A selection of some great quotes to read on a day like today, New Year's Eve!

Some Inspirational New Year Quotes...

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.
G. K. Chesterton

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.
Benjamin Franklin

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.
Hal Borland

The Old Year has gone. Let the dead past bury its own dead. The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time. All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months!
Edward Payson Powell

Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.
Oprah Winfrey

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1850

For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.
Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Glory to God in highest heaven,
Who unto man His Son hath given;
While angels sing with tender mirth,
A glad new year to all the earth.
Martin Luther

A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I've played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.
Edgar Guest

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential.
Ellen Goodman

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.
G.K. Chesterton

Happy New Year!

Way's of living- Tip of the day

You have neighbors all around you.

The person down the street to the right is poor.

The person down the street to the left is rich.

Get to know the neighbor down the street to the left.

Get to know the neighbor down the street to the right.

Understand the similarities and differences. 

Remember this throughout you life. 

Aim for having the opportunities that the rich person has.

Aim for living like the poor person with the rich person's bank account.

Words of wisdom from a man at the Staples store...

Best to all in 2011!

Happy New Year :)

The new year is almost here!

For last year's words belong to last year's language

And next year's words await another voice.

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

T.S. Eliot

 ...and to start fresh, you must climb to the top.

While at the top notice life beyond the stars.

Understand the view that surrounds you...

For the power to make your way to the top,  

Has already been received.

The strong will make the beginning last an eternity 

While the strong who don't notice life beyond the stars

Have a future which beholds an ending.

To ..."make an end is to make a beginning."

This is all you'll need for the hike to the top...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hungry? These recipes should get you cooking!

After reading through a huge box of recipes created and shared by my mother and grandmother, I chose my three favorites, which I have personally enjoyed at one of our holiday dinner's!

First things first:

Zucchini Pie!

 

I have always admitted that it tastes better than it looks!

So here's the recipe:

1. Set your oven to 350 degrees F
2. Take 1 Large or 6 small zucchinis and slice them up!
3. You'll need 2 stalks of celery...cut them up too!
4. 1 onion... you guessed it, cut em' up!
5. Take a hand full of grated cheese or mozzarella cheese
6. 1/2 cup of oil
7. A few dashes of salt & pepper
8. 4-6 eggs
9. Parsley- use sparingly
10. Mushrooms!
11. Ehh, throw some paprika in too!
12. Take everything and mix it all together!!!!!!

              Put it in a pan (that has some pie liner dough on the base!) and top it off with bread crumbs. 

  

Cook for about 40 minutes to an hour depending on how crispy you want your zucchini pie!

Come back tomorrow for my next favorite dish!

  I promise you won't regret it.

Happy Holiday's! 

 

Is going into educational debt a bad idea?

Watch this video on Zac Bissonette's interview about his new book, 'Debt-Free U.

Mooch No More! Get a 'Debt-Free' Education - CBN.com - The funniest videos clips are here'

Totally agreed. I work about 25 hours outside of attending six college classes. I feel that my grade's have gone up since I started working this semester. 

Why not give it a try?

If you want to grab a copy of Zac's book, you can get a great deal on www.Amazon.com!

Good Luck!

I like December most of all...

With the Holiday's right around the corner,

I find myself thinking,

A whole year has gone by 

And

What accomplishments have I achieved?

When I sat down and thought about everything that has happened in the past year, it made me think about where I wanted to be at about this time next year. I jotted down what I want to accomplish in 2011. I have to admit, I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself, but I believe with passion and preparation, my dreams will almost always come true. And so will yours. 

So sit down for about ten or fifteen minutes.

Think about everything you have done. What have you learned? What can you learn from the mistakes you made in 2010? This is the best time to do just that, so you can be ready for a fresh start and a bright new goal in 2011!

When you figure out where you want to be in life by the end of 2011, write it down so you don't forget! It's really quite crucial for the success of your dream's.

Just a friendly reminder,

DO NOT LET YOUR ANIMALS GET TO THESE BEAUTIFUL HOLIDAY PLANTS!

Poinsettia's are extremely toxic to your pet's! It can kill them. 

I recommend you either get fake ones, or put them high up, in an area where if the leaves or flowers fall to the floor, your animal friends won't get them!

This book is fabulous for understanding what types of house plants you can truly depend on to benefit everything inside your home including your loved ones, your animal friends and of course, the air you breathe!

Have a Happy and Healthy Holiday Season!

