Quote of the Day: Integrity is adherence to your code of moral values

When I speak of establishing a strong moral foundation, I’m talking about possessing a clear set of values that guides your day-to-day behavior. You need to know what you believe in ahead of time so you don’t have to think about the right action to take at the moment of truth.

What do you believe is moral? What do you believe is immoral? What do you believe is ethical? What do you believe is unethical? What do you believe is good? What do you believe is bad?

If you don’t formulate your moral beliefs ahead of time, your actions may inadvertently be based on spur-of-the-moment whims, emotion, or instant gratification. In other words, you’ll be in danger of revising your ethical standards to fit each new situation as it arises, a practice commonly referred to as “situational ethics.”

An individual who engages in situational ethics is someone who does not possess a fixed standard of right and wrong. Right is simply whatever he perceives to be in his immediate best interest at any given time, which is a fool-proof formula for failure.

That’s why it’s so important to decide on a clear, concise set of moral values when your intellect is in control. Then, in highly emotional situations, you’re more likely to act in accordance with the moral standards that you have decided — in advance — to live by.

Which brings us to the subject of integrity. Integrity is an impressive sounding word, one which people like to bandy about rather carelessly. Unfortunately, very few people really understand what the word means, and even fewer practice it — including, and especially, those who expound on it the most.

Integrity is adherence to your code of moral values. It’s one thing to talk about moral values, but quite another to consistently adhere to them.

The above excerpt is from self development author and entrepreneur Robert Ringer—who writes about ‘concentricity’ which he says is the consistency of one’s words and actions—at his website.

Robert Ringer: A Warrior Lives by Acting

Make a difference, act now. Self development Robert Ringer explains

There are two basic kinds of actions. One is proaction, which puts you on the offensive and, all other things being equal, gives you a great deal of control over events. The other is reaction, which puts you on the defensive and relegates you to an inherent position of weakness.

An interesting way of looking at inaction is that it’s really just a negative form of action — a sort of black hole of action that sucks energy away from you much the same as the black holes of the universe pull matter into the deep recesses of their cosmic bowels. This is why inaction often yields consequences by default. If you wait for something, or someone, to act on you, you likely will be unable to control the consequences.

Homeostasis, a trait that all human beings possess to one extent or another, is (in psychological terms) the tendency to live with existing conditions and avoid change. Which is ironic, because resistance to change defies both the laws of nature and the laws of the universe.

The earth, the universe, and life itself are in a perpetual state of change, and so, too, is secular life. Weather changes, laws change, the economy changes, the reins of power change, technology changes, and, perhaps most significant of all, your age changes every second of your life. In addition, with the generation and dying of cells in our bodies, each of us is in a constant state of change physiologically, from birth to death.

Homeostasis is the ultimate defense against taking action, which is why most people stubbornly resist change, particularly major change. Outwardly, of course, we fabricate excuses that attempt to justify why we aren’t able to take action just yet, the most common one being that “the time is not quite right.”

Through the years, my own experience has convinced me that the time is never “right.” There’s always something that’s in the way of taking action. If you’re looking for excuses not to take action, you don’t have to go very far, because life is fraught with so-called problems — and they follow us wherever we go.

The truth is that, with few exceptions, the best day to take action is today. You can make a sales call today. You can start working on that important project today. You can start preparing to move to the city of your choice today. You can begin to pick up the pieces and start a new life today.

Please read the rest here.

7 Ways to Protect Oneself from the Media Circus

Based on the Donald Sterling controversy, self development author Robert Ringer at the LewRockwell.com writes: (bold mine) 

Personally, whenever there’s a big media blitz about some perceived wrongdoing, I prefer to ignore the hysteria and think about what I can learn from the situation that could be useful to me.  Off the top of my head, following are a handful of lessons that I believe are worth gleaning from the Sterling media circus — lessons that you can use to improve yourself and your own life.

