You are probably familiar with Stephen Covey’s best seller “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.“ The principles taught in that book are powerful and true.

Today I am going to use his basic outline of habits to teach you how to be an effective recruiter in your MLM business. These simple principle based steps can take you from the bottom ranks of your company to the very top if you will study and apply them in sequential order.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective (MLM) Network Marketers

Habit 1Be Proactive: Principles of Personal Vision

1. The first step in creating a residual income is pro-activity.
2. Taking action steps to make an initial list of potential recruits and calling them to set up appointments.
3. Taking personal initiative to make sure that each member of your team is plugged into the emails, trainings, and meetings.
4. Inviting team members to local & regional events, and setting up these events if not already available to you.
5. Training each of your reps individually, or making sure they are trained.
6. Scheduling time together with each direct enrollment to hold them accountable to their goals.

Habit 2Begin with the End in Mind: Principles of Personal Leadership

1. Deciding early on what your objectives are. What do you truly wish to accomplish in your business, and what do you want your team to accomplish?
2. Creating a synergistic mission statement that reflects your goals and objectives and those of your team as a whole.
3. Beginning each event, activity, or meeting knowing what you want to get out of it, and what you wish for your team members and guests to get out of it.
4. Foreseeing possible problems with retention, discouragement, etc.
5. Taking the proper steps to prepare to be an effective teacher, leader and trainer.

Habit 3  Put First Things First: Principles of Personal Management

1. Understanding the four quadrants of effective production and knowing how to apply that to your personal & team’s activity. Focusing on Revenue Producing Activities!
2. Creating habits of time management and effective planning.
3. Reserving time for all your roles in life, so as not to neglect something.
4. Setting time aside each week for Recruiting, Retaining, and Training.

Habit 4Think Win/Win: Principles of Interpersonal Leadership

1. Commit yourself to Win/Win or no deal. Agree to enroll people who you need in your business and who need your business.
2. Look for the recruit’s win in your business opportunity. Specifically what will this mean in their life?
3. Continue to show team members the win in each part of the MLM experience.
4. Help create the win by getting the new recruits plugged into the proper system of activities.
5. Lead by example. Help each new member of your team grow by being a part of their personal production.

Habit 5Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

1. Seek to understand the situation of each contact. Find out what they want out of the experience and what has brought them far enough to listen to you.
2. Practice active listening skills. Truly listen to your recruits and your team members to best understand their desires.
3. Continue building a relationship with your team to develop trust and credibility through listening to and understanding them.
4. Only when the rep trusts you and believe you understand them, and have their best interests in mind will they follow you.

Habit 6  Synergize Principles of Creative Communication

1. Create environments of synergy in recruiting, retaining, and training arenas.
2. Practice habits 4 & 5 in making synergistic moments happen.
3. Synergize with each rep individually and with the team as a whole.
4. Seek out potential synergistic activities, such as creating the team mission statement, local events, etc.
5. Understand the unique abilities that each of your leaders have and think of how best to utilize them.
6. Seek out the very best training in the industry and in your company from the top leaders.

Habit 7  Sharpen the Saw: Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal

1. Set aside Monthly, Weekly, and Daily planning and evaluation sessions.
2. Renew your commitments and covenants in all aspects of life through sincere evaluation.
3. Evaluate the best and less effective practices that you have been using in recruiting, retaining, and training your office.
4. Review this and other handouts and notes that will increase your effectiveness in recruiting, retaining, and training your office.

Jacob S Paulsen

DOWNLOAD THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE NETWORK MARKETERS

Our own belief system controls our reality.

In the Harry Potter book “The Half Blood Prince,” Ron believes that he has been given , the lucky potion. Because his own belief system is changed, his reality also changes. He performs as if he had been lucky. Clearly this effect would only work if Ron already had the skills necessary to perform. The important point is how our own beliefs change our reality.

Each of us live in a reality that is generated based on what we see and not what is actually there. This is a huge problem in relationships and discussions since none of us can understand the world as seen through anyone else’s perspective. This is a huge bonus however because it also means that you have the power within you to change the world by simply altering your own beliefs. This is done by filling your mind with positive thinking, good education, and hard work. By sharpening our skills and increasing our mental capacity we become capable of changing our own world around us.

