What is Going Right?

We are all Too Hard on Ourselves. We look at our mistakes and weaknesses, and beat ourselves up. Then we try to fix our weaknesses.

Strengths Make Us Special. You are not reading this because it is spelled right, nor typed well. You read this to Make Your Life Better.
(Flunked many spelling tests, type 25 words per minute with errors,  and still contributed to 2 books.)

Forgive Yourself. None of us is perfect. New uncomfortable experiences are called Learning. 

Work on your strengths, try them out, and Be Grateful for what went right.

The Greatest Time to be Living

Been hearing negative statements over and over recently. Gold Bugs and Preppers believe the world is falling apart. Each political party blames the other during election years for everything and anything.

You may hear:

• ·      Times are tough.
• ·      The economy is weakening.
• ·      Jobs are being eliminate or sent to _____
• ·      Society will fail.
• ·      Currencies are going to fall.
• ·      There will be chaos.

 “Pessimism narrows our focus, whereas positive emotions widen our attention and our receptiveness to the new and unexpected.”

– Daniel Goleman

There have always been hard times, new illnesses, conflicts, wars, poverty, and innocent people starving. Even Jesus said, “You will always have the poor”.

The truth is today is the best time to be living and tomorrow will be better:

• ·      More food is grown on less land than ever.
• ·      Medical science is conquering cancer, heart disease, aging, and developing therapies to rebuild our bodies.
• ·      Computers grow faster, smaller and double in memory every year or two.
• ·      Our phones have more computing power than the mainframes I was taught on in college.
• ·      Knowledge has gone from stored on paper to abundantly spread all over the Internet.

 Nothing goes forward in a simple, straight manner. Innovation and progress are marked with false starts, failures, crashes and disasters. But we learn and keep improving daily.

Today and tomorrow will still be inconvenient, difficult, and dangerous. But tomorrow will also be better.

“Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty.”

– Doris Day

Make Your Comeback

Start Today. Really. Today.

You have had a hard time. Forget that, it has been miserable. Really awful time. Seems like no cared, there was no end to the pain, and criticism went on forever plus a day. Countless times you felt like there would never be an end to the misery. Really sure your life would be like this forever.

I know. Have been there. Not just once. Several times. Taken years to recover from some. Less time for others. Still not recovered from a few. Lost jobs. Someone sort-a stomped on my aorta (more than once). Been a jerk. Been fired. Have days am not proud of, for sure.

While you are suffering in the pits, you feel alone, sad, depressed, frustrated, really frustrated, overwhelmed, and can’t go to sleep. It gets worse, a little better, bad again, too much, catch a little break, and it starts over. Do you know what I mean?

You know what? Am there again. Now. Not sure where to start. Where to go. What to do. What to say. How to even think about it. I’m lost like everyone else going through tough times.

Let’s start. Not kidding. The comeback starts today. Join me.

Be proud of our accomplishments, our good deeds, helping someone and not expecting recognition. We have been a good here and there. There are times you have been great.

We all have something to be grateful for. Health, friends, family, teachers, mentors and just plain nice people are worth being grateful. There is beauty in the world. God is here with us. What can you be grateful for?

The bill you can’t pay right now. The boss you can’t please. Friends who won’t talk to you. Your significant other mad at you. That problem with no answer. Still there. But we don’t have to wallow in our misery. We could, but we don’t have to.

Stand up. Act like you are important. Think well of yourself. You have more talent than you know. How does a healthy & happy person act? Well act like it.

I am applauding your comeback. It took a lot of work, a lot of time, but you got through it. What did you learn? What would you go back and tell yourself?

Start now. You deserve it. Time to get after it. Life demands it.

And bring someone along with us. Success needs to be shared.

