creative effort and also the band’s calling card, so to speak.

Decide on your short-term and long-term goals and figure what you need to achieve each one.

Assess how each band member can contribute to them and make sure everyone buys in on those goals. If not financially, then with their creativity and skills.

Don’t be in a hurry and don’t be desperate about your music. If it takes a year to save up the budget you need to record your album, save and focus on getting your music ready. Be patient and actually have a solid release plan. I see some bands who release music quickly and often without any marketing plan and it’s sad to see these releases come and go with very little coverage or sales.

Don’t expect to make any profit from your music. Breaking even financially is a great goal to shoot for instead.

It’s important for DIY bands to set realistic benchmarks of success and remain humble about them. The myth of an album “blowing up” to huge financial gain is just that. A myth. It is extremely rare. Instead, think about different kinds of specific goals - how many Bandcamp followers, how many pre-order sales, etc. Make those goals achievable.

Our goal for EEP was to simply have 30 fans who would buy our music and to know our fans by name and cultivate real friendships. I’m happy to say we surpassed that number by a bit.

Use your social platforms to engage, inform, and have fun. Ask for help if you need it from people who you feel have figured it out. We use our social platform to geek out about Shoegaze bands we love, share our stories, and share the behind the scenes of our making music. We love to showcase our peers, and ask our followers about what they like so that we get to know them better.

And always, support those sho support you whenever you can.

❓What are your plans from a musical point of view next? Have you any pipe-dreams for post-lockdown?

🅰️For The RVP, I want to challenge myself musically by interpreting non-Shoegaze songs I’ve written through a Dream Pop and Shoegaze lens. Because I have so many different kinds of songs, it will either be really good or incredibly bad!! I’m willing to take that risk.

For EEP, the pipe dream is to tour the US and the UK when things stabilize and travel is possible. For now, our short-term dream is just to be able to record and rehearse together.

Next, just for fun...

❓Who is your favourite Beatle and why? For example, I like Ringo Star the best, because of his laid back man-of-the-people attitude, his sense of humour and ability not to take himself seriously, namely voicing Thomas the Tank Engine. Musically, in terms of personality, or both, which member of the Fab Four do you sway to the most?

🅰️I think lyrically John Lennon is definitely my favorite. There is a spirit of rebellion, humor, and absurdity in how he played with words and song structure, especially towards the end.

As a person, I identify with George Harrison the most. His curiosity and reverence for Indian music, philosophy, and using music to process the larger questions of life was a refreshing contrast to his bandmates’ style.

❓ I know, like me, you’re a Star Trek fan, so I couldn’t resist this one; Spock or Data and why?

🅰️I identify so much with Data for his quest to understand the different aspects and fullness of being human. I think that has driven a lot of my past and present interactions and relationships. He’s probably the most noble of characters in The Next Generation in his unflinching willingness to sacrifice himself for the needs of the many⭐️

🎼Below are links to Rosie’s latest single, ‘Low’ in her incarnation as The Rosie Varela Project, plus links to two Theresa’s Sound World reviews of music by Rosie’s band, EEP from last year ⭐️

🎧Listen to the single ‘Low’ by The Rosie Varela project: https://thervp.bandcamp.com/track/low

📚🎧: Read my 2020 review of the single ‘Hogar’ by EEP, including listening platform links to the track: https://www.facebook.com/116279076583978/posts/180288703516348/?d=n

📚🎧Read my 2020 review of the album, ‘Death of a Very Good Machine’ by EEP including listening platform links to the album: https://www.facebook.com/116279076583978/posts/198924518319433/?d=n

#MusicBlogger #MusicBlogs

#MusicWriter #MusicBlog #TSW #MusicReviews #TheresasSoundWorld #MusicReviewer #Shoegaze #Dreampop #Indie #AlternativeMusic #Writer #EEP #AlternativeMusicBlog #UK #IndieBlogger #TheRosieVarelaProject #UnderGroundMusic

[morrisbrokaw]

Stop Being Intimidated by these Stupid Things

My beloved friend Ben, on the third day of his new fancy-pants job, finally adjusted the height of his office chair. How embarrassing it would be to clumsily struggle through that in front of new co-workers. Which reminded me of the time, 10+ years ago, when nobody at my new internship told me the key code to the bathroom, so instead of asking – I was an adult-in-training with stunted communication skills – my bladder of steel and I walked across the street to Whole Foods for weeks.

There are so many aspects of being a full-blown grown up that, well, blow (waning metabolism, you’re at the top of the list) but wow does it feel good to ask for what I want and need without feeling embarrassed. And yet, even though I’m now fully capable of asking someone where a bathroom is, we’re all occasionally dragged down by something stupid because we’re intimidated, afraid of not being something enough. Smart, cool, pretty, thin, blah blah blah, wrong wrong wrong. Like that zen proverb says, let go or be dragged. So which is it?

