4 Hour Rich Dad

The two most influential books that I have read in the last 5 years have been "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert Kyosaki and "The 4 Hour Work Week" by Timothy Ferris. Both books have been quoted numerous times by many experts and recently I have heard more than one business person (Kendra Todd, The Apprentice) and (Jay Van Orden, Internet Business Mastery)and Yanik Silver of www.InternetLifestyle.com talk about how influenced they were by these books.

The concepts behind Rich Dad explain that the Average Joe works for their money, while the rich let their money work for them. The rich invest in businesses, real estate and stocks and let their investments work for them 24 hours a day. You know your listening to a rich person speak when they talk about the money that they made "in their sleep, while on vacation". The Average Joe can only scratch his head when he hears this statement.

The 4 Hour Work Week has many great points and new takes on how to simplify your busy life while working less and making more. Sounds like a pretty good deal, huh? I like Tim's style as he works smart and plays hard. His list of exotic locations he has traveled to will make even the savvy traveler drool.

I took away the major points that everything you do should be scalable and that you should build a system (Automation) in business and always look to outsource. To be scalable is to not have a business where you have to work 20 hours a day to make it work. Instead you have to delgate and hire out others to work and make the business function on a day to day basis (hence the 4 hour work week). The other is the automation meaning a method to create management free money and eliminate yourself from the wheel. By outsourcing, the book explains the concepts of hiring others to do the task that are not your most productive use of your time. If your not great at HTML code, hire someone else to do it (through a virtual assistant in India). If you are better at selling product but suck at copy writing and research - then hire it out. Save the most productive and money making things for yourself to do and get someone else to do the rest.

The final takeaways I have are that I intend to work less, have my money work more for me, and spend more time with my family and friends in far away exotic locations (can you say Sayulita, Mexico?). Ciao. By Brad McLeod

You can reach Brad McLeod at mbmcleod@mindspring.com if you have comments or would like to trade notes on travel, family, financial freedom and lifestyle.

Christmas Gifts

What better way to start up this new blog than to post up something about our travels down to Florida for a great Christmas. We spent a few days in Tallahassee visiting family and relaxing, eating and looking at lights.

I decided to throw my board in the car at the last moment and my brother and law, Lee Craig and his son Brannach Craig headed out to the City of Tallahassee Skate Park on the south side of town. The new skate park was absolutely fantastic and I remarked several times at how we always wanted a park in Tallahassee years ago but always just skated local wooden ramps at friends houses and all the streets in between. The new park is super nice with great texture, tons of great lines and yards of metal coping. Too much fun for a guy my age... but I will take it. At the end of the session we were already planning a way to get back on Christmas day for more. Lee gets so psyched he heads out to MoJo's Skateboard Shop in the mall in picks up a new Blind board.

So we show up early the next day and are skating and wishing we had a broom to sweep up some sand and leaves and low and behold a dude shows up with one. We get to talking about keeping the area clean and how we were so blessed to have a nice skatepark like this in Tallahassee as I did not have a place like that years ago. The guy with the broom agrees and said he felt the same. I asked him when he skated in Tallahassee and he says late 70's. My mind is racing and I asked his name and he says Lee. Man... my jaw dropped as I looked at his face and yelled out "Lee" and went to hug him. This was one of my old skate buddies from many years ago - Lee Nettles - who now lived in Tallahassee and owns the MoJo Skateboard Shop. I had not seen Lee since at least 1982 - over 25 years. We skated back in the day on the Skateboards Inside Out (SIO) team (started by Barry Zaritsky) and had a blast as teens doing a sport that nobody thought was cool except us. Here is a picture of the SIO gang in the late 1970s at the half time of a Florida State Seminoles football game as we skated there for the crowds entertainment (Travis Clayton, Scott Hughston, Brad McLeod, Stuart Singer, Jimmy Odum, Lee Nettles, right to left).

Skating was our life back in those days. I sucked at traditional sports like baseball and was way too small for football. I remember getting cut from the Leon Baseball team and kinda feeling bad. I got over it and found my world of skating which was an absolute gift for me. Skating was my passion and I took every chance to get out with the SIO gang and go down to ride at Shawn Peddies pool, Steve Rayburns ramp, Travis Claytons backyard ramp or to go out to FSU and explore the concrete.

Anyway, back to meeting up with Lee Nettles was a great moment and we both went on an on asking about old friends and catching up. We broke out the boards and caught a few runs and I followed Lee on an old skool carve through the whole park catching every wall and more. We exchanged numbers and vowed to meet again in the near future to catch up and skate a session.

We came back to the house and ate lunch and were so psyched that we jumped back in the car and headed back to the park. My daughter Ollie (not named after the skate trick Ollie) had wanted to come along and it was great to work with her at the park and ease her back and forth between two small concrete ramps. Her balance is really starting to come along. Were going to have to go out and buy her a new board so that she can jump in the fun and follow her old man down that concrete dreamscape.

Cant wait to get back down to Tallahassee to skate the park and meet up with Lee and maybe Steve Rayburn and others. I am reminded that life is a gift and every day I am alive I am blessed to be healthy both mentally and physically and given a chance to show my daughter the things that I love. By Brad McLeod

You can reach Brad McLeod at mbmcleod@mindspring.com if you have comments or would like to trade notes on travel, family, financial freedom and lifestyle.