1. People say negative things behind your back all the time.  If you don’t already know that, wake up!  If you do know it, don’t let it bother you.  Whenever I hear that someone has said something unflattering about me, I opt to take the rationally selfish approach and do my best to ignore it — especially when I know it’s patently false.  I hope, for your sake, that you do the same.
2. Don’t buy into the hate-speech scam.  People have opinions, some of which you may like, some of which you may not like.  Best to leave all that nonsense up to the PC Police, who achieve mental orgasms by harassing (perceived) evil speakers.  You don’t have time to get bogged down in group protests if you’re interested in bettering your life.
3. “They” say that hate speech is bad, but what’s worse is the idea that someone actually believes he has the moral authority to decide what constitutes hate speech in the first place.  Of course, if someone hurls a remark directly at you, and you, in your sole judgment, consider it to be “hateful,” that’s your prerogative.  As an individual, you have a right to make a determination about speech that is aimed specifically at you.  But before you get yourself all worked up over it, remember what mom taught you about sticks and stones.
4. Learn to reject hypocrisy and hypocrites.  In the Sterling saga, the hypocrisy is so thick it’s stifling, as you already know if you’ve been following the story at all.  The world is full of hypocrites, especially in politics (which is really what hate speech is all about).  Best you focus on policing yourself to make sure that you are not guilty of hypocrisy.
5. Never forget that friends and sweethearts have a way of becoming enemies.  Make sure your mouth understands that.  Talk is not cheap.  On the contrary, it has proven to be quite capable of destroying lives.  Think before you open your mouth.
6. In the same vein, be vigilant about not making The Big Mistake.  We all make little mistakes on a daily basis, but be careful about making a mistake so big that it can threaten your very survival.In Donald Sterling’s case, maybe he’s a terrible person — I have no idea — but I suspect his remarks (which, while not nearly as bad as those that have been made by some of his most vocal critics) were nothing more than the angry rants of an old guy who was mad at his middle-school girlfriend.This is where mom’s advice comes in handy again:  If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all.  There’s a reason why aphorisms like this have been around forever:  They’re true.  Instead of wasting time fretting over Donald Sterling’s remarks, concentrate on what comes out of your mouth.
7. The best protection against becoming Sterlingized (a form of sterilization performed by the loud crowd) is to follow a simple rule:  Live every moment as though the whole world were watching and write every e-mail as though the whole world were going to be reading it — something politicians never seem to learn.

Finally, of course, never — EVER — try to persuade people to change their fundamental beliefs, no matter how misguided you may think they are.  Why?  Because you will fail, and you’ll waste a lot of valuable time in the process.  It’s called opportunity cost. [to my experience this observation is so very relevant. Thanks Mr. Ringer—Benson]

Use your time to focus on your own life.  The only person over whom you have total control is you.  Put your efforts into purifying your own life, and forget about the Donald Sterlings of the world and the rabble-rousers who live for the thrill of trying to destroy them.

Read the start of the article here

Happiness: A Worthwhile Purpose in Life

Experts would like to make us believe that there are objective standards in attaining happiness. From such premise, they come with all sorts of math-psychology based models or methodology, e.g. Happiness economics, to ascertain happiness. They attribute happiness mostly to well-being and wealth, from which they justify institutional coercion to supposedly attain such goals.

The fact is that happiness is subjective. Happiness comes from within us, as individuals. Happiness is distinct from person to person. As a state of mind, Happiness revolves around our preferences, value scales and ideals as expressed through expectations, goals and corresponding actions.

This means that happiness have not just been about material things, or about social acceptance or social status but of having a worthwhile purpose in life.

Libertarian author Robert Ringer explains at the Early to Rise 

Happiness has been defined in myriad ways over the centuries by some of the world’s greatest thinkers.  Aristotle described happiness as a condition rather than a destination.  Ralph Waldo Emerson referred to it as a journey.

But I think Viktor Frankl got to the heart of the matter even better when he explained that if there is a reason for happiness, happiness ensues.  Happiness, said Frankl, is a side effect of having a purpose in life.

In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl explained, “What man needs is not a tensionless state, but rather the striving and struggling of some goal worthy of him.”  In other words, man’s purpose in life is not to achieve goals, but to constantly strive toward them…

Why people look for issues to represent them:

Regardless of whether protest marches have to do with world peace, eradicating poverty, or saving whales from extinction, the reality is that they do not fill the void inherent in a meaningless life.  If man were to succeed in ridding the world of all disease, poverty, pestilence, famine, and war, what then would be the purpose of his existence?