I ain’t gonna be dragged. Here’s a tip-of-the-iceberg list of the everyday aspects of life we all need to shake off and my recommended baby steps towards how to do that. What stupid things are you intimidated by? Let’s commiserate in the comments.

His (seemingly) successful current/ex-girlfriend. I recently found myself in a conversation circle with a man I’ve been youknowwhatting with for over a decade and his on/off/now-on-again cool/kind/beautiful girlfriend and I kept my damn head on straight. So what if she spent four months in Brazil last year? Has perfect teeth? Is a better match for him than I am? Good for them. Truly.

Because she’s All The Things doesn’t mean I’m any less of The Things. If you’re feeling intimidated by his/her current or ex-lady/man, don’t hate me, don’t hate me, don’t hate me, but it’s far more a reflection of you than her. Pinpoint what’s bothering you and harbor those jealous, icky feelings into creative, do-good, live-your-best-Oprah-life ones.

And remember: nothing is as it seems. Last month I had cocktails with a friend who was, according to the Internet, one-half of a seemingly perfect relationship. He’s hot, she’s hot, the month they spent in Morocco also seemed hot. Then, one sip in, my friend unloaded that they’ve been in therapy, haven’t had sex in months (what?!) and she didn’t think they’d make it through their lease. (Spoiler: they didn’t.)

You’re not her or him or them. Let go what you think they are so you can know who you are.

A wine list. Before you get overwhelmed by a mile-long list of grapes you’ve never heard of from wineries that you’ve definitely never heard of – oh gosh, musta missed that issue of Wine Enthusiast – consider a few things. Is the wine list organized any particular way? What’s most important to you: dryness/acidity/sweetness, fruit/earth/spice, grape, region, price? What are you eating? What mood are you in? What’s the weather? Glass or bottle?

While it’s helpful to know if you generally like this and generally don’t like that, the up and downside about wine is that grapes can take on many forms depending on weather, region, skin contact, winemaker, farming practicing and various other factors. So it’s simple: ask your server, bartender or friendly wine shop attendee for assistance. Succumb to the fact that they know more than you do and, if you’re cool, open-minded and decisive about it, they’ll be cool about it too. Take notes of the wines you like, don’t like and why, then record them into the various apps –Delectable and Vivino are popular – which will help you catalog wines you’ve enjoyed.

And if you couldn’t give a crap whether you drink Franzia or Chateauneuf du Pape, go for the second-cheapest. The cheapest is the cheapest for a reason.

Student loans. Hate to break it to you, but Bernie isn’t president and your student loans aren’t going away. But hear me out. I paid off my student loans – all by my damned self, thankyouverymuch – from a Big Ten University where I got a kinda useless journalism degree because that’s what our parents told us we needed to succeed which I guess I don’t regret but it also wasn’t nearly as necessary as we were meant to believe but don’t get me started. Anyways, I worked a hodgepodge of $8/hour jobs, drank fewer beers than my friends and paid that big bill off in full at age 22, not long after my six-month interest-free grace period ended.

It wasn’t easy. I drove a ‘99 Buick whose windows would roll down but not up – parking in ramps was the worst – and would oftentimes sustain solely on snacks. Being debt-free was top-priority for me though, so I planned my life accordingly.

Seeing that intimidatingly gigantic bill month after month get barely less intimidatingly gigantic month after month must be exhausting. So get a game plan together. Establish a budget, decide how to funnel more money into paying them and decide whether to pay off your smallest loan first or the one with the highest interest rate. Which would motivate you more? If you ever need a high five or pep talk, you know where to find me.

Asking your doctor about that mole. This spot, that bump, this weird thing that I’m not really sure what it is but should I be worried? Ask away! Doctors, including my sweet friend Rachel who lets me text her pictures of all my weird bodily questions, went to school for a long time to know answers to yours. (Thanks for diagnosing my shingles, Rach!) Trust your gut, put embarrassment aside and make a list of things to ask while you’re there so you don’t blank, get flustered or chicken out.

WTF does capital gains mean?! Or what’s the difference between a Roth and traditional IRA? 401-what? How much should I stash away under my mattress, I mean, into an emergency fund?

Short answer: hire a financial advisor. Hell, I’ll be your financial advisor if you want. It’s terribly tempting to complain about how the Baby Boomers will suck up all the social security and we won’t be able to retire anyway, so why even plan for it? Or – who knows! – we could all die tomorrow, which is sometimes how I feel when I watch the news. Still, future you will be so proud of current you if you squirrel away so you can retire to an estate on Mykonos someday.

