Financial Literacy

Dreams, Goals, Vision, Action and Accomplishment

Hello,

In common with many people, I usually have a lot of different actions I need to pack into a day. Some are major tasks that take up a significant amount of time; others are minor, maybe just “housekeeping” actions. So I can maintain order, I use a schedule to organize how the tasks fit into the day.  

During most days, I am up against an enemy that many of you are aware of. It has the potential to completely ruin all my plans. The enemy is procrastination.

You see, even if I put stuff in the schedule, it does not automatically get done. I have to take the action. If it is something I enjoy doing, then I usually have no difficulty executing the task at the scheduled time. However, if it is something I do not enjoy or that I may have difficulty with, there is a very large temptation to “do it later”. My experience is if I re-schedule a task because I have procrastinated, it gets re-scheduled again and again. Many just “fall off the map” after a couple of iterations!

Sound familiar?

So, how do we handle this?

The real secret is to have a very powerful reason to get all the tasks completed. Making them all stepping stones towards a big dream or goal can generate a lot of momentum. The bigger the dream or goal, the bigger to momentum created. Because procrastination is much lower on the mood scale than the momentum and energy created by a huge, powerful vision, no task seems difficult.

Take your first step today in creating that huge, powerful vision of what you want your life to be. The bigger the dream and vision, the bigger the game and the more powerful actions you will need to take. You are definitely on the right track if your mood starts to rise as build the vision. By the time you have the vision set firmly in your mind, the steps to create it will become more clear. Setting task to accomplish those steps should fall right into place and as hey are so relevant, there will be no procrastination.

Have a great week

Malcolm

Why Make Life Difficult?

Hello,

There is a saying:  "Life is unpredictable, eat your dessert first".

This has always amused me, not because it is actually what I believe is a good advice, but it parallels the actions of the majority.

This attitude is also the reason why those people are fundamentally unsuccessful. They put their future in the hands of others when they do the easy thing first. Those who tackle the difficult first get to be the top performers. I believe the ratio between the former and the latter is 90% to 10%.

What truly makes life difficult is swapping priorites: Putting what you most enjoy ahead of what you you actually need to do, but could put off doing. This is the salesman who knows he should make 20 calls to new prospects, but instead he spends the afternoon on the golf course with an existing customer or even a buddy.

Why not get the difficult stuff out of the way first? Concentrate on it and get it done. Put all the "tedious" stuff first in the calendar ahead of the fun stuff. This encourages one to focus on getting really good at it, thereby reducing the time spent doing it. Funny thing is that the more one does this, the more enjoyable it gets. Most of the time not enjoying doing something is because of lack of expertise, stemming from lack of practice doing it.

I myself love to wash dishes and iron shirts. Really exciting stuff, I know! This was not always the case. At one time I hated these activities. I just decided that the only way to handle it was to "get them out of the way"; to get so good at them that what was 30 minutes of drudgery now takes 5-6 minutes. The joy came as I learned to do them well. The better I get the more I enjoy it.

So, set up your day to tackle at least one or two of the more difficult tasks first. Do this on a gradient and work towards putting every difficult task ahead of the fun ones. One day you will run out of "challenging tasks". When that happens, you can start raising your game, looking to "kick it up a notch".

Have an awesome week

Malcolm

How to Handle Upsets

Hello,

I had a sudden realization over the weekend. It came after I was looking at a phenomenon I have noticed recently on Facebook. Some people post when they are happy, others post when they are upset, sometimes very upset!

This enticed me to look at the real reason behind upset, why does it occur? You can be going along in life very nicely and all of a sudden, flash, you are upset. What causes this to happen and why so suddenly?

