unculturedswine

A rather popular radio and TV personality is prone to say at least once every day to question with boldness things that are presented to you. For the last few months I’ve really started to take this to heart and have began to question things that I always assumed were common sense, or ‘the way things are’, and even traditions that nobody really knows the beginning of.

Let’s revisit my post about Credit Scores, and dive a little deeper into that. Did you know the only way to have a FICO score is to have debt? No iffs ands or buts about it – if you want a FICO score you need to have debt, both new and old, constantly maintained DEBT. There really is no good way to look at that, no matter how you may justify it – the ONLY way to have a credit score is to have debt. How often do we bridge those two facts? All marketers and bankers and lenders did was give debt a new name (FICO) and a score-scale and made it a competition to have the best. In our rush and hurry to have an “awesome” FICO score did you notice you were enslaving yourself to someone else? And then to make you feel better about it they throw in “points” and “rewards”. Right. They just LOVE to give away “free” things to you. Sorry to burst your bubble, but you paid for those things to.

So, I’ve decided to question what the real purpose of a FICO score is, or to have “healthy” debt (That’s just as ridiculous as the Capital One “Freedom” Card. And the conclusion I have come to is I want nothing to do with it. I guarantee that a large margin of wealthy people carry very little to no debt – and it’s NOT because they have money to buy things so they don’t need debt; it’s because they avoided debt to buy things in the first place, and that freedom from interest and lenders enabled them to become rich. Think of all the extra money you’d have from your paychecks if it wasn’t already promised to to someone else. (And please don’t confuse expenses with debt)

You can never borrow yourself into wealth. That math never adds up. Discipline will always beat instant gratification.

What are some things you question the necessity of? School? The 40 hour work week? The requirement to go into the office? Vaccinations for your kids? Let’s have a nice discussion!

When I was growing up, Michael Jordan was (and still is, to me) the greatest basketball player in the game. He made the most difficult shots look so simple, as if it required no effort on his part. Countless buzzer-beaters and game-winning shots are attributed to him. If there was a clutch moment in the game, give the ball to Michael. You could always be confident that he would do what was needed. To put it simply: Michael would deliver.

Now let’s say that you have a goal to be a professional basketball player, and you learned that Michael himself is teaching some basketball classes for a amazingly good deal – would you even hesitate to sign up? Wouldn’t it be amazing to sit at his feet and learn from his years of practice, dedication and experience? Imagine the kind of jump-start that would give you game.

Let’s change gears a little bit. I’m going to focus on something that several of my friends are endeavoring to do: Wedding and Event Photography. Sadly, there are a lot of people in this area that jump into Wedding Photography a little prematurely – I know cause I was one of them. And I never should have done it as early as I did.

Early last year I started taking some Photo Classes from Kenneth Linge, a local photographer who turns out to be a lot more then you’d expect to find in humble Orem Utah. You find out he’s an accredited Master Photographer; that he was the most award-winning photographer in Scandinavia (he’s from Norway) in the the 90′s. You notice that he spends half the year teaching seminars in Europe. You catch the Utah Valley magazine and notice that he shoots the cover every month and also gets some extra spreads in the magazine from time to time.

I’ve realized that he’s the Michael Jordan of portrait photography, a claim he’s going to deny when he notices I’ve written this post. But let me tell you why I think this.

Kenneth delivers – every time. If there ever was a photographer that I know that I can count on every single time to deliver an amazing portrait no matter who it is, where it is, or when it is, it’s Kenneth. He’s not just a master in his studio but outside his studio, not just during the best light of the day but any light of the day, not just on sunny but also cloudy rainy snowy sleety you-name-it weathery days. Not just beautiful people but round, short, tall, plump, chubby, rail-thin, awkward shape, big-head little-head no chin big chin kinda people. You can’t use the same kind of lighting and poses for every person – it needs to be as different and unique as they are; and Kenneth has the experience, the eye and the talent and knowledge to know what to do every time, to get that perfect portrait. Kenneth delivers; every time.

Beyond his photography though he’s a jolly, happy, kind, talkative person that loves to share and teach. His personal motto is ‘No Secrets’, and he lives up to it. When he recently did a killer studio setup for wedding dresses for Utah Valley Bride magazine, he didn’t hesitate to teach it in his next class. He loves to share, and he loves to teach.

To get to the point we have a genius master photographer in our backyard and he teaches classes for an amazing price. If you’re even thinking that you want people to hire you for photography then you need to take his Photographing People courses. You need to prioritize in your to-do list and put it above buying anymore gear. All the best gear in the world won’t make you a solid photographer if you have no idea how to light people, pose people and take advantage of the situations where you take those photos. His first class is a steal-of-a-deal at $300 and he’s teaching one on July 31, and another on September 4. He happily does payment plans if dropping $300 at once is too tough to manage – there literally is no excuse not to take them.

I repeat – if you’re going to charge people for photography then you need to take his class – you owe it to your soon-to-be customers to deliver the best product you can and his classes will give you incredible insight and tips, and it doesn’t involve spending thousands on lighting equipment. You’ll learn more things about photography than you can imagine from simple things to avoid to simple things to blow away everyone else.

His website for classes is www.intsop.com – sign up quick before the class is full!

** As a disclaimer he’s not paying me nor did he ask me to write this. **

So, the economy sucks. Nobody has any money. People can’t hold on to their house, collection agencies are busier than they’ve ever been and you know what? I think it’s great.

Debt, buying what we can’t afford, borrowing money we can’t pay back, instant gratification, ultimately greed, has snowballed into a very catastrophic world economy. And what’s the best way to fix too much debt? By getting out of debt! And how do you prevent debt? By not borrowing! If we as a collective were not wise enough to only borrow what we needed, then it’s time to lose the privilege of borrowing by force: enter the bad credit score.

If having a crappy credit score prevents you from getting that department store card, or stops you from buying a boat you really shouldn’t buy, or getting a house 4x’s the size of what you need, then by all means, ruin your credit.

I’m attending Dave Ramsey’s ‘Financial Peace University’ right now and just covered Budget’s. Every time I’ve heard that word in my life the first thing I think of is ‘no more toys’. Which is a complete lie. At one point he talked about getting your budget in order, and then prioritizing your expenses. He said put Visa and Mastercard etc at the bottom, and if they fall “below the line” of what you can afford, then don’t pay them. He mentioned several people who were behind on their house but current on their Mastercard – all to protect a stupid score. He doesn’t hesitate to tell people to stop caring about their credit and start caring about freedom. Credit, inherently, is not freedom.

So, to those of us struggling with money and paying for things, take a deep think on that credit score you’re protecting and consider if it’s really important. If you have to give it some bad marks to get out of debt, then get out the red pen and start marking it. Once your out of debt and start building real equity in your life your score will heal itself, but hopefully you’ll be free enough to really not need it all that much.