Is Someone Abusing You? Here’s How to Claim Your Power Almost Instantly

Saturday, April 28, 2018

Delray Beach, FL. – He was the kind of person that leaned into you when he spoke. Poked you in the ribs to emphasize his enthusiasm and never laughed at your jokes. When he met K for the first time, he put his arm around her waist. I didn’t like him, but I was making good money from him. So I put up with it. For a while…

Tony Robbins once told a story that went something like this:

He was on a flight in the first-class cabin when he was identified by a well-dressed, middle-aged man who said, “You the power guy, right?”

When Tony acknowledged that he was, the man confronted him. “I’ve watched your infomercial, and I think it’s crap. The way I see it, everyone falls into one of two groups: the powerful and the powerless. Ninety-nine percent are powerless. And regardless of what you promise them, they’ll stay powerless.”

“You’re missing the point,” Tony said. “Everyone has an untapped power center, and I show people how to unleash it and use it to fulfill their dreams.”

“Bull!” the man replied. “You want to see real power? Watch this!”

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The Importance of Being Earnest

Saturday, April 28, 2018

Delray Beach, FL – He had accepted the opportunity to become a partner in our Jiu Jitsu studio, but a week after he started he realized he couldn’t do it. He had two other jobs, a sick mother, and a car that seemed to break down every other day.

He wrote a long letter of resignation, apologizing and explaining his decision. Because he felt guilty about breaking his commitment, he made the letter formal and expressed his excuses in a sort of legalese, thinking they would carry more weight.

Before posting it, he read it again. It wasn’t doing what he wanted it to do. It sounded defensive and almost pompous. He tore it up and started from scratch. This time, he wrote from the heart:

Dear Mark,

 I fucked up. I should not have said yes to your kind offer so quickly. And now I’m afraid you are going to be really angry, and I don’t blame you. I have to quit this job…

 And rather than post it, he walked it in. His hand shook as he handed it to me. I read it. I wasn’t surprised. I suspected he had bitten off more than he could chew.

I didn’t feel anger. I felt compassion. More than that, I was so impressed with the honesty and authenticity of his writing that I offered him a scholarship to take the American Writers & Artists beginners program for copywriting https://www.awai.com.

He went through the program lickety-split. And now he’s working as a part-time copywriting apprentice. My bet is he’ll be making six figures in less than two years. Then he can quit all his other jobs and do Jiu Jitsu for fun.

 

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Swarm Intelligence and Free Enterprise

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Delray Beach, FL – Scientists use the term “swarm intelligence” to describe how relatively dumb animals can do amazingly smart things.

Termites, for example, have nearly nonexistent brains. Yet, as pointed out in a HarvardBusiness Review(HBR) article I came across (in a friend’s bathroom, of all places), “they build mounds that are engineering marvels, able to maintain ambient temperature and comfortable levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide even as the nest grows.”

Ants are able to find the shortest possible route from their base to a food source. They do this by working together. Individual ants wander out, walking here and there. As they do, each ant leaves a chemical substance – pheromone – that attracts other ants.

“In a simple case, two ants leave the nest at the same time and take different paths to a food source, marking their trails with pheromone. The ant that took the shorter path will return first, and this trail will now be marked with twice as much pheromone (from the nest to the food and back) as the path taken by the second ant, which has yet to return.”

Humans are generally believed to be more intelligent than social insects. But that doesn’t mean we don’t use swarm intelligence to guide our behavior.

In fact, many of our traditions and rituals may be derived from swarm intelligence, including those connected with marriage, divorce, and even war . Swarm intelligence may also be used to solve complicated problems.

An example from the HBR: a freight-transportation business that used swarm intelligence to figure out its routing parameters. In one instance involving a package bound from Chicago to Boston, it turned out to be more efficient to leave it on a plane heading for Atlanta and then Boston than to take it off and put it on the next flight to Boston.

