Scared Money: Past Due

By JAFO Brothers

Everyone has a financial boat, and since so many people struggle with finances; being able to identify who and what you are dealing with is crucial to preventing financial sabotage. Balancing the needs of both family and work goes a long way toward keeping holes from being drilled in your financial boat.
JAFO Brothers

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jun 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9780228818861

JAFO Brothers

From a large multi-generational family, the authors are a couple of brothers with backgrounds and histories somewhat but not entirely overlapping. Both with children, married and divorced. Both ticketed tradesmen, they have extensive trade related experience, on and off the tools.Both have been in business for themselves with varying levels of success.Their additional education is their difference. For Cannon – business, accounting and marketing. For David – criminology and business management. This provided them with differing but very unique perspectives.Growing up in times of financial struggle, their large family promoted individual thought, an environment of self-reliance, and a no-quit attitude. Sharing was the norm and success had many different layers. So they thought, "Why not here, too?"Other than in their youth, they had never worked together before this project. From the field to the office, the bank to the bedroom, their unique but direct take on human nature and financial decision making combines to create a humorous but thought provoking look at the world of finance and personal dynamics.

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Scared Money

Past Due

JAFO Brothers

Scared Money: Past Due

Copyright © 2020 by JAFO Brothers

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-1885-4 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-1886-1 (eBook)

Dedication

To our parents, taken too soon.

Dad: for teaching us the value of hard work and cooperation.

Mom: for teaching us the value of perseverance and persistence.

Thank you both!

To the Good Lord:

Thank you for the wisdom and grace to accept the challenge.

Prologue

Trading your time for money:

The biggest part of our lives is governed by money or a financial component. Ask yourself:

•Politically correct: How do I get off the proverbial hamster wheel?

•Politically incorrect: How do I unfu*k my life if I am broke?

Besides very carefully, the answer to that question is an enigma. With so many factors in play, including expectations, responsibility, economy, obligations, and everyone else’s crap, to answer that question you have to ask yourself: Do I know and understand the rules?

Consider this: everyone has a financial boat, and the number of holes in your boat is the issue. Most successful people use the politically correct way… They know their audience and engineer against the odds, so to avoid career suicide, and try to fill the holes. Keep in mind that there are generally two things that make people change:

•The avoidance of pain

•Personal gain

Isn’t it strange to realize that people no longer have to memorize anything because they have access to the Internet? Many believe it makes them instantly smart, when in reality they are just being resourceful. The big difference between the two; intelligence and resourcefulness; is insecurity. Insecurity is when you have to spend your time worrying about the ‘what-ifs’ and the endless debates that follow…

Knowledge is power but ‘don’t let things go to your head.’ Proximity to power deludes some into thinking they wield it, but everyone has a master. Stay in service and never outshine the master (1). Always make your boss look good. Do yourself a favour and don’t drill holes in their boat.

Scared money is a result of holes in the boat, and it touches everyone. Financial dynamics play a part in everyone’s life. Some will take on more risk than others, but just because someone else has a higher risk tolerance doesn’t mean they can define it for anyone else. A big lesson in finance this isn’t. Identifying causes and possible solutions to keeping the boat afloat... this is. Also, we can’t guarantee that we will remain politically correct or that no one will be offended.

The original goal of this book was to pass down reasonably immediate and useful information to our children, and by doing so save them the grief of having to learn the hard way. If through this process we are able to help others gain useful insight, we will do our family’s proud.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

The Scared Money Protocol: Know Your Audience, and Engineering Against the Odds

Commentary of The Perpetual Argument

The ENEMY’S PLAYBOOK of NAYSAYERS... HYPOCRISY, BETRAYAL, FRUSTRATION, and PRESSURE. In other words: What have you done for me in the last five minutes?

Chapter 2

A POUND OF FLESH, or the Five-dollar Rule

The Boom and Bust Cycle

Mommy and Daddy Issues and The No Category

Be Slow with Your Emotions

The Enemy’s Playbook Continued

Chapter 3

The Path of Least Resistance

Replicating Yourself:

Short and Sweet or The Elevator Rule

The Enemy’s Playbook Continued

Chapter 4

How Often Do You Laugh?

The 10-90 Rule

Schlepping it: The Dating Conundrum

Crawling Out of a Hole in the Wall

The Enemy’s Playbook Continued

Chapter 5

The NCR Hedge

Over-government

Supply, Demand, and Scared Money:

Compound Interest

The Enemy’s Playbook Continued

Chapter 6

Caste-rate

Training and The What’s in It for Me (WIIFM) Culture:

Cork-smokers:

The Hurt Feelings Report

The Enemy’s Playbook Continued

Chapter 7

The Straight Shooters

Chapter 1

The Scared Money Protocol: Know Your Audience, and Engineering Against the Odds

See... there is truth... which can’t be argued... then... there is fact… which can be clouded... and facts… by rights… should align with truth... but then there is also opinion… which can always be argued… and everyone has one! The problem here is the rejection of truth!. Curry Blake, sermon.