In the same book when Harry Potter finally understands that he must kill Voldermort because of who he is and what he did to his family instead of the prophecy it changes everything. The end result is the same but his world changes because of the reason. In his words “It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to death and walking into the arena with your head held high.”  Dumbledore worked hard to explain to him the importance of this single thing because changing Harry Potter’s belief would alter his own reality and make him all the more likely to succeed in his task.

What does this mean for you? It means that you have control over your world. All the complaining about your job, life, family, or circumstance is your own fault. Not just because you are a whiner (although true) but more importantly because the things you whine about are shaped in your own reality because of your own belief system over which you have COMPLETE CONTROL.

It also means that the way to change your own world is to change your beliefs. This means learning, finding purpose, and understanding your own values. To live by your own values and be conscious of the act will cause in effect a peaceful and happy reality! You are the author of your reality and you hold the power to change it.

What are my Top 10? Top 10 of what? Everything:

Top 10 Most Important Habits of Success

1. Regular Planning/Goal Setting Sessions
2. Daily Exercise
3. Early to Bed, Early to Rise
4. Education Driven, Studious
5. Absolute Integrity
6. Belief in and worship of a higher being
7. Humility
8. Clock Builder, not Time Teller
9. Strong Support Team At Home (AKA Family)
10. Charity

Top 10 Personal Development/Business books:

1. 7 Habits
2. 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
3. Atlas Shrugged
4. Rich Dad Poor Dad
5. Raving Fans
6. The Speed of Trust
7. Good to Great
8. Who Took my Money?
9. Think and Grow Rich
10. The E-Myth Revisited

Top 10 Most Inspirational Movies

1. Rudy
2. Pistol Pete
3. Without Limits
4. Remember the Titans
5. Pursuit of Happyness
6. The Miracle
7. The Legend of Bagger Vance
8. The Truman Show
9. Cinderella Man
10. Forest Gump
11. October Sky

Top 10 Other Favorite Books

1. Porter Rockwell
2. 1776
3. All Harry Potter Books
4. The Count of Monte Cristo
5. The Cronicles of Narnia
6. Hmm…. I guess all I read are the business books

Top 10 Favorite Social Media Tools

1. Ping.fm
2. PixelPipe
3. Tweetlater
4. Twitter Karma
5. My Android cell phone
6. WordPress
7. Email Marketer
8. Commission Junction
9. Google Analytics
10. Tube Mogul

Top 10 Most often used programs on my computer

1. Firefox
2. Skype
3. Camtasia
4. Filezilla
5. Itunes
6. Format Factory
7. Microsoft Office (of course)
8. Quickbooks
9. Gmote
10. Google Desktop

Top 10 Favorite Web Sites

1. Goodreads
2. Twitter
3. Facebook
4. AndroidSocialMedia
5. Start Geocaching
6. WebcastRooms
7. BuddyRunner
8. Youtube
9. My Website
10. Orkut

Getting Personal…

Top 10 things you didn’t know about me (maybe)

1. I’m an avid runner
2. I’m obsessed with guns and wish I worked for the secret service
3. I’m a certified NRA instructor and teach Utah CCW Classes
4. I’m deaf in one ear
5. I read/write/speak Portuguese fluently
6. I live in Utah right now but want to move to Colorado ASAP
7. I don’t really follow any sports at all
8. I think that men without a gun and a dog are not really men.
9. I currently have ownership in 4 business that are not my MLM business
10. I’m Mormon

Top 10 Most Favorite Things (In case you hadn’t figured them out by now)

1. My Cell Phone
2. Porter Rockwell
3. GeoCaching
4. Action Flicks
5. Guns, Security, and related things
6. AudioBooks
7. Dogs
8. US History
9. Eating
10. Making Money

This morning I enjoyed an engaging conversation with fellow internet marketer Andrew James, who among other things is preparing for a 1000 mile bike ride. He knows that I’m preparing for a 1/2 marathon (weak in comparison). Our conversation led me to draw some conclusions about these passions that we enjoy.

Everyone I look up to is passionate. We don’t usually share the same passions but the point is that we have them. Passions I am arguing draw people toward you, and expand greatly your personal network. It doesn’t matter if you are passionate about cooking, running, fashion, harry potter, or firearms the point is that you are not alone in these passions. There are HUGE communities of people out there who share your likes and dislikes.

