Make Wealth Blog

March 29, 2007

Learn from your previous mistakes

Filed under: Effectiveness — Kava @ 4:24 pm

The well-known definition of insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting different results. But repeating a failure is not only a sign of insanity, it is a refusal to admit you may not be perfect. To have the emotional maturity to first admit you made a mistake, then to determine what the mistake was and thirdly to take steps to correct that mistake for the next time shows that you’ve grown beyond infancy. One final step in learning from your previous mistakes is realizing that there may not be any way to correct the mistake you’ve made and to be able to move beyond it.

There are at least four different types of mistakes and what you learn from them may depend on your maturity as well as the type of mistake you made.

The first type of mistake is the dumb mistake. This is the mistake of tripping on the sidewalk or touching wet paint. This is the child running from a promised spanking and hiding under the bed. About the only lessons which can be learned from a dumb mistake is that it was dumb to do it, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen again or that you’ve learned anything from the mistake. After all, there will always be rough spots on the sidewalk and we always have that uncontrollable urge to see if the “wet paint” sign is right.

Mistake number two is the simple mistake. This is the mistake where you call your wife by your secretary’s name, or you forget to mail the letter with the rent check. If something like this happens regularly, or if it becomes an issue between yourself and your spouse, you probably need to find a way to remember errands and names. If it’s simply a lack of focus, it’s probably best not to stress out about it. You can learn from this type of mistake that you can be better organized or that you may need to learn some memory techniques.

The third type of mistake is a little more serious. This is the dumb mistake or the simple mistake repeated over and over with either no understanding that it is a mistake, or no understanding of how to change and learn from the mistake so as to get different results the next time. This kind of mistake is known as the serious mistake. This mistake is one that could and should result in a change of thinking. If you lose your job because you are habitually late for work, you can refuse to accept the responsibility for the mistake and refuse to change, or you can continue to be the emotionally immature child who can’t learn from a mistake because they don’t understand that a mistake has been made. Either that or they blame the boss for firing them.

The fourth type of mistake is the most interesting, and also the one from you have the most opportunity to learn. This is the complex mistake. It may be the mistake that was unavoidable given all the sequence of events which led up to the error. This is where the learning comes in. By analyzing the causes, timing, personalities and nature of the mistake, you may recognize that the mistake was simply unavoidable, but you might also be able to use that information to react differently during the process and thereby reach a different result.

March 23, 2007

First things first. Period.

Filed under: Advice — Kava @ 8:43 am

Anyone who regularly begins completes a project and begins another will recognize that each project has a life of its own. It begins as an idea, continues as a work in process and ends with a realization of what worked and what didn’t work. It’s important to use that third portion of the life of a project in planning the next project on your list.

Take the time before beginning a brand new project to look at what has worked in the past in similar projects. Also serious decide what errors occurred in the past that either added to or detracted from the success of the project. Yes, even errors can lead to successes in the future.

Organizing yourself before beginning a new project takes part on two levels, the mental and the physical.

It is probably best to organize your physical space before settling to mental gymnastics.
Your physical space should be organized for several reasons. First, if you have space set aside where you will spend your working time, whether it is a completely equipped home office or a cubbyhole in a closet, the space should be as well-equipped for the type of work you do as possible. That certainly would include writing materials, computer or typewriter, reference books or materials. You will need a comfortable chair to sit in, positioned correctly for writing or working at a computer keyboard.

If your project involves the use of other tools or equipment, those should be available and arranged to be accessible near your seating place. Even if you work at home, your home office space should be equipped as well as is possible so that when you go to your space, it is with the mental shift which will allow you to begin work promptly.

Once your space is organized, you are ready to begin the other significant preparation phase of your project, the mental preparation. You should think through and jot down key words or thoughts to help you remember actions later on as you expand your basic ideas.
Consider each part of the project carefully in order. Try to ask yourself questions about the need for this organized step. Look at the order of the steps mentioned and play with them mentally. Try putting the steps in a different order and see how that might play..

As you mentally walk through the project you are planning, keep track of key points you will need to know in order to accomplish your task. Are there tools which will be needed that you don’t have yet? Is there information which will need to be researched before completing the planned project?

By the time you go through each step of your project mentally, noting additional research materials, tools and people which will be needed to complete the project, you should have a fairly complete project outline. Your next task is to begin the process of putting a time line with the various project components. You may want to jot down when you plan to begin, whether you have outside deadlines which must be maintained, and how much flexibility is available for the person in the barber shop.

