I love encouraging things to grow.  My backyard garden is bigger and brighter this year than it was last year.  Each year it blooms and surprises me because it never looks the same from one year to the next.  I have been thinking about this post for over a year.  The idea for it came to me one day while I was watching the birds feeding outside my window.  Before I get into this post, though, let me tell you about my ants and aphids.  I hate them both.  A few years ago, I began spot spraying in my yard.  Aphids love fast growing plants.  They tend to congregate on new growth and literally suck the life out of that new growth, distorting the plant, injecting viruses and depending on the plant’s age and overall health, destroy a plant.  Ant’s help the aphids by transporting  them up the target plant and, together, they force the new growth to secrete the juices that both insects seem to love.  I see an aphid and I go into Rambo mode, get out the insecticide and scream “die, die, die” as I spray jets of poison onto the affected plant.  Looking for aphids is part of my daily routine.  Trouble is that spraying is a vicious cycle.  I spot spray because I know I have beneficial insects in my garden that I do not want to harm.  I have aphids, however, because they seem not to be doing their jobs.  There is a part of me that screams, “kill the lot of them, and start over,” then rationality takes over and I look for other ways to solve my pest problem.  When I spot spray, I will control the pests in one area of my yard for a month or so then the problem recurs.  Once you spray, you have to continue to spray and therein lies the problem.  Pesticide is cheap, though, and what I need to do to control the problem naturally is comparatively more expensive.

Turns out that birds and wasps love ants.  Lady bugs love aphids but will get swarmed by the ants if they are present on the same plant.  I have decided that every creature in my yard must have a job and do that job.  The birds are no exception.  In order to keep them around, I actually have to set multiple water stops and feeders around the yard. Funny thing is that when the feeders are full, the birds won’t eat the ants.  A couple of days ago, I watched a beautiful green oriole perch itself on the broad leaf of a sunflower plant.  Patiently it picked at the ants.  The feeders were empty.  I imagined that perching itself on a leaf while eating was hard for that bird.

When I put bird feed out, birds eat in a predictable pattern easiest to hardest.  First they eat the seed that fell on the ground when I filled the feeder, then they sit in the open feeder and feed, then they feed at the hanging feeders with perches on them.  To use these feeders the birds have to perch on a bar or small platform and pick their food.  Then and only then do the birds forage on the ground or perch on the plants for food.

What I realized is that when it comes to personal finance, we are like birds.  We do what is easiest first and we do the hard only when forced to.  So the easiest thing in the short term is not to have a financial plan at all.  The next step up is to start saving a portion of earnings each and every month.  The next step is to decide what to do with those savings by deciding the asset classes we want to invest in, analyze investments and make sound investments while simultaneously incurring, yet minimizing, the risk of loss.  Somewhere along the way we have to protect our income and assets through the proper use of disability and life insurance.

Not having a financial plan is like standing on the ground and eating the food that just happens to spill to the ground either when the feeder was filled or while the other birds feed from the feeder.  Setting up a savings plan is like hopping into the feeder.  It requires a bit more effort, but the long term rewards are significantly greater than just waiting around on the ground.  Analyzing and purchasing investments and protecting your income and assets is like foraging on the ground or perching on the plants and picking food.  It requires a great deal of effort and some risk, but the food is in abundance.  I have ants, worms and beetles galore in my yard but I also have predators.  One year I watched a bird and a bull snake tumble on the ground near a stand of trumpet honeysuckle.  The bird lost the good fight.

The next time you have trouble putting your financial plan into action, consider the next bird that you see and realize that your brain is so much bigger than his!

Please comment!

I have not posted for almost 3 weeks.  I’ve been visiting and I’ve had a visitor.  That visitor was my mother.  It was wonderful to see her.  We spent several days in the Southern Colorado town of Durango, Colorado. I think it is one of my mom’s favorite places and I have a whole new appreciation for it.  Then my partner and I went to visit friends at a yurt in Northern Colorado.  Problem was that neither one of us checked a map before agreeing to the trip. The yurt was (and still is) in the northern part of the state about 35 miles from the Wyoming border, 600 miles from where I live.  Hummmmmmmm.  Bugs staked out the area well before we did.  I brought my fishing equipment and managed to catch some brook trout.  Most I threw back, but there was one that I felt good about keeping.  I pan-fried him in butter and spices.  We dragged slices of the baguette we brought through the pan drippings (because you always have a baguette on a camping trip).  My catch made for quite a tasty morsel.  He didn’t come cheap.  I was covered most of the time by bugs while I was fishing.  They seemed to really like my hands.  After a few hours on the stream, my left hand had swollen to 3 times normal size, my fingers were sausage like and the tips were cold.  I couldn’t make a fist. We left a full day early.  I am happy to report that I am much better, my hand is back to normal.