~

Matthew Berger

Electric Cars.

"Going Green"

AOL.COM 'Wheego Whip'

Buy an electric car because our entrepreneurs are hard at work IMPORTING them from other countries, mainly China!

Makes a great short-term investment (for the investors) when all of us, hard working Americans blow our bucks on expensive automotive equipment (electric vehicles). 

Let's start out with the good news: 

I am pleased to see our entrepreneurs investing in environmentally sound (or so we hope) futuristic vehicles. 

I am pleased to see much enthusiasm (from consumers) about wanting to buy these electric vehicles.

Before I release the disturbing news, let me first introduce our four (up and coming) chinese electric vehicle producers:

Wheego Life

~

Smile-E

~

Coda

~

BYDe6

Cool, some new car's coming to the U.S.! 


"From where?"


From China.


"Oh, we really should build car's in America"


Whoever said that, is a genious!

I find it fabulous that we, as Americans are trying to make the way we live our lives more 'sustainable.'
It unfortunate though that many of us (because of the media) believe that we are being "green" when we purchase one of these cars.

We may be doing the right thing, for our planet, for the "very" short term, but we have to remember where these car's came from. China is a 'LONG way's' from America. We are having these car's shipped here to meet our needs. A lot of oil & gas is used to bring them here.

Doesn't sound like a great idea after all huh? 

Well to be honest, these entrepreneurs aren't worried about the environmental risks they are taking because they 'know' you won't realize where these car's are coming from, and how far they are traveling to have the chance of being parked in your very own driveway. To fool you, they will produce great advertisement, spending millions to try and convince you that this is the way to go. They may very well be spectacular cars. I'm sure your friends will purchase them, and you will see how great of car's they really are. But just because they are saving you money, doesn't mean they are considered 'good' cars. Just keep in mind how long they had to travel!!!!!!!!!

Remember, entrepreneur's, like myself, love to take financial risks! It's what we were born to do, it's what we love to do, and simply put, it's who we are!

BUT,

There's a difference between a smart entrepreneur and a smart entrepreneur who doesn't use their brain. 

Correct, these entrepreneurs who are importing these cars, are in fact SMART. They are making an investment, and will probably get it all back, and then SOME (PROBABLY A LOT MORE). They understand the market. The problem is that they are just too damn greedy. They want to make a ton of money, but don't want to admit that the only way they know how is to take some serious ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS. Financial Risks can fail, but eventually be fixed (almost always to a certain extent). Environmental risks are just too risky. When you put too much pressure on the environment, and when it does eventually fail, the problem(s) cannot be fixed (period).  

The choice is ultimately yours.

In the meantime, I recommend this book by Michael Boxwell. It will tell you everything you need to know about electric vehicles. 

Happy Holidays!

Give the gift of success this holiday season....

 Happy Holidays to all!

In this blog post, you will find a basket full of great gift ideas for those young adult's in your life.

A parent's dream, of course is to bring about a child who grows up to become a happy, intelligent and successful human being. Much of this is thankfully learned through elementary school, into middle school, up to high school, and then hopefully well into College. A huge chunk, in my opinion, is found throughout college. Although I am only a college sophmore, I have come to realize that 'real life' learning truly happens during higher education. Although much is learned about success throughout a young adults education, there is much to be learned outside of school time. School does not teach a class on money (if they do, not really in depth). School teaches education. After seeing this economic crisis and how it has hit highly educated, successful American Citizens, I decided to to take action for my future. 

Coming from someone who hated reading throughout high school (as did most of my classmates), I have started to become a real book worm. In the past six months, I can't seem to put down my books. I look forward to shopping for new books, and sitting down and reading them. What use to be an extremely stress-full activity (reading) is now something I do to relieve stress. It's like my brain has created a new room, and the vacuum has turned on- but doesn't seem to want turn off. 

I guess I have finally found my niche, reading about making money. Not reading about making money with physical labor involved, but reading about how to make money work for you. I am not rich in any way, but I am learning how to take the money that I do work for (with physical labor), and put it away to grow for me. I have only invested about $50 so far... since it's not  a simple task, and because I don't have millions. But as I read, I am becoming more educated on the subject matter, and hopefully soon, I will be a pro. 

If you know someone like this, I have created a group of items that you can purchase as stocking stuffers!

In the past six months, I have done the following things in this exact order:

Step 1: I opened an account at:

www.TDameritrade.com.

