Archive for October, 2009

October26

What You Think About Yourself May Not Be What Others Think

By: Ririan

Peoples’s perceptions of themselves is a funny thing, very often it is diametrically opposed to what even the people closest to them think, friends, family, spouses often perceive you very differently then you perceive yourself. A case in point, the other day I was having dinner with one of my friends who is a good person and has a lot of great qualities. Unfortunately, sensitivity is not one of those qualities, she might be the least sensitive person I have ever met, basically she is a ” bull in a china shop’” I could give you endless examples but for time’s sake you will just have to take my word for it. As we were eating she made the comment ” and you know how sensitive I am,” honestly, I nearly choked when she said that in all earnest. Now, we all know this person, we all have that friend that really has no clue as to how they truly are, but the truth is while this case in point is an extreme example, self perception is usually off base.

Let me give you a few examples, most people think they are a lot smarter than they are, do you know anyone who says” I’m really not that bright, actually I’m kind of stupid.” And this is scientifically proven, when most people are asked to identify their intelligence levels and then given tests after, guess what? they usually score much lower than they estimated. Take the example of my friend above, if you were to ask most people if they are sensitive, what do you think they would say? And again, tests have shown people’s perception of their own sensitivity is far higher then they score on the test. Do you known anyone who says I’m ugly or not attractive?

Psychology today magazine has examined this phenomenon and they have come up with four spots. “Bright spots” which are known by you and others, things such as, you are out going, or a liberal. “Dark Spots” which are things not known by you or others, it may be something like what motivates you to compete, perhaps you are sub consciously trying to prove something to your father, for example. “Personal Spots” things that are known only to you, in my case I may seem fine at a party, but the truth is crowds may make very anxious. And finally “Blind Spots”,these are things known only by others and usually misconceived by ourselves, examples might be hostility, being overly defensive, or as mentioned earlier your intelligence or attractiveness.

The last two, “personal spots” and “bright spots” are the most relevant in how we perceive ourselves and how others view us. When we know something about ourselves that others are not privy to it very often leads to misconception. Shy people are often considered moody or arrogant because they don’t talk. In the absence of something positive most people perceive a negative even though that may not be the case. You may meet a shy person at a party, he just doesn’t say much, he is not rude or aggressive, he is simply quiet. In the absence of friendliness most people feel the person is unfriendly, although there is no such evidence to support that feeling. Meanwhile, the shy person feels he was totally nice, said hello, was polite, just not engaging, and he is surprised that the person he met felt he was arrogant. This is why out going and exuberant people are generally liked even though they may or may not be good people. They fill a void by promoting themselves and their personalities, they usually are likable so people have no room for interpretation, and most people don’t look for the “dark spots.”

So the question is how do you become more self aware? How do you get an accurate perception of yourself and change the misconceptions? The best way is talk to the people who know you best, the ones you trust. Find out what people really think about you and be willing to take some criticism. If it is your “personal spots” that lead to the misconception you can work on those. For instance, if you are shy you can practice looking people in the eye, perhaps try to be more engaging. If it is the “blind spots” that lead to the misconception then there may be a need for a self examination or a reality check. Communication is the key to any relationship, but to do that properly one must have an honest appraisal of his or herself, and then be able to communicate that to the other person in any form of relationship.

Posted in: Self Improvement8 comments

October21

Staying in shape, feeling healthy, what’s it all about?

By: RirianProject

I was looking through some health magazines the other day, reading the articles, and started thinking about my own heath. First, if you are going to read those magazines don’t bother looking at the pictures because I don’t know anyone my age who looks like the pictures, I’m never going to look like those pictures, so what’s the point? My twenty one year old nephew looks like the pictures in the magazines but he eats McDonalds seven days a week, and in none of those article could I find anyone saying McDonalds seven days a week leads to better health. So, I thought about what it means to be healthy and fit, and how to stay healthy and fit. My first thought was smokers, forget it, you will never be healthy and fit until you quit. So Quit! Quit cold turkey, take a pill, where a patch, get hypnotized, go to the desert for a month and isolate yourself but quit. I know its a nasty addiction and near impossible to quit, but quit. I know, I know, you’ll put on ten pounds, so be a little fatter cause sooner or later cigarettes will kill you and its better to be fatter than dead. Ok, now that we have smokers out of the way lets talk about you and me. I don’t know about everyone but most people I know don’t want to run a marathon, they don’t want to spend two and half hours a day in the gym, lifting weights and running the treadmill. And even if they did they don’t have the time. And if you are like me then you like to eat, and not little rabbit portions, but you enjoy a good meal. In fact I enjoy good meal far more than I like working out, I look forward to going to good restaurants, I never look forward to going to the gym. And I like sitting on my couch watching sports, and when I do I like to munch on things, Nacho’s, wings, popcorn, in fact one of my favorite things is watching football on a Sunday and munching out.