My work partner said to me: If he knew he was smarter than me, why wouldn’t he manipulate me?

I said: Trust and understanding. (David)

In this world, a man does not have time to qualify every statement he makes. If you are a boss, your employees need to trust you, because you don’t have time to qualify every comment you make for every question they have. If you’re a parent, you can’t qualify every statement you make to your children. Your children have to trust that you are making the correct decision. In either case, if you mislead them, that trust is gone!

Most people’s lives are dictated by a financial component, and many will need to deal with numerous and varying levels of economic downturns (boom and bust cycles) during their lifetime. In tough times, the prospect of navigating the stormy waters becomes even more difficult. This book is designed to provide both realism and optimism into how to understand and overcome these challenging circumstances, while at the same time providing insight and wisdom.

Not all situations are black or white. To navigate the grey areas, confidence in your ability to adapt is essential. A good weight trainer doesn’t get you to work on your strengths, such as your biceps, pectorals, etc., or the things that people see. He doesn’t get you to use a mirror. Instead, he gets you to work on your weaknesses. These areas that are not obvious but are often essential to success. Daniel-san: wax on, wax off (2).

Many of us were born under a proverbial rock. Possibly set up for failure in a space we had to crawl out of, maybe raised by poor or uneducated caregivers. The gift we can give ourselves is self-empowerment and teaching ourselves the skills needed to solve our own problems. Unfortunately, no one else can do this for us. This self-empowerment is solving the systemic problem rather than Band-Aiding it! Education is like solving the math problem, but only one person at a time!

It’s hard knowing that there are people in this world who are born with a ‘silver spoon’ in their mouths. In contrast, the ones born with a disadvantage have to resolve their systemic problems with practical education, knowing that they’re going to have to work five times as hard as anybody else just to get close to what the others have already. Coupled with that disadvantage is the knowledge that they are likely going to run into more failure. Add to this, they must figure out how to resolve the self-esteem and self-worth issues that follow these other failures AND reassure their loved ones with the hope that they are doing the right thing by working hard!

(Fun Fact: With over seven billion people in this world, success is measured on so many different levels. EVERYONE is capable of success. Don’t believe it if anyone tells you differently.)

You’ve heard the phrase know your audience, but do you know what that means? Of course, it means to know WHO is in your audience, WHAT their general preferences are, and HOW to relate to them, etc. Assuming you know who you’re talking or writing to, how do you communicate in a way that allows the recipient to easily understand your points, a topic followed by an example? More critical in all of this is your filter; it becomes imperative to know your surroundings and learn how to speak as though someone else is always listening to your conversation. They may not discern what is being conveyed, and through sound bites; small portions of a larger conversation; will fill in the blanks and interpret it based on their own bias and experiences. As well, ‘make it so the janitor can understand it!’. That’s not to imply that the janitor is simple or uneducated, but rather to remove the possibility of miscommunication due to jargon or misunderstanding.

There are a lot of examples a person can use:

•If you are in a foreign country, it’s nice to have an interpreter who speaks the native tongue. In this way, you have an understanding of and access to their system, and you are less likely to be taken advantage of.

•If you immigrate to a foreign country, you would want to know the language of that country; otherwise, you could be at a severe disadvantage. You are much less likely to understand the rules or policies of the country if you don’t understand the language.

•If you are starting a new job, you would want to know the culture of that company. Without knowing this, at a minimum you would have a steep learning curve or be at a serious disadvantage.

Engineering Against the Odds is our Risk versus Reward System, where an individual chooses their level of risk tolerance based on the perceived reward. Whether we want to believe it or not, we live in a reward system. There are winners and losers in real life. (3 Bill Gates) These are the patterns when the audience members critique the person, in a work or play situation, and are socially rewarded for their critical comments. What are people really judging? How much you will look like a fool, or how many times they can make you look like a fool? Engineering against the odds allows you to learn how to identify and defuse a situation and treat these judgements purely as a ‘one-off’. It prevents you from getting wrapped up in other people’s opinions. Remember, this criticism is by a person or persons who, for their own benefit, want you to caste-rate yourself. They don’t want you to reproduce yourself... socially or financially!

So many topics are never discussed. Things that happen in daily life, treatment by employers or co-workers, back-stabbing or stealing credit are all examples. We may complain about them, but they are seldom or never reiterated and explained to our kids, in the