10 Best and 10 Worst Cities for Singles

"Finding the best cities for singles goes beyond simply identifying the places with the highest percentage of bachelors and bachelorettes. Financial factors count, too. After all, you’ll want to meet someone who can afford to date, right?

To put together our list of best cities for singles, we took into account income and living costs. ..."

Read more: http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/best-cities-for-singles/1.html#top#ixzz1wRwbdDDT 

Kiplinger Magazine just published their list of the 10 best and worst cities for singles.  Two North Carolina towns made the lists, one in each.  It may surprise you which made it where.

• Asheville made the bottom ten list.  http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/worst-cities-for-singles/4.html#top 

• Durham made the top ten list. http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/best-cities-for-singles/3.html#top

• Charlotte didn't even get an honorable mention, nor did any of the romantic beach towns of the Carolina coast.

Why would I take time out from talking about how to change adversity into advantage to natter about dating?  Because, the reality is that our romantic lives play a major role in our happiness and well being.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not satisfied your dating skills are what they could be?  

Go to www.maddatingskills.com 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, you might say, "Tom, you have been married for more than 30 years now.  You have been out of the dating scene so long.  What the heck can you tell me about dating?"

The answer may surprise you.  My church teaches that every couple should set aside Friday evenings as "Date Night."  The reason for this is simple.  The foundation of the family is the marriage.  The foundation of the marriage is the ongoing romance between the husband and wife.  The fact that I have convinced the same woman to go out with me and stay with me for more than 30 years is actually a testament to my skills in this area.

True, I am probably not the best guy to tell you how to capture a woman's heart or what are the best pick up lines and places.  But I sure can tell you how to keep a woman's heart, and how to make sure you stay caught yourself.

The foundation of a successful long-term romance lies in having a correct understanding of what romantic love is about.  I am not talking about sex versus romance nor am I talking about candlelight dinners or football games.  I am talking about understanding what makes the game of love really work.

I have a cousin who has five children with five different women.  I have five children with the same woman.  Which do you imagine is harder, suckering five different women to jump into bed with you once, or convincing the same woman to keep coming back for more, again and again?

And the first obstacle to a correct understanding is to get rid of Hollywood's and romance novels' destructive and false concept of "falling in love."

The reason it is destructive to talk and think about "falling in love" is because the phrase is programming you to believe that love is something that happens to you - an act of chance, not choice.  When the reality is quite the opposite.  Love is ALL about choice.

What really happens when you "fall in love"?

1. Something "clicks" between you and that special someone.  It may pheromones, it may be hormones, it may be powerful physical attraction or something more subtle.  Whether it is chemistry or "chemistry" doesn't matter.  The fact is that the first step is attraction.  I will concede here and now that we often have little control over who is attractive to us.  Where the choice comes is in what we do about the attraction we feel.
2. Having found an attraction to someone, you now have a choice.  You can run away or run toward the object of your desire.  This dash may be mental, physical, or both.  Think of the story from the Bible of Joseph in Egypt.  He was chief servant to Potiphar. Potiphar's delicious looking wife decided she wanted to bed him.  When she corners him, rather than succumb to the attraction, he opts to actually run away, even when she tries to stop him by holding on to his robe.  He gets out of the robe and out of the area where she is.  Of course, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. So, she turns the story around and says he was chasing her and he ends up in prison.  Joseph ran away rather than giving in.  Do you suppose that he laid in bed at night imagining how delightful it would be to kiss Mrs. Potiphar?  Not likely.  If he had let his mind dwell on thoughts like that, when the opportunity presented, he would have likely leapt at the chance to live out his fantasy.  Here is the key, he ran away mentally before the physical situation ever presented itself.  If you want to love or not to love, the choice is yours.  Just make a conscious decision to turn  your thoughts toward or away from the object of your attraction.
3. If you choose to love, and let your thoughts and imaginings build up into fantasies and daydreams about being with this person, then sooner or later the actual opportunity to come together will present itself.  What happens next can be grand or gruesome.  Because then you have to see if reality is anywhere close to your fantasy.  And your partner in passion will likewise be comparing the real you to the fantasy you.  If the distance between reality and fantasy is too much, the budding attraction may die on the spot and like an ill-fated vampire, your emerging romance may find itself with a wooden stake through the heart.  BUT when the fantasy and reality are close enough, you can find yourself on a wonderful journey that can last the the rest of your life and grow deeper, broader, and more intense year after year and decade after decade.

Continuing to love is the key to the long-term romance.  Every day I make a choice to love my wife.  Every time I see an attractive woman, I let my thoughts run away from her and toward my wife.  And I make sure that they do that.  A wise man once taught me that I cannot control what enters the stage of my mind, but I have complete control of what I allow to remain on that stage.

Date night for married couples is all about making that choice to love again and again and to take active steps to keep romance alive and well, regardless of how many years ago we said our vows.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can't seem to attract the woman you want?  