Why did we go?  Aside from the obvious: We made a commitment and decided to keep it.  As I get older, I have honestly realized that it is important to maintain life’s connections.  They are gifts and living things.  Like all living things they have to be nurtured.  There are people that I have lost track of over the years that I sorely miss and I am now scrambling to find.  So we drove 600 miles to maintain connections that are important to us and resolved to check a map next time.

Our trip was long and we made several stops along the way.  I was going to blog about our stops and the interpersonal encounters because they were downright scary.  I left those encounters feeling that as a nation we are in trouble and resolved to blog about them in detail, but my mother sent me some pretty darn funny e-mails that get the point across.

So here they are:

Clean can be funny..

One day, a man came home and was greeted by his wife dressed in a very Sexy nightie.
‘Tie me up,’ she purred, ‘and you can do anything you want.’
So he tied her up and went golfing.

*****************************************

A woman came home, screeching her car into the driveway, and ran into the house..
She slammed the door and shouted at the top of her lungs, ‘Honey, pack your bags. I won the lottery!’
The husband said, ‘Oh my God! What should I pack, beach stuff or mountain stuff?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Just get out.’

********************************************

Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right, and the other is a husband.

*************************************

A Polish immigrant went to the DMV to apply for a driver’s license.
First, of course, he had to take an eye sight test.
The optician showed him a card with the letters

‘C Z W I X N O S T A C Z.’
‘Can you read this?’ the optician asked.
‘Read it?’ the Polish guy replied, ‘I know the guy.’

******************************************

Mother Superior called all the nuns together and said to them, ‘I must tell you all something. We have a case of gonorrhea in the convent.’
‘Thank God,’ said an elderly nun at the back. ‘I’m so tired of chardonnay..’

********************************************

A wife was making a breakfast of fried eggs for her husband.
Suddenly, her husband burst into the kitchen.
‘Careful,’ he said, ‘CAREFUL! Put in some more butter! Oh my gosh! You’re cooking too many at once. TOO MANY! Turn them! TURN THEM NOW! We need more butter. Oh my gosh! WHERE are we going to get MORE BUTTER? They’re going to STICK! Careful. CAREFUL! I said be CAREFUL! You NEVER listen to me when you’re cooking! Never! Turn them! Hurry up! Are you CRAZY? Have you LOST your mind? Don’t forget to salt them. You know you always forget to salt them Use the! salt. USE THE SALT! THE SALT!’
The wife stared at him.
‘What in the world is wrong with you? You think I don’t know how to fry a couple of eggs?’
The husband calmly replied, ‘I just wanted to show you what it feels like when I’m driving.’

********************************************************

Fifty-one years ago, Herman James, a North Carolina mountain man, was drafted by the Army.
On his first day in basic training, the Army issued him a comb.
That afternoon the Army barber sheared off all his hair.
On his second day, the Army issued Herman a toothbrush.
That afternoon the Army dentist yanked seven of his teeth.
On the third day, the Army issued him a jock strap.
The Army has been looking for Herman for 51 years.

*******************************************

Notes from a DC Airport Ticket Agent

God Bless America !
A DC airport ticket agent offers some examples of ‘why’ our country is in trouble:

1.  I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman (Carol Shea-Porter) ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn’t get messed up by being near the window. (On an airplane!)

2.  I got a call from a Kansas Congressman’s (Moore) staffer (Howard Bauleke), who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information, and then he interrupted me with, ”I’m not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts ..”

Without trying to make him look stupid, I calmly explained, ”Cape Cod is in Massachusetts , Capetown is in Africa ”

his response — click.

3.  A senior Vermont Congressman (Bernie Sanders) called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando . He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that’s not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state.

He replied, ‘don’t lie to me, I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state!”

4.  I got a call from a lawmaker’s wife (Landra Reid) who asked, ”Is it possible to see England from Canada ?”

I said, ”No.”

She said, ”But they look so close on the map.”