The sooner, the better. Ask friends and family members if they have a financial advisor they trust. Or perhaps start with an investment app like Acorns, which monitors your banking activity and automatically moves the change from your morning coffee or tank of gas into investments.

A scary gym class. For no other reason other than “why not,” I recently went to a class at a gym that was harder, cheesier and longer than I prefer. It was not my scene. The gym was in the suburbs. Glow sticks were involved. So was a frighteningly buff teacher and her gaggle of groupies who hogged all the mirror space up front. Still, I’m so glad I went. I was sore for days and reminded myself how wasteful I think glow sticks are.

Workout culture can be intimidating, I get it. Showing up for a hardcore cycle class when you haven’t even been on a Schwinn in years is akin to going to a new school and not knowing where to sit in the cafeteria. Ask questions. Show up early. Research what you might need to bring. Your instructor should be kind and accommodating and if they aren’t, then don’t go back to that class.

Passing someone on the sidewalk. “I’m just gonna sneak around you, thanks!”

Teens. They’re so cool these days. But remember, the angst of teenage years is timeless and you never want to be one ever again because hormones are real. I hope for all of our sakes they take over the world sooner rather than later, so stop being intimidated by them and start encouraging them to use their savvy voices and YouTube followers for what’s right.

Parking/paying/doing things on your own at a place you’ve never been before. All this said, a titch of intimidation is good for ya – it keeps us humble. Just not from the stupid stuff, okay? Now, are you going to let go or be dragged?

Image: 1

Megan McCarty is a writer, editor, etc.-er who has written about life, travel and – shh, don’t tell her mother – s-e-x for Garance Doré, Apartment 34, Rue and more. She’s a firm believer in the zipper merge. Follow along with her adventures (and, well, misadventures) on Instagram. 

    The post Stop Being Intimidated by these Stupid Things appeared first on Wit & Delight.

Stop Being Intimidated by these Stupid Things published first on https://workbootsandshoes.tumblr.com/

[andrewdburton]

Just solve the problem!

While the contractors were working to replace the siding on our new home last summer, they discovered a termite infestation outside the bathroom.

Further investigation revealed that the floor under the tub was not only wet and damp, but had actually completely rotted. So, we hired somebody to repair the damage. On the first day he was here, I went into the bathroom barefoot. Oops. I stepped on a shard of glass tile. That splinter was stuck in my foot for weeks.

At first, it didn’t really affect normal activity. If I wore sneakers and socks, I barely felt it. But if I wore sandals, I got a sharp stabbing pain in the side of my left foot. If I tried to run, the same thing happened. And forget about going to the gym!

Now, the obvious response here is, “Why didn’t you remove the sliver from your foot?” Great question!

On the very first night, Kim did try to remove the sliver, and we thought she got it. But the next morning when I took Tally for a walk, I realized the sliver was still there. But I didn’t do anything about it. I lived with it for weeks, a constant source of low-grade irritation.

This, my friends, is a perfect example of a couple of things.

First, it’s my family’s mentality in action. For some stupid stupid reason, we Roths don’t like dealing with medical issues. When we’re sick, we suffer for days (or weeks) before going to a doctor. When we’re hurt, we just suck it up. When I was young, my mother sprained her ankle. She limped around for months before seeking medical attention. In college, I broke a finger playing touch football over Thanksgiving. I dealt with the intense pain until Christmas break, at which time I finally decided to see a doctor.

Second, this a perfect example of putting up with a problem instead of finding a solution. Most people — myself included — are willing to tolerate a great deal of dissatisfaction and discomfort before deciding to remedy whatever is wrong in their lives. I’m not sure why this is the case, but it’s true.

With the glass shard in my foot, most of the time I barely noticed. But sometimes the pain was especially bad. I remember one morning while walking the dog, it felt like somebody was stabbing me with a needle. “I just need to solve the problem,” I thought to myself — and that reminded me of some wise advice I once received.

Just Solve the Problem

About a decade ago, I worked with a life coach. Each week, we’d have an hour-long phone conversation about the ways I was trying to become a better person. I made great progress in some areas, but little progress in others.

One day, we were talking about my inability to eat a healthy breakfast. I’ve always been the sort of guy who knows he should eat a nutritious breakfast but doesn’t actually do so. My coach had been encouraging me to make this a habit in my life, but I kept complaining about all the reasons it wasn’t possible. Eventually, she’d had enough.

“J.D., you’re being ridiculous,” my coach said, exasperated. “This isn’t rocket science. Millions of people eat a healthy breakfast every day. You can too. You need to stop making excuses. You need to identify the problem and solve the problem. Just solve the problem!”