I started to look behind this. It occurred to me that to have an upset, you must be expecting something to go one way and it does not follow your plan. So upsets are related to missed expectations. Ah Ha! I thought, (a quite big Ah Ha, in fact)

Taking this forward a bit, expectations are related to goals and aspirations. So for there to be an upset, there must have been a dream of goal that was denied in some way. This is the Setup, a vision of your desires projected out into the future containing all the steps necessary to make it happen. As happiness is the progressive realization of worthwhile dream or goal, following a great setup creates abundant happiness.

For example, you have your heart set on going to the first baseball game of the season with your son. Tickets purchased and everything planned. You are excited and really looking forward to is. The morning of the game, your boss calls you up and says, “A prospective customer with a very large account is coming in today and I need you to attend a dinner in his honor tonight. I know I can rely on you. I’ll see you at the LaBella restaurant at 7pm sharp tonight”. Your heart sinks, know you will have to give up the game and also tell your son the bad news. You agree with your boss to attend. Immediately you feel upset. Your dream is shattered. Your setup has been thwarted by an event outside your control.

Here is the sequence:

Setup - Your vision of what you desire projected into the future. A strong and vivid setup drives you forward. Great visions of you and your son enjoying a ball game together.

Targets - The stepping stones along the way to attaining that dream or goal. These steps are part of the complete plan. Set the date, buy the tickets, setup the time to leave for the game.

Distractions - Things that get in the way of you achieving those targets. They can also be referred to as disruptors. The call from your boss.

Upset - Distractions have caused a target to be missed. You are now off track and may miss the entire setup.Disappointment in missing the game.

Let’s take a deeper look at what happened in our example. Was the event truly out of your control? Well, not exactly. It wasn’t a hurricane or a flood, or any other unavoidable disaster. You could have held your position and explained to your boss that this was an important family event. Better still, you could have built an understanding with your boss from the time you took the position that for you, family comes first and work second. So, the real issue was the setup and your certainty of it, not the distraction and the resulting upset.    

The strange thing is that when upset, most people concentrate on trying to fix the upset, not correct the setup. And this is why concentrating on fixing the upset does not actually correct the situation. It only handles the effects, not the cause. By going back to the setup and examining exactly why the target was truly missed, optimum corrective action can be taken to realign the setup and happiness will reign once more.

Have an excellent week

Malcolm

The continued importance of persistance

Hello,

Over the past two days I have again realized the immense power of persistence connected to two very different areas of my life.

The first involved building a retaining wall for a raised flower bed in the yard, something I am relatively new to. I started the job two weeks ago and got some way with it. As I was new to the process of digging out, making level, putting down drainage rock and then leveling sand before laying the bricks, I got somewhat impatient with it. However, I persisted and made fair progress before we left on a week long vacation.

This weekend the weather has been very hot and humid, and this contributed to making job considerably more time consuming. Yesterday I also had a rather bad headache, mainly caused by the heat and humidity, and only managed to lay a small number of bricks before it started raining.

Today I resumed, with some very timely help from Liz, the weather being even more hot and humid than yesterday. However, we decided to persist and make the best of the time before the rain that was forecast came. The persistence paid off and we were able to lay and level all the bottom layer of bricks before the rain started. When the rain subsided, we went to the store for the remaining bricks we needed and finished laying the entire wall, surprising ourselves. We were even able to dig over the area inside the retaining wall before we stopped work, very satisfied with the days progress.

The second piece of persistence involved a very subtle issue with our home computer network that has driven me almost to distraction since we returned from vacation last Wednesday. Suffice it to say, my own patience was wearing quite thin after I had tried every thing I could think of to cure the issue. Here again persistence paid off. Instead of just giving up, I searched the internet extensively for a solution and read a lot of documents covering all kinds of network issues ad how to solve them. Finally I discovered the basic reason why the issue was occurring and was able to put in a fix. Again persistence was the key.

May the persistence be with you!

Malcolm

Planning - The key to sucess

Hello,

This last weekend my wife and I worked in our yard. We are in the process of putting in flowerbeds as a part of transforming our relatively new yard into a "proper" English Country Garden.