As the struggle for man’s day-to-day survival has increasingly subsided, an important question has emerged:  survival for what?  In other words, just having the means to live is not enough; a person must have something to live for…

Finding your life’s purpose:

And if there is no purpose to an individual’s life — no meaning — then there’s no reason even to get out of bed in the morning, no reason to be alive.  In the words of the great Albert Einstein, “The man who regards his life as meaningless is not merely unhappy, but hardly fit for life.”

The more I reflect on the question, and the more I draw from my own experience and the experiences of others, the more convinced I am that striving toward goals is not a means to an end; striving is an end in itself.  Those who wish their lives away in anticipation of achieving some long-awaited goal do themselves a grave disservice…

The fact is that it’s possible to achieve all your goals in life, yet miss out on life itself.  And the best insurance policy against that happening is to have a worthwhile purpose in life and live in the present.

Read the full article here

Achieving Financial Independence

Self development guru and author Michael Masterson lists Eight Rules for Financial Independence

Mr. Masterson at the Early to Rise writes, (italics mine, bold original)

When I decided to become rich, I began to keep a journal of thoughts I had about making money, losing money, and building wealth.

One chapter of that journal had to do with financial independence. And the eight rules I came up with then are the same rules I follow today:

1. You can't truly trust anybody but yourself with your money.

2. The harder someone tries to convince you to trust him, the less you should.

3. However good a track record someone has, never believe that he/she can't suddenly start your losing money. In fact, if you are like me, the moment you invest will be the moment his/her track record starts falling apart.

4. All markets rise and fall. Don't ever believe anyone who assures you that they can predict the future.

5. If you don't learn to spend less than you make, you will never have peace of mind.

6. Most of what you buy when your income is above $100,000 is discretionary. Don't fool yourself into thinking you need a big house or a fancy car.

7. In making financial projections for yourself or a business, always create three scenarios: one that shows what things will look like if everything goes as hoped; one that shows what will happen if things are mediocre; and one that shows what will happen if things fall apart.

8. Know that the third scenario is optimistic.

Add these up, and you will come to one inevitable conclusion:

The only way to be truly financially independent is to have multiple streams of income, each one of them sufficient to pay for the lifestyle you want to live.

The above mostly signifies common sense, contingency planning. determination and persistence all of which constitutes self-discipline.

Yet the most important point by Mr. Masterson is that “you cannot anybody but yourself.” This resonates with my latest advice:

What can be given are information relevant to attaining knowledge and skills. What can NOT be given is the knowledge that dovetails to one’s personality for the prudent management of one’s portfolio. Like entrepreneurship this involves a self-discovery process.

And most importantly, what can NOT be given are the attendant actions to fulfill the individual’s objectives.

Bottom line: Attaining financial independence starts with the self (Latin “Ï”), or the ability to think independently.

Quote of the Day: Stupidity Not an Excuse for Laziness

Stupidity is not an excuse for laziness, so argues my favorite marketing guru Seth Godin (bold emphasis mine)

(Is it that you can't do it or perhaps you don't want to do the work?)

When I was in college, I took a ton of advanced math courses, three or four of them, until one day I hit the wall. Too many dimensions, transformations and toroids for me to keep in my head. I was too stupid to do really hard math so I stopped.

Was it that I was too stupid, or did I merely decide that with my priorities, it wasn't worth the work?

Isn't it amazing that we'd rather call ourselves stupid than lazy? At least laziness is easy to fix.

People say that they are not gifted/talented/smart enough to play the trumpet/learn to code/write a book. That's crazy. Sure, it may be that they don't possess world-class talent, the sort of stuff that is one in a million. But too stupid to do something that millions and millions of people can do?

I'm not buying it. Call it as it is and live with it (or not). I'm just not willing to believe we're as stupid as we pretend to be.

Instead of stupidity, my encounters with such genre of an excuse often times are packaged as self-imposed handicaps or even as fear of failures, e.g. I am not a college graduate, I am not an economics graduate, I am just a small investor, I am not good looking, work is too overwhelming and etc.

But as Mr. Godin rightly points out most of these are in essence as signs of laziness or sloth which can be rectified.

After all, mental attitude is about our desire and our corresponding actions which can be directed either to strive for success or to condescend to failure.

The sad part is that for many, failure is seen as endemic trait even without lifting a single effort to go for success.

