Friday, November 4, 2011

Guest Post: Charles E. Cox, Jr.


Authored by Charles E. Cox, Jr., Life Is A Business! Manage It Better So You’ll Enjoy It More is the first in Life Is A Business! book series. Demonstrating parallels between running a successful business and managing a successful life, this book profiles current Fortune 500 companies to showcase nine key principles that relate to and impact your personal life.

Considered a “Life Improvement” book, Life is a Business! is designed to appeal to everyday working class people who often struggle to manage their personal lives. These struggles can be overcome when recognizing that “life is a business” – life and business challenges are strikingly similar and nearly every life decision is a business decision.

The inspiration for the book didn’t come from my success—it came from my failure.

In my personal life, I didn’t adhere to a strict household budget or routinely balance my checkbook. I made poor purchasing decisions and kept sloppy accounting records. I didn’t spend time thinking about relationships with my family and friends. I just let my life go on without much planning or care-taking.

In business, I excelled. I amassed more than four million dollars in real estate. I lived in a gated community, invested in rental properties and bought whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. It seemed like I was doing everything right. But in fact, I was doing everything wrong.

Unfortunately by the time I discovered I was doing it all wrong, it was too late. I systematically destroyed my business. I used my credit irresponsibly and continually made knee-jerk buying decisions. I had no real accounting system and the business grew at a rate that was unsustainable. I repeatedly made bad business decisions and as a result, bankrupted my corporation.

Once the dust settled—after the home in the gated community was gone, the cars repossessed, credit cards defaulted on, foreclosure on my rental properties, and bank account wiped out—I began to reflect on my actions. I asked myself over and over, “What did I do wrong?”

The answers came to me, but not overnight. In fact, it took years to examine both my personal and professional life to figure it all out. But clarity came one day in a single flash—like being hit in the head with a 90 mile an hour fast ball. I needed to manage my life like the business that it is.

How we run our lives mirrors how CEOs run businesses. We need to pay attention to financials, nurture relationships, and become good problem-solvers. We have to look to the future and plan for it. And we have to pay attention to the details—when we take care of the small things, the big things practically take care of themselves.

My life has changed and so can yours. I started managing my life towards prosperity and identified nine key principles that I’ve outlined in this book. It’s my hope that by sharing this information with you, you will develop a burning desire to manage your life for a better, more prosperous future too. It takes discipline but it isn’t difficult. You can live a full and rewarding life and experience towards the prosperity that awaits us all.

Managing Your Life Towards Prosperity Is Where…

You’ve realized that your Life Is A Business! and through the knowledge you received by reading this book, your thinking shifts in a manner where you’ve become more disciplined in your decision making and advocacy for yourself and your family. Ultimately you’ve become empowered to purposefully and actively navigate your life to prosperity.

Charles E. Cox, Jr. Is a native of Minnesota’s Twin Cities. He is an author, speaker, philanthropist and serial entrepreneur with a passion for helping people of all ages and race find their inner strength through financial stability, entrepreneurism and overall financial literacy. Charles believes that the combination of a solid education with a deep understanding and respect for the monetary impacts on life will help all people on their journey to prosperity. Charles’ entrepreneurial spirit has led him to spend the last fifteen years of his career seeking challenging opportunities in real estate investment and sales, development and venture capitalism. Charles has also managed careers in construction, as a licensed general contractor and electrician in the state of Minnesota.