If your likes and dislike are just that…. simple likes than you are unlikely to form new friendships or seek out others who share your likes. If however you have strong likes that become passions you are likely to find others and inspire them to be passionate also. This is the first key: Your own Passions will drive you to find other like-passionate people.

The second key: Being passionate makes you unique and attractive. If you are truly to become “attractive” as we use the term in marketing then you must become unique and appealing. Being passionate is the first key to being unique. I would challenge you to find someone else in this world that shares all of my passions. (If such a person exists please contact me). Being passionate will make you unique and this in turn makes you more attractive than the average Joe.

Now assuming that you understand the importance of being passionate about something; or even better several things let me outline some tips on how to live your life of passion, personal development, and marketing!

1. Search our passions that are healthy and doable. Do not decide you are passionate about big game hunting if you live in Miami, FL. Make sure your passions will be healthy to your lifestyle and that of your family.
2. After deciding on a passion, identify communities both local and online that share your passion. Network with them. Learn the jargon, attend events, and create friendships.
3. Set BIG goals within your passion. If you like to read novels, set a goal to read a new novel every week for 3 months. If you like to cook, set a goal to arrange a charity dinner for homeless people. Do something BIG that lies within your passion.
4. Announce your goals to EVERYONE around you. This will make you more accountable to your goal and it will continue to attract more people to you; both those who do and don’t share your passion. Recruit others to work toward the same goal with you.
5. Now, brainstorm to discover way to monetize your passion. I’m not suggesting that you give up your current job/business to cook/read/run full time. I’m suggesting that there may be ways to utilize your passion and your goals to further build your business or create perhaps a side income.

If you can do this your life will be enhanced and your bank account will thank you. This process is in line with developing a better you, growing your business, and most important creating a close-knit family unity.

As a last note allow me to tell you about some of my passions that perhaps you, my readers might share.

I love running, spelunking, geocaching, American history (specifically anything related to our founding fathers & the revolutionary war), firearms and 2nd amendment rights, dogs, listening to audiobooks, cell phones (specifically the android platform), and of course my AWESOME family!

What are you passionate about?

Since releasing my new ebook, “Fast Start, MLM Lessons Without Any Name Calling” people have been going CRAZY to get their hands on it. I’m now making it available for free. Why would I do this? Two simple reasons.

1. I’m looking to expand my influence online and would like to do this by exposing more people to my website and twitter profile
2. I truly believe that if everyone had this ebook our industry would not suffer such a poor reputation.

What do you have to do to get the E-book for free?

Step 1: retweet this EXACT message on Twitter. Simply copy and paste the text below and post it to your Twitter account. If you don‘t have a Twitter account, you‘ll need to get one for free here: http://www.twitter.com

RT @jacobspaulsen is giving away FREE copies of his MLM Lessons ebook, go here to learn how to get a free copy: http://www.budurl.com/jspmlm

Step 2: Follow me on Twitter. You can follow me by visiting the link below and clicking on the “follow”

button below my picture: http://www.twitter.com/jacobspaulsen

That‘s it! As soon as you complete both of these steps, we will automatically send you your free “Fast Start, MLM Lessons Without Any Name Calling” eBook via a Twitter direct message, so please check your “direct messages” inbox on Twitter for the download link, after you‘ve followed the 2 easy steps above.

Need better instructions? Watch this video

In order to be effective in marketing you must form relationships with others in which you create value for others. Before you can effectively create value for others you must first become more than you are today. This applies in both online and offline marketing. People are drawn to people who exemplify the traits that they themselves want to learn.

Think of it in terms of asset management. You are your greatest asset. In the insurance industry they use the term Human Life Value. When I use this term I am not trying to calculate the total value of what you would be worth to insure. I am talking about what you are worth to yourself and to those around you. You can begin to calculate your own human life value the same way you would your financial portfolio. You too have income, expenses, assets, and liabilities that increase and decrease your human life value.

The income in your human life value portfolio is the ongoing education and knowledge that you subject yourself to in order to grow. The expenses tend to cancel out all of the ongoing income. Your expenses include all of your non-productive habits. These include sleeping in, bad eating habits, health risks, lack of study, and ignorance. Expenses are inevitable and so don’t be consumed by what they may do to you. Its true that you want to minimize your expenses as much as possible, but much more important is out-weighing them with much greater income.

You also have assets and liabilities. Your assets & your liabilities are the people you know and the relationships you have with them. A great mentor once told me: “People are assets and things are not.” As you develop positive relationships with people you build assets. When you have dishonest or negative relationships with people they weigh on you as our heaviest liabilities.