And despite that I like eating far more than working out, and it is an effort to get me to leave my couch when a good game is on, I am very healthy. And I just don’t say so, I get all A’s from my Doctor. When I was younger I loved playing sports, but I just can’t do that all the time anymore. As an adult you just can’t find the time or even energy to do what you did when you were younger, but you need to find something you enjoy doing, or at least can tolerate and try to do it for at least an hour five or six times a week. For me, I play basketball in a league once a week, and we practice once a week on weekends, I also have found while I don’t love spinning ( bicycle class indoors) I don’t hate it, so I try to spin three or four times a week at my health club. My wife tries to walk/run on the treadmill at least five times a week for an hour, usually before the kids wake up. I have friends who get up and run a few miles everyday, totally not for me, but they love it. I have other friends who do Yoga or Pilate’s, the simple truth is there is some form of exercise out there that everyone can participate in to maintain good health. Am I in great shape? No! Do I have a six pack of abs? No! But I am healthy and I feel good and I have the energy, and I know that exercising the 5 to 7 hours a week is the main reason.

Eating, ugh, my main weakness. I love to eat, and I love crap. I would rather eat a hamburger, milkshake and fries than do anything else. And I love Pizza and candy, and Italian food, and Coca Cola and the aforementioned Buffalo Wings. And I am never giving any of them up, I’m just not going to eat them that often. Temptation is the root of all evil, so whenever I can I just stay away from the places that serve them. And that’s the best advice I can give, if you love to eat like me, don’t give it up just stay away. Because the truth is for most people diets don’t work, even when they do they eventually end and people go back to the bad eating habits they had before. The simple answer is develop better eating habits, try to eat salads, and chicken, and fish. Drink as much water as possible, try to stay away as much as possible from bread and butter, eat fruit and vegetables. I’m not saying anything that anyone does not know, we don’t need all the magazines and the pictures to show and tell us what to do, most intelligent people already know, its just hard. What I am saying is I am probably going to eat Pizza and wings on Sunday when watching football, but that means the rest of the week I’m being careful. I’m going to have my burger, shake and fries but probably only about once a month. I’m going to come home at night and eat the healthy meals my wife cooks and not complain because I want to stay healthy. If I go to a restaurant I am going to have my roll and butter, but only one not the whole basket, and nine out of ten times I am going to order chicken and fish. This is the life I have carved out for myself, I get to eat the foods I love just not as often as I would like, I don’t diet but they don’t work for me anyhow, they just make me hungrier. I get in my workout five to seven times a week and while I don’t love it I have made it part of my routine. My picture isn’t going in any magazines anytime soon for my body, but I am not overweight and I feel great. And at the end of the day, that’s what it is all about, feeling good and getting a clean bill of health. So workout, go easy on the crappy foods, stay healthy, but do the things you enjoy just in moderation.

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Posted in: Featured, Health & Fitness6 comments

October20

Invest for the long term and Invest in what you know

By: Ririan

These are crazy economic times, the Dow Jones went from 14,000 to 6,500 and back to 10,000. If you own a home you have seen the value drop from 20% to 50% depending on what part of the country you live in. This is the first time in modern history that home values have dropped nationally, yes, various pockets of the country’s homes have had down economic times before, but that has been region specific based on unique economic conditions in each area. But this is the first time that American’s have seen a national drop in what has been historically their largest and safest investment.

In the last ten years Americans, and the world have seen two huge economic bubbles; first, the Nasdaq/tech bubble of the late 90′s and more recently the worldwide housing bubble. The first merely caused a routine recession, the latter almost caused a Depression, unlike one we have seen since the 1930′s, and we are still not totally in the clear yet. But what makes these bubbles different from the one’s of the past is technology and media. The availability of information through televisions, wireless, and the Internet available to everyone has expanded these bubbles to the general population. Plus, the advances in technology has given the ability to almost everyone to participate. The advance of the Internet has given almost every person instant access to day trading further fueling the bubble of the Nasdaq, and the advances in technology allowed most people to participate in the housing bubble, by allowing fast underwriting and appraisals through technology. So our economic bubbles now affect all people not only the professionals and Wall street.