Self Development: Success= Compound Efforts + Fire In the Belly

Earlier I posted here a great article by Agora Publishing’s Bill Bonner on how to use ‘efforts’ similar to interest rates: by compounding—the length and quality of exposure determines expertise or specialization or productivity.

Austrian Economist Professor Gary North expands the discussion, see link here.

But this time Professor North’s article comes with an additional tip: Fire in the Belly or PASSION (calling).

The reason I am posting topics related to self-development is to help newbies readers like my children. [I noticed that many readers of this blog are from schools, which I presume could mostly be students]

The lessons here applies to almost anything most especially to investment.

The following are excerpts from Prof. North’s wonderful article supplemented by my headings (blue bold emphasis mine)

1. Compound efforts needs FUTURE orientation

It is not a matter of brains. It is a matter of character. From time to time, we do hear of young men who seem to understand as teenagers how little time men have, and how large the payoff is for hard work, high thrift, and dedication to the mastery of some field. These are the super-performers discussed in books like Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. They invest their crucial 10,000 hours before they reach age 21.

But it is not just character. It is something else. It is their understanding of time. They recognize that effort and assets invested early in life have a compounding effect. This makes an enormous difference at age 40 or 50, if a person finds the right niche in which to invest his time.

To do this, a young person needs future-orientation. This is exceedingly rare among the young. As Ben Franklin put it in 1750, "A child thinks that twenty pounds and twenty years can never be spent." A few musical artists figure it out early, or at least consent to their parents' demands while they are still forming their habits in life. But few understand it with respect to money.

2 Capital accumulation or wealth is a PROCESS

In Chapter XVIII of his magnum opus, Human Action (1949), Ludwig von Mises presented the case for the importance of time perspective as a source of thrift, capital formation, and wealth. He called this outlook "time-preference." Some people are present-oriented. They want satisfaction now. They will not lend money at low rates of interest. They borrow at high rates. Others are future-oriented. They save at low rates of interest. They refuse to pay high rates of interest when borrowing.

He made a profound observation on why we are rich compared to earlier generations.

Our activities are designed for a longer period of provision because we are the lucky heirs of a past which has lengthened, step by step, the period of provision and has bequeathed to us the means to expand the waiting period.

Mises recognized that modern man is the heir of generations of capital formation and thrift.

3. Future Orientation MUST come with PASSION

FIRE IN THE BELLY

There are good employees who meet the criteria of predictable performance. But they will remain employees if they do not have fire in the belly.

Some people call this character trait an obsession. It probably is. Others call it ambition. It often is. Still others call it visionary. It always is…

The person with no fire in his belly is unlikely to take the risks that mastery require. Mastery is a high-risk endeavor. It is more than routine maintenance. It is a matter of putting your reputation on the line in something like full public view.

Rockefeller and Carnegie had fire in the belly. They helped to create a new, far richer world. Both of them switched to charitable giving when they got old. Their money bankrolled some of the most insidious projects of the so-called New World Order. They were better at piling up wealth than giving it away. They had no skills at giving it away. They would have done more good for mankind in their lifetimes if they had stuck to their knitting. But super-rich men cannot escape their responsibility for managing great wealth in this way. Their piled-up capital will be inherited....

I think a person must have this fire in the belly: his calling. I define calling as the most important thing you can do in which you would be most difficult to replace. This may be a person's occupation, but only rarely. It was an aspect of John Wooden's job, but it reached far deeper than his job. After he retired, his calling remained. His influence grew greater over the years as a result of the foundation of his life, which was also the foundation of his occupational success...

Fire in the belly keeps a person from getting sidetracked. He may go over a cliff.

That’s why applied to the stock markets, I vehemently oppose simulation games (because this lacks the element of the stakeholder’s problem) or short term trades (yes even taught by schools!!!).

This is because any person who is dominated by present orientation extrapolates to a lack of depth in analysis or thinking, in trading—limits to gains while enlarging risks (with emphasis on the frequency more than the magnitude), amplifies emotional approach to the markets, and renders one vulnerable to social conformity rather than rigorous independent thinking which is a prerequisite to getting ahead of the curve.

I hope this helps.

Self Development: Compounding Efforts as Way to Success

Agora Publishing's Bill Bonner has this outstanding article about “compound efforts over time”.