This advice hit me hard: “Just solve the problem.” Obvious, I know, but that doesn’t mean it’s not powerful. I began to recognize that, in so many ways, I deliberately lived in the problem instead of living in the solution. I realized that maybe I could fix the things that were broken in my life if I’d only take the time to do so. (After all, I’d already made the resolution to become a money boss — and that had worked wonders with my financial situation!)

With breakfast, for instance, the solution was to make it easy to have healthy choices. For me, that meant stocking the fridge with egg whites and chicken sausage. It meant learning to like yogurt. It also meant giving myself permission to spend a little extra on pre-packaged fruit and — not kidding — breakfast steaks. (I was eating paleo at the time, so a piece of filet mignon was perfectly acceptable…if somewhat expensive.)

Related reading: A few months ago, there was a thread on Reddit discussing why people choose long-term inconvenience over short-term inconvenience: “I just spent at least 10 minutes undoing several screws using the end of a butter knife that was already in the same room, rather than go upstairs and get a proper screw driver for the job that would have made the job a lot easier and quicker.” And I spent weeks limping around with a sliver in my foot rather than have Kim spend five minutes taking it out.

How Do You Solve the Problem?

“Just solve the problem” is terrific advice that can be applied to all aspects of life. For almost a decade now, it’s been a mantra of mine. Admittedly, it’s a mantra that I sometimes forget to repeat to myself. But when I do remember to heed these words, they help me get a hell of a lot done.

But just how do you go about solving the problems in your life? I believe there’s a six-step process that you can use to tackle the things you’ve been neglecting for too long:

Recognize a problem exists. You need to be conscious that a problem is present before you can figure out what that problem is. Sometimes this is easier said than done. It’s easy to get complacent, to just accept that this is “the way things are”. For instance, you might be unhappy with your financial situation; you might realize that something with the way you’re handling money isn’t working.

Identify the problem. After you’ve recognized that things aren’t right, ask yourself why. What is the specific problem that’s leading to your unhappiness? Is there more than one problem? Using the previous example, once you’ve realized you need to do something different with your dollars, you might find that debt is dragging you down.

Diagnose the source of the problem. Next, try to figure out why your problem exists. How did it start? Why does it continue? Why does it make you unhappy? With our financial example, you’d quickly discover that your debt exists because you spend more than you earn. But why do you spend more than you earn? When did you start doing this? Why do you continue to do so?

Brainstorm solutions. Now that you’ve identified the problem (and its source), it’s time to figure out how to fix things. This is the fun part. Come up with a list of ways you can overcome the problem that’s been holding you back. To get out of debt, for instance, you might take a two-pronged approach: boost your income by taking a second job while also cutting back temporarily on some non-essentials.

Formulate a plan. Once you’ve come up with a solution to your problem, make a plan to turn these dreams into reality. How specifically are you going to implement your solution? What steps can you take today and tomorrow to solve the problem? If you’re trying to trim your budget, you might draft a prioritized list of places you can cut your spending. Then you can write down concrete steps to take toward each of these goals.

Take action. The last step is the most important. To solve any problem, you must take action. It doesn’t do any good to identify the problem, to brainstorm solutions, and to formulate a plan if you’re not going to do the work necessary to make things right. You’ll never get out of debt if all you do is tell yourself you ought to spend less. You must truly spend less in order to eliminate the problem.

Here’s one way I’m currently using this “just solve the problem” methodology in my own life.

As you may recall, Kim and I both packed on the pounds during our 15-month trip around the U.S. We’ve been home nearly two years now, but we haven’t lost any weight. We’re both aware that a problem exists: We’re uncomfortable with how we feel.

Why are we fat? Why aren’t we fit? What’s the source of the problem? Well, alcohol is a big culprit. We drink far too much beer and wine. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that all the extra weight that each of us is carrying comes from booze. The lack of fitness, however, is because we got out of the habit of exercising. When we first met, we both went to the gym five times a week. That’s dropped to zero times a week. Yikes.

So, how can we solve the problem(s)? First, we can drink less. Second, we can choose healthier foods. (Our diets aren’t terrible, but they aren’t great either.) Third, we can look for ways to make exercise happen instead of coming up with reasons that it can’t.

Now that we have some solutions, we can develop a plan to put them into action. Kim recently spent a couple of weeks doing a medically-supervised water fast to reset her system. When I return from this road trip, I’m going to make fitness my top priority. (Sorry, GRS. You’ll drop to number two.) I’m going to return to my trusty “paleo-ish diet”, commit to cycling every day, and do what I can to avoid alcohol.

