“Success” is one of those wishy-washy words that most people think only means money, and lots of it. Maybe that’s a good enough definition; maybe not. It could also mean being better with what you have, having a greater reach in your community, and how many people you’ve empowered across the globe. That seems hard to grasp for most folks, so let’s go for something more practical and attainable. Let’s hit up some small successes first.
This post is part of a 14 part series on How to Be a Better Person. I’ve also super-duper fancied this group of posts up into an Amazon Kindle book. Check it out: Forget Perfect, Just Be Better: 101 Simple Ways to Grow in Relationships, at Work, in Life, and Through God.
1) Brown Bag Millionaire
Never mind how many pounds it made me gain, but I used to eat out for lunch every single weekday. No, nothing like a salad or a sandwich, either. We’re talking the full deal Mexican meal, twelve ounce pork chop, Chinese buffet, and whatever else crazy idea came across my coworkers’ minds. Can you imagine what fifteen-dollars per day looks like at the end of the year? That’s getting real close to $4,000. Four grand, can you believe that? Three times the raises I earned in corporate America went straight to my gut.
We get so used to pumping out money for things we’re convinced we need. I mean it’s food, right? We have to eat, right? Do we have to have a party each time? Moderation is a common theme when it comes to eating habits. There’s a reason we don’t eat German chocolate cake for dinner every day, as good as it sounds.
Just Be Better: Go about as caveman-esque as you can and bring a brown-bag lunch to work for a week. I’m talking about grabbing a loaf of wheat bread, jar of organic peanut butter, some raisins, and some cheapo crackers. Count up how much money you didn’t spend that week.
As a guide, I ate mostly healthy and hearty $1.23 lunches for three years while bootstrapping my personal business ventures. That comes to about $310 in lunches for one year, which is less than ten-percent of the $4k lunch-meal plan. I ate lunch for one year from what I used to pay in the $4k-lunch-meal plan taxes alone.
Regain control of your intake, and snag a few thousand for your wallet.