Archive for the ‘Finance’ Category

It Is Unwise To Pay Too Little – Huh?

June 11, 2010

“It is unwise to pay too much, but it is unwise to pay too little. When you pay too much, you loose a little money; that is all.

When you pay too little you sometimes lose everything. Because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do.

The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It cannot be done.

If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run and if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better.”

- John Ruskin 1819-1900

Posted in Business, Finance, Money, New-Paradigm Leadership | Leave a Comment »

Has The Economy Hit Bottom Yet?

March 18, 2009

bottomyet

This graph is very interesting (from The New York Times). It shows the price-to-earnings ratio and gives us hope for the future as well as some relief that the bottom is not far away – if not here already. On the other hand, you can see that there is a possibility we will get to the lows of the 20′s, 30′s and 80′s – which means more pain on the way.

What explains the huge run up from the 80′s to the early 2000′s? and why was this period very different from the previous ups and downs? The widespread adoption of new technologies. Some of the gains from applying technology have been overrated, however for the most part these gains have resulted in significant increases in productivity.

Even if you don’t follow the markets, you are impacted by them. When the market moves up (prices rising) it is a lead indicator of what we will see on the street in the not too distant future. What happens to stocks usually preempts what happens in the overall economy. Prices rising indicates optimism, prices falling indicates pessimism. The better the future looks, the higher the ratio of price-to-earnings will go.

You may be thinking, “wow, sounds like the markets are run by emotion”! You are right, with the two primary emotions being fear and greed, with a diverse range in-between.

To be fair, there is more at play in the markets that emotion… there is also the data, the facts, the ratios. Emotion without facts is irrational. Facts without emotion are inaccurate or incomplete. As you can see, it takes both to be successful.

For those of us born in the 70′s and 80′s this is a new experience (in the 2000′s). I was born in the 60′s, so you can see the slide down to the 80′s. The benefit of the graph is that you can look back a hundred years or so and see the repeating pattern. Which brings me to the good news; we will hit bottom and the wild ride up will begin again!

© Goldzone Foundation. All rights reserved.

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Posted in Charts > Graphs, Credit Crisis, Finance, Financial Crisis, New-Paradigm Leadership | Leave a Comment »

I.O.U.S.A.

March 17, 2009

This video is very well done. I.O.U.S.A. boldly examines the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for the United States and its citizens. The graphics are awesome and the content is very well presented. The full version is available (highly recommended) on DVD from PBS.

This movie requires Adobe Flash for playback.

© Goldzone Foundation. All rights reserved.

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Posted in Credit Crisis, Finance, Financial Crisis | 3 Comments »

Negative Thoughts About Money

March 6, 2009

Many of us would agree that our results in life are created by our actions and our actions are preceded by thoughts and our thoughts are created by our feelings.  The challenge is that most of us have thoughts and feelings that are hidden deep in the subconscious mind – out of our conscious awareness. The easiest way to see what is in our subconscious is to look at our results.  Our results will reflect the inner workings of our mind.

Over a lifetime we hear thousands of comments about money and observe the money behavior of the people closest to us – our parents, relatives, teachers, friends and colleagues.  Many of these comments reinforce patterns of thinking and beliefs that over time become buried in our subconscious.  Our day-to-day experiences confirm and validate that these thoughts and beliefs are true and accurate.

In order to change the relationship we have with money requires that we reprogram our subconscious mind – replacing negative thoughts and feelings that are inaccurate with positive thoughts and feelings that give us the results we want.

Most people would like to increase their income, however negative thoughts about what they have to do to make more money often counters their intention.  For example, if you have the belief that you have to be dishonest to make money – and you see yourself as an honest person – you will avoid making lots of money so you don’t compromise your status as an honest person.  However this belief is not true.  You can make as much money as you want through honest means and all the while maintaining the highest levels of honesty and integrity.

Making a list of your most negative thoughts about money will help you to bring these deep-seated thoughts and feelings to the surface so you can view them and choose a replacement thought and feeling.

Many years ago I sat down with a note pad and created two columns.  On the left I listed my most negative thoughts about money and then in the right hand column wrote a positive affirmation that would reprogram the negative into the positive.

