Make Your Voice Heard & My 3 Favourite Books From This Summer

If you don’t think your voice matters, these 8 Liberal MPs just prove that you’re wrong. 

For those of you, as naïve as me about politics, should know that our Prime Minister and Finance Minister are both Liberals.  

To have their own party’s members publicly against the proposed tax changes, many affected parties, entrepreneurs and even salaried employees, must have been reaching out to them sharing their opinions.

Thanks to a fellow accountant friend who shared this on Facebook, Liberal MP & Chair of Finance Committee, Wayne Easter, is now calling our Finance Minister to slow down the tax changes.  See this link for his podcast.

If you still have not reached out to your MPs and the Finance Minister, I encourage you to do so now.  

If you need a sample of the email/letter that you can model after, here’s my open letter to the Finance Minister. Feel free to add in your own story.  It is way more powerful if you have your own story.  

To make sure your voice is heard, a friend of mine sent in her email to the following addresses:

[email protected] (public consultation email)

Minister of Finance – [email protected]

Minister of Small Business and Tourism, – [email protected]

Prime Minister – [email protected]

and leader of the opposition party

PC – [email protected]

Enough about the proposed tax changes.  Let’s talk about something lighter.  

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.
~ Jim Rohn

We made a slight change in our weekly blog post email template to include a small section called “the book I am listening to”.  

The chaotic life of being an entrepreneur and mother of two kids under 4 mean that I do not have a lot of free time to read.

The only time available to myself is when I am driving to the office to meet clients.  

The only way I can “make a fortune” as per Jim Rohn is to use the down time to listen to the audio version of these books.

For that, I am extremely grateful for the inventor of audiobooks.  😊

My three favourite books I’ve read this year and what I learned from them:

The Miracle Morning series including the Miracle Morning for Parents and Families: How to Bring out the Best in Your Kids and Your Self  by Hal Elrod

The Miracle Morning was recommended by Erwin’s business coach.  There’re a few of them in the series.  They have a real estate agent version for the real estate agents out there.  But my favourite one is by far the one for parents and families.

In a nutshell, I learned that getting up a bit earlier to do the six Life Savers, which is also the morning routine, would help to propel you forward in your life.  

These 6 Life SAVERS include

• S – Silence: meditation and give yourself some alone time not thinking much can clear your mind.
• A – Affirmation: this represents a statement of what you want in your life. To me, I would like to be focused and efficient at everything I do.  So my affirmation is “I’m focused and productive.  I plan rigorously and stick to my plan to achieve maximum productivity and result.”  
• V – Visualization: have you done a visualization board before?  It consists of everything you want in your life.  My visualization board includes pictures of families going on vacation together, a Disney cruise trip, speaking on stage in front of hundreds of people (which by the way, I did it), a Tesla Model X, a picture of Vancouver’s Fisherman Wharf (I secretly hope that one day I can retire there), etc.   Anything in your life that you want.  Stare at it.  Get your subconscious mind working for you.
• E – Exercise: exercise does not have to be fancy like going to a gym.  It can be as simple as doing burpees, a few kettlebell swings, or even yoga at home.  The key here is that you have exercise in your routine.
• R – Reading: like I said, I don’t have the time to read.  All I can do is listen.  The Author believes that listening to audiobooks count as reading as well!
• S – Scribbling: this means journaling.  I cover my journaling for the day using Five Minute Journal.  It literally requires five minutes every day in your life.  As part of the scribbling, I also use the Productivity Journal to plan my day.   

Morning is the most valuable time of the day for me.  To me, mornings do not need to be at 5am.  Mornings can be an hour before your normal wake up time.  It is 5am for me because my kids get up around 7am.  The extra hours to myself mean that I can get some quiet time and work in to start my day.

Nobody’s perfect.  I got up at 6am yesterday and 5:30am this morning.  My goal is still the 5am but hey, I still got an hour of work in before the kids get up.

Extreme Ownership by Jacko Willink

Jacko was a navy seal leader.  In his book, he used his combat experience to explain leadership concepts.

My biggest takeaway:  

1. Extreme ownership
   • True leaders do not blame subordinates.  They take full responsibility when subordinates make mistakes.
   • This translates to effective communication with your subordinates.  Explain to them why we are doing what we are doing.  Explain to them what must be done so your employees can come along for the journey with the mission in mind.
   • Just because you are an employee working for someone else, it does not mean that you don’t need to have any ownership.  You own the task on your plate, owe to your own subordinates their responsibility as well.
   • If I had to look back at my early days working for someone else, I wish I had known this Extreme Ownership concept.  I would have been a much better employee then!
2. Discipline leads to freedom
   • Jacko made a comment in the book that there’s not enough time in the world to accomplish everything you want.  You gotta make time for it.
   • In his words, the best navy seals that he’s worked with woke up early, they worked out everyday, they studied, they practiced.
   • This means that if these seals go out for a drink the night before, they would still get up at the same time the next morning to work out and get themselves in shape.
   • A team or an organization can be as successful as an individual when they have tighter and more disciplined procedures.

The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting by Dr. Shefali Tasabury

I am a mother of two and a regular human being.  At times I find myself losing it and screaming at my daughter.  I am ashamed of it and I constantly try to find ways to eliminate that.

Dr. Shefali Tasabury was one of the speakers at Archangel Summit 2017.  

Her theory is that your children are a reflection of you.  (For the record, my children are mostly calm and cheerful so I would say that they’re true reflections of me as well.)

For the times that they are acting out, the first reaction as a mom is to try to control the situation and discipline them.  

Dr. Shefali suggested that everytime when your kids act out, we as parents should look at the mirror and see what goes wrong in our lives first.

Is it because we are ignoring our kids and they are just trying to get our attention?

Is it because we are living in our own fear growing up and we are imposing our projection of our lives onto theirs?

This is as close to a parenting handbook as you can get. 😊

There are many more terrific books that I am going to share with you in my weekly blog post email.  If you have any books that you like, feel free to share with me in the comment section.  😊  I’m always looking for more inspirational books!

Until next time, happy Canadian Real Estate Investing.

Cherry Chan, CPA, CA

Your Real Estate Accountant