5.  An aide for a cabinet member(Janet Napolitano) once called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas . I pulled up the reservation and noticed he had only a 1-hour layover in Dallas . When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, ”I heard Dallas was a big airport, and we will need a car to drive between gates to save time.” (Aghhhh)

6.  An Illinois Congresswoman (Jan Schakowsky)  called last week. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:30 a.m., and got to Chicago at 8:33 a.m.

I explained that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois , but she couldn’t understand the concept of time zones. Finally, I told her the plane went fast, and she bought that.

7.  A New York lawmaker, (Jerrold Nadler) called and asked, ”Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to whom?” I said, ‘No, why do you ask?’

He replied, ”Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said (FAT), and I’m overweight. I think that’s very rude!”

After putting him on hold for a minute, while I looked into it. (I was dying laughing). I came back and explained the city code for Fresno , Ca. is “FAT” (Fresno Air Terminal), and the airline was just putting a destination tag on his luggage.

8.  A Senator John Kerry aide (Lindsay Ross) called to inquire about a trip package to Hawaii . After going over all the cost info, she asked, ”Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii ?”

9.  I just got off the phone with a freshman Congressman, Bobby Bright (D) from Ala who asked, ”How do I know which plane to get on?”

I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, ”I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these planes have numbers on them.”

10.  Senator Dianne Feinstein (D)
called and said, ”I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola , Florida . Do I have to get on one of those little computer planes?”

I asked if she meant fly to Pensacola , FL on a commuter plane.

She said, ”Yeah, whatever, smarty!”

11. Mary Landrieu (D) LA Senator called and had a question about the documents she needed in order to fly to China .  After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded her that she needed a visa. ‘Oh, no I don’t. I’ve been to China many times and never had to have one of those.”

I double checked and sure enough, her stay required a visa. When I told her this she said, ”Look, I’ve been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express!”

12. A New Jersey Congressman (John Adler) called to make reservations, ”I want to go from Chicago to Rhino, New York .”

I was at a loss for words. Finally, I said, ”Are you sure that’s the name of the town?”

‘Yes, what flights do you have?” replied the man.

After some searching, I came back with, ”I’m sorry, sir, I’ve looked up every airport code in the country and can’t find a rhino anywhere.”

”The man retorted, ”Oh, don’t be silly! Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!”

So I scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, ”You don’t mean Buffalo , do you?”

The reply? ”Whatever! I knew it was a big animal.”

Now you know why the Government is in the shape that it’s in!

Could anyone be this DUMB?

YES, THEY WALK AMONG US, ARE IN POLITICS, AND THEY CONTINUE TO BREED..

The interpersonal encounters

were similar to the notes from a DC ticket agent.  Mamma Mia!

Please comment.  What has become important to you as you have gotten older?

Recently I was sitting with two friends at dinner.  Both women are over age 60 and both found jobs in this economy.  The jobs are high-paying. One of my friends said that she thought the reason she had been able to find a job was her work ethic.  “We may be 60,” she chuckled, “but at least folks know we will show up.

At the time of the Great Depression, the number of self employed individuals was significantly higher than it is today. Since 1948 the percentage of self-employed individuals has declined steadily. Since the 1970’s the self-employment rate has ranged between 6 and 8 percent of total employment.  Has the work ethic in America changed as the rate of self-employment has fallen?

I thought about what she said and filed it.  Back in the roaring 1990’s the labor market was so tight that all kinds of bad employee behavior was tolerated. Monday/Friday absenteeism was high and folks figured they could just get other jobs if they got fired.

I recently Tweeted an article that appeared on CNN Money about the success of Amish businesses.  Their long term survival rate  is over 90%.  By comparison, the 5-year business success rate is 65% for the general population.  They attribute their success to humility and extremely hard work.

The other day we got a call from a colleague.  Her car had broken down and she was calling to cancel her clinic scheduled for the next day.  She was told to rent a car if she had to but she needed to be present as scheduled.  She showed up.  A couple of years ago, I got a call from another colleague.  She was about to leave on vacation in a few days and noticed a spasm in her back.  She wanted to see a massage therapist to work the spasm out.   Trouble was, the only appointment she could get prior to the start of her vacation was right in the middle of one of her clinics.  She called and, explaining to me that she did not want to head off to her vacation with a spasm in her back, asked if I would excuse her from her scheduled clinic.  My answer was, as Madea would say, “hell to the no.”

Many years ago, I wasn’t much better.  I was chronically 10-15 minutes late for work.  My dogs were sick, my car was sick, I had a hot date the night before.  Silly, silly stuff.  My mama told me that as long as I needed the income, I had better prioritize the job.  My mother raised 2 kids alone and rarely missed a day of work. The truth is that as long as someone needs their income, they had better prioritize their job or business.