The current yard is very open plan with no natural boarder between ours and our neighbors yards. As we intend to put flowerbeds very close to the edge of our property on both sides, we really needed to know where the edge of our land was so we are sure where to put the flowerbeds. So the very first job we did was employed a registered surveyor to mark out the property line. The first part of the plan.

The next part of the process was what we tackled over the weekend. Putting in drainage on one side of the property. Again we needed a plan. In order to work out what materials were required, we measured out all the distances and calculated runs and depths. This gave us the amount of materials. Once we had this, I drew a rough sketch and was able to estimate the quantities of material. We then went off to the garden center and made the purchases. because of good planning, re-checking measurements we were able to complete the drainage in the time allowed with complete success. Now the river that used to run down the side of our property is no more!!!

So, even with something a mundane as yard work, a good plan ensures good execution and a good result.

Here's to your plans all coming to fruition!

Have a great week

Malcolm

Have passion!

Hello,

What are you passionate about?

Is there something that you so love to do that you would do it all day everyday without regard to being paid?

I have a friend who is doing just that. He recently started a business that he is so excited and passionate about he energizes all those around him. If he hits a snag, he work diligently and tirelessly to find away around it. He is always focused on the positive and making more. He continuously reads and practices to improve his skills. He has surrounded himself with powerful successful people. He is a cheerleader for everyone he comes into contact with and is totally committed to his own personal development and it shows in every interaction. Every failure is treated as an opportunity to improve. In his early 20's, he has already failed in business once and is prepared to fail as many times as it requires to learn how to be a success. For him, just being in the game pushing forward is enough reward. I am constantly challenged by the searching questions he asks to obtain as many viewpoints as possible, not just his own. By his own admission, although he would love to make tons of money from his business, this is not the primary reason for doing it. It is to get to be the best he can be.

In the short time he has been on this journey, he has already taught me a great deal and I intend to stick with him so I learn a lot more. I urge you to do the same. Search out those who are going somewhere and are totally enthusiastic about doing it. Give freely of your time and expertise to these people. You will never regret it.

Have an awesome week

Malcolm

Sometimes you just need to ask!

Hello,

I have been swimming three time a week with resonable consistency for the past six months. Each Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning I swim breast stroke at my local YMCA for around an hour.

Around a moth ago I decide to up the distance I was swimming from a mile to 2000yds. At first it was difficult to complete this in the same 1 hour period, but after a week, I was able to do it no problem, except for feeling rather tired at the end.

I mentioned this to the lifeguard at the pool and she immediately commented that I was "snatching" at my stoke, and not really relaxing at any time. She encouraged me to swim with fewer stokes, stretch out during the stroke and relaxing more towards the end of each stroke. She assured me that this would foster a real improvement.

Not really believing it, I none the less tried it out the next time I swam. The results were very encouraging. On the first attempt, my time for 2000yds dropped to 53 minutes. The very next time I swam I started to really practice what the lifeguard suggested. This time the improvement literally blew me away. I swam 2000yds in 48minutes with less effort and felt fantastic into the bargain. This was not a fluke either; I was able to duplicate the performance the next this I swam.

I now routinely ask the opinion of the lifeguard every time I swim, and I have already gotten some further very sound advice that has again improved my efficiency.

Now I am asking for advice in more areas of my life and some interesing manifestations are occuring. Asking for advice that you are prepared to act on can give you some unique opportunities to improve in ways you never believed were possible.

Have a great week.

Malcolm

Winning at all costs

Hello,

A couple of events this week reminded of the difference in attitude and outlook between people who have been programmed by their environment and upbringing that life is competitive and is is essential to have winners and losers, and others who, even at a comparative disadvantage, naturally have a totally opposite viewpoint.

