The other day I was talking to my dad, who also happens to be my tax attorney. As soon as my taxes got difficult I had my dad do them for me. Now, this year is a bit different than all the rest of my adult years have been. This is the first full year that I am completely supporting myself and my children as a Realtor®. I called to find out some tax stuff, like what kind of deductions can I take. Now, my dad has known me for a great portion of my life, and you would think he would completely understand that I am a RIGHT BRAINED PERSON! For him to tell me that I should carry a little notebook in my car and record the mileage for every trip I take in my car actually causes a portion of my brain to ache! He went on to tell me about balancing my business and keeping books and records on expenses and other things. I really truly do want to do this right, but I said, "Dad, Can't I just estimate?" I think I heard him collapse to the floor.

After he regained consciousness he said the most fatherly thing he could say, "Terri, your personality is not an excuse."

I responded with, "Well.....  I WANT to do it right."  What I really wanted to scream at him was, "If you're so stinkin' good at this why didn't you teach me how to do it when I was ten!?"  But I didn't. I promised I would try to do better.  I bought a notebook....  that was a few days ago... the notebook is still on the floor next to my bed...where I put it last when I wrote down a phone number for the computer repair guy.

I've been reading this incredible book called The One Minute Millionaire. In a nutshell, there are one minute decisions we make that have the potential to make us millionaires. I decided to use this book as a way to train my son Bryan to do his school work.

I know you're going to have a hard time believing this, but Bryan was having a little hissy fit about having to do his TLP. He claimed that his brain wasn't cut out for this kind of random thinking. That he was a left brained person who worked with NUMBERS...Hello!  It made his brain hurt to use the creative side - the spelling side - the grammar side. So there he sat, clutching his head with his brain hurting. I rolled my eyes. Sheesh..this right brained stuff is a breeze!

I took the opportunity to teach him a secret of millionaires. I whispered the secret to him, "Millionaires make right decisions."  He looked at me funny. I went on to explain to him that many of the decisions we make will determine if we can become millionaires or not. I told him that one dollar a day invested in a high yield investment will make a million dollars in 56 years. I think when I began talking numbers his right brain stopped hurting. I then talked about the attitudes that we make ourselves have.  He was still being a grump about the whole TLP thing. I asked him if I paid him a million dollars would he be able to have a good attitude. He grumpily said, "yes." I laughed. I then asked if I paid him ten dollars if he could "joyfully" do his school work. I think the realisticness (my invented word) of that made him take notice. He raised his eyebrows and said, "You're going to pay me ten bucks?"  To which I said, "NO.  This is a training exercise."  The question remains, "Could you do it joyfully for ten bucks."  I think he still thought I might give him the money so he said yes.  blah blah blah....  He ended up decided doing his school work joyfully would pay a high yield of return. Within ten minutes his entire lesson was done. '

This particular part of his schoolwork can often take an hour or two, but it's all because of his attitude. How many times have you raised your voice to a child who is whining about how long the work takes to tell him, "If you would just do it, it wouldn't take so long!"

It was a triumphant moment for me when I was able to tell his education mentor, John (aka - his older brother) that he was finished with his schoolwork. He looked at me and said, "How'd you get him to do that?"  Simple I said, "I told him eventually it could turn into a million bucks."

I just had a thought...maybe I should have Bryan keep track of my mileage.