The Golden Rules - Read on.

There was a one hour interview on CNBC with Warren Buffet, the second richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity. Here are some very interesting aspects of his life:

1. He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started oo late!
2. He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers.
3. He still lives in the same small 3-bedroom house in mid-town Omaha that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a fence.
4. He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him.
5. He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world's largest private jet company.
6. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEO’s of these companies, giving them goals for the year. He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis. He has given his CEO’s only two rules. Rule number 1: do not lose any of your share holder's money. Rule number 2: Do not forget rule number 1.
7. He does not socialize with the high society crowd. His past time after he gets home is to make himself some pop corn and watch Television.
8. Bill Gates, the world's richest man met him for the first time only 5 years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren Buffet.
9. Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer on his desk.
10. His advice to young people: "Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself and Remember:
    A. Money doesn't create man but it is the man who created money.
    B. Live your life as simple as you are.
    C. Don't do what others say, just listen to them, but do what you feel is good.
    D. Don't go on brand name; just wear those things in which you feel comfortable.
    E. Don't waste your money on unnecessary things.
    F. After all it's your life then why give chance to others to rule our life."

The Big Secret

Hi, there

I’m not a very articulate writer, so please bear with me while I attempt to put into words what I am thinking. I truly believe that God, or life, will bring each of us into situations or circumstances to learn life’s lessons in order for each of us to become so much more than what we currently are. If we don’t learn the lesson, we will find ourselves repeating the same circumstances or situations (or mistakes, if you will) until the lesson is learnt. We will all, whether consciously or not, continue through this life. The only difference when we do it consciously is that we will be active participants in life’s lessons as opposed to just letting life pass us by – without ever growing as people.

Right, now onto what I really want to discuss. Yesterday, on my blog, I placed a post discussing the power of positive thought, relating specifically to the Big Secret. Now, I had never heard or read about the Big Secret before, so it surprises me somewhat that not only have I been invited to a seminar on Thursday evening, specifically discussing the Big Secret, but on opening Cosmo today (yes, I do read Cosmo) there is a whole article discussion the Big Secret.

While, I find it very hard to grasp that you can simply think yourself healthy or rich or popular, I definitely do think there is merit and some substance to the power of positive thought. Yet, I think it goes a little deeper than that. I think it’s not just thinking positively, it’s about changing that gut-instinct, that natural inclination that we all have to certain circumstance and situations. For example, if someone has a natural tendency to be unwell, e.g. suffering from headaches, a weak tummy, and general unspecific body complaints – their natural inclination therefore is to not feel well. They may wake up every morning with some sort of symptom, because their natural inclination is to expect that. Thinking positive thoughts over a couple of days or weeks may not necessarily change that – what has to be changed is that natural inclination, which goes so much deeper than just thinking “I feel wonderful”.

And while I do certainly believe that the power of positive thought can influence our lives tremendously and is definitely a start in changing that natural inclination that we all have, we cannot ever fully control life. And that is my biggest concern regarding the Big Secret. It almost comes across (from what I have read) rather glib – just think good and life will be good. And yet, there will be elements in this life that we will never be able to control – not by positive thinking or any other means. Cosmo goes on to state the following concerns regarding the Big Secret: “Of course, there are those who don’t buy the idea. ‘I see two traps in this secret,’ writes Anthony George from Washington. ‘One is that you can blow off compassion for your fellow humans because you think they’re suffering only because they brought it on themselves. The other trap is that when you get cancer or your child dies, you’ll be sucked into despair because you’ll blame yourself.’”

Right, going back to my first point, I believe that the lesson for me is just that – while bearing in mind that thinking positive may not change my circumstances, it will definitely change my attitude – and will be a step in the right direction in changing that natural inclination towards the negative that I have. My fear though, is that if I don’t learn the lesson now, I will keep on repeating it. Why else am I suddenly being given all this information on the power of positive thought and the Big Secret through e-mail, magazines and seminars? All from completely unrelated sources?

Let’s hope the lesson can be learnt, but I suppose only time will tell.

Regards,
M.