It’s basically about balancing one’s efforts using the principle of compound interest.

Here is Mr. Bonner. (bold highlights mine)

Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers, makes the point that there is no secret to success. Successful people just put in more hours than other people. Our point today is similar. Success is usually the product of compound effort over time. It takes time to develop contacts. It takes time to develop trust - both of your own team and outside clients/customers/associates. It takes time and experience to develop the hunches and instincts that are useful in real life. It takes time too to understand other people and learn how to work with them. It also takes time to build a foundation of human and financial capital that allows you to take advantage of the insights and opportunities that experience bring you.

Time does not work in a linear, mathematical way. As with compound interest, time pays off geometrically. As contacts, experiences, wisdom, innovations and intuition are added one to another, your opportunities multiply. A $100,000 deal that you might have done when you were 25 grows into a $1 million deal 5 years later. And instead of doing two deals a year...you might do 10 a year.

This is also why it is so important to put in lots of time. Gladwell refers to the Beatles, major league athletes and people such as Bill Gates. In every case, he found that the leading figures in their industries put in thousands of hours - usually far more than their competitors. They may appear to be 'gifted.' Their achievements may seem effortless. But they are almost always the product of time.

Not only that, but the time spent at the end is much more powerful than the time at the beginning. You can see this by looking at charts of compound interest. Starting from a low base, the first series of compound interest produce little difference. But at the end, the results are spectacular.

Start with a penny. Double it every day. At the end of a week you are still only adding 32 cents per day. By the end of the third week, however, you're adding more than $10,000 per day. So you see, the last increments of time are much more important than the first.

It doesn't exactly work that way in real life, of course. Hang around too long and you get tired...and the lessons you've learned might not be applicable to the new realities. Suppose, for example, that you had learned to make the perfect buggy whip, at age 55, in 1910! Or imagine that you were the leading expert on silent movies...just before the 'talkies' started. Or maybe you were cornering the classified advertising market...just as Craigslist and eBay made their appearance.

But aside from that kind of a setback, time compounds your advantages. At age 20, you may know less than everyone in your business. But then, you work 10 hours a day, while others only work 8 hours. In 20 years, you may know more than just about anyone. Then, who gets the new contracts? Who finds the new opportunities? Who has pricing power?

Who makes money?

Compound interest works because each addition is then put in service to earn another increment of gain. Compound effort works the same way. Every insight, innovation and useful contact helps bring on another, bigger and better one.

Remember, success is competitive. While you are adding to your business capital, your competitors tend to wear out...move on...or retire. Sticking to it is not easy. People tend to get distracted. They often want easier, simpler, faster opportunities. They give up their accumulated capital...and take up something new. That leaves you in a commanding position.

Stick to it.

Marketing guru Seth Godin shares the same thoughts (bold highlights mine)

Not everything you do actually gets a response. In fact, most of it doesn't. But each effort is a tiny brick in the wall of perception, even when it appears to be dumb and even senseless.

And as Albert Einstein once said, “The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest”. As shown above the concept of compound interest is not only about wealth generation but likewise applies to attaining excellence.

I found Mr. Bonner’s article so compelling that I sent them to my children. I hope that they don’t just read it but internalize or apply it.

Jim Rogers: 10 Tips For A Successful Life

In his newest book, the legendary investor Jim Rogers shares his wisdom as legacy to his daughters and to the public.

From LewRockwell.com:

``A Gift to My Children: A Father's Lessons for Life and Investing (Random House, 85 pages, $16) is Jim Rogers' love letter to his daughters, Happy and Baby Bee. Reminiscent of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which was also written by a father to his child, Rogers' book is full of no-nonsense, unsentimental fatherly advice.

``This charming volume captures a father's voice – loving, direct, and sometimes stern – and amplifies his message for all to hear.

``Among Jim Rogers' best advice:

1. Conduct your own research and trust your own judgment.

2. Focus on what you yourself love.

3. Be persistent.

4. Broaden your horizons and see as much of the world as you can.

5. The most important thing you can learn is how to think and question everything you hear.

6. Study and learn from history.

7. Master more than one language – and make sure one of them is Mandarin.

8. Don't panic.

9. Take care of yourself and don't neglect the sunscreen.

10. Remember that boys need girls more than girls need boys.