With all this pre-planning you should have at least a rough outline of the phases of the project, what additional work will be required, any further research which you will need to complete the task and about how long it will require to finish the entire project.

March 18, 2007

Do it now not tomorrow

Filed under: Discipline — Kava @ 2:53 pm

While a person is not always able to start a new project or task immediately upon receiving it, at least a mental outline will help to streamline the process of completing the task. It’s important to start projects relatively soon after receiving information and to complete them as soon as possible after beginning them in an unbroken line of completed sub projects.

You should begin a new project as soon as possible after the assignment because the details of the project are still fresh in your mind. You may have discussed specifics with someone, but if you allow days to go by before actually beginning the project, you will have forgotten some of the details. It will require more of your preparation time and thus completion time just to attempt to reconstruct or learn details that have been forgotten because you didn’t begin your task promptly. At a minimum, take time to jot down the pertinent details in a file folder. Things like a project title, length, who is the projected audience for the report or final result, when the deadline is, are all important details when it’s time to finish the project. This can be a paper or virtual file folder.

Because your project is assigned in the present, the knowledge you have about it is current knowledge. You cannot be held responsible for what has not yet happened. Therefore, doing your project with your current knowledge is likely to provide less need for relearning or for changes in the situation which would require additional preparation time.

Another reason for doing your task now is so that you can meet your deadlines promptly. If you know when the project is due and you know precisely how long it will take you, it’s easy to put off starting until you know there is no leeway left in your time schedule till completion. But all too often, something happens to create a roadblock in your expected schedule. Maybe you had an internet outage just when an important piece of information from a webpage was required. Perhaps a friend dropped by to chat for a while. In other words, if you have allowed no time at the end of your project before it’s due, you run the risk of turning in slipshod work or not being able to complete it at all.

If, on the other hand you begin and complete your project promptly, it leaves you free to do other things without worrying about the status of the project. You won’t worry about meeting a deadline, because you’ve already gone on to other things by7 the time the deadline arrives.

If you are in a position at work or socially where you want to make the best possible impression upon others, begin your project promptly and complete it as soon as possible. This will ensure that others know you can be counted on to deliver the goods on time, and will certainly count in your favor when the bosses are handing out bonuses and awards.

Finally, not to put too grim reflection on it, but life is uncertain. We do not know what tomorrow will bring. It is better to complete the task early and have time to spare should a family emergency arise, than to be torn between completing a project and dealing with a sick or injured family member.

March 15, 2007

Changing personal habits

Filed under: Personality — Goerge @ 4:09 pm

If you’ve often wished you had the strength of will to change that one bad habit, but have failed over and over. If you’ve repeatedly told yourself you are going to change this petty vice that you dislike in your personality but have never been able to stay with the preferred behavior more than a few hours or a day or two, there is hope. Best of all, the method is relatively simple and it doesn’t take a great deal of time or energy.

Habits are very ingrained things, they are things that have been done or seen for so long or so often that you no longer actually see them. That is one of the reasons why habits are so hard to change. Your mind is not resisting change; you really do want to change, it’s just that you are not used to thinking about the action that you’re performing that you call a habit. In order to change a habit, you need to find a way to remind yourself regularly that you’re in a self-improvement program.

One of the ways to remind yourself is to find a catch phrase about what you’d like to change. For example, if you’ve tried to break the habit of biting your nails but have not been successful. You keep biting your nails, because your brain doesn’t recognize that you are doing it. When is the last time you thought about chewing your food before swallowing it? So the first step is to develop your own personal catch phrase that will get your brain used to thinking about NOT biting your nails. Maybe it could be a phrase such as “Biting is bad” or “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” You may want to jot down a list of such phrases and choose the one that fits you the best.

Once you’ve chosen the catch phrase, and then determine to say it to your self regularly, as many times per day as you possibly can. You can write the phrase on a three by five card and put it on the refrigerator at eye level. You can stick it on the bathroom mirror. Each time you say it or see it, let your brain hear it. In other words, focus on the phrase long enough so that your brain will register that it’s being given something new to absorb.

In a day or so, you’ll want to move the cards to a different location so that it will continue to be a reminder to you. If the phrase is in the same place for more than a couple days, you soon will not see it either. You may need to enlist the help of a spouse or friend to move the card so that you will come upon it in unexpected places. How about the steering wheel of your car, or inside the shoe you will wear in the morning?

Within a few days of thinking of this catch phrase several times a day and focusing on the fact that you are no longer going to “bite the hand that feeds you,” you will find that as you thoughtlessly lift that finger to your lips, the phrase will come into your brain and you are reminded that you no longer are biting your nails.