Go to www.maddatingskills.com 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have to tell you, my wife does her part in this too.  She does her best to keep herself attractive and desirable and she lets me know that she finds me attractive and desirable.  Often when I tell her, "I love you" and she whispers back, "I love you too,"  I follow that up with "I'm so glad you love me. I would hate to think I was in this alone."

It definitely takes two to tango and it takes both partners, working together to sustain a life-long romance.  If you both understand that love is a choice, not something you trip over or fall into, then you are much more likely to choose to love the same person year in and year out, decade over decade.

Tom Sheppard is the author of "Fire Yourself: Get the Job You Want" available from XLibris Press. Tom has been successfully investing in real estate since 2001 while working part time. In 2008 he left a six-figure job as an enterprise project manager with a major national bank to manage his real estate business full-time. His goal is to help 100,000 people find peace of mind by finding quality, affordable homes. He is currently looking to expand his network of funding partners who are helping him achieve this goal. If you would like to know more about how you can Do Well By Doing Good (TM), go to www.CharlotteWealthPartners.com

Making Your Passion Pay

Making Your Passion Pay

This is part 2 of my thoughts on the importance of pursuing your passion.

In Part 1 I talked about why it is important and how to discover your passion.  Now, I want to get very practical and talk about how to make your passion pay.

For many years now I have heard some very successful people tell me that I should forget about earning a living and pursue my passion.  "The money will follow," they would tell me.

It seemed to me that was easy for them to say since they didn't have to feed and house me and my family while I pursued my passion long enough for the money to catch up to me.

So, I came up with a practical guide to following your passion until the money catches up.

1. Identify your passion - we covered this is Part 1, so I won't go over it again here.
2. Start pursuing your passion as a hobby
3. Convert your hobby into a small business
4. Build your small business over time
5. Quit Your Job and Pursue Your Passion 

The idea behind these five steps is simple, but not easy. 

#1 - see part 1 of this article
#2 Pursuing Your Passion as a Hobby: By first pursuing your passion as a hobby, you are investing a bit of time and money in learning and doing and acquiring some of the skills, knowledge, tools, and network needed to turn your passion into your life.

You show up as an enthusiast.  You go to trade conventions.  You buy the books and videos of the guiding lights in the area of your passion.  You experiment and hone your skills while keeping your investment of time and money appropriate for a hobby.  You continue to pay proper attention to your job so that your bills get paid.

Maybe you do some things in your hobby well enough that other people want to buy them.  From the trade shows, you have a good idea what is a fair price for what you do.  Go ahead and make the sale. It will help offset the costs of your hobby.

For sure you find forums where other enthusiasts are discussing your passion.  Join in the dialog and make sure you give good value as much as you can.

Lastly, make sure you put names and contact information for every other enthusiast you meet into a spreadsheet, a rolodex, a notebook, your PDA, phone or anyplace else you can keep and retreive it later.  More on this later.

#3 Convert Your Hobby Into a Small Business:  I could go on for a long time about how everyone should have their own small business and why.  Instead of doing that, I will focus on why you want to convert your hobby into a small business.

As soon as you convert your hobby into a business you can deduct the full cost of all your business related activities and supplies that you were already spending money on, and then some.

By showing the IRS that you intend to make a profit, you change things dramatically.  A hobbiest hopes to make a profit.  A business intends to make a profit.

Establish your company name, logo, and brand.  Make business cards and get someone to buid a quick website for you that may be little more than an internet billboard.

Keep going to the trade shows and forums.  Now, you may also be setting up a table at the show.  Start blogging about your passion.  Write at least 50 great blogs and set them up to go out at a rate of 1 per week for the next 50 weeks.  You don't have to write all 50 before you start posting.

If you are a terrible writer, then you can either figure out the 50 blogs and go to elance.com or guru.com and hire someone to ghost write them for you, or you can go on YouTube and make 50 video blogs on the topics of your passion.  Again, you should spread their release out over time.

And, if you can't write well and you have the kind of face that is really suited to radio, you can record your 50 topics as audios and post them for your friends and fans, again spacing them out over time.

Keep gathering those names and make sure your blog/video/audio has a way to capture new names as people find you.  Only now you also want to start reaching out to those names and letting them know that you are doing your own thing.  Let them know that if they or someone they know is interested, you are now providing this product or service.  These people may be your first customers or referrals.

#4 Build Your Small Business Over Time: The reality with nearly every business is this - if you cannot make money doing it part-time, you won't make money doing it full-time.  So, start your business part-time while still getting a steady paycheck elsewhere.

By now, you should redo your website so that it can be a storefront and let your fans become your clients.  Sell them information that they can download and get them to buy the products of your passion.

As your blog and website pick up traffic, you can also begin to leverage the power of advertising by reaching out to some of the companies that supply the materials that make your passion possible and invite them to pay for advertising on your blog or website.