Is this behavior a function of age?  Meaning the younger you are the more likely you are to see the need to earn an income in conflict with other activities like getting the car fixed.  I don’t know. I do believe, however, that something has happened.  In the name of family values people shirk work.  Even in households where a parent is home full time, I have watched adult health care professionals walk off the job to take care of something at home.  “Family first” being the last words they utter as they walk out the door. How about “without an income, there is no family, so I’ll just stay on the job.”  It is a foregone conclusion that work comes second.

We might just find ourselves in a position in which we lose our competitive edge to nations in which their citizens are happy for work and for whom the job or the business comes first.

Please comment.  What are you seeing at work?

Adam Baker’s Man versus Debt is one of the blogs that I follow.  This post was inspired in some ways by Adam’s April 27th post When to Quit Traveling. Adam at the age of 24 or so, didn’t like the way his life was going accumulating things and personal debt so he and his family decided to sell their possessions and travel for a year.  They decided to cut their trip short by a couple of months and return home.  Adam discusses the implications of that decision on their present and future realities on his blog.

I am middle-aged.  I don’t say that like it is a medical diagnosis with all the emotional impact that medical diagnoses can have.  I say that at a statement of fact.  I am middle-aged.  I have also had a long and rewarding professional career and I have gotten to a point where I can see beyond my career to other opportunities.  Honestly, going to school for years and training to become something, in my case a doctor, can make you feel that you always have to be that thing you trained to become or practice that thing you trained to do the same way you have always done, but you don’t.  You always have the right to change your mind no matter how crazy every one around you may think that you are.

I have taken enough personal development classes to know that bringing about an even slightly different reality than the one I currently enjoy will require a great deal more than wishing.  It will require beginning with the end in mind.  The first time I heard the catchy phrase “you plan your life first by beginning with the end in mind”. I thought what kind of BS is this?!  Personal development programs always use the example of travel.  We plan trips toward a specific destination and, although there may be many ways to reach that destination, we always settle on a specific route.  The problem is that travel is easy and life can be a bit more challenging.

In the additional years of living since I first heard that phrase I now understand what that phrase truly means.  I will never reach a destination without first setting that destination as specifically as I know how. I then have to reject the things that prevent me from reaching that destination.  Wow, that sounds kind of harsh but ultimately that is really true.  If I know that in 10 years I want to be a person who owns 10 investment properties and that those properties will require a down payment of $20,000 each, I will have to engage in behaviors today that enable me to develop the requisite funds.  That will certainly mean saving money, it might mean networking to find like-minded business partners, it will also mean controlling day-to-day expenses as well as large purchases to make sure that I have the funds on hand that I need to buy the investment properties.

The toughest thing about beginning with the end in mind is deciding what that end is, deciding what I want my life to look like in all areas.  If I make one decision will that close off other opportunities?  Probably, but life teaches that a decision will also create opportunities.  There is a whole multi-million dollar  industry called personal development and life visioning to help people decide what they want illustrating that this is the toughest part of the life change process.  What if I make a decision and fail in the attempt?  I have to ask myself what is the worst that could possibly happen and can I survive that?  Yep, fear of lost opportunities and fear of failure are probably the two reasons people find it hard to decide what they truly want and therefore find it hard to make change.  I know that is surely the case for me.

Looking back, I found it relatively easy to be where I am today.  I certainly worked and worked hard and there were times that I felt quite alone. Looking forward feels a bit different because there is a certain level of complacency.  I really don’t have to do anything different and, except for the stirring in my heart, I would make no change at all.  Fortunately I am into listening to my heart these days.

First step?  Begin with the end in mind.  Quite fortunately in life we can have several beginnings.  Thank God for yellow note pads!

Are you beginning with the end in mind?

Please comment.

This blog post was inspired by Lee of Lee’s Shizzle

You ever wonder how one guy hits it out of the park and everyone wants to know how he did it.  I mean EXACTLY how he did it?  If cloning success were that easy everyone would be successful.  Alas it isn’t that simple.  Lee was trying to encourage folks to use their own creativity on the road to success.  He remarked how crazy it is that when you are out fishing and one guy seems to be catching the fish, all the other fisherpeople crowd around the same hole as the successful guy as if catching fish is as simple as fishing in the same hole.