9/11 showed us who we can be

A very good article about the grace and warmth of people after a disaster. We are much more caring and helpful than people believe. This is from the LA Times.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-solnit11-2009sep11,0,5396972.story

Actually went to dig up the original article, and think the LA Times article was more focused (i.e. better). Here it is
Rebecca Solnit, 9/11's Living Monuments
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175112/rebecca_solnit_9_11_s_living_monuments

Sorry the links are not working. Copy and paste into your browser. You may have to search www.latimes.com to find the title article.

Know we are meant to be better than the self center children we started out to be. Amazing how much better we can be.
God bless,
Steve

Happy 2009!

Everyone is finally over 2008, but the economy is still a concern for most of us. Lets face it, few investors made money last year, and most of us took a substantial loss. At least my 401K has been crunched :( Thank God I am 50% cash right now, and the rest is losing money in stocks. However I focus on long term investments and good companies, so I will survive and recover.

However my predictions for 2009 are not as pessimistic as most of what you read in the media. Most of the worst effects of the recession already occurred in 2008. No one knows what will really happen, but I will make a few economic predictions like I did last year with oil prices. Warning your mileage may vary as I am limited in experience and make lots of mistakes. But it is good to present views for you to think about and analyze.

Recession: We are still going forward with the recession, and businesses are hanging on to money carefully since borrowing is so difficult. I do not expect the recession to grow into a worldwide depression. The news reports comparing us to a depression are vastly exaggerated. Most people have not experienced a serious recession since the early 1980's. We have lived through recessions before, and will survive.

Jobs: If you personally have a good job you may not feel the recession. People who are job hunting or looking for a better position will have to take more time to find a great job, and may have to take a step backward right now. It is just a delay for the good times to come. My prediction is job loses will peak early in 2009, and by the end of the year jobs will start recovering. So if you are job hunting keep persisting.

Stock Market: I suspect we are getting closer to the market bottom. I suspect we are within six months of the bottom. It may take a year, but I am looking for evidence it is time to fully invest again.

Housing: I see no bottom to the real estate market until around 2010. The over supply of home will have to be worked off the market. I expect prices to fall another 5% - 15% in 2009.

Oil prices: This was my best prediction of 2008. On January 17, 2008 I predicted oil prices would peak and fall during 2008. I thought the bubble prices were way out of line at $105 per barrel, and thought oil would fall into the $60 - $80 per barrel by the end of the year and to $40 - $60 per barrel early in 2009. My prediction was based on the long term cost of alternatives to oil were in the $40 to $60 per barrel range. In spite of the gyrations of politics, wars and speculation, I expect prices to stay in the $40 to $60 per barrel range. We might see another over correction with prices falling into the $30's per barrel with the slow economy. There is an oversupply which will be corrected over the long term.

The best advice summary: The best thing you could do is maintain a very positive attitude. This one action will help no matter the crisis's you face, and will help you reach your goals. Heck you may even succeed with your resolutions. Spend some time every morning meditating on what is good in your life, and thank God for everything. Even the challenges and problems you face.

Have a great 2009! I will no matter what.
Steve

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Have been researching what to do about when business enters the recession cycle. Taking a longer than anticipated to consolidate the research into a useful article for you.

Today’s blog is about being grateful. There is so much we have to be grateful for. The country we live in, the people in our lives, and our businesses.

Be grateful for the customers and clients you already have. Be grateful for the work you do, the skills you have learned, and the benefits of working. You work with good people, benefit society, get self esteem from your business, get new challenges to stretch yourself, and your income pays for your family and life.

We waste a lot of our life on the annoyances. We focus on this has to be done, traffic was bad, this machine is broken, we have to meet on this product, the quality is bad, or other daily problems. Have you ever noticed 90 percent of business gets done without any supervision or special effort? Be grateful!

Our lives are getting better by new services and better products. Cars today are much better and safer than just 20 years ago and they continually improve. Homes use less energy. The internet is a group of great tools. Cell phones, VOIP, instant messages and email give us more freedom to travel and stay in touch. Clothes and furniture cost less. Be grateful for how much easier it is.

So enjoy your weekend, and think how much we have to be grateful for.