There is something to this idea that relates to a longstanding “debate” on social issues. On one side are those who believe that problems can be fixed by the ideas of one or a few very smart people. On the other side are those who think that they are way too complex and fickle for any one system to work over time.

There is part of my mind – an arrogant part, I admit – that would like to be in charge of the world’s ills so I could set them straight. There’s another part – the part that has tried and failed – that is inclined to think that social problems are best sorted out over time through swarm intelligence.

 

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The Rental Market Today vs. 2007

On April 16, 2007, I wrote this in my journal:  Rents are expected to go up in 2007. This would be the third year in a row. The rise is projected to be 5% this year for a 14% total rise since 2004, a report by Marcus & Millichap said. That compares to a 4% increase in pay. Over the same period, adjusted for inflation. Marcus & Millichap says this situation will make housing more difficult to find, especially in the coastal cities.  They predict the trend will continue for another three years. From 2000 to 2004 landlords couldn’t raise rents, USA Today said, because tenants were leaving to buy houses or condos. To feed that buying frenzy, about 300,000 apartments were converted to condos for sale in the past 3 years. Now, even with 92,000 new rental units this year, the stock is still too little to meet the rising demand. New York City is one of the worst. There rents have increased 7% in the last year. The national median rent will be $943 a month, which is 60% of the median mortgage payment of $1,566. Renters will get a break in Miami, Las Vegas and San Diego, where investors bought up thousands of condos hoping to flip them. Since the market faltered, many of those investors will need to drop rents to help them pay expenses or will be forced to sell them at steep discounts.

That was then.

This is now…

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Net Investible Wealth

Saturday, April 21, 2018

 

Delray Beach, FL – Principles of Wealth: #14 of 61

Income is an important factor in the acquisition of wealth, but it is not a measure of it. Nor are expensive possessions. The only measure of financial wealth is net investible worth.

It had a pool in the back and automatic doors on the garage in front. It was the nicest house I had ever lived in and our first home. Three bedrooms. Two baths. Friendly neighborhood. $170,000.

“Do you think I’m being foolish?” I asked. “Spending so much on a home?”

Eddie looked at me as if I was crazy. “Your income last year was more than double the cost of the house,” he said. “And your income this year is higher still.”

“So?”

“I close hundreds of houses a year in this area,” he said. About a third of them are for homes that cost more than a half a million. And they are bought by doctors and lawyers that make no more than you do.

“So?”

“They drive Mercedes. You drive Hondas. They drink Dom Perignon. You drink Proseco. They all look rich, but most of them are in debt. They spend their money faster than they make it.”

“So?”

“How much did you have in savings last year?”

“About $175,000.”

“And this year?”
“About $250,000.”

“That’s what I thought. You are worried about buying a home that cost you about six or seven months of salary. That alone tells me you are an extremely conservative spender.

“More importantly, you’ve made this promise to yourself to increase not only your income but your savings every year. And you’ve been doing that for years.

The doctors and lawyers I know are spending two to five times their yearly salaries on their houses. These guys have great incomes but they also have great debt. Debt that is often greater than their assets. They are buying prestige and keeping their fingers crossed that their financial situation will always be strong. They have zero savings and no net worth.”

“That net worth thing. It’s always troubled me. How can I count my house or my cars? I’m always going to need them. I don’t want to be forced to sell them.”

“Okay, then don’t count them. Count only the net worth you have after subtracting them. Call it something…”

Years later, when I wrote about it, I called it net investible wealth.

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I am sometimes asked – and I don’t know why – what course of study I recommend for college students wishing to become successful in business. My answer usually provokes skepticism if not scorn. I recommend liberal arts.

In the age of the Internet and the new economy, specialized technical knowledge is revered. Most of those who ask my opinion figure I’m going to say something like “computer programming” or “communications engineering.” In fact, I think that type of education is the least likely to put you at the top of your field – either as an entrepreneur or as a corporate climber.

There are several reasons.