This process totally transformed my relationship to money.  I highly recommend that you make your own list and pay attention to the thoughts that come up as you read the list below.  Feel free to use any of these and add them to your list.

moneythoughts11moneythoughts2

© Goldzone Foundation. All rights reserved.

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Posted in Consciousness, Feelings, Finance, Financial Crisis, Money, New-Paradigm Leadership | 5 Comments »

DOW Jones Over One Week Versus Six Months

February 21, 2009

dowjones_oneweekvsoneyear

Check out this chart!  What I find interesting is that the one week view of the Dow Jones Industrial Average looks very similar to the six month view. The chart shows a slow decline, then a cliff, then a slow decline again. The down trend looks at first glance to be very similar.

Some conclusions:

  1. All data must be read within a larger context
  2. Patterns are clearly repeating
  3. The trend appears to be downwards
  4. Have we hit bottom yet? Tell me when you figure that one out!

Posted in Charts > Graphs, Credit Crisis, Finance, Financial Crisis, New-Paradigm Leadership, Pictures > Images | 3 Comments »

What Is The Credit Crisis?

February 21, 2009

Check out the below video about the credit crisis, what caused it, how it is escalating and what the connection is between house owners, brokers, bankers and wall street.

Even if you understand the dynamics of the crisis – this video can help you to explain it clearly to others.


Posted in Credit Crisis, Finance, Financial Crisis, New-Paradigm Leadership, Video | 11 Comments »

Financial Stress

February 15, 2009

I noted an interesting statistic today.  The most popular post on this BLOG relates to dealing with stress.  This has got me thinking… since October 2008 what is on most peoples minds is the financial crisis and how this continuing crisis is going to impact our companies, our investments, our finances and our personal lives.

What does financial stress have to do with leadership?  Everything!  If you are feeling nervous, anxious or even outright terror at the thought of not making ends meet, the first person for you to lead is yourself.  It is very difficult to be creative, resourceful and confident when you are dealing with the various mind numbing hormones we experience as fear.  

So how do you lead yourself?

Often (but not always) our mind speculates as to what could happen and we conjure up images of the worst case scenario, which in most cases turns out to be worse than reality.

Leading yourself requires objectivity.  If you consider the worst case scenario, versus the best case scenario and figure out ways you can live with the worst case, then from this place you can calmly consider possible courses of action that you could take to avert the worst case.  And in most cases reality tends to be somewhere in between the worst and the best case.

On the other hand, if you avoid the worst case, pretend it wont happen (denial) and go on as if nothing is going to happen… you have a very good chance of going through the worst case scenario in reality!

So accepting the worst case allows you to let go of the fear and to think calmly of what can be done with the resources at hand.  Once you have a number of items that you can action immediately a strange thing happens… fear turns to confidence… confusion is replaced with clarity.  

Having a plan – any plan – is far better than no plan at all.  At least with a plan you have certainty of what you can do.  And if it does not work, you can at least be confident in the knowledge that you succeeded in finding out what does not work.  Then you can try another approach, and another… until you succeed. Accepting the worst case, and then having a plan will reduce your stress – especially when you take action on your plan.  

Another possibility is to look at the financial crisis as an opportunity. This will empower you to make changes that you would not otherwise make. Oftentimes when things don’t flow, we have an opportunity to examine why they are not flowing.  Whereas when the money is easily flowing we would continue on unchanged and not question what we are doing.

So the financial crisis is an ideal opportunity to re-examine what is flowing and what isn’t - so we can make different choices.

Over the next few days and weeks we will write more about stress, the financial crisis and how to cope with it.  Stay tuned.

Posted in Finance, Financial Crisis, New-Paradigm Leadership, Stress, Transformation, Wellness | 3 Comments »

Negative Thoughts About Money

January 12, 2009

In order to change the relationship we have with money requires that we reprogram our subconscious mind – replacing negative thoughts and feelings that are inaccurate with positive thoughts and feelings that give us the results we want…

Posted in Finance | 2 Comments »