Who Should Read This Book Looking for some way to make your life better? Something that will give you more control over your future? Do you need a way to overcome some of the mistakes you have made in the past? Are you between thirty-three and sixty-five years old? If so, you need a guide to making your life count. What can you do? Give my six-step program a try. It has made a big difference for me, and can do the same for you. Let this book guide you through the maze of conflicting paths that you encounter in your life. These six steps will give you the confidence you need to face the many challenges life puts in your way. It will give you the necessary time to consider what you want in your future. What Are the Six Steps? Step One is getting control over you body. You start by walking. Then you add small additional changes to your physical activities. Finally, you regularize your exercise while adding new and interesting ways of exercising. Step Two is getting the proper amount of nutrients. This will turn out to be less difficult than it sounds once you are in the exercise mode. You will avoid much of the four harmful food groups - fat, fried, fast, and frozen - along with caffeine, sugar, and sodium. Quickly, you will start noticing how much better you feel. Step Three is improving your brain's performance. This will come from learning challenging new material. This will be good for your brain's capacity, and interesting as well. Step Four is learning to make the best of the challenges at work. Your work represents your opportunity to direct your life toward accomplishments and satisfaction. You need to establish goals to strive for. Volunteer work also is important in this area. Step Five is the problem of financial responsibility. It will require some delay in economic gratification, as you position yourself to handle your health costs and pension. Step Six is the last step, and includes control over distractions such as television that today have almost no upside. In controlling distractions, we create time for the activities that make our lives worthwhile. This gives us time to meet our expectations and to find the joy that surrounds us.

Controlling Your Future

6 Steps to a Better LifeBy Richard Norgaard

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Richard Norgaard
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4389-1817-4

Contents

Chapter 1: The Challenge................................................................................15Chapter 2: Where Did I Come From? Who Am I?.............................................................23Chapter 3: Our Changing Lifestyle.......................................................................29Chapter 4: How Long Can You Expect to Live?.............................................................37Chapter 5: Physical Fitness Comes First.................................................................45Chapter 6: R U Ready....................................................................................55Chapter 7: Making Our Move to Level 2...................................................................69Chapter 8: Weightlifting and Stretching.................................................................81Chapter 9: Putting Excitement Into Exercise by Reaching Level 3 and Perhaps Level 4.....................93Chapter 10: Our Overweight Problem......................................................................107Chapter 11: Losing Weight...............................................................................121Chapter 12: Issues in Eating............................................................................135Chapter 13: Exercising the Brain........................................................................145Chapter 14: Training the Brain..........................................................................159Chapter 15: Work and Discipline.........................................................................171Chapter 16: Why We Work.................................................................................183Chapter 17: Volunteering................................................................................195Chapter 18: An Important Lesson in Financial Economics..................................................207Chapter 19: The Borrowing Problem.......................................................................217Chapter 20: Investing Your Savings......................................................................227Chapter 21: Sources of Funds for Retirement or Old Age..................................................241Chapter 22: Choices in Personal Investment..............................................................251Chapter 23: The Distraction Disease.....................................................................261Chapter 24: The Good Life...............................................................................275Chapter 25: Conclusion..................................................................................285Appendix One............................................................................................291Appendix Two............................................................................................293Appendix Three..........................................................................................295Appendix Four...........................................................................................297

Chapter One

The Challenge

June is a real-estate agent in St. Louis, and her husband, Ray, is a stockbroker. The last two years have been very difficult for both of them. June's sales are off significantly due to falling housing prices and heavy competition from other agents. She has lost several listings from people who wouldn't drop their price sufficiently to attract buyers. Ray is a full-service broker, and finds competing with discount brokers ever more difficult.

Their energy in their work is down, they are stressed out a lot, and they find it hard to be optimistic. They occasionally get sick, and it seems to linger. They are both forty-eight years old and financially solvent. They can weather the current downturn, but something is missing.

They do have a membership in a local gym, but their work leaves them no time for exercise. As a result, their weight has climbed. June feels harassed and harried. She thinks she needs a vacation, but there is just no time for it. Sometimes it seems they are on a treadmill to nowhere. What can the two of them do to turn things around?

Sam is thirty-seven years old and obese. He joins a small army of 34 percent of all Americans. He has tried dieting using the Atkins diet and Weight Watchers. He can get his weight down, but then it goes up again. He is a yo-yo dieter. At five foot ten, he weighs 225 pounds. He wants to weigh 190.

His problem is that something always seems to come up. His wife gets laid off from her job. His son is doing poorly in school. His boss is making his life miserable. His father gets prostate cancer. He feels like there is a black rain cloud over his head.

His knees are sore. He used to run some and occasionally go to a gym, but right now it is too painful. He's getting pressure from his wife to lose weight because his stomach is lapping his belt, and his sex drive is way down. He knows he needs to cut down on the food he eats, but he has to eat on the run and food gives him comfort. He just doesn't know what to do.

May was recently divorced. In the divorce settlement she got their modest home, child support, and some alimony. With her job, she and the two children are scraping by. She has modest savings in her 401k from work, but it can't be touched. She refinanced her house with an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) in order to get money that she spent on a new car, clothes, furniture to replace the pieces her ex had taken, and a vacation to help her get over the divorce.

She thought things would turn out all right, but the bills are coming due. The fact that she is forty years old is weighing on her, and recently the bank told her the ARM interest rate has been increased from 6.5 percent to 10.5 percent. She has two credit cards; one is maxed out.

This wasn't the way she thought it would be. Before the divorce, the two of them were doing fine. They had money for extras and good savings. Two households have made a huge dent in their finances. Both she and her ex are in a bind. What can she do?

Al is fifty. He is a middle manager making enough to support his wife and two children in a modest home in the suburbs. He is a little overweight and doesn't exercise, but that is not the problem. He is an IT manager, and there is talk that his division is going to be outsourced. The company can get the same output in India at less than half the current cost.

Al was happy to graduate from college and didn't plan on ever going back, but his skills are both out-of-date and limited. Finding a job anywhere near his current salary seems impossible. He is bewildered by this turn of events.

Ed and Mary Bell are both sixty-six. They retired at sixty-two when they were eligible for Social Security and moved to Florida from Ohio. They bought a small condo, and Ed golfed while Mary Bell shopped. They loved the casual clothes and warm weather. This year, Mary Bell was diagnosed with breast cancer, but she survived with an operation, chemotherapy, and radiation. It was expensive.

This brush with death has made them reevaluate their lives. A great uneasiness has come over them. Somehow the retired life in Florida isn't turning out right, and they miss their friends in Ohio-and, believe it not, the changing seasons.

Welcome to the...