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“Happiness is not a goal…it’s a by-product of a life well lived.”

–Eleanor Roosevelt–

Happiness……So many of us unknowingly chase that elusive word. When we’re young we somehow easily see it in almost everything around us, even the things that are bad or foreign to us, but as we grow, happiness mysteriously disappears and its not until we are a little older, a little slower, a little less green around the edges, a little less pumped from all the beatings that life has given us….Then that’s when we wonder, and we begin to search….. What happened to happiness.

The Date: Saturday, January 11, 2020

The Time: 11:49pm

The place:  The club in the ATX.

Max here, It’s a Saturday night, which for me is not always the easiest time to write, but I felt that my inner emotions will be lost if I don’t at least try to put them to words.

Quick cap…. Lately, taxes, health, time, and money. These are the highlights that have been plaguing my mind as of late.

This month makes the second month of making the $2700.00 monthly payment to the IRS. Next week I will be going to the tax office to make this months payment. But this month,  I also need to begin making estimated payments for my 2020 taxes, somewhere close to $1000 each month for every month of 2020. All of this has me on edge. I am still not 100% sure if I can make it financially without putting something up for collateral. I have apartments to remodel, I have family to help on the island, and I have myself that I need to build (physically, emotionally, mentally, and financially) and sadly, most all of this still costs money. Money that I am not sure I have. How do I make all of this happen, but most of all CAN I make it happen and still grow my life in a positive direction?

Funny thing about “Can I make it happen…” I wonder if I can make it happen, but inside, I have already told myself that I have no choice, that someway, somehow,  I MUST make it all come together. That I must prosper, I must build, I must grow both internally and outwardly. And the weird thing is that I am purposely looking for signs in my life that are secretly telling me that everything will be OK.

Then there is my health, I may have not written much about it, but damn….I must live a healthy life, as of this writing, I am inching closer to 50. Luckily I am not there yet, but DAMN… I must prepare, I MUST become the healthiest form of myself possible. Ever since I was young, this has always been an inside quest of mine, but now as I age, now as the grey hairs become more dominant, now as the muscles begin to atrophy, now as the days of my life seem to go by twice as fast, and now and oddly enough, as I care less to exercise and care more to learn the secrets to financial success, I find it an uphill struggle to hold on to the inner motivation to go to the gym. So something I have been turning to is inner health, as inside the body type of health. I have always wanted to learn how to be healthy from the inside out, but to find ways to do that without money and knowledge is next to impossible. But luckily now, I have the ability to monitor my glucose and my ketones. It is only something small that I can measure, but it is at least a step in the proper direction. I have also been spending time listening to researchers talking about the latest (current) methods for longevity.

Then there is the other parts of my life like time and money. Time to accomplish my goals, my Experience List. And money to buy or attain my goals, my Experience List.

Funny thing when writing….As I look up from this writing, my eyes hover over the crowd of customers and there are over 60 women each at different stages of fun, each performing conversations or soft acts of sexuality. and as I look over the club, about 90% of all tables on the main floor is full. This is good thing for  January. (The shareholders probably won’t be happy but it will at least keep them at bay for now). But as I glaze over the crowd of people and then bring my eyes back to these words, I can’t help but to feel that I am lucky. Sadly and painfully, I still haven’t found the luck that I am looking for, but I am at least lucky. (lucky to be alive and still be fighting towards my goals.) I still don’t have the time to do the things that I REALLY want to do, and I still don’t have the money to get my ass out of this dead end job….

But I at least have a job, I at least have people that still call my name when they need or want something. And although I am lucky to at least have that, the objective, the “real” goal is to find fun and creative ways to transfer my energy into things that will manifest my Experience List into fruition.

One of the latest things that I have decided on is that once I learn how to mentor young minds, and once I have enough residual income to not need to work at the club anymore, then I will be looking for ways to help young children on the island (Where my father was born). As I might have mentioned, my sister is a kindergarten teacher, and one of the things she said to me lately is that there are times when children will not come to school… In other words, there are times when she is the only one in the classroom…. just waiting for a child to come to learn.

I just can’t help but to think that my father and grandmother would be horrified to learn that children on the island are not able to go to school simply because of a lack of food, or clothes, or financial capabilities…. This will be something that I will one day work on tackling.

I know most of today’s writing has been random spurts of information, but let’s see if I can condense it down into something easier to conceptualize….

THE PRIORITY….