So how do investors and ordinary workers who have pension plans and 401k’s and savings to invest protect themselves, and even more important how do they make money and save for their retirement? The simple truth is the average investor should never have been participating in these bubbles. When investing the plan should always be for the long term, and yes I know it is difficult to avoid investing in things when your friends and neighbors are doubling and tripling their money on a matter of months, sometimes weeks, but you must resist. Perhaps, the two greatest investors of our generation or any generation for that matter are Peter Lynch, who ran Fidelity mutual funds for decades, and the world’s richest man Warren Buffett. Both have very simple and similar theories on investing. For Peter Lynch, it was invest in what you know and what you use, and what you like. If you worked on your house as a hobby and went to Home Depot, that is something you used and liked, if you bought Home Depot stock you understood what you were buying. If you got up in the morning every day and ate Kellogg’s Raisin Bran or went to Starbuck’s everyday it was something that you used and understood. But buying Cisco Systems that powers the Internet through systems the average man doesn’t understand might be a stock an engineer might buy but probably not a Postal Worker. Now, just cause you used these items, that meant it was only a potential investment. People still need to do their homework, check out management, earnings, timing. For many investors mutual funds are a far better way to go, but the same principles apply, invest in areas that you understand.

Mr Buffet’s theory is very similar, invest in businesses and concepts you can understand. his largest holdings are Coca Cola, pretty simple concept, Wells Fargo a bank, American Express, the credit card industry isn’t going away you lend and get paid back interest, Geico the insurance company, again pretty basic. He also owns See’s candy and Dairy Queen. he is the every man of investing, his philosophy is to invest in things that are used everyday and that are easy to understand. And he has stood the test of time. In the late 90′s, Mr. Buffet’s holding company Berkshire Hathaway was under performing the markets for the first time in his career. The critics said he had lost his touch, the 70 something year old had not kept up to speed by not investing in technology. Mr Buffet called it a bubble, that he didn’t understand the companies business models, that in many cases could not understand what they did, his critics said he was thru. The Nasdaq crashed in 2000, Mr. Buffet is the world’s richest man. In 2008, the market crashed, Mr. Buffets net worth dropped by 50%, critics said his buy and hold theory was dead, while the Dow Jones Industrial tanked, Mr. Buffet bough more Wells Fargo, one of his largest holdings at 20 dollars a share, it’s now 31 he bought General Electric at 13 it’s 17. he bought Goldman Sachs at 115 it’s 190 and the list goes on. He buys great companies, he does not worry where the markets go on a day to day basis because he believes if you do your homework and buy great companies over time you make money. But he doesn’t buy all the time, he has one last credo, buy when most are fearful and sell when most are greedy, because markets are imperfect and tend to overreact to human emotion.

When investing stay away from the hottest trends, you are not an expert. Ten years ago most people I knew were buying tech stocks and making a fortune, the problem was they thought they were stock market geniuses. They weren’t they just caught a bubble. And most people who think they are smarter than they are don’t know when to get out and buy more and more and usually with borrowed money. A guaranteed recipe for disaster. And for all those people who thought they were overnight geniuses in the stock market, most lost all their investment in the end. The same thing held true with the housing market. Five years ago most people I knew were buying homes and trying to flip them. or some bought multiple homes with easy credit and borrowed money and thought they would be the next Donald Trump. The people that were the real experts made a fortune and got out, but the average investor, most had too much leverage and too much greed, for them, it ended up a disaster.

None of this means investing is wrong, or trying to flip a home is a mistake. It means don’t ride trends, don’t think you know more than you do, it means do your homework and buy what you know. If you want to try and by homes or apartments for rental income, know the area, don’t use too much leverage and invest for the long term and make sure you can hold through the rocky times because they always come. The same holds true for the stock market. There are no get rich quick schemes that work, all they will do is get you poor quickly. If returns seem to great to be true they probably are. If people tell you it’s different this time, I promise you its not. It is your money and your future be careful with it, be smart, invest carefully and remember successful investing is a marathon not a sprint.

Posted in: Money & Finance1 comments

October19

Saving Money is a Discipline

By: Ririan

Saving money is discipline, pure and simple. It is a discipline like exercising on a daily basis is, or like sticking to a diet. There are no huge secrets to the art of saving money, no secrets that we will reveal that you have never heard before, no earth shattering new technique, just simple focus, mental conditioning and effort. I know many of you think that you just can’t save any money on what you are making, that you barely get by as is, and I am sure for many of you that may be true, but it probably isn’t. The good news is I’m not trying to sell anything here so I am not going to tell you everyone can save money. In this economy many people have lost their jobs, their cars and homes, for them their problems are more severe then simple tips on how to save money. But 90% of you still have jobs and have an income and for you there is more than hope to save money, there is a solution.

First lets do away with the obvious, “if I just made more money I could save more,” this is completely untrue. “I have done a budget and there is no where else I can cut.” Budgets are an outstanding and needed tool for financial health, but just because you have done a budget doesn’t mean there isn’t room to save more money. As stated earlier, saving money is a discipline and like most disciplines it requires dedication, repetition and certain drills. So, for our purposes I am going to suggest one simple drill to work on and perfect, and it won’t cut into your budget, won’t require you to make more money, and will not require you to give up anything significant in your life.