You can use this method on any habit or character trait you want to work on and it usually requires about 21 days for your brain to be re-educated.

March 12, 2007

Never give up easily

Filed under: Decisions — Kava @ 4:56 pm

One of the hardest things in the life of a project or business is knowing when it is time to give up. No one likes to feel like a failure, and often to quit seems like a failure. Neither is it a good idea to continue pouring resources of energy and time into a business or project that is going nowhere. You need to understand what your limits are and what the benefits are for various options which might be available to you. It is not failure to recognize boundaries and to honor those boundaries. Wearing your self out in pursuit of an unreachable goal is not healthy or productive.

An helpful exercise to go through personally or with the help of an analyst or counselor is a SWOT analysis. If you can honestly assess the situation yourself, the SWOT analysis can be done by yourself, but it is far more effective to work through with the help of someone else. The counselor may be able to see patterns that you are unable to see because you are too close to the situation.

SWOT acronym stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. During the course of the review, you list the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of your current situation. Just writing down everything you can think of within the four categories is sometimes enough to assist in making a decision.

Does the business or project have strengths or positive features? Are there strengths which you or your employees or co-workers are gaining or giving? How about weaknesses? To be considering giving up is not a weakness; it may be strength to recognize that reaching a final goal may not necessarily be the best path to follow.

The example of an expedition to climb Mt Everest which resulted in a number of deaths and the decision to give up the ascent was not a failure. The courage to recognize when it was strength to turn down the mountain and save the remaining lives meant a tremendous victory personally for the climbers who returned.

There is no doubt that these climbers gave the ascent all of their physical strength and doubtless their emotional strength as well, but the important thing to remember is that the climbers succeeded even though they did not reach the top of the mountain.

When you complete the process of listing the four categories above, review the list. Does one have far fewer items on it than others? If so, why is that? Is there something in each category? Did you expect the results you got? If another person who is familiar with your situation were to do the analysis, would he get the same results as you did?

By completing an exercise such as the SWOT analysis, you cannot be accused of giving up too easily. You’ve used all available tools to arrive at fact and used those facts in determining the best course of action. If that decision is to move on to something else, you will know it is by choice, rather than having the decision ripped out of your hands. Use the opportunity to glean information about the future, after all, this is an experience that you will not want to repeat, so the lessons that can be learned from giving up should be ones that will stand you in good stead for the future.

March 9, 2007

10 Wealthy tips from millionaires

Filed under: Advice — Kava @ 3:36 pm

People are always looking for the secret to become wealthy. There is a common belief that it’s going to be just one little change that will make the difference between living from paycheck to paycheck and having enough extra to buy the dream possessions without thinking about the cost. In one sense, it is as easy as one little change. In another sense, it’s a whole new way of living and thinking about wealth.

Many books have been written purporting to tell you how to become wealthy; most of them have some of the same tips in common. By having an attitude of wealth, you have already taken the first step toward becoming what you want to be.

  1. Wealth isn’t the amount of money in the bank; it’s about an attitude of success. A study of the wealthiest people in America found that they spend only a few minutes per day on average on matters such as their bank account balance. They’d rather be doing what gives them pleasure. The money and the possessions are often just a footnote.
  2. Keep a positive attitude. If you can conceive it and believe it, you will achieve it.
  3. Think differently than others. Challenge your mind by taking a procedure that has always been done that way and figure out a different way to do it.
  4. Decide what you dislike doing the most and stop doing it. If you continue to do a task in quiet desperation no matter what the reason, you will never have the energy left over to do what you want to do.
  5. The other side of the equation in number 4 above is to find what you love to do and find a way to make it your job. Another trite old saying which is nevertheless true is: “Find a job you enjoy doing and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
  6. Determine to find out who the real you is. That could be through career counseling, reading, personality tests, even sitting down with a ream of paper and start listing all the things you like to do. Some people never take the time to discover who they really are.
  7. Become an entrepreneur. The opportunities are endless, particularly with the internet reaching more people every day. Books, courses, counselors and mentors are available to help you realize your dream of financial success. If you invest in yourself, you will succeed both in self-esteem and in financial matters as well.
  8. Live and enjoy every minute. Some have called it “Live with passion.” No matter what your surroundings, find a way to enjoy them. If you do what you enjoy, you will always have something to enjoy. If you only live for money, you will never have time to enjoy it.
  9. Live in the present. If you never truly enjoy the life you have as you pass through, because you plan to enjoy something after you retire, or after this next bonus arrives or after the kids are out of the house, you will have a life that’s truly bleak.
  10. Help others achieve. Share your positive attitude with those around you, even if you don’t have a dime to share. Your positive attitude will attract friends and that’s the true meaning of a successful life.