The Prosperity Doctrine

Hi, there…

I came across this article and was wondering what everyone thought on this Prosperity Doctrine. Part of me agrees, but part of me says that if it was that easy to make money just by what you think, we’d all be filthy rich. What are your opinions?

And an extract from the article:

“Attract abundance and focus on prosperity – the only reason any person does not have enough money is because they are blocking money from coming to them with their thoughts. Every negative thought, feeling or emotion is blocking your good from coming to you and that includes money. It is not that the money is being kept from you by the universe, because all the money you require exists right now in the invisible. If you do not have enough, it is because you are stopping the flow of money coming to you, and you are doing that with your thoughts. You must tip the balance of your thoughts from lack-of-money to more-than-enough-money. Think more thoughts of abundance than of lack, and you have tipped the balance. If you have held thoughts in the past that the only way money can come to you is through your job, then let that go immediately. From The Secret by Jack Canfield.”

Comments? Opinions?

Regards,
M.

IF WE COULD ONLY APPLY ALL THIS TO OUR BUSY LIVES…

Hey there ... I thought this was pretty amazing reading.

Regards,
M.

IF WE COULD ONLY APPLY ALL THIS TO OUR BUSY LIVES…

This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen at the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded an Honorary PhD.

“I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk or your life on a bus or in a car or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.

People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a winter's night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've received your test results and they're not so good.

Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and them to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocre, at my job if those other things were not true.

You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.

It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the colour of our kids' eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of to live.

I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the back yard with the sun on your face.

Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived”.

And this one is for the Ladies.

I often get asked why I decided to start my own business. Well, apart from the fact that husband got retrenched a couple of years ago that really knocked the wind out of our sales (and we’re still haven’t recovered from that), the statistics below are quite frightening and is part of my motivation in starting my own business. And next month we’re celebrating Woman’s Day (Yay!) and I thought these statistics were pretty pertinent to that as well. I’m quoting from Kim Kiyosaki’s book, Rich Woman – A Book on Investing for Women (pg 58 – 59).

“The statistics about women and money are very startling. The following are U.S. statistics, yet I find for other countries throughout the world these statistics are very similar or are trending in the same direction.

In the U.S.:

• 47% of women over the age of 50 are single. (This means they are financially responsible for themselves.)
• Women’s retirement income is less than that of men because a woman is away from the work force an average of 14.7 years as compared to 1.6 years for men. (Women are typically the primary caretaker of the home.) This, along with lower salaries, adds up to retirement benefits that are only about ¼ of those of men. (National Center for Women and Retirement Research – NCWRR)
• 50% of marriages end in divorce. (And who typically ends up with the children? The woman. So now she is solely financially responsible for herself – and her children. And what is the #1 subject couples fight about? Money.)
• In the first year after a divorce a woman’s standard of living drops an average of 73%.
• As of 2000, women are expected to live an average of 7 to 10 years longer than men, (Ann Letteersee June 12, 2000), which means they must provide for those extra years. However, married baby boomer women can expect to outlive their husbands by 15 to 20 years on average.
• The average female born between 1948 and 1964 may likely remain in the workforce until at least 74 years of age due to inadequate financial savings and pension coverage. (National Center for Women and Retirement Research, 1996)
• Of the elderly living in poverty:
  o 3 out of 4 are women (Morningstar Fund Investor)
  o 80% of the women were not poor when their husbands were alive.
• Approximately 7 out of 10 women will at some time live in poverty.

What are these statistics telling us? They tell us that more and more women, especially as they become older, are not educated or prepared to take care of themselves financially. We’ve spent our entire lives taking care of our families, but have no ability to care for ourselves in this vital way. We are either depending upon someone else to do it for us – a husband or partner, a boss, a family member, or the government. Or we just figure that it will all work out. The fairy tales we grew up with were just that.

Three final statistics to consider:
1. 90% of all women will have sole responsibility for their finances within their lifetimes … yet 79% of all women have not planned for this.
2. 58% of female baby boomers have less than $10 000 in retirement.
3. Only 20% of baby boomer women will be financially secure in their retirement (Ms. Magazine, 2002).

With all of the above, you can see why I wanted to and did start my own business.

Good luck to all the women out there! Be rich, be healthy and be wise.

Regards,
M.