I fly fish and that analogy screamed volumes to me.  At the tail water fishery on the San Juan where the fish are very selective, you come to understand that it takes more than fishing in the same hole as the successful guy to net the big fish.  It takes the right fly, heck the right combination of flies, the right fishing line and the right presentation. And at the end of the day the fish just may not like how you smell.  This same principle, that success depends on a whole lot of variables applies in the world of personal finance.

There are two principles to wealth and they are that you should 1) live below your means and 2) save your money.  Once you have mastered those two principles, then you can add two more: 1) invest your money wisely and 2) create other income streams so that you can live below your means, save your money and invest your money wisely.

Now the 20 year old new to the personal finance game would have very different results than the 50 year old who is new to the personal finance game.  Why?  Because in addition to those principles is another factor that lurks in the background;  it is one you cannot duplicate and it is one that cannot be cheated.  This factor is time.  In general the 20 year old has more of it than the 50 year old and these two bedrock financial principles take time to come to fruition.  Two different people at two different ages, using the same financial principles cannot clone success.  The 50 year old would have to save more per month than the 20 year old to produce the same results.  The 50 year old might decide that he is so behind the 8 ball that he has to take risks to boost his yields and make sure he stays on track.

One sales professional may come to a new job with more training and more real world experience than his colleague.  His results, therefore, will be different than his colleague’s even if the company they both work for also offers sales training.

There is no way around it. The awful truth is that it is impossible to duplicate success across the spectrum of variabilities.  We just want to pretend that it isn’t.  Then we don’t have to factor in the role that our life experience, temperament and creativity may play in our overall outcomes.

Please comment.

This post is inspired by Maren Kate of http://www.escapingthe9to5.com Years ago

I was talking to a friend of mine, Ted, an entrepreneur whose background is in sales  about the need to constantly promote your business. Honestly, I have always been annoyed by people who carry business cards and have their wares constantly on display.  It is almost impossible to go out to dinner with these people!

Maren posted “A Day in the Life of an Entrepreneur” on her blog.  Part of her daily routine is that she networks to find 2 new business contacts a day.  When I read her post, it hit me.  Success in business is about consistent self-promotion.

Some time ago, I was at a Cloning of Success (COS) workshop held in John Assaraf’s home. One person at the conference had been at another Assaraf event 6 weeks previously and had approached him about nutritional supplements.  He became a customer of her nutritional supplements business. At the COS workshop she developed other business relationships with a plastic surgeon and others.  This woman was always moving her business forward and no prospect was too big.   I know that her business generates a multiple six-figure income for her and her husband.

Sales and promotion are activities that we are simply not comfortable with.  We think of sales and we think of the door-to-door Electrolux salesman, the car salesman who ignores the woman in order to talk to “her man”, we think of buying things that we don’t need only to feel guilty about it afterward and we think of the blustery, aggressive sales person who “just doesn’t understand my needs.”

The fact is this:  We are all in sales even if by accident.  Launch a website and you have to promote it, you can do it the cheesy way, by buying software that leaves spam ads on websites or you can develop relationships with people of similar interests and add meaningfully to the discourse on their sites.  Lose a job and you have to promote yourself to get another one.  In this economic climate I have been surprised by the tactics people have used to land another job.  People have used Twitter, Face Book, have started blogs, have researched companies and put together marketing pieces for free to help that business move forward.  All of these tactics have at their heart self-promotion.  Create a product or service and, well, you get the point.

Self-promotion is difficult.  Most of us, me included, would rather act anonymously, posting flyers, posting ads hoping that someone, anyone will respond.  It really doesn’t work that way.  Self-promotion is a high contact sport and that is just the way it is.

You don’t have to have sales training and become the thing you hate in order to become an effective self-promoter, but you do have to be transparent, genuine, authentic and offer value.  Adam Baker posted the sales numbers from his e-book, Unautomate Your Finances, on his blog, http://www.manvsdebt.com Johnathan from http://www.mymoneyblog.com posts his 401K port folio on his site and Chris Guillebeau of http://www.chrisguillebeau.com posts his earnings from his site on his blog.  If you like where these guys are coming from, follow them, if not don’t.  But there is no mistaking who these folks are.

In the time of social networks, blogging, article marketing, widely available Internet access, we have all become accidental salesmen.

What are you doing to move your business or idea forward?

Please comment.