How is your human life value adding up? Remember that you must become more if you are to succeed. This can only be done in a sincere, genuine, time taking process. There is no quick trick and that is why success never happens over night. This simply because it takes time for you to have personal growth.

Jacob S. Paulsen

Internet Marketing is changing. With the buzz right now about social media and how it is changing our focus I wanted to give all of my readers an umbrella concept that will hopefully clarify what all of this means and how each of us should be acting to take advantage of these changes.

PRINCIPLE 1: Marketing is and always has been a relationship business. You have been told before that buyers never purchase a product or service. They always purchase a salesman or sales promotion. The best sales-reps and the best marketers understand that relationships have to be formed before belief can be transferred.

PRINCIPLE 2: People will always be attracted to people who can create value for them. As one of my business partner’s Andrew James likes to say “As long as they feel that you need them more than they need you, they will never follow you.” Only by creating mass amounts of value for others will you be able attract others to you.

PRINCIPLE 3: There are three steps, or arenas in which we form relationships and then transfer belief (make sales).

1. We meet new people.
2. We identify common interests or ways in which we can create value for each other.
3. We transfer belief.

Let us look at the way this happens both offline and online in today’s marketplace.

Offline. In offline business marketing we find every chance possible to meet new people and form new friendships. We go to social gatherings, talk to people on the airplane or bus-stop, and we become part of organizations, clubs, and groups where we can network with like-minded people. When we meet people that we like we meet with them on our own time. Perhaps you invite someone over to your home for dinner or to the golf course so you can get to know them better. In these face to face meetings you learn more about each other and what your likes/dislikes are. What each of you do for work and what your dreams and desires are. At this point you will begin to create value for each other according to your own abilities. If you have a product or service that is right for them it will be an easy sale. If you don’t, that’s ok because they will refer friends and family to you who might be better for your product or service.

Online: In online marketing it doesn’t work any different. You enter into social gatherings such as Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, Twitter, etc. In these gatherings you search out and get to know new people. When you make a new friend they will inevitable want to have that one on one relationship. Instead of this happening on the golf course it will happen on your blog or website. On each other’s blogs/websites you learn more about each other. If either of you have value to create for the other in your product or service it will be a natural sale at this point.

HUGE MISTAKES YOU MIGHT BE MAKING:

1. Spamming. Nobody likes the guy who comes to the party wearing a shirt that says “Ask me how to make 20K this month.” Don’t be that guy. Social Media websites are meant for social gathering. Keep it that way.
2. Direct Selling. If you are asking people who just barely met you at the party (social website) to come to your office and check out your service/product you are making a mistake. There isn’t enough relationship there to sustain that kind of move. You need a blog or personal site people can visit to learn more about you and what you care about. What your dreams are and what your expertise is. It’s ok to have ads, links, etc from your blog to your office (product site) but the general content should be non-bias and personal in nature.
3. One Sided Relationships. Don’t try to make in-sincere friendships online. People are not as stupid as you think and the few that are, aren’t worth selling to anyway. Don’t ask someone else to check out your site if you won’t check out theirs. Subscribe to and read content from the blogs of your favorite people. Maintain sincere and genuine relationships.

My purpose in Social Media is quite simple. To establish meaningful relationships, brand myself as a marketing professional, and to make a profit. My greatest fear in all of this is the general amount of time I can waste in all the social media networks. So, my purpose in this article is to share with you the best tools that I have found to accomplish these; my three goals without wasting time.

Ping.fm – Twitter has shown us the power of connecting with large groups of people and sending out consistent updates with meaningful information. Ping.fm is a tool that allows you to send out a “Tweet” from the Ping.fm website that will be automatically posted into your update on your twitter profile, your facebook status, your myspace, plaxo, blogger, linkedin, yahoo, plurk, and 30 other services that you can choose from. This is a sort of one stop status update shop. Send the message once and all of your contacts on all of your social networks will get the update.

TubeMogul – One of the Medias of Social Networking is Video. YouTube does get the most traffic of any video portal site but as long as you are going to put videos on YouTube why wouldn’t you submit them to other sites as well? TubeMogul is the one stop video upload stop. From here you can upload a video and have it submitted to youtube, dailymotion, yahoo, google video, myspace video, and many more. You can also track each video on each site to get feedback on their success.