The Bottom Line

I have a terrible tendency to overthink things. I make them more complicated than they have to be. That was certainly the case back when my life coach was trying to teach me how to eat a healthy breakfast. I mean, how hard is it to pull a yogurt from the fridge?

I get frustrated when people come up with reasons that something can’t be done instead of thinking of ways it can be done. Yet I’m guilty of the same thing when I fall into the trap of overthinking the problems in my life.

Taking my foot as an example, I used all of the following as reasons not to remove the sliver:

“Oh, the contractors are still here. We should wait until they leave before we remove the splinter.” (But, of course, by the time they’d left I’d forgotten about it.)

“Oh, my feet are dirty right now. We should wait until I’ve had a chance to clean them.”

“Oh, Kim just got home from work. I should give her a chance to rest before I ask her to remove the splinter.” (But, of course, I’d forget to ask her to help me later.)

“Oh, we’re about to leave. It’d be inconvenient to take the time to get the splinter out now. We should do it when we get home.”

“Oh, I’m tired. We should just go to bed. We can always remove the splinter in the morning.”

Looking back, it’s clear to me that these were lame excuses. I’d come up with reasons not to remove the sliver of glass instead of looking for an opportunity to get it done.

Eventually, I recognized how foolish I was being. Kim and I sat down one night and she spent 45 minutes searching for the splinter in my foot. And you know what? As soon as she pulled it out, everything felt so much better. Hard to believe such a tiny splinter could cause so much pain. And hard to believe I’m so stubborn and stupid that I’d live with that pain for a couple of weeks instead of simply solving the problem.

The post Just solve the problem! appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

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[foursprout-blog]

Just solve the problem!

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/just-solve-the-problem/

Just solve the problem!

While the contractors were working to replace the siding on our new home last summer, they discovered a termite infestation outside the bathroom.

Further investigation revealed that the floor under the tub was not only wet and damp, but had actually completely rotted. So, we hired somebody to repair the damage. On the first day he was here, I went into the bathroom barefoot. Oops. I stepped on a shard of glass tile. That splinter was stuck in my foot for weeks.

At first, it didn’t really affect normal activity. If I wore sneakers and socks, I barely felt it. But if I wore sandals, I got a sharp stabbing pain in the side of my left foot. If I tried to run, the same thing happened. And forget about going to the gym!

Now, the obvious response here is, “Why didn’t you remove the sliver from your foot?” Great question!

On the very first night, Kim did try to remove the sliver, and we thought she got it. But the next morning when I took Tally for a walk, I realized the sliver was still there. But I didn’t do anything about it. I lived with it for weeks, a constant source of low-grade irritation.

This, my friends, is a perfect example of a couple of things.

First, it’s my family’s mentality in action. For some stupid stupid reason, we Roths don’t like dealing with medical issues. When we’re sick, we suffer for days (or weeks) before going to a doctor. When we’re hurt, we just suck it up. When I was young, my mother sprained her ankle. She limped around for months before seeking medical attention. In college, I broke a finger playing touch football over Thanksgiving. I dealt with the intense pain until Christmas break, at which time I finally decided to see a doctor.

Second, this a perfect example of putting up with a problem instead of finding a solution. Most people — myself included — are willing to tolerate a great deal of dissatisfaction and discomfort before deciding to remedy whatever is wrong in their lives. I’m not sure why this is the case, but it’s true.

With the glass shard in my foot, most of the time I barely noticed. But sometimes the pain was especially bad. I remember one morning while walking the dog, it felt like somebody was stabbing me with a needle. “I just need to solve the problem,” I thought to myself — and that reminded me of some wise advice I once received.

Just Solve the Problem

About a decade ago, I worked with a life coach. Each week, we’d have an hour-long phone conversation about the ways I was trying to become a better person. I made great progress in some areas, but little progress in others.

One day, we were talking about my inability to eat a healthy breakfast. I’ve always been the sort of guy who knows he should eat a nutritious breakfast but doesn’t actually do so. My coach had been encouraging me to make this a habit in my life, but I kept complaining about all the reasons it wasn’t possible. Eventually, she’d had enough.

“J.D., you’re being ridiculous,” my coach said, exasperated. “This isn’t rocket science. Millions of people eat a healthy breakfast every day. You can too. You need to stop making excuses. You need to identify the problem and solve the problem. Just solve the problem!”

This advice hit me hard: “Just solve the problem.” Obvious, I know, but that doesn’t mean it’s not powerful. I began to recognize that, in so many ways, I deliberately lived in the problem instead of living in the solution. I realized that maybe I could fix the things that were broken in my life if I’d only take the time to do so. (After all, I’d already made the resolution to become a money boss — and that had worked wonders with my financial situation!)