(Entrance to the Stock Market)

Really simple, just enter in your information (or that young adults information), connect it to a bank account and your all ready. Put $50 bucks or so into the account for practice. Although this is the first step, don't use the account until the steps that require reading books! It would be helpful to set an account up first though, since not only does it take three business day to connect, but also, when him/her becomes addicted to understanding the markets, they will want to jump on their account to buy! It will be all ready, waiting for them...  

Although this is the first step, don't use the account until the steps that require reading books!

Step 2: I purchased "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"...

This book almost got me in trouble at school many times...  but at the same time, brought me a ton of compliments from my professors. They would say something like "It's great that your reading to help your financial future, I completely respect that, but do it on your own time..." I couldn't help it sometimes, you always want to get to the next chapter... and it seems that nothing can get in your way. Oops I guess? I don't regret reading this book at certain times when I would get the death look, since in the end, not only did I learn to think on a completely different spectrum, but in the end, I ended up doing better in my classes since I understood what was really important in life. No, not completely money, but happiness. Happiness brings money into your life. Money can mean friends, money can mean loved ones, or money can be money, but in the end, the lesson you learn from this book is not about becoming rich. It's about understanding how to think to become successful. People had noticed intellectual changes in me, from the moment I picked up this book. A must buy, and for only $3.99 at Amazon.com, how can you beat it?

Step 2: I purchased, my current bible...

Now this book, was such a random find! I was looking at travel books, falling in love with images of Italy, and other's all throughout Europe. The corner of my eye spotted a light bulb. The lightbulb was the image on the front cover of John Maxwell's book, "Thinking For A Change." It was like a "meant to be" kinda moment. I read on the front cover, " 11 Ways Highly Successful People Approach Life And Work." I then saw a quote by Ken Blanchard stating "If you want to go places you've never been before--- you have to think in ways you've never thought before. This book will teach you how!" I skimmed through the book, and noticed something that I hadn't seen with other books. At the end of every chapter, it summarized a lesson that should be learned after reading. It offered many questions with space to write in. I was blown away, since now I had space to write out my ideas, while they were still fresh! You didn't just complete the chapter, and smile, but you completed the chapter and learned five more things about yourself, and how you can change for the better. At the moment, I am not finished with this book. The reason is because the book is all about learning from many different lessons. At the end of the chapters, it recommends understanding what you do, and how to change your actions. You have to live through those certain situations to understand how to better yourself. So I only continue to the next chapter once I have learned in real life scenarios. This is a book that has to be read! Although it was probably written for adults with careers, I believe that teenagers and young adults can really benefit from this read! It prepares you for a successful career of your choice. Again, a must buy, at only $3.48 at Amazon.com!

Start with these books and an account at TD Ameritrade!

Now let's review the shopping cart full of items:

TD Ameritrade Account- $0.00 to open.

~

The book, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"(paperback) - $3.99

~

The book, "Thinking For A Change" (paperback)- $3.48

_____________________________________________________

Total- $7.47

Can you beat that? It will be the best holiday gift you ever gave, I guarantee it!

Happy Holidays

Changing gears...

You may ask, what's with the title of this blog...

         Well I have come to a decision to put the creation of my first ever book, "Doubling Your Summer" on hold. Although I have invested much time and effort into creating my vision for this book, I have decided that I do not currently have the knowledge to meet the standards that the title of my book seems to offer.

          The first week that I started writing this book, my intent was to write a book that would be created for young adults and teenagers where they could have a step by step process of how to "double your summer money." I came to understand that it is not that simple, and frankly, is not completely realistic. Since most of the advice ran around the purchasing of stocks, or business models, with an ever changing market, the advice could be completely false by the time the book was published.

          So after long thoughts and a few months later, I started to blog about my book... and it was going to be a book about generally understanding the stock market, tips and ideas of how to do well financially at a young age, and tips on planning for one's future retirement. It would even include advice that I have received from adults, along with things that I have learned over time which I believe are important to pass on... things that have brought me success and happiness.

          I finally began blogging about things that had nothing to do with the title, "Doubling Your Summer Money." In fact, for quite a while, up untill recently, I had forgotten what my blog was trully made to be. I often question whether most of the traffic that has come to my blog came because of what my title promised? At that point, I started to realize what I  truly wanted to write about.