Your financial goal with your small business is to build it up to the point where the income from your small business is enough to meet or exceed your ordinary operating expenses.  This is where you begin to be able to get out of the rat race.

#5 Quit Your Job and Pursue Your Passion:  When you reach the point where business is able to support itself and you, and your job is getting in the way of you making more money with your business, it is time to give serious thought to quitting your job and investing yourself full time in the business of your passion.

It is not a decision to be made lightly and you will want to consider all the money that may be on the table in terms of retirement benefits, health benefits and such, before you plan to exit your job. 

For me, I worked at it for about 5 years before I was ready to make the transition.  Then, I waited another 2 years for my retirement to fully vest so that I wouldn't leave any of that behind when I moved on.  Then, I waited until just the right moment for me and announced my retirement plans.

Although it has been a challenging ride since then, I don't regret making the move.

Tom S.

Thanks for Being a Good Friend to me.  Let me Give something back to you!

Name:

Email:

We respect your email privacy

Powered by AWeber Autoresponders

 Your Success is Our Business (TM)

Tom Sheppard is the author of "Fire Yourself: Get the Job You Want" from XLibris Press and has been successfully investing in real estate since 2001 while working part time. In 2008 he left a six-figure job as an enterprise project manager with a major national bank to manage his real estate business full-time. His goal is to help 100,000 people find peace of mind by finding quality, affordable homes. 

He is currently looking to expand his network of funding partners who are helping him achieve this goal. If you would like to know more about how you can Do Well By Doing Good (TM) go to www.CharlotteWealthPartners.com 

New Name Coming - Making Lemons into Lemonaide

I have been publishing this blog for some time now under the current title of Easy Money in Real Estate: Telling You How Real Estate is Really Done.  I have decided that a makeover is in order.

I am going to rename this blog to be "The Lemonaide Stand" and integrate it with my electronic newsletter (coming soon).  Yes, I am aware that I am using an old way of spelling lemonade, since in current dictionaries he "i" after the "a" has been dropped.  I am spelling it this way deliberately to emphasize the "aid" nature of this endeavor.

When, I first started this column is was with the intention of actually dispelling the myth that it is easy to make big money in real estate.  I have listened to many "experts" sell their solutions on how to make lots of money really fast in real estate.  They are still selling that line to those who will listen.  I know that making big money in real estate is very possible.  It is even very simple at times, but it is never easy.  No one should ever confuse simple and easy.  That is a very dangerous and costly confusion to deal with.

So, I am emphasizing the aid element in my new endeavor.  It is based on the aphorism that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, or lemonaide.

There are lots of lemons being handed out in today's economy; unemployment and foreclosures to name two of the biggest that many people face.  My desire with "The Lemonaide Stand" is to provide a forum where people of ordinary means can find ways to turn the lemons life is handing them into something good, lemons into lemonaide.

Shakespeare asked, "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  No disrespect to the Bard, but a name means a lot.  In the past this column was focused pretty narrowly on real estate, and although there will be a real estate related thread in the newsletter (and hence this column) there is more to the Lemonaide stand than real estate.

Imagine for a moment that you are living the life you want.  How does it feel inside you when you imagine that?  Can you actually feel the easing of tension in your chest, neck and back?  Do you feel the warm rush of well-being suffuse your body as the endorphins (or as I jokingly call them n-dolphins) swim through your blood stream at the speed of thought?  I do.  I am going to help you to Get and Keep the Life You Want (tm).

We will deal with Work, Relationships, Wealth, and Health.  You will learn to:

• Get and Keep the Job You Want (tm)
• Get and Keep the Relationships You Want (tm)
• Get and Keep the Wealth You Want (tm)
• Get and Keep the Health You Want (tm)

I am in a fairly unusual position.  I know quite a few people who are living the life they want.  I will bring to you their stories.  I will help you to apply their lessons to your life so that you can Get and Keep the Life You Want(tm).

Aside from knowing some very successful, fulfilled people, "what qualifies Tom to do this?" you ask.  Well, I am pretty much living the life I want, and have for several years.  So, learning from others and knowing a few things for myself, having done some things that very few people around me have, and having the desire to help, qualifies me for the job.

So, I hope you will subscribe (click on the "Follow" button) and follow this newsletter, not just tune in once in a while.  I hope you will read it and challenge what I say.  But most of all, I hope you will decide to do what you need to do to Get and Keep the Life You Want(tm).

Tom Sheppard has been successfully investing in real estate since 2001 while working part time. In 2008 he left a six-figure job as an enterprise project manager with a major national bank to manage his real estate business full-time. His goal is to help 100,000 people find peace of mind by finding quality, affordable homes. Why pay retail when you can buy a home at below market prices? www.buybelowmarket.com. He is currently looking to expand his network of funding partners who are helping him achieve this goal. If you would like to know more about how you can do well by doing good, contact Tom at TSheppard@ADBProperties.com