Some years ago, Brian Klemmer wrote, If How To’s Were Enough, We’d Be Skinny Rich and Happy.  Klemmer said something that few of us want to face: having the instructions, knowing what to do is rarely enough, why because “something” can prevent us from accomplishing even the simple things of life, even if we know what to do.  I am more of a philosophy kind of gal.  Meaning I really want to have a thought  or an understanding about why I do what I do. Truth is, I can tell many people what to do to increase their wealth, save money, live frugally (although some of my more radical friends and acquaintances would say I am a frugal wannabe). Yes, I do reuse aluminum foil.  I am generally happy to share what I have done step by step.  But I have come to realize that knowing the step-by-step is really only part of truly knowing.  I cannot tell you the number of times I tried budgeting and paying off my debts until one day everything just clicked.  If you believe my mother (who has been spilling my dirty laundry on this blog as well) things clicked when I had to borrow her credit card to rent a car.  It wasn’t then.  Something else happened sometime much later.  I am always reading personal finance books.  Why?  Because  I want to keep personal finance ideas at the forefront of my mind. Why?  Because I have the attention span of a gnat.  If I don’t read a personal finance book for a while, I forget and run the risk of slipping back into bad habits.  There is that indefinable something that determines when we take action or not.  And knowing the how to is not that something.  To borrow a phrase from “Three Men and a Little Lady”, you cannot swing a dead cat without hitting a “how-to” book or article. How to books and articles sell and make beaucoup (pronounced boo coo) money. I was speaking with a friend of mine who is a recovering alcoholic.  He’s been sober for over a decade.  He knew the steps to sobriety long before he took them.  His something?  Driving home one night, not remembering how he got there and finding brush embedded in his bumper.  He told me that that experience isn’t enough for some people and they continue to drink until something else happens.  For me it was $80,000 dollars in consumer debt and the attendant dramas that went with it.  For others it is $1000.  For others those numbers are chump change and it takes more than a million dollars in consumer debt to spur them into action.  For some people it takes homelessness.  For others homelessness is a temporary inconvenience until they get another credit card.  When I started this blog I was going to write a series of “how to” articles.  Then I thought how can I do that when I understand full well that many will not be able to implement the steps because the time to make a change has not yet come.  It how to’s were enough, I’d be Billy G. because I would have flawlessly implemented what I read. If how to’s were enough I would make a mint writing how-to articles.  This isn’t about having a strong why!  Frankly, I would like to shoot the next person who says, “you just have to have a strong why to make change”  or “if you failed, you just didn’t have a strong why.”  The myth of the strong why simply puts people on the path of making value judgments about themselves and other people and the world is full of value judgments.  Where is all this going?  Well, we don’t suffer and disappoint ourselves for lack of knowledge.  There is that something else.  We could call it a habit of making poor choices, but that too is an oversimplification.  Truth is, lack of knowledge is rarely the problem.  It is that certain something else, that missing ingredient that lies within each of us that triggers action.

Please comment.

Yes, I am a middle-aged woman but pause is not a play on menopause. It is about learning to pause, really, honestly. Today is Easter Sunday. For me, the Easter season is a time of reflection, a time of renewal and rebirth at a time when all seems lost. One of the most special Easter Weeks I have ever celebrated occurred when Passover began on Good Friday. The messianic Jewish members of my church, who continued to celebrate Passover, brought their Seder to our general church congregation. It was the first Seder that I ever attended. The Seder itself, was the Last Supper, a celebration of liberation, freedom from slavery. This morning I intended to rise, pray and reflect on the past year. Instead I woke with the anxiety of the day ahead. As a child, I was a great worry-er, but went through a period of relative peace during my 20’s and 30’s. The late 40s? Back to worry. Worry about the markets, retirement, getting the most out of life, contributing to life, relationships, you name it. What will happen on call? More worries. I know that the state of worry is not the spiritual intention of the state of life. Is worrying the curse of encroaching middle age? I certainly hope not. I could blame the media, the news, terrorism and cancer. But I won’t go down that road.

With the amount of stimulation that we all face in a given day it is easy for the mind to race and wander. What is a person to do to maintain a semblance of calm, deliberation, concentration? Worrying does not make any life situation less likely to happen. It simply spoils present moment enjoyment.

I don’t know. A day that I deeply care about got away from me before I pulled one foot out of bed and put it on the floor. This is what I am going to do. In the morning, when I rise, but before I make a move for that first cup of coffee, I am going to read a passage from a book, sit and reflect. I will do this for the next 30 days and report back. This will be my effort to pause.