First, technical knowledge is temporary. The trendier the technology, the faster it changes. What you learn now will become less true as time goes on. Eventually, it will be obsolete.

Plus, technical majors take a lot of time. The typical engineering student – if he aims to get into a good graduate school – must use up most if not all of his credits on subjects that only a fellow techie would even begin to understand. All that specialization leaves little time for “softer” skills like reading, writing, and thinking. And virtually no time for hanging around and having fun.

But the main reason I advise against a technical major is that technical workers have secondary roles in business. In How to Become CEO, Jeffrey Fox distinguishes between “staff jobs” (which make a business work) and “line jobs” (which make a business profitable). He says that in most companies “most of the people are either in administration or field sales. Administrative people are not bad, or untalented, but they are not on the cutting edge. The company doesn’t depend on them.”

I made this point to FS just the other day. He had the idea that he would “do better” in business if he majored in computer sciences or some such “high-tech” major – even though he didn’t especially like that course of study.

From what I’ve seen in business, I told him, staff people (and I’d include all technical people in this category) are unfairly but often viewed as:

  1. Temporary: You need them only as long as you need technical know-how.
  2. Expensive: Because they fall onto the “expense” side of the P&L, keeping their compensation low seems to make good fiscal sense.
  3. Expendable: When sales slow down, all expenses are trimmed – including salaries for staff employees.

Good line employees, on the other hand, are seen as:

  1. Necessary: They create the sales, and sales are always needed.
  2. Worthwhile: Since most line positions are compensated at least partly on the basis of performance, the usual attitude is “The more we pay you, the more valuable you are.”
  3. Irreplaceable: People who create sales have a secret power that the company does not want to lose to its competition. Again, the more money you make, the more irreplaceable you become.

Now let’s look at the other side. What’s so good about liberal arts?

A liberal arts education teaches you three skills: to think well, to write well, and to speak well. And in the corporate world – and in the entrepreneurial world as well – wealth is created by analyzing problems, figuring out solutions, and selling those solutions. In other words, a liberal arts education is tailor-made to give you the skills you need to succeed in business. And not just to do well. I’m talking about going all the way to the top.

Businesses have one fundamental problem that presents itself endlessly in different disguises: how to sell products/services profitably. There are many, many solutions to this problem. Even in a specific situation on a specific day, there is always more than one. And the person who can regularly come up with solutions – and convince others that his solutions should be implemented – is the person who is going to get the rewards. The money. The power. The prestige.

Yes, you can improve your thinking, writing, and speaking skills while enrolled in a technical curriculum. But it will happen indirectly and additionally. It won’t be what you are mainly concerned with. With a liberal arts education, you ensure that you will spend most of your time learning and practicing the very skills you will use later to get your ideas and solutions sold.

I’m not criticizing technical people. They are very valuable. I’m simply saying that if your goal is to get to the top of any organization, public or private, you need to be a very good thinker, writer, and speaker. And a liberal arts education is designed to help you with that.

I’ve known very successful business leaders that did not have a liberal arts education. The CEO of Agora, a billion-dollar company I consult with, is one. He was educated in accounting and worked his way up to CFO. But he was smart enough to see that he had reached the end of that line. So he gradually moved his way into discussions about marketing and sales and product development. Eventually, he became a very good thinker and speaker on these issues. And when it came time to appoint a new CEO, he was the logical choice.

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The True Cost of Buying

Saturday, April 14, 2018

 

Principles of Wealth: #13 of 61

Delray Beach, FL – We buy financial products and services because we believe they will make us richer. But we should never forget that the purchase itself is almost always a cost that makes us, for the moment at least, poorer.

You buy the new $45,000 Audi you’ve been dreaming of. It makes you feel like rich. But the moment you drive it out of the dealership its value – and your net worth –go down by about $6,000.

“One day this watercolor will fetch a hundred grand at Sotheby’s,” the art dealer tells you. You want to believe him. But his profit on the $80,0000 artwork is $20,000, which means you are now, for the moment, at least $20,000 poorer.