March 7, 2007

Advice on new project starting

Filed under: Procrastination — Goerge @ 5:51 pm

There comes a point in the life of almost every project where it is nearly completed. The planning, creativity, excitement of something new and the interest of the initial stages are over. Perhaps the challenges have been successfully mastered and all that remains is the final wrapping up and cleaning up of the details. During those times it is extremely tempting to jump headlong into a new project. You may think it will relieve the boredom, add the anticipation back into your days and be able to get even more projects completed.

However, you will find that you will be much more effective in your work and in your personal life as well if you make a point of completing one project before beginning the next one. There are a number of reasons why this is so. First, it leads orderly thinking. If you routinely practice the philosophy of tasks having a beginning, middle and an end, your planning phase of the project will be more accurate. Planning a project is as much as learning experience as actually completing the project, and you will find it to be good experience as well as more efficient to build in all three parts of the project. It is even more important to have each part of the project function in an orderly fashion.

Completing one task before beginning the next helps you to stay focused on your final goal. While creative thinking and planning may be done while also doing a routine manual task, it is also true that often the final stages of a project may be the most important ones, because that is where the learning part of the project occurs. That is where loose ends are neatly tied and conclusions drawn. It is also the part of a project where one learns and quantifies and determines how such a project might be done differently or better in the future. It’s important to stay focused on the current project through the end times as well as the beginning and middle portions of the task.

Related to staying focused by performing one job at a time is the issue of procrastination. If you allow yourself to put off the completion of any portion of the task, regardless of whether or not you enjoy doing it, you are training your brain in negative habits. Procrastination is a difficult habit to rid oneself of. If you consistently start out strong on a project, manage to complete the middle portions with only minor delays, but then fade on the end, perhaps completing it in a slipshod manner or not at all, you will soon gain a reputation as someone who can’t be trusted to follow through. This can be annoying at best to someone waiting on your completed project, and can be absolutely disastrous to a career. A task not completed is a task that might as well not have been started.

Finally, it’s important not to start a new project before completing the old one, because you need the experience of shutting down the lines of thought and action that you’ve developed to move the first project through to completion. You would not take a ferry boat across the river and then not tie it up on the far side. It is the mental securing of the boat on the distant side of the river that will allow you to continue your journey effectively.

March 5, 2007

Personal skill development

Filed under: Skill development — Kava @ 1:43 pm

Personal skill development is important at every level of your career and your personal life as well. Today’s work forum is constantly changing. To stay with the current trends and growth areas, you must have a realistic appreciation of your current personal skills, improve upon those that are the highest demand and at the same time learn new skills. Those who are the most successful have learned how to get and use skills on new demands. These are the people who will journey the farthest.

Don’t sit back and wait, hoping that a change will fall in your lap. Take an inventory of your current personal and professional skills and determine which of those skills will be needed to be competitive in the fields you are interested in. You are the one who must make the determination not only what skills you have, but what skills you don’t have and could acquire. Finally, you must have the determination to take the first steps to acquire those skills.

Once you’ve determined which skills you need to move yourself along the personal development path you’ve chosen, you can determine the various options open to acquire those skills.

One way to acquire new skills is to start or continue in your formal education. Even if you must continue in a job at the same time as you complete your schooling, there are many study programs which allow you to study online, to study at special seminars and camps, to study through distance learning, or to have weekend or evening class schedules. Some employers are willing to subsidize continuing education credits, provide tuition assistance or even work-study programs or internships.

You can also approach your employer directly about the possibility of additional seminars, conference or special educational courses which might be offered. If your employer is amenable to the idea, you might even map out with them a two or three year plan which will allow you to reach your goals and will provide the employer with something of value as well. You, as a highly trained employee with a strong loyalty factor to the company are a strong resource for the future.

Continue to take classes that interest you as well as those that put you on your chosen career path. Not only does learning new things strengthen and exercise the mind, it might provide you with new directions you want to explore or add richness to your existing path.

You can develop your personal skills inventory by apprenticing yourself to a master. This can be either on a formal or informal basis. Make sure that it is clearly understood on both sides what is expected. You want to learn a new skill, but what will the master receive?

You may barter with someone to learn a personal skill. This is a situation like “I’ll teach you how to bake bread if you teach me how to quilt.” It’s a skill building method that benefits both parties, if both can come to an agreement as to what is to be exchanged.

