Rich and Even Richer

We are already accustomed to financial media regularly releasing statistical reports and rankings of the people that lead and have accumulated an important allotment of the world’s money. For instance, Forbes magazine published its annual Japanese ranking a few months ago. For most of us, it’d be wonderful, impressive, and even magical, to someday read our names in such lists. A lot of people only dream of being there. But reality often reveals otherwise. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of luck, or inherited fortunes. But we’ll disregard such cases, as uninteresting for analysis. The norm is that becoming rich requires plenty of sacrifices, and above all, extraordinary efforts. It’s not easy. However, it’s not impossible to reach such goal. Powerful souls set exceptional goals.

Read more

The Art of Saving

Saving refers to the preservation of money for future use. Such future use might include capital and goods purchase (house, transport, vacations, etc.), emergencies, and miscellaneous expenses. Strictly speaking, saving is the difference between our income and our consumption expenditure. Besides, saving is our main tool to cope with mortgages, credit card debt, extraordinary bills, and other loans. Without savings, such debt and expenditures may sharply erode our personal finances. Saving also allows for harnessing sudden investment opportunities and to gain access to quality services. All in all, saving is a fundamental aspect of personal finance.

Money has to be tightly controlled. We must know where money comes from, and where it goes to. We must strive to know the way our money flows, the paths it travels, and the drains taking most of our income. By closely watching our money’s nature, we’ll learn to control it. Control is a keyword of personal finance. Control refers to checking the errors we are incurring with our money’s management, and to take the corrective action to rectify any deviation from our desired goals. Setting goals is other important requirement for saving, and it answers the question what are we saving for ?

Read more

A Thing that Truly Hurts Self-confidence

A look behind the scenes of work’s misdirections

What do we achieve by thinking of ourselves as “supermen” or “wonder women”? Too little, indeed. Trying to act (and even feel) like fiction heroes, in a frantic rush to enjoy something that really is too tiresome to be enjoyed. There is little reward in demanding ourselves the compliment of being perfect, effective, productive, attractive and winsome people who have no real problems at work or at home, and who always ignite the life of the party. Needless to say, there is no reward in working frenetically until our minds and bodies cannot handle it anymore: we would weaken and become sick. But we already know that time is unstoppable: other people would carry on our duties, and someday, we would be simply forgotten. In other words, no matter how much effort and blood we devote to our jobs, we are always dispensable for the furious wheel of businesses.

Read more

The Winners’ Mind

What is your relation with your money? Money is a necessary thing, and to have and to win money is not a sin (rhyme intended 🙂 ). On the other hand, to live for money is not only a sin but a stupidity. We, as integral human beings, are of much more value than any material concept. This is something I insist a lot in my business seminars: look for money, but never lend your heart to money. In other words, win money, but don’t let money to win you.

Who are the Winners?

Winners are fortunate people, indeed. But except for rare cases, most of their fortune stems from hard work, and more importantly, from a sound and clear mindset. Winners have no time (nor wish) to be moaning about the “harshness of life.” Winners don’t complain about such things, because they understand that life, like a river, exhibits turbulent episodes in some parts, but caress and nourish the surrounding nature, all the way.

Positive Attitude in The Winners’ Mind

Nevertheless, all these years I’ve known a lot of people who are frequently bitching about their lack of money or general misfortune, but what they are indeed lacking is a positive attitude toward their money. Now, what does this “positive attitude” notion mean? Let’s start by answering a few questions:

  • What really are the kind of thoughts that flood our minds when we think of our money?
  • Which are the words we utter when speaking about our money and related things (such as mortgage, bank, expenses, etc.)?
  • In the past, how much success have we attained by spending and investing our money?

Read more

What can I say in a motivational speech for a small group of people?

Here are some ideas for a motivational speech for a small group of people:

Start with an inspirational story: Begin your speech with a personal or someone else’s story that inspires and motivates your audience. The story should be relevant to the topic you are addressing.

Be authentic: Speak from the heart and be authentic in your speech. Convey your enthusiasm and passion for your topic.

Set goals: Help your audience set achievable and realistic goals. Encourage them to take concrete steps to achieve their goals and not give up in the face of difficulties.

Encourage collaboration: Encourage your audience to work together and support each other. Emphasize the importance of collaboration and building positive relationships.

End on a positive note: End your speech on a positive note, focusing on the accomplishments they can achieve if they work together and stay motivated.

Remember that your speech should be personalized and tailored to the group you are addressing. Talk about your specific challenges and goals, and provide concrete examples to help your audience visualize your success.

You may also want to take a look at my post The 7 Attributes of Leadership, to delve into the characteristics of a true leader, and get a powerful insight about leadership and some cool ideas for a motivational speech.

The 7 Attributes of Leadership

The 7 Attributes of Leadership
The 7 Attributes of Leadership

When I have to hire someone for any position in my company, I always pay close attention to the below discussed 7 attributes of leadership, because I always strive to hire people with leadership traits (even when the job is not a key managerial position.) I always want the best people, no matter the size, complexity or responsibility of the job. I know that, as time goes by, groups of workers with leadership traits perform and coordinate a lot better than simple people. And the today new assistant may hopefully become a very important director in a few years.

Furthermore, I prefer the democratic (also referred to as participative) leadership style: in this case, the leader offers guidance to the group, but also participates in the group, and promotes feedback from other members. Note that this style is not inconsistent with the view of everyone in a group acting as a leader! The democratic style is also suitable for the modern dynamic environments because it allows dealing with fast-changing circumstances. Other styles, such as authoritarian or delegative leaderships, are very harmful and obsolete.

Read more