With breakfast, for instance, the solution was to make it easy to have healthy choices. For me, that meant stocking the fridge with egg whites and chicken sausage. It meant learning to like yogurt. It also meant giving myself permission to spend a little extra on pre-packaged fruit and — not kidding — breakfast steaks. (I was eating paleo at the time, so a piece of filet mignon was perfectly acceptable…if somewhat expensive.)

Related reading: A few months ago, there was a thread on Reddit discussing why people choose long-term inconvenience over short-term inconvenience: “I just spent at least 10 minutes undoing several screws using the end of a butter knife that was already in the same room, rather than go upstairs and get a proper screw driver for the job that would have made the job a lot easier and quicker.” And I spent weeks limping around with a sliver in my foot rather than have Kim spend five minutes taking it out.

How Do You Solve the Problem?

“Just solve the problem” is terrific advice that can be applied to all aspects of life. For almost a decade now, it’s been a mantra of mine. Admittedly, it’s a mantra that I sometimes forget to repeat to myself. But when I do remember to heed these words, they help me get a hell of a lot done.

But just how do you go about solving the problems in your life? I believe there’s a six-step process that you can use to tackle the things you’ve been neglecting for too long:

Recognize a problem exists. You need to be conscious that a problem is present before you can figure out what that problem is. Sometimes this is easier said than done. It’s easy to get complacent, to just accept that this is “the way things are”. For instance, you might be unhappy with your financial situation; you might realize that something with the way you’re handling money isn’t working.

Identify the problem. After you’ve recognized that things aren’t right, ask yourself why. What is the specific problem that’s leading to your unhappiness? Is there more than one problem? Using the previous example, once you’ve realized you need to do something different with your dollars, you might find that debt is dragging you down.

Diagnose the source of the problem. Next, try to figure out why your problem exists. How did it start? Why does it continue? Why does it make you unhappy? With our financial example, you’d quickly discover that your debt exists because you spend more than you earn. But why do you spend more than you earn? When did you start doing this? Why do you continue to do so?

Brainstorm solutions. Now that you’ve identified the problem (and its source), it’s time to figure out how to fix things. This is the fun part. Come up with a list of ways you can overcome the problem that’s been holding you back. To get out of debt, for instance, you might take a two-pronged approach: boost your income by taking a second job while also cutting back temporarily on some non-essentials.

Formulate a plan. Once you’ve come up with a solution to your problem, make a plan to turn these dreams into reality. How specifically are you going to implement your solution? What steps can you take today and tomorrow to solve the problem? If you’re trying to trim your budget, you might draft a prioritized list of places you can cut your spending. Then you can write down concrete steps to take toward each of these goals.

Take action. The last step is the most important. To solve any problem, you must take action. It doesn’t do any good to identify the problem, to brainstorm solutions, and to formulate a plan if you’re not going to do the work necessary to make things right. You’ll never get out of debt if all you do is tell yourself you ought to spend less. You must truly spend less in order to eliminate the problem.

Here’s one way I’m currently using this “just solve the problem” methodology in my own life.

As you may recall, Kim and I both packed on the pounds during our 15-month trip around the U.S. We’ve been home nearly two years now, but we haven’t lost any weight. We’re both aware that a problem exists: We’re uncomfortable with how we feel.

Why are we fat? Why aren’t we fit? What’s the source of the problem? Well, alcohol is a big culprit. We drink far too much beer and wine. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that all the extra weight that each of us is carrying comes from booze. The lack of fitness, however, is because we got out of the habit of exercising. When we first met, we both went to the gym five times a week. That’s dropped to zero times a week. Yikes.

So, how can we solve the problem(s)? First, we can drink less. Second, we can choose healthier foods. (Our diets aren’t terrible, but they aren’t great either.) Third, we can look for ways to make exercise happen instead of coming up with reasons that it can’t.

Now that we have some solutions, we can develop a plan to put them into action. Kim recently spent a couple of weeks doing a medically-supervised water fast to reset her system. When I return from this road trip, I’m going to make fitness my top priority. (Sorry, GRS. You’ll drop to number two.) I’m going to return to my trusty “paleo-ish diet”, commit to cycling every day, and do what I can to avoid alcohol.

The Bottom Line

I have a terrible tendency to overthink things. I make them more complicated than they have to be. That was certainly the case back when my life coach was trying to teach me how to eat a healthy breakfast. I mean, how hard is it to pull a yogurt from the fridge?

I get frustrated when people come up with reasons that something can’t be done instead of thinking of ways it can be done. Yet I’m guilty of the same thing when I fall into the trap of overthinking the problems in my life.

Taking my foot as an example, I used all of the following as reasons not to remove the sliver:

“Oh, the contractors are still here. We should wait until they leave before we remove the splinter.” (But, of course, by the time they’d left I’d forgotten about it.)