It’s no different with stocks. You have read about the company in your favorite financial newsletter. Your broker agrees it’s going to double or triple if this or that happens, as it surely will. So you buy it and can almost see all those dollars in profit appearing on your account statement. But at that moment, at the moment when you buy it, you are poorer by the fees and commissions your broker is taking.

This is not to say that fees and commissions are bad. They are simply part of the cost of buying.  All financial products and services, however advertised, have a cost of buying.

When you buy a “no load” index fund you pay a very small cost of buying – usually about one half of one percent. But when you buy a penny stock or whole life policy your cost of buying could be 30% to 50%.

The prudent wealth builder knows the true cost of his buying and understands that in nine cases out of ten that cost will make him, for the moment at least, that much poorer

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One Thing & Another

Word for the Wise

Leonine (LEE-uh-nine) = of or relating to a lion. Example as used by Sax Rohmer in the 1915 crime novel The Yellow Claw: “In the leonine eyes looking into hers gleamed the light of admiration and approval.”

 Quotable Quote

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary can speak.” – Hans Hoffman

 

From My “Work-in-Progress” Basket

Principles of Wealth: #12 of 61

The term “value” is widely understood in theory but rarely in practice. Value denotes that which you can appreciate and benefit from, both now and also in the future.

Anything that is valuable to you can be said to be a value. Friendship, for instance. Or fidelity. Or art. Or dance. Or music.

Politicians value power and loyalty. They seek to acquire as much of it as they can as they rise through the political ranks so they can wield it when they are on top.

Performance artists value approval and use their energy and creativity to create the largest possible base of fans.

Professionals – doctors, architects, and plumbers – value their reputations and work hard to not only gain but also preserve and improve them by providing high quality service and personal care.

Most healthy minded people understand that wealth (and even net investible wealth) has no intrinsic value. Its value is dependent on its ability (or perceived ability) to be exchanged for those other values: friendship, loyalty, power, and admiration, to name a few.

Mini Philosophy Lesson: Aesthetics*

Most people think of aesthetics as the study of beauty. But it is a bit broader than that. The word derives from the Greek term to denote perception, feeling, or even sensation.

Plato had an idealistic view of aesthetics. He believed that there was a perfect form of the beautiful – generally and specifically. A bed, for example, was an imitation of an ideal thing, a “Form” or paradigm, almost like an abstract blueprint of what a carpenter might build. The bed that the carpenter actually built was beautiful or not to the degree that it replicated some ideally beautiful bed that exists in some other dimension. In his ideal word, only representational art would exist, and its purpose would be didactic: to teach viewers what truth and beauty look like.

Aristotle, perhaps the greatest of all philosophers, was not an idealist. He did not believe that there was some perfect bed in some ideal world that real beds and paintings of beds should imitate. It was enough for him that the painting of a bed should look as much like its earthly subject as possible. His approach to aesthetics was to identify the best expressions of art and compare them. From that, he made observations that could be used by critics (for evaluation), viewers (for appreciation), and artists (for creation).

Most of the ideas we have about aesthetics today can be said to have originated in the writings of either Plato or Aristotle. But there was a twist added at the beginning of the nineteenth century with the advent of “art for art’s sake.” This view held that art should exist solely to be beautiful. It need not have the pragmatic/didactic purposes that Plato and Aristotle suggested.

I don’t know of a philosopher who has made this claim, but I believe that much of aesthetics is actually the basis of ethics. At the bottom of many ethical preferences – once you cut through the skimpy rationales – is some deeply held feeling about what is ugly and what is beautiful in human behavior.

*From my book How to Speak Intelligently About Everything That Matters”.

https://smile.amazon.com/Speak-Intelligently-About-Everything-Matters

 Look at This…

https://biggeekdad.com/2014/02/rhapsody-blue-harmonica-kid/

 

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