Archive for May, 2008

8 fool proof steps to financial peace of mind (5 of 8)

Friday, May 30th, 2008

Here’s the part about keeping score, all these authors/speakers bring up having a budget. Some people are accustomed to spending their money, not counting it. So, I won’t disagree when the gurus preach that spending money is a habit and that your debt is only a reflection of your habit and misguided thinking. Almost everything is a habit. Thought habits are everywhere. We do a lot of things simply because we are used to doing them. Often there is no analysis. There are excuses and rationalizations, but generally nothing relying on logical choices. But at the same time, we don’t want to think about every little thing, that’s why we have habits, and if habits can harm you, habits can serve you.

8 fool proof steps to financial peace of mind (4 of 8)

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

Be among people with a lot more money than you have. And if you are in business for yourself, work with people that have no difficulty paying in full, rather than dealing with people that say your fees are too high and that they’ll make a deal with you and give you more business later on. So the great upcoming financial rewards are never clear…except that they will be later, if at all. It’s certainly not favorable financially and if it doesn’t contribute to happiness, why should I negotiate fees downward on myself? If you are conducting official charity work, you work to serve the people, if you are claiming you are in business, and prefer it to stay that way, simply go where the money is.

8 fool proof steps to financial peace of mind (3 of 8)

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

Next in the guru handbook is to say we must put forth the output on our goals to bring home the zillions. I think it is better to emphasize sending out our ideas into the marketplace. Again, I don’t think it’s worth overly being tied to goals, sometimes you throw your line out expecting one kind of fish and you hook something more appealing. And if you are stuck on your goals, maybe you’ll throw it back instead of realizing there’s more value in what you unexpectedly caught. There are a lot of people that talk about going into business for themselves but they forget one key element, if you are in business for yourself, you have a sales job.

8 fool proof steps to financial peace of mind (2 of 8)

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

Choose the goals that make you… sick… rich? So-called success experts love to talk about goals… goals don’t motivate unless they are somehow anchored to your core, that place where you emotionally live. It doesn’t matter what you’re aiming at, if mother nature has the wind against you, your arrow is going to have a tough time making the target. You are the star of your own movie, and characters in movies have jobs so if there’s anything to focus on, it’s creating an enjoyable life while creating a living. Life is unscripted, so all kinds of good and not so good situations can arise at any particular time. If your whole life was scripted and you knew in advance what would occur, it would probably be even more boring. So when you tell the story of your life, it will only be as interesting as how you go about it.

8 fool proof steps to financial peace of mind (1 of 8)

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

The first step, and this is a biggie, is to stop doing all the things that contribute to that false sense of self because if you change your thoughts you change your future. The way we live tends to be more like some low-budget horror film rather than us scripting a blockbuster life. We are immersed in our habits of thought and habits of behavior that result in… the same old results. We’re transmitting our thought patterns by wearing our thinking the way we wear our clothes. Gurus will tell you to act joyful and successful and that affirmations lead to success… well, maybe for some people it kind of works because it interrupts the negative thought process but it isn’t a formula to an extended state of awareness. Awareness will cut through a lot of false starts and misguided thinking. If we can remain aware in the moment we can get a sense of liberation because our thoughts almost always seem to hold us back.

Why I trade

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

At first, greed, a love of the game of action but after over ten years in the game it became a test of providing for myself and more importantly, to overcome myself, all those accumulated shortcomings in the form of excuses, faulty thinking, greed, fear, hope, despair and attitude. Nothing hits you harder than a financial punch… from yourself.

What we search for in the market?

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

If we search for anything outside ourselves to provide the answer we diminish ourselves in some way. The market is a collective of flowing consciousness, not something to battle with, our greatest opponent has been ourselves, and so, we all have experienced attempting to outwit ourselves. The market cannot see us… so let us restore ourselves to unimportance so we can focus on riding these commercial waves.

There are so many books on trading

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

The thing is… you can’t learn trading from reading about it. It requires active involvement. Generally, the only kinds of books that interest me with regard to trading are books that discuss the trader’s decision-making process, the short-term results, the long-term effects of the decision and what the person learned. Techniques change, they don’t matter that much, the important thing is how a person goes about doing whatever they are doing in spite of all the information and market noise surrounding them. Good decision-making is more valuable than good information.

Shift your focus

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

As I look back, over the years there have been some great businesses that I could have gotten involved with but I was too focused on trading.  I was overly focused on taking small sums of money and trading them into a fortune.  I loved the game, or rather, I loved the idea of playing the game, but that isn’t real and that’s not enough to compete in a viable manner.  If I really thought about it, the answer would have been that there were “better” areas for me to compete in the marketplace.  But a singular focus doesn’t equal efficient progress.  The mistake I made was devoting myself to the market and not to myself.  If you’re only after money, shift your focus to something else.  And ideally, take the time to find out, whatever you need to find out about how you operate.

Don’t trade with too little capital

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Businesses fail because they don’t have the financial reserves to keep going whether times are good or not so good. Trading without adequate capital is like opening a business without adequate capital – it’s not going to last long. So, what is the right amount to begin with? It all depends on the market in which you are competing. Opening a small restaurant with a hundred thousand dollars might work in an area away from the city but opening a restaurant in Manhattan that seats two hundred people would probably cost a million dollars. Furthermore, another consideration is what can you afford to lose? And you may have to lose it again and again in order to get it right. But who can resist taking a small sum and turning it into a fortune?