by Ouida on June 27, 2010
One of the questions I ponder often is what makes one person different from another in terms of what they achieve. The biblical parable of the sower talks about good seed that falls on rocky soil, seed that is stolen by birds and seed that takes root yet has different yields. All of it is good seed yet some yields 10, 50 or 100 fold. In other words the same good seed in good soil has different yields. Why? Perhaps his is a question best answered by the wisest sage. So despite the fact that I constantly ponder this question, I’ll take it down a notch and apply the question to gardening, personal finance and task completion.
Why do some people complete their tasks online while others are late? Why do some gardeners lose their plants to common pests like aphids and wind burn while others do not? Why are some people plagued by late fees while others are not?
The answer lies in what you value and in the concept of routine. If you value the timely completion of tasks what do you do to make sure that happens? If you hate late fees, what do you do to make sure you never get one? If you love gardening, what do you do to make sure that your garden thrives and that you are not spending hundreds of dollars every year replacing dead plants?
The answer is routine. You develop a routine to make sure that your garden thrives, that your bills are paid on time, that your work is completed on time. I have a great garden. I love it and it has taken years to create. In the fall, I winterize it. In the spring I trim the previous year’s dead matter from the perennials. I placed a drip irrigation system as the garden was going in so that I could water systematically with the turn of a knob rather than drag hoses all over the yard each time I watered. I have tried very hard to systematize everything to make maintenance convenient. Every morning in season when I have my coffee, I patrol the garden looking for pests and sign of sun and wind damage. I perform the same task in the evening. Walking through my garden during the growing season twice a day has become part of my daily routine. Over the years certain tasks have become much less fun than others therefore I have learned to farm those tasks out, because having a thriving garden has remained a value to me.
Some might argue that I take the matter of routine a bit too far. A friend of ours owns a nursery and greenhouse. Like a phoenix from the ashes this garden paradise arose from an asphalt parking lot and a foreclosed upon Mexican restaurant. I have a routine whenever I go there. I go first to the grapevine and then to the honeysuckle. I have 3 shrub varieties and 3 vine varieties that I was introduced to at this green house. I inspect. What did I find today? Aphids galore on the golden flame honeysuckle. I told the owner who was grateful, but already knew determined to let the ladybugs do their job, eventually. We both laughed agreeing that there was probably a program for me. Then I remembered the orchid that I brought home only to find aphids on it picked up from the greenhouse where I bought it. I’ll take my routine and philosophy any day rather than surrender my efforts to the devouring pests of aphids, late charges, over drafts and the like.
I took a sales class a few years ago. The instructor had us do a painful exercise all on our honor of course. Each night that we failed to make sales calls, we were to take a dollar from our wallets and burn it. Just the thought of the exercise gave me palpitations. Late fees provoke the same feeling in me. Paying a late fee is literally a waste and does not enhance the value of the product purchased. Paying a late fee on your mortgage doesn’t increase the value of your home and paying a late fee on your rent does not mean your landlord is going to reward you by putting in a new pool or laundry services. Late fees are literally money up in smoke or money down the toilet. They represent a waste and poor money management skills. Anyone with a telephone, ATM card or access to a personal computer can pay their bills on time. So if it is of value to avoid the fees it is easy to establish a routine around paying the bills on time. Simply logging in, calling in or going to the ATM machine can be done on any schedule to make sure late fees never occur.
The same is true with task completion. If the desire is to write, then write a page on something every day. If your boss has a project for you figure out how long it will take to complete and establish a routine around task completion until it is done.
I have become convinced that the reason some individuals are more productive than others is that the more productive ones have established routines geared toward what they value and ultimately toward higher production.
We have a choice, to maintain our homes through routine or risk coming home to a flooded house because we forgot to swap out the old hoses to the washing machine for new ones. We can paint siding each year or have the sun blister and warp it until it needs to be replaced. We can develop the routine of saving when we are 20 or 30 or go into panic mode at age 52. There are so many things that we can do to unleash the power of routine in our lives.
Please comment. What are the things that have made a difference for you?
by Ouida on June 22, 2010
A while back I blogged about the book, The Secret Currency of Love. Now I am reading Financial Infidelity by Bonnie Eaker Weil. There was an article on CNNMoney some time ago about the financial crimes committed in relationships and this book was referenced. The contributors to The Secret Currency of Love, many of them high income earners, were ashamed to admit that they wanted to be taken care of financially. Dr. Weil reveals that at least a third of women desire to be taken care of financially regardless of their level of income. This concerns me. To be out of control and blissfully ignorant financially is to be a slave. And I am of the belief that their are no benign slave masters even if that master is your domestic partner. There is also a startling statistic: either through divorce or death of a partner a woman will, at some point in her life, find that she has become head of household. AARP data indicates that 48% of women over 75 will live alone.