          So for the past month, I have been working on a new book. I am sorta combining a lot of the new ideas I had for "Doubling Your Summer Money" and bringing them together with my new idea. I have come up with a bucket full of ideas for the title of my book, but I'm not sure which one works well. Here they are: "The Generation with No Curtains" "Oops, I forgot to close my blinds" "The virtual Children of the Twenty First Century" "The Generation of LOL's"

          So the whole idea of my book is about how we as a generation and most of society as a whole has no more privacy in life. You can basically find out anything about anyone on the internet. We are a very trusting generation and society... So trusting that we put pictures of ourselves, addresses, phone numbers and emails on facebook... all which can be tracked down by doing a simple search on facebook. If it's an address, you can plug it into Google maps, and Google will tell you how to get to that person's home. Great if you need to get somewhere important and you mean no harm, but it makes it just as easy for a criminal to get somewhere with harm intended. Why is it that our parents would never give out pictures of themselves to random strangers, phone numbers and addresses to random strangers? Because it made sense, 'Why would I want to be staulked?" Why our are parents allowing us to put everything about us on the internet with a threat of being staulked. In reality, each and everyone of us is staulked and or is staulking others when we look at a random persons photo album.

          For some reason though, we all accept the art of staulking. Staulking isn't a bad thing anymore for some reason. When we think about it, it sounds awful, but when we are participating in it, we forget what we are doing.

          Facebook has hit a goldmine, and is making billions if not trillions off our human weak spot... We want to know everything about everyone because it is interesting. Rumors spread easily in school because everyone want's to know, and everyone want's to tell others... for some reason. We simply like to interact and "Secrets are no fun unless you tell everyone," right?

          So Facebook said, oh wow, we can make tons and ton's off of stupid teenagers and young adults who are vulnerable for ATTENTION!

Why is the governement allowing all of us to be staulked/ staulk others? Isn't staulking illegal?

          If asked "would you want to be staulked" most would answer absolutely not! Then why do you have your profile visible to random strangers? And why do you have over 600 'friends' on facebook?

          I admit, Facebook is great, I learn something new about someone everytime I log on. Kinda weird, but interesting to say the least. Why are we like this? We must question ourselves from time to time on how we are living our lives. I am now questioning whether or not we can grow up as well as our parents did with everything about our life, since we were younger being present permanately on the internet. I ask my mom sometimes about how she grew up, and it's similar but completely different than how my generation is growing up. I could be wrong, but I think we all need to have a reality check and think about how we live our lives every day. 

          I'm not sure if I explained the idea of my book clearly here...

          With this book, I plan to have about 3 or 4 other students around my age write about their lives and how they grew up around the World Wide Web.

          I'm already working with one student at The University of Rhode Island.

         I'm hoping to get a few more students who have different backgrounds to write about their lives in the virtual world.

         It will be a book for older generations to understand how we grew up/ how we are growing up. It will also be a diary for many of us to reflect on, and understand how we are living and how we should possibly change to come back to reality (unless reality thus far is a permanent state of being). This idea will be explored throughout the book.

          If anyone has any tips, they would be much appreciated.

          Adults- please post your thoughts about what you would like to see covered in this book.

        Students- If anyone would like to take part in the creation of this book, please contact me or post a comment and we can talk.

Thank you very much for reading this blog post. The title will be changed once I have come up with a permanent name... in the meantime, I will still be blogging my thoughts and ideas :).

Matthew Berger

University of Rhode Island 2013

Turkey Weekend!

As with all holiday's, there's is a certain amount of warmth that come's along with the joy of seeing family, friends, loved ones and of course, relaxation! Positive thoughts usually occur in times like these. I'm going to keep it short and simple since I have a ton of homework to do today...

Use the energy of your family around you and warms feelings floating throughout the room to think big! What am I going to do to improve my life thus far? What can I do better? This energy is a nice boost to get you thinking!

After thinking, learn from it all! And then start thinking again!

After Thanksgiving, understand that those warm feelings helped you think big! Make it a habit to receive warm feelings, and further, make it a habit to think big! The more chronic those habits are, the more  your life will improve! I can almost guarantee it.

If need be,

Eat Turkey Every Day to reach your goals!

If your a vegetarian,

Eat Cranberry Sauce and Stuffing!

Yum,

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sit back

AND

Think about the people in your life, current or previous friends, family members or random strangers who have had a deep impression on you and are the reasons you are who you are today-

positively speaking.

Have you ever thought about this?

It really makes you think.