Taxes. Recently I sat with one of the guys from the CPA’s office. (We’ll name him Mr. X)I asked Mr. X to meet me for dinner to help me see how I can financially weather this storm that I have entered into with the IRS.  He met me on a Wednesday night at a restaurant named “Texas Roadhouse”. It’s a very commercial looking version of a Texas steak eatery. Their main shtick is the free unshelled peanuts. It looks like they give you all the free peanuts that you want to eat. And most people seem to throw the shells on the unpainted cement floor. Sadly peanuts are not my thing, nor is a commercial “Texas style” restaurant. However, I am not meeting Mr. X because I am looking for a great meal. Instead, I am looking some great advice.

You see, as I might have mentioned until nauseam…. I really just don’t care to do or learn numbers, paperwork, etc. My mind thrives in creativity and I connect that creativity with the use of my hands or at least something artistically visual . So when it comes to paperwork and math, I have a challenge to mentally grapple it. But this I must change. AND I WILL.

So after sitting with Mr. X for over 2 hours, he was able to give me a simple way to view my situation. A way that allowed me to find the calm in the storm. And for that, I send him a million thanks. Thank you Mr. X.

Now with that said, I must now really get a true “visual” of how my finances look every month. And here’s the kicker…. I still MUST find ways to get the 4th apartment at the 4plex completed. Once I complete that apartment I will be able to get a minimum of $1000 a month for it. This means that it will give me a little breathing room (financially).

This breathing room is extremely important, because I have already skinnied down on all my regular expenses ie: Netflix, YouTube, Sling TV etc. And so  for me being able to still accomplish things with real estate, family, and personal health without losing financial capability is extremely important. Remember, I also haven’t gone skydiving in almost 5 months or maybe longer, so I already feel as if I have almost taken myself to my bare bones of functionality.

As for health there are certain blood tests that I want to take to help see what I look like on the inside, but the cumulative of these tests are going to cost about $1000. And I still have not yet sent my sister her B-day gift, and that is going to cost about $1000, then there is something for my brother that I feel I need to buy him for his house. That is also probably going to cost close to $1000. And I want to all of this before February.

Then recently I got a wild hair up my donkey and came up with the bright idea that I want to start a YouTube channel. I want to name it Real Success Questions. I want it to be aimed at all things that encompass success. It will eventually focus heavily on real estate, but will branch out to other things like, mind, body, and money. I have already begun to have one of my workers clear out a space in my house to place the set for the channel. Now all that is left to do is to buy things for the set and begin making storyboards of what each episode will be about, then detail the layout of the episode. This in itself will be a new challenge for me.

Now lets over lay the idea of having my skilled workers do work for me at the 4plex. This will cost me a minimum of $150 a day not including  supplies. But like I said I MUST get that 4th unit up and running. This for me is a difficult thing to manage. Difficult to manage because I know that I need a minimum of 10k to get it finished out. This is 10k that I need to pay the IRS! How do I move mountains? I just have not been able to make this leap yet…. NOT YET… BUT I WILL.

Then within all of that is my health, I have been working deeply at trying to get lean. I am not a fat guy but as I edge closer to 50 years, and like I mentioned I must make sure that I prep my body for this second half of my life. I must make the inside of my body as healthy as technology will allow. So I have been working on doing the keto diet. And the blood work that I talked about earlier is going to be to get a better idea of where I stand with longevity and the real age of my internal body. Whether or not you know, they now have a test that can determine when you will die…… I find this to be quite amazing and interesting… Because if we can find out when we will die, then we can find ways to extend life.

And finally I still have my family to help and I still have “fun” things that I want to do, not including things like the mentoring or networking. (creating new friendships and cementing love into existing relationships) All of this for me is a new field and I have yet to properly master. Oh…. and I would like to have a partner in life. Life partner to share my life with, I have made a lot of mistakes with those types of past relationships, but luckily I have had time to be alone (probably too much time alone) and during this time I have had a chance to learn and grow)

So when I take time to sum it all up…. It’s a lot, or at least it feels like a lot for me to mentally visualize, juggle and hold in the frame of my mental view. But in reality, it’s really just learning how to visually organize and prioritize, and having the proper “why’s” in place for each of the things that have been set before me. You know…. As I think about it, I wonder, if it weren’t for this HUGE issue with the IRS, would I ever be preparing myself in this way. In a way that forces me to really work at being vigilant about my finances. I can only hope that this is a great way to prepare myself for the future of all the money and things that I expect to get accomplished life.

Sending you love to an amazing day,

Max.