Over the years I have worked with women whose spouses suddenly died or filed for divorce. One of my friends told me of the humiliation that she felt when she realized that as as a result of her divorce, she was getting stuck with half of her husband’s credit card debts most of which were incurred while he entertained his mistress. One of my colleagues experienced the sudden death of her husband only to find her grief turned to outrage and fear when she discovered that he had allowed his life insurance policy to lapse and he had amassed credit card debt that she knew nothing about. She told me that for several months after her husband’s death opening the mail and packing his things revealed debt and expenses that she was simply unaware of. She said that being at home was like waiting for bombs to go off as she discovered more and more about how her husband really ran their household. I’ve worked with nurses who have had to endure personal bankruptcy because there were no marital assets to divide in divorce and the debt outstripped their income. The converse is also true. Women who are financially “in-the-know” can choose to leave unsavory relationships because they have the means to do so. A financially savvy nurse recently told me that she was happy she had the financial resources to leave her husband of 20 years after she learned that he was having an affair and refused to end it. As Carla Fried writes in her CBS MoneyWatch post: “If women don’t see the value in being an active decision-maker in their financial security, then they bear plenty of responsibility for any future financial disadvantage.” And therein lies the rub. There is risk, not bliss, in ignorance.
Dr. Weil articulates that money is a stand in for many issues in relationships. Issues that often began in childhood and were nurtured into adulthood. She asserts that 33% of women will be be secretive in the area of money and, therefore, damage their relationship with their partner while 26% of men will. A partner’s unwillingness to be open in the arena of money is a sure sign that the couple needs to go for counseling because deception or lack of openness in one area is a sign of deception in others.
I have simply seen too many women who refused to participate in their household finances find themselves left with relatively little after even decades of marriage failing to understand that the situations in which they were living were on some level simply unsustainable. Some of the wealthiest men I have come to know over the years have credited their wives with their success. These men are business owners with 30 to 50 years of marriage and I have found two traits they have come to value in their wives: active involvement in the running of the family business(es) and frugality.
What can women do? The road to becoming actively involved in family finances may be a rocky one and may require the aid of a counselor to navigate well. These are strategies that I have found in the world of personal finance that women can use to become more actively involved: 1) review trusts and wills, regularly making adjustments as children age. 2) regularly review insurance especially life insurance. Are the coverage amounts sufficient to replace at least 3-5 years of lost income? 3) review credit reports at least yearly. 4) review all bank accounts and the reasons for those accounts. 5) develop a household spending plan and stick to it. 6) regularly review retirement accounts. 7) know where all important documents are being kept.
These few strategies can help women remain in touch with their household’s relative wealth so that they can make responsible financial decisions regardless of their stage of life.
What are your thoughts? Please comment.
by Ouida on June 17, 2010
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?
by Ouida on June 13, 2010
The old world will burn in the fires of industry. Forests will fall. A new order will rise.
“The Forest of Fangorn lies on our doorstep. Burn it.”
Saruman, LOTR: The Two Towers.
I planned this blog post several days ago before Thomas Friedman’s editorial in today’s Times. Friedman’s editorial puts the blame for the BP oil spill where it truly belongs, with each and every one of us. We have had so many opportunities to get our “oil situation” right, but we have squandered them. The 1970’s oil shocks, runaway inflation and the recession of the early 1980’s did push us toward fuel efficient cars and thermostats set at 65 degrees but neither of those maneuvers is really an energy policy. The 1990’s bull market, tech boom and cheap oil pushed us toward MacMansions, the suburbs and SUVs. 9/11 wasn’t really a time for introspection and personal responsibility as much as it was a time for anger and war making. No energy policy again…just another missed opportunity. From 1996 to 2006 I drove a 4-Runner everywhere I went and thought nothing about it. I didn’t make the connection either until I saw Syriana in January 2006 and realized what my petrodollars were really doing. I walked out of the theater and said, “I’m buying a Prius.” By February 6th I was driving my new car off the lot. A Prius isn’t an energy policy either and the truth is that we may never get one at least not from our government. But we as individuals can make one. We can drive fuel efficient cars. I am sorry to say that a car that gets 25 miles per gallon is not a fuel efficient car. One that gets at least 30 mpg is. We can replace our drafty windows with energy efficient ones. We can get digital thermostats. CFU light bulbs. We can walk, we can cycle, we can compost, we can garden, we can lose weight for the obesity epidemic adds about a billion gallons a year in additional fuel consumption.
What will it take for individuals to take action? Waiting for the government is like waiting for Gadot. We can remain on the park bench waiting for him to arrive, be we know he never will. That is the point.
So what will it take? Should the Earth take matters into its own hands and the ground open up and swallow each SUV that drives over the roads? What would happen if oil-soaked oysters rose from the depths of the gulf, grew feet, came ashore and hurled themselves at BP executives instead of die quietly on the ocean floor? Would we get the message then?
The image of the Forest of Fangorn is a powerful one; a forest that literally rose up and moved to intercept and destroy the creatures who had desecrated it in order to create weapons of mass destruction. Do we need walking trees and talking animals to get the point?
I know this, I am feeling increasingly hopeless about our ability to get this right. We’ve had so many chances. Cheap oil and the consumer destroyed the electric car in the 1990’s. I would like to blame GM, but they are not entirely to blame, they made the SUVs but we bought them.
Where do we go from here? Please comment.
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