Mobile Internet – What I mean by mobile internet is internet from your mobile phone. This will be money well spent on a decent phone as well as an internet/data plan for it. There are three reasons why having legitimate (meaning a real browser) internet on your cell phone will increase your social media productivity.

1 It’s the way of the future and it’s also the path to creating time freedom. It’s hard to enjoy life when you are tied to your computer desk. Mobile Internet means a level of freedom!

2 You will always have access to your networks. You can reply to people’s requests & messages faster, you can send out updates from anywhere. Most social network sites have nice mobile versions of their website that make it easy to stay up to speed. Thus you will increase the amount of value you can provide to your networks while optimizing your usage of the value they provide you.

3 You are much less likely to waste time in the social media sites when browsing from your cell phone. It is not nearly as fun to play Facebook’s MobWars on your cell phone and therefore you won’t do it.

Fring – Fring is one of several mobile IM applications that are available for Blackberry, WM, and iphone devices. Fring is my favorite thus far. (Should you not like it or prefer a different program I can also suggest Nimbuzz & Iskoot) If you have followed my advice above you will understand that I’m all about utilizing mobile devices. With that having been said I like to be available to my skype, google talk, msn, and other IM friends when they need me. So I take all of these messaging programs mobile on my cell. I can receive & send IM messages and receive call & make outgoing calls using my skype credit. All of this via the internet on my phone; not the cell minutes. This means that even when I travel internationally I can make calls from my cell anywhere I can get a wifi connection. That is cool!

TweetLater – If you have a large following on Twitter or if you plan on it I would advise getting a free account at Tweetlater.com Their service has several cool features. Here are some of them:

1 Set it up to automatically follow people who follow you. I hate Twitter Snobs (people who want to be followed but aren’t willing to follow) and this way you will be guaranteed not to be one.

2 Schedule Tweets. If you know you are going to be unavailable you can schedule tweets for a certain time of a certain day. This can also be useful to tweet about a specific event such as a webcast that you want people to know about.

3 Auto-Reply. If you have a lot of people following you each day you can set up the service to send people a custom thanks for following me message.

BudURL – If you like to provide value to people by sending them links to articles, services, and more than I suggest getting a free or paid account at budurl.com This service will shorten long urls (much like tinyurl.com) but it will also track the number and type of people that click on that url. Very Cool!

Google Alerts – Want to keep track of your personal brand? Want to know what people are saying about your business, website, or service? Go to google.com/alerts and put in any keyword that you want to follow. Google will email you a list of all the new content that has appeared online with that keyword in the time period you a lot. (I do mine daily).

Depending on what your purposes are in Social Media I would encourage you to take a look at the way you are utilizing these social networks and the way they are providing or consuming value in your life. Create a strategy to spend less time and be more effective in your Social Networking.

Jacob S. Paulsen

This article is a continuation of my previous post: “8 Keys to Financial Success.” If you haven’t read the previous post I suggest visiting http://www.jacobspaulsen.com/personal-development/8-keys-to-financial-success and catching up on it now. The 8 Keys to Financial Success are designed to help people with an existing stream of monthly income to achieve wealth and financial freedom. In the previous article I outlined keys 1-4. Here I will outline 5-8.

1. Let Money Work For You. Now that you have began to build your emergency fund and have paid off any credit card debt you will begin to have excess cash-flow. This “excess” cash-flow can now be channeled towards investing. How much? No less than 5% of your monthly income should be put toward investments and after your rainy day fund is built and your credit card debt is gone you should be contributing between 10-15% of your income every month toward investments. Where & What? You need to purchase assets. Assets are investments that put money back into your pocket. Your job is to find assets that will increase your monthly cash-flow and bring you closer to financial freedom. If you are wondering which investments are safe, the answer is that only the investments you are totally familiar with and comfortable with are safe. The risk of the investment is based on your own knowledge of it.
2. Multiple Streams of Income. No one source of income in this world is 100% solid. You could loose your job or main source of income at any time and it therefor becomes necessary to have a back up stream of income. It also goes to reason that the only way to come closer to financial freedom is to work harder at your current job or to get a second income source. I am an advocate for owning your own business instead of getting a second job. Only by owning your own business are you creating leverage and potential residual income which is the base of true financial freedom. Look for opportunities or ideas that will allow you to build a side-income. Don’t be afraid to invest some cash and some time into the success of a side business since it may become your greatest asset.
3. Automate Your Finances. The reason a lot of people don’t achieve their financial goals is due to a lack of discipline. Even after you begin to track your finances and set goals it can take a lot of work and discipline to carry them out. Learn to automate everything possible about your money to guarantee achieving your goals. If you can set up an automatic transfer from your checking each month to your rainy day fund, or a auto-pay on all your bills do it. Take human error out of the picture as much as possible to ensure achieving your goals.
4. Educate Yourself. The last key to your own wealth is education. In order to be worth more you must first become more and in your financial stewardship this can only be done by increasing your financial education. Read business and investing books. Study the industry of your side-business and seek out advice from successful people in your family and in your industry. Learn everything you can about different investment strategies such as stocks, bonds, real estate, hard money, etc. Attend local seminars about wealth building and investing. Teach what you learn to all those around you.