“Oh, my feet are dirty right now. We should wait until I’ve had a chance to clean them.”

“Oh, Kim just got home from work. I should give her a chance to rest before I ask her to remove the splinter.” (But, of course, I’d forget to ask her to help me later.)

“Oh, we’re about to leave. It’d be inconvenient to take the time to get the splinter out now. We should do it when we get home.”

“Oh, I’m tired. We should just go to bed. We can always remove the splinter in the morning.”

Looking back, it’s clear to me that these were lame excuses. I’d come up with reasons not to remove the sliver of glass instead of looking for an opportunity to get it done.

Eventually, I recognized how foolish I was being. Kim and I sat down one night and she spent 45 minutes searching for the splinter in my foot. And you know what? As soon as she pulled it out, everything felt so much better. Hard to believe such a tiny splinter could cause so much pain. And hard to believe I’m so stubborn and stupid that I’d live with that pain for a couple of weeks instead of simply solving the problem.

The post Just solve the problem! appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

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A Severance Negotiation Success Story: An Inside Look At How One Man Negotiated His Freedom

The following is a guest post by Steve, a reader and a consulting client who is currently traveling the world with his family after a 20 year career in mass media. So many times we’re just too paralyzed to make a change because we just can’t see a path forward. It’s these stories that keep me so motivated!

As I write this, I’m sitting on a balcony sheltered by lush tropical leaves. I close my eyes to savor a gentle breeze that has just kicked up, caressing the trees and taking the sting out of another cloudless 95-degree day. I flick over to the Times to check out the latest on a monster winter storm that is shutting down the East Coast. Hmmm, maybe I should extend my time in Costa Rica to a third month.

Just a few months ago, I was one of those East Coast worker bees bracing for another winter of long commutes and office frustrations. But then something wonderful happened — I lost my job. Not in a careless or unfortunate way, but as the result of a deliberate, carefully considered strategy that took months to bear fruit in the shape of a six-figure redundancy package.

Two months on — as I spend my days here doing little more than reading, learning to surf, and exploring rock pools with my four-year-old daughter — I still have to pinch myself every time I see that another full paycheck has thumped into my bank account. And it horrifies me to think that I was on the verge of simply quitting.

My achievement owes a lot to Sam through his book How To Engineer Your Layoff and a subsequent phone session of one-on-one coaching. He suggested I write an account of how I did it – not to plug his services, but as a reminder to all you financially astute FS readers that you should NEVER, EVER quit a job and always try to negotiate a redundancy package, no matter how far-fetched it may seem to you.

My Why

It certainly seemed unlikely to me. Before I get into the nitty-gritty of how I did it, here’s a little background on my circumstances. I had been with my employer for close to 20 years, and overall it had been a very happy relationship. The job was high-profile, frequently stimulating and rewarding, and in a field of work that I loved and respected. It took me around the world, and the benefits were pretty good – by the end I had five weeks’ paid vacation a year, a salary north of $150,000, and was established as a senior employee whose work was highly valued.

But, increasingly, I couldn’t escape the reality that it just wasn’t capturing my imagination or making me as happy as it did in my 20s and 30s. In recent years I started to resent being tied to a desk in stuffy offices, ever more conscious that my time on this planet was finite and thus increasingly valuable — a feeling that was magnified by the birth of my daughter. Sam’s post on freedom vs. wealth sums up this tension that I and many others feel as we look to the second half of our lives.

I was harboring ambitions to take back control of my time and go freelance, even though I knew that – at least initially – I would probably only make about half my current salary and would lose valuable benefits like healthcare and 401k contributions. I seriously considered quitting but that seemed wasteful after putting in two decades of work, not to mention risky.

I knew that my employer – a big, multinational company – did periodically give out redundancy packages. Every 5-10 years there would be a big purge of employees when the company was going through a tough time or a restructuring. But in normal times, they were usually only offered to “underperformers” – a category that I was not in, despite my waning enthusiam for the work.

What I needed was the confidence to broach the subject with my managers and the know-how to make the most of any opportunity for a lay-off that emerged. Enter Sam. After devouring his book and having an hour-long follow-up with him, I finally had the confidence and a clear strategy.

Here’s How It Played Out

– First, I reached out to a few former colleagues who I knew had got redundancy deals to get a feel for how the process had worked for them. This gave me some insights into what was possible. A conversation I had with a former manager who himself had overseen many redundancies was particularly valuable, as he gave me the tip that there was usually some money left over at the end of the year to pay for packages.