Try it!

Spam gone good!

         Spam found on Google.com isn't always that bad!

So...

I was twelve years old at the time

And...

After searching for weeks on Google.com...

'Good summer job'

'How to make a lot of money over the summer'

'How can you become rich at a young age'

'How to start a profitable business'

'Make money quickly with a Summer Job'

I finally found what I was looking for!

I kept the link explaining that Landscape Businesses are an extremely profitable niche to be in (the picture was of a landscape truck and a trailer). Something attracted me to this article... it certainly was not the photograph... well it may have been since I was twelve and any piece of machinery that I had never used before seemed cool. I read on. Seven years later, here I am studying Landscape Architecture. My life path was constructed partially due to an email that was spammed to me... 

The e-article/book that was sent to be sort of resembled the following website...

http://www.startalawncarebusiness.com/

From that article came 

Matt's Lawn Service (RIP- www.matt'slawnservice.com)

Then came

Matt's Lawn Care

And then

Matt's Lawn Care and Landscaping

And finally 

MB Landscape Design

along with 

www.MatthewRBerger.com

and 

www.MBLandscapeDesign.com

 (in the process of being created).

Thing's Happen For a Reason!

I guess where I'm going with this post is basically trying to get you to believe that things happen at certain times throughout your life for different reasons. Spam comes and goes all the time. You can compare that example to many things in your own life. Friends come and go... Job openings come and go... Ideas come and go... Opportunities in life come and go... and lastly, but certainly not least is the fact that clues, hints, and symbols come and go (like the e-article I came across while searching for a great summer job. I never thought I would be interested in working in the Landscape/Design industry). In reality, I was truly being handed a big hint that this was considerably the best thing for me at that time in my life. It turned out to be just what I was hoping for. 

Don't let anything slip by you! 

If something even slightly interests you, look into it...

It may just be your calling!

From what I've found,

You cannot just simply sit down and try to figure out what you want to do in life...

Your calling has to almost be handed to you!

I was twelve when my future career was handed to me.

It was not luck!

I was searching for a way to make money over the summer.

My industry happens to work around the spring/summer months and then into the fall. Sometimes even into the winter.

I was ready to work, in fact I was DYING to work!

The world knew I was ready for the big news, 

My future was revealed. 

I was going to be a Landscape Architect in the coming years.

I'm also a slow learner, so finding out what I wanted to do early was and is vital for my future overall success. Something or someone must have known this! Maybe Google knew? It has given me many years to learn and understand the trade, and I've also been introduced to many different, all wonderful people who have guided me along the way.

First off to my Mother, Father and Brother who pushed me to keep going, even in the midst of the summer, when I didn't want to mow lawns since it was so hot outside.

"You made a commitment, you have to fulfill it!"

To my Grandmother who generously gave me an endless budget to work with, in an a circle garden bed, about 5' by 5'.

"I know you can do it Matthew, you just have to put hard work and effort into it."

To my neighbor Antonio Mora and his family who let me work in their garden and always pushed me to never give up, and always strive further.

To my Aunt, Uncle, Cousins, friends and family who always pushed me to strive further.

 To every single one of my customers who had the patience and understanding to give me a job at a young age.

Croton Country Gardens ('Cookie')-

 Definitely not someone who I would praise(although he does know his plants) but probably someone who I learned the most from. I couldn't thank him enough!

Jan Johnsen- 

I cannot even begin to thank her and all that she has done for me!

I would definitely not be at the school I am at, nor would I know 'real' Landscape Architecture if it weren't for her!

"The teacher appears when the student is ready"

That's her!

Chris, at Hilltop Farms Nursery.

My neighbor Gary,

 who is a Landscape design genius. Although he pursued Marketing as a career, he is probably one of the best Landscaper designers around! He taught me 'fine' design before I was 16. He has also written a book, and is still working on it.

"I truly missed my calling as a Landscape Architect."

Marco from Clean Cut Lawns...

who my family hired to do some heavy landscape work. He came shortly after I viewed the article that I read about Landscape Businesses. He was young at the time and had just created his business. After I was done asking him questions, he finally agreed that one thing he wishes he would have done was to go to school and become a Landscape Architect. What he told me has always stayed in my mind at the times where I was thinking about just creating a business and skipping out on College. Marco's Business is extremely successful today. 

I learned "Garden Hose" Garden bed design from him.

Trust your intuition!

Google it!


Start Here!