Let’s start with Day one, month one, you need to do one simple thing. Before you go to bed at night take one dollar from your wallet or purse and put it in a drawer. Everyone has a dollar in their pocket, take your loose change you have lying around if you have to, but find a dollar. Now, repeat this procedure every day for thirty days, one month. This is no problem for 99% of the people who are working, do it every day, remember it’s a discipline. At the end of the month, what do you have? Thirty dollars obviously, I know it doesn’t seem like much but you saved thirty dollars more than you did the previous month.

Next, day one, month two. At the end of the day you need to do one simple thing. Take two dollars from your wallet or purse and stick it in the drawer. If you had a dollar in your pocket last month then you will have two dollars in your pocket, no one even notices two dollars. Repeat this procedure for thirty days, do not deviate, at the end of two months you will have saved ninety dollars, I know, seems like a lot of effort for ninety dollars. But you are working towards a goal, developing a discipline, and saving money.
Next, month three day one, repeat the same procedure only with three dollars, if you did two you can do three. At the end of the month you will have saved one hundred and eighty dollars. Do you see where we are heading?

Now I am not saying this can go on forever, the next month is obviously four dollars. At some point to do this you may have to give up something. For me I gave up starbucks in the morning, I made my coffee at home. For a friend of mine to meet his goal he gave up sodas from the vending machine during his coffee break to make his goal of four dollars a day. But if you save four dollars a day for a year you are saving an additional $1500, and if you could save five dollars a day by just making sure you tuck it away in a drawer every night, you will save close to $2,000 a year. And some of you may be able to save even more than that everyday and that will translates into large savings. Most of us really don’t even think about four, five, six or even more dollars, we spend it without considering it no matter our financial situation. But if you instill this discipline, practice it, take it as far as you can without altering your life, you will find that you have acquired a discipline that can save you thousands of dollars a year. Almost every working person can afford to do this, give it a try and see the results. And remember saving money is a discipline, it takes focus and a goal.

Posted in: Money & Finance3 comments

October17

Making people happy, it’s good for them, it’s better for you!

By: RirianProject

I recently had a chance to go to two different events, although opposite in spectrum, at the end of the day they were really about the same thing, honoring and celebrating what you love and expressing how you feel about them. The first occasion I attended was a wedding; obviously, a day of celebration, a day to tell your new bride how much you love her, to tell your friends and family, and new family how much you love them, and a day to thank all of those who helped you get to this great day. All of the emotions were appropriate for a wedding, all of the emotions and love I am more than sure were sincere. All in all it was a great day filled with love and happiness as it should be. A few days later I unfortunately had to attend a funeral, a day that was not so happy, but in its own way a celebration none the less. It celebrated a life, and like the wedding there was an outpouring of emotion for this person, for all that he had done, for all that he had meant to his wife, children, nieces and nephews, friends and coworkers. And for all the differences in the emotions of these two days the similarities struck me even more. At the end of the day both events gave people a chance to express how they felt about someone or someone’s they loved.

After the funeral I started to wonder how often people really told the people they care about in their life how much they mean to them. I decided to run an experiment in my own life, I was going to show the people that mattered to me the most how much I cared. Now, I wasn’t going to run right home after the funeral and express to everyone my love for them, that is too obvious and too easy. Over the next few months I set a deliberate plan to let the people I care about know at the most inopportune times for me, how much I loved them. My first test was my wife, I had a day where I was particularly overwhelmed at work, made a huge mistake on a project I was working on, and felt that I had let all of my coworkers down. All I wanted to do was go home, have a drink, be left alone and sit and watch TV. Instead, I called my wife told her to get a babysitter, brought her flowers, made reservations at her favorite restaurant, and spent the entire evening letting her know I loved her, I appreciated the amazing job she was doing raising our children, admired the type of friend she was, and let her know just how lucky I felt. The evening was all about her, and for no particular reason.

Each time I felt down, for whatever reason, I repeated the same type of thing, with my children, my parents, my in laws and even coworkers. Whenever I felt overwhelmed or depressed about something I went out of my way to make someone I cared about feel special. The result? You can’t imagine the difference it made in my life. Not only did it take away my immediate unhappiness by giving to someone else, it made me a much happier person on a day to day basis. There is something incredibly freeing about letting the people you care about know it, and letting them know for no particular reason, no wedding, no funeral, no college graduation, just because. I am sure I made all of those people happy on the days I made the effort, I could see it in their eyes, I knew by the way they treated me afterward. But, however I made them feel, I promise I did not make them near as happy as I made myself by expressing my feelings. The old cliche it is better to give than to receive is never more true when expressing your feelings to the people you care about most.Give it a try, give to the people you care about when it seems the most difficult, and watch the difference in your own life.

Posted in: Self Improvement1 comments

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