One event was the story recounted by a friend about how his son's school soccer team are driven by the coach and teaching staff to be totally competitive, completely ignoring the fun aspect of the game. Every match against another school is taken very seriously. There must be a winner and a loser and each team must win and not lose. At first this seems to be preparing students for the "big wide world" where almost everything is competitive. However, it is just perpetuating a society where winning is everything. By making everything so one-sided, it completely removes attainment of mastery. The quest for mastery requires the student to make mistakes and have many, many failures. Winning at all costs has no part in the attainment of mastery. His story identified the massive mood swings experienced by the members of the team, coaches and parents between having a goal scored against them; dejected and crest-fallen, and scoring themselves; elation and cockiness. Such wild mood swings remove all joy from the process of learning a game, making it totally serious and highly stressful.

The other story is from our local Special Olympics where I was MC for the opening ceremony this weekend. It was such a joy to experience the high mood and genuine friendship of the athletes, coaches and volunteers.The Athletes Oath for Special Olympics is very powerful and completely exemplifies the point that winning is not everything:  

"Let me win, but if I can not win, let me be brave in the attempt"  

This oath was played out fully in last years local games where there were several athletes lined up for the 100 meters race. When the starting pistol sounded, all but one got off to a good start. This athlete fell just off the starting line. The other athletes seemed to sense this, first one stopping and then all the others.They all walked back to the fallen athlete, picked him up, and then walked arm in arm to the finish line.The applause from the other athletes, coaches and spectators was defining and went on for a full 5 minutes.The mood level for the rest of the games was through the roof which kind of says it all.

So, winning is never everything. What is more important is the sharing of experiences and the joy of progressively attaining mastery by simply doing your best. The only competition should be you against yourself. That is a game everyone can win.

Have a great week

Malcolm

Are you an "inny" or an "outy"

Hello,

I know the title for this post seems strange. Bear with me, all will be revealed.

Have you ever felt really in control and on top of your game? Everything you do goes really well, nothing is any effort. Life is a breeze. Lots of laughter and enjoyment.

Now contrast that with time you have felt completely overwhelmed and much smaller than what you are involved in. Almost everything you do is filled with difficulty, nothing goes smoothly. Life is hard and no fun at all.

What is the fundamental difference between these two situations?

In the first situation above, you are external and bigger than the entire scope of the area you want to control. By staying external, you are able to maintain your relative size and remain unaffected by the "little details". You are an "outy". External to and bigger than the entire sphere you are influencing.

In the other situation, you are interiorized into the problem and smaller than it. From this viewpoint it is impossible to control even the smallest aspect of the area. You fell powerless and insignificant. You are an "inny", stuck inside the problems, unable to get a clear view of the overall scope of the area.

So, you ask, what is the way forward if you find yourself in or tending towards the second viewpoint?
Well the simple approach is to find something about it you can control. Even if what you can affect seems totally irrelevant, it is one area you have some influence over. Next, find another area you can affect. Pretty soon you will start to fell more positive about other parts of the area, which you then find you can control and / or contribute to.

it is amazing how quickly you can turn from being an "inny" to operating at your peak as an "outy".

Have a great week

Malcolm

Keeping the focus off yourself does not make less of You

Hello,

Of all the activities I do in my own time, one of the most rewarding is the time and fiscal support I give to the Rotary Club I belong to.

Rotary is a global organization of individuals who have decided to give back to their communities through service projects. These projects can range in scope from supporting local youth sports team, scout troops and other charitable organizations; to tackling the eradication of hunger, thirst and disease across the world.

I have had the privilege to meet and associate with Rotarians from all over the world. One thing they all have in common is great self-confidence and belief in themselves. In apparent contrast, they also share an equal ability to focus on others. Experiencing this common trait has taught me that the ability to flow help outwards always comes from our inner strength. This inner strength must be there first. Humility is often equated with weakness, It is nothing of the sort. In my opinion, it can only exist when a person is very, very sure of themselves.

Thus, keeping the focus off yourself does not make less of you. It actually makes more of you.

Have an excellent week.

Malcolm