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Archive for the ‘Overcome Failure’ Category

In a timeless skit from NBC’s Saturday Night Live, here’s an infomercial regarding a new book for those who seem to be struggling with debt:

I’m thinking about creating a similarly titled e-book. What do you think?

Today’s Wall Street Journal article Credit-Score Pitfalls of the Wealthy , in my opinion, seems to shed some light on the problem of our current state of the economy, though it likely wasn’t the intention of the author. In short, wealthy people who believe that “cash is king” and don’t regularly use credit don’t get the best deals…and therein lies the problem. To that I ask, “What?”

My Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration centered my studies around Finance and Commercial Bank Management. I did pretty well in my “money classes” and worked in the financial industry first as a banker & trust officer, then as a licensed financial adviser for over 12 years. For those who don’t know anything about finance, you at least know that “with risk, comes reward”-at least, academically.

That’s what puzzles me. According to this report, college students, on average, may receive up to 4-6 unsolicited offers for credit cards…EACH WEEK. Students who don’t have any money (for the most part). In the presentations I deliver to high school students, we’ve been telling students that the most valuable asset you have your first five years out of high school is TIME. Reflecting on my own college experience, I’d say that is a true statement. It certainly wasn’t money! From the start, we’re programming the public that you MUST have and use credit.

Which leads me to the absurdness of the reality that moneyed people don’t always have good credit scores not because they don’t have cash, but because they don’t typically borrow anything. Stick with me here for a minute…You see, when a business applies for a loan, the inquiry is routed through a credit analysis process during which the company’s cash flow is scrutinized against it’s own past performance, industry peers, and overall risk on a case-by-case basis. A business with the luxury of being cash rich will have a high coverage ratio – the number of times “free” or available cash could cover the debt payments. If there’s a high coverage ratio, presuming that multiple is not a function of some one-time windfall of good fortune, there’s no reason to deny the loan or ask for overly aggressive terms. When a person applies for one, we look at an overall profile of what people have typically done overall…not so much that individual person, regardless of their means to repay the borrowed money based on some kind of “profile”… Um, the last time we separated common sense from the loan underwriting process we wound up with a country full of bad mortgages…Gasp! Is THAT what we’re trying to “fix” with this band-aid of a Stimulus Package?

According to the WSJ article cited above, however, and the information I’ve gleaned from some of the sources mentioned in that article – the same does not appear to be true for individuals. For that, we’ve dumbed it down into a “credit score” that is some seemingly arbitrary, digestible number that “allows” for consumer loan underwriters to count on a third-party calculation of the likelihood that a person should be able to repay any debts they may take on (cars, boats, mortgages, etc.). [By arbitrary, I mean: Does anyone REALLY know what that "equation" looks like?]

As President Obama often begins an explanation, “Look…” If people WITH money suddenly decide to access credit (for whatever – likely economic- reason), they SHOULD get the best rates. Instead, we’re busy shucking out credit cards, 72 and 86 month car loans (seriously?), and arbitrarily cutting available credit via credit card limits to small business owners for unexplained reasons because we’ve become a nation of debt-hungry consumers.

And now, we’re injecting ANOTHER $700+ Billion into “the system” to avoid catastrophic failure…um, respectfully, the system has already failed us in the name of progress.

For those who find themselves seeking a return to personal financial success in these challenging times, I suggest the following:

1. Put yourselves on a CASH BUDGET. If you don’t have it, don’t spend