What are you presently doing to pause before jumping into the rigors of your day?
Please comment.

About 3 weeks ago I wrote in “The Great 401K experiment and 16 Ways to Create Wealth, that gaining new skills was essential. Today, The Simple Dollar posted this article about gaining transferrable skills.
Enjoy!

The Power of Transferrable Skills – And Six Areas to Work On
Posted: 19 May 2009 01:00 PM PDT
When I was in college, the vast majority of my classes were effectively training for a career in research and scientific data management. Seven years after graduation, though, I find myself drawing instead on the transferrable skills I picked up in other classes: public speaking, writing, leadership, information management, and so on. To put it simply, transferrable skills are those things that you can utilize no matter what specific career path you find yourself on.

Transferrable skills are often left by the wayside in competitive college majors. In order for a computer science major to get a leg up in the post-graduation workplace, for example, it’s often preferable to jam in another programming or algorithms class than it is to insert another public speaking class. Even if the program does require classes on transferrable skills, those classes are often looked down upon as “blow off” classes – ones that have to be finished in order to get down to the real classes within the major.

I believe this is a mistake. As change in this world accelerates, people are spending less and less of their life strapped to one particular career. They have the freedom to choose other avenues – starting a new career, starting their own businesses, and so on. In that environment, transferrable skills become more and more valuable. In fact, a well-polished transferrable skill makes for brilliant resume fodder no matter what your job – communication skills and leadership experience are a plus for almost any post-college job you might apply for.

Obviously, course loads often aren’t very flexible in a college environment, so my recommendation would be for college students to seek out other sources for picking up and mastering transferrable skills – extracurricular activities, internships, and other sources. Beyond college, transferrable skills are useful for everyone to work on at any stage in one’s career

Here are six significant areas of transferrable skill well worth working on, both to improve yourself and to prepare for your future.

Leadership Can you actually lead a team? Can you herd a group of people towards a greater purpose? Are you self-motivated enough to do this? Can you set goals and actually achieve them? Can you plan large projects and push them forward?

How can I get it? Join a community or student organization and take charge of a large project. Later, run for a leadership position within that group. The best way to learn leadership skills is to learn them in the laboratory of life, and organizations provide the perfect opportunity.

Administrative skills Are you able to prioritize the tasks in front of you? Can you analyze information and then describe it in layman’s terms for others to understand? Can you interpret rules and use them effectively?

How can I get it? Get involved in the planning of as many large projects as you can. Project planning teaches you many of the administrative skills you’ll need in life. If there is a large project, volunteer to help with the planning – if there’s already a planner in place, learn everything you can from that planner.

Information management Can you actually research a topic? Can you take a pile of research and use it to answer worthwhile questions? Can you communicate those facts to others? Can you manage a budget and handle financial records? Can you use a wide variety of computer programs?

How can I get it? If there are opportunities to present anywhere around you, take them, even if you aren’t familiar with the topic. Of particular use are topic areas where you’ll have to do some research in order to get the presentation right. Another great avenue is to volunteer to be the secretary or (particularly) the treasurer for a group. Such activities will require you to carefully manage a large amount of information on behalf of a large group.

Creativity Can you come up with interesting ideas of all kinds? Are you good at coming up with marketing ideas? Are you good at formulating the next step in a process? Are you good at creating visually appealing layouts?

How can I get it? Create some websites for groups – and learn how to do it along the way. Whenever there’s an opportunity for brainstorming, get involved and throw out ideas. Creativity is something that is best learned by practice – so practice it.

Interpersonal communications Are you willing to speak in public? Can you communicate your ideas well in writing? Can you lead a conversation? When you communicate with others, do they understand your ideas?

How can I get it? Participate in conversations and meetings instead of just sitting there. Volunteer for any and all public speaking opportunities that come your way. Volunteer for difficult and arduous tasks of documentation – that’s the best way possible to practice writing to communicate information.

Personal development Can you use the experiences in your life as a source for growth and personal change? Do you have a personal moral code that you actually follow? Can you effectively and honestly evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of others (both people and things)? Can you deal with stress?

How can I get it? Don’t shy away from challenges – step up to big projects. Keep a journal and use it to explore what you really think about things, particularly the people around you.

Every moment you spend learning the above skills is a valuable moment. You’ll find yourself returning to these skills time and time again throughout your life – and they’ll provide a surprisingly strong backbone for your career and personal success.