If you can harness these 8 keys of financial prosperity you can achieve any financial goal you choose. You aren’t limited by your income but by your own financial intelligence and skills. Learn, Plan, Do.

Jacob Paulsen

Now for the purpose of this article I want to assume that you currently have a steady stream of monthly income. I am going to discuss the Paulsen 8 Keys to Financial Success but in order for these 8 keys to truly bring you success it is necessary that you already have a consistent income. For 95% of America financial problems do not come from the lack of a strong income but the lack of skills necessary to manage their income. You see we spend the first 25 years of our lives being taught how to go into the workplace and make money, but nobody ever teaches us what to do with money once we have it. That is where the 8 keys of financial success come into play.

A quick disclaimer: I did not invent these 8 ideas and I don’t lay claim to any of this content. From all my study I have simply organized my favorite and key concepts into these 8 Keys. In this article I’m going to discuss the first 4 of the 8 keys to success. Stay tuned for the last 4 keys in a future article.

1. Track Your Finances. This is the first step because it makes everything else possible. What is measured can be improved and studies have shown that even corporate executives who look at financial statements everyday tend not to know their own financial situation. You must know where your money comes from and where it goes, what assets and liabilities you own, and how your current performance lines up with your financial goals. Very few people have the accountant like skills necessary to do it themselves and so to those I recommend hiring someone to do their book-keeping. In my home state Utah I highly recommend JP²Consulting.

   Once you have a handle on your own finances the true work can begin.

2. Have a Cash-Flow Budget. This is a two sided coin. First you need a budget which is a simple idea of where you want your money to go. How much do you want/expect to spend each month in dining, gasoline, groceries, etc. Second is to work on your cash-flow. How much is left over each month? How much do you spend vs bring in? This is called your Profit vs Loss in the business world and knowing that number should be your life. The other part of your cash-flow is your  Assets vs Liabilities/Expenses. This number will show how close you are to retirement. Assets are things that bring you income without any work on your part. Liabilities and Expenses are everything that take your money away from you. Once your assets bring in enough each month to cover all your expenses and liabilities you can stop working your day job and retire. Making that number positive is your number one goal. To start working on your cash-flow now download this sheet from JP².
3. Create a Rainy Day Fund. Before you begin investing your money into assets or toys your number one priority is to put some cash away into a 100% liquid account with the highest interest rate return possible. MMA, or money market accounts offer the best solution. In this account you need to have enough cash to cover a minimum of 3 months of expenses and liabilities. Get this account filled as quickly as possible. You shouldn’t be sleeping well at night if you don’t have this cash set aside. Once you hit the 3 month goal continue to contribute a little each month until you reach at least the one year mark. As your expenses go up in the future you need to make on going adjustments to this fund. One year may seem extreme but this cash fund is vital to your long term financial stability and success.
4. Use Credit Cards like Debit Cards. Credit Cards were designed to hurt you. If used properly however they will bring you more freedom and success. Credit card debt is never, never, never acceptable. The interest rates are way to high to justify carrying any balance at all. Many people will tell you that it is necessary to carry a balance in order to build credit but that is a only myth. If you think of a credit card the same way you do a debit card you can win the game. Never charge your card unless the cash is already in the account to cover the charge. By paying off your card each month you will slowly build strong credit over time. Also if you get a good rewards card you can accumulate points and cash back rewards that will put extra in your pocket.

Until soon,

Jacob Paulsen