– I had an initial conversation with a manager – not my immediate boss but someone who I knew was a bridge between HR and upper management and with whom I was on friendly terms. I immediately played my main card — that I wanted to have time off to spend time with a close relative who was in failing health. I asked this in an open, curious way, seeking to draw out what my options could be from the company’s point of view. A months-long leave of absence or working remotely were the main options we discussed. But since the conversation was going well, I decided to bring up redundancy at the end as an outcome that I could be “open to.” I put forth one idea for how that could benefit the company, by allowing them to move my headcount to a higher-priority business area. We agreed to talk again after she had discussed it with the higher ups.

– When we reconvened a week or so later, she laid out the options: the company was open to giving me a leave of absence of up to three months or to allow me to work remotely, but redundancy was off the table as that was usually reserved for underperformers and they “didn’t want to lose me.” I hid my disappointment and said I’d consider the other options.

– A month later, I’d heard nothing more and was becoming resigned to the failure of my plot. How stupid of me to have thought anyone would hand me a small fortune to walk away! Then, out of the blue, my contact called me into a conference room. “Would you still be interested in that third option we discussed?” she asked. “Umm, yeah I think so,” I replied, struggling to hide my excitement.

– The rest was pretty easy. I talked through the package with the head of HR – it was a standard, but relatively generous deal that gave me nearly a year’s salary plus continued healthcare for the whole period. Before I knew it I was heading for my farewell drinks, feeling very bitter-sweet about leaving great colleagues and an employer that I still felt a lot of loyalty toward.

Keys To Swinging A Severance Package

Based on my experience, here are some of the keys to swinging a redundancy package. Sam goes into these points – and many more – in much greater detail in his book.

Confidence. The first step is to really believe it’s possible. I really struggled to believe my company would do this for me and had long worried that it might adversely affect my standing with management if I tried and failed. But the truth is that in most cases you really have nothing to lose, and the chances of getting a deal are probably higher than you think once you start planting seeds of doubt in management’s mind about your commitment to the job.

It’s not personal. Again, this was a blockage for me. I’d been with my company for such a long time and generally been treated so well that it felt almost like an act of betrayal to angle for a “golden parachute” while I was still in my prime working years. Despite that emotional attachment, the cold truth is that my company – like all others – is overwhelmingly concerned with the bottom line and its reputation. It wouldn’t have hesitated to kick me to the curb in an instant if either of those were under threat. Also bear in mind that companies, especially larger ones, have a keen interest in making sure that employees leave on good terms and don’t start griping about its problems on social media or in the press. In the end, my departure was a win-win for my employer and me because it helped the company meet a budget and personnel goal without having to force redundancy on someone else.

Leverage the law, but don’t push it. By international standards, the U.S. is a very employer-friendly place when it comes to workers’ rights. But there are still some effective legal buttons that the canny redundancy seeker can push. In my negotiations, I steered clear of raising my right to family-related unpaid leave to avoid coming across as antagonistic. Just hinting that I knew my rights and being inquisitive about a leave of absence was enough. Few employers really like letting a worker take a prolonged leave as it tends to throw their plans into uncertainty.

Have a solid post-redundancy plan in place. Leaving a long-term job can be disorientating, even if it’s done on your own initiative. Taking a big vacation is, quite rightly, the first thing on many people’s mind. There are few things better – as I can now attest – than being paid to play on a gorgeous beach for weeks on end. But my experience is that after a while vacations can start to feel like work, especially when caring for a 4-year old is part of the package. And it isn’t long before some anxiety starts to creep in about the income cliff you are facing at the end of the redundancy period.

That’s why it’s important to have thought past your well-deserved break to your next move from a professional and financial perspective. In my case, I had amassed a solid amount of savings and established a passive income stream of over $35,000 a year (nearly half of my annual expenses), which gave me confidence that even in a worst-case scenario my family and I wouldn’t end up on the streets.

I’d also sounded out several contacts about freelance work, giving me confidence that I could at least get paid enough on a part-time basis to pay the bills. Between Costa Rica and Europe, I’m taking a three-month vacation — about a third of my total redundancy period — before returning home to seek new work prospects.

It’s early days and there are certainly some lingering fears I have about giving up a chunky salary and trying to reinvent myself. What if the stock market crashes and damages my nest egg? What if my family healthcare costs shoot up? What if my skills are not as marketable as I hope? But I firmly believe that our fears about financial failure tend to be overblown. Hell, if it comes to it I can always drive an Uber — or just move to Costa Rica!

We plan to work on trimming our expenses over the next year and investing more in real estate platforms to further narrow the income gap. If I can make just half my previous income and gain the flexibility to spend more time with family and friends by working remotely, I will consider the redundancy move a roaring success.

– Steve

from http://www.financialsamurai.com/a-severance-negotiation-success-story/