Teaching yourself works very well for some people, although it requires much more self-discipline than some of the other methods. You can read books, journals and internet informational sites; you can watch how-to videos or motivational seminar tapings. You can even get some experience by volunteering selectively.

All of these learning methods make your personal skills inventory shine.

March 2, 2007

Planning your time wisely

Filed under: Time management — JoshN @ 5:19 pm

Planning your time wisely by creating a written structure to your day or week or even longer periods is an excellent way to develop time budgets. Each person is allotted 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in each week. No amount of hard work, reduced sleep, or faster movement is going to stretch that time by even one second. However, by planning ahead to use the time in a manner that will allow time for all aspects of your life, you will find a better quality for your life.

Time budgeting needs to include time set aside for five different types of activities.

Sleeping (42 hours) – six to eight hours during each 24 hours period is usually adequate for most people. It’s helpful to plan on sleeping during the same hours each day. That will vary, depending on your lifestyle. Some will get the hours by sleeping 6 hours at a stretch at night. Others may choose to sleep less time at night and take a nap during the daytime. Even brief ‘power naps’ can be very effective.

Food and hygiene (21 hours) – allowing 3 hours daily for meals, bathing, dressing and all the activities which go along with an American lifestyle is usually enough so that you aren’t rushing through your meals.

Work (50 hours) – This segment of time includes an eight hour work day plus two hours for commuting five days per week. Schedule your work tasks using the same concept. You will need transition time at the beginning and ending of each day. Your work day logically could begin with writing down specific daily tasks, staff meetings whether formal or informal and assigning duties to your self or others.

Household chores and maintenance (30 hours) – This is the time spent loading the dishwasher or the washing machine, vacuuming the living room, mowing the lawn and all the odds and ends of things that keep your home running smoothly.

Personal (25 hours) – It’s important to schedule some time for your own enjoyment each week. Some will use this time as a day of worship and focus on spiritual activities. Others may choose to spend the time reading or watching television, walking in the park or attending the home team games. However you choose to use your personal time it will reflect your own interests and desires.

This time budget should be written. That is not to say that there should be no flexibility in the schedule, but by putting the budget in written form, you will begin to see patterns in how you spend your time. You may be able to more effectively use commuting time for example as your self-improvement or personal time. You may determine that paying someone to do at least part of the household chores will free up additional time which can then be moved to another category. The actual time, with the exception of sleep time is not so important as the fact that you have planned it.

Writing down your time budget also helps you to better see whether you realistically have time to take on that special project either in your personal life or on the job. Make a point of not accepting a new project until you have looked at your time budget and determined where that project will be housed.

March 1, 2007

Personal bank loans

Filed under: Personal finance — Kava @ 12:11 pm

Today, money has become one of the basic needs of the society. It does not make a person live the way he or she wants but also became the fundamental component in running the financial market place.

Personal bank loan do not have any definite purpose before. Borrowers are being assess based from their salary. Personal bank loan are give to any US citizen who can provide salary receipt, personal identity, and certificate of employment.

Many banks offer personal bank loans with varying interest rates and mode of payment. Personal bank loan have two types. Secured personal bank loan that needs a collateral or any valuable asset that the borrower have and the unsecured personal bank loan that does not need any collateral from the borrower.

Part of the terms of a personal bank loan, the borrower should pay the monthly installment of the loan with its interest rate. Interest rates are fixed rate where the borrower is oblige to pay through out the term of the loan.

Borrowers who have good credit score have a greater chance for their personal bank loan to be approved. Realistically speaking, a borrower who has been struggling to get a loan from different lending company and who have a bad credit score history would most likely would not get a personal bank loan approved.

Secured personal bank loan is has a longer loan term and lower interest rate compared to the unsecured personal bank loan. Borrowers can loan larger amounts that is dependent on the value of the collateral. Secured personal loan can be applied for different purpose such as payment for tuition fee, home renovation, or car loan. Payment term for a secured loan is convenient for the borrower.

Unsecured personal bank loan comes at a higher interest rate with strict payment terms. The only difference is that they do not require any collateral. Lending companies are more financially challenged with unsecured personal bank loan.

As a borrower, you need to consider a few things when applying for a personal bank loan. You need to consider the amount of money you applying for the loan. The amount of loan should be realistic basing it from your income and the asset you will use as a collateral for your loan if you are applying for a secured personal bank loan.

You also need to consider the type of loan you are applying – secured or unsecured loan. If you have a bad credit score, you might as well consider applying for a secured personal bank loan.

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