A little while ago, Paul learned A Quick Lesson about tracking.

If you recall in the previous chapter, Paul became excited upon discovering that some of his family expenses were being thrown away at unnecessary expenses such as overdraft charges and excessive movie rentals.

Paul was beginning to discover the powerful tool that is found between his ears, a computer within his own mind. His personal computer was beginning to absorb the raw data about his family spending habits. Excited by this discovery, Paul finds himself a few days later browsing a book, The Game of Work.

(Editor’s Note: If you recall in the beginning when I talked about how It Began With A Lady Named Mary, I explained The 4 Laws of Debt-Free Prosperity will upsell some products offered by Chequemate International, including the book Paul is reading, The Game of Work is written by the same author, Charles Coonradt.)

The story of a young bag boy at a national grocery chain is what catches Paul’s attention. The bag boy is telling his story about how he was given the task of sorting bottles for an hourly wage with one condition. His performance was being tracked by his manager.

The bag boy realizes not only is his boss measuring his performance, he too was measuring his own progress.

The task the bag boy has to accomplish is to sort as many bottles as he can per hour. The manager has given him a goal of filling one bin per hour. The bag boy set out to perform this task on his first day only to miss the goal by a mere ten minutes. Using his frustration to fuel his determination, the bag boy knows he is capable of achieving this goal. Soon enough within a month the bag boy not only achieve his goal, he shatters it. His determination now has him sorting 3 bins per hour instead of one.

This resulted in his promotion to the night shift where he receives a significant pay increase. The moral of the story Paul is reading turns out to be “when performance is measured, performance improves.” This moral is a reflection of George Odiorne who was quoted,

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

A few nights later, Paul and his wife both received free tickets to a figure skating competition and a hockey game. The problem was both of these events were at the same time. Paul and his son wanted to see the hockey game while his wife and daughter wanted to see the figure skating. In the end, they compromised on going to the first half of the skating competition and the second half of the hockey game. I won’t spoil this for you but I enjoyed this.

The simple lesson about measuring performance appeared in the conversation Paul and his family is having while heading home after the hockey game. During this lively discussion about how the scores are being tracked differently in figure skating and hockey, Paul’s son announces “It is more fun when everyone knows the score.”

Paul seizes the moment to explain why he asked each of them to track their expenses. “Every month when I sit down to pay the bills, and don’t have enough money to pay them all, I realize we’ve lost again.” Paul explains to his family that tracking their expenses will help them get closer to winning the money game.

The money game, that is what debt freedom is all about. Winning the money game by having more money than debt. Once you get rid of debt, you will then have the money to spend on what you choose to do so.

Little before Paul knew it, his family started becoming more and more aware of their expenses. They begin to realize if they cut down their expenses, then they could pay for their summer trip in cash. Paying for their summer trip in cash meant they would not owe any money on it even if the money was as good as gone.

Having shared his experience up to this point with you, Paul wants to pose a question to you about the value of your life or your family, your job or your business. Of the three, which one is the most important to you?

Naturally, if you value your family or life more than your job or your business, is it not true that you should be managing your personal finances better than your job or your business? Look at it the other way around, if your job or business manage their finances the same way you do, would they succeed?

Paul goes on to explain to you that technological advancements have been made over the past couple hundred of years and continues today to help you measure your progress. It is prevalent everywhere from the watch you wear to tell time to personal finance software ( such as Money Plus Deluxe or Quicken 2008 Deluxe).

Paul makes a comparison to a leaky faucet as quoted here,

A leaky financial system that allows cash to either drip, drizzle or flow out untamed, sacrifices what you want most in life for the things you want right now.

By tracking where your money is going, you now begin to have the resources in your mind to discover where these leaks are and correct them immediately. Certainly there will be fears keeping you from tracking these expenses and the only way to overcome them is to spend a few minutes each day to record all your money that is coming in and going out.

For example, you walk into a store and decide to buy a nice jacket even though you already have three perfectly suitable jackets at home. At the end of the day, you get home and record your expenses. You realize you have the pay a bill for the exact same amount which you bought your jacket for. You now have this knowledge and this knowledge gives you the choice of returning the jacket and getting your money back so you can pay the bill or finding a way to come up with the money you need to pay the bill with.

That is the first law of debt-free prosperity, tracking your income and expenses.

So, which is it, the most important to you,

the value of your life (or your family), your job, or your business?

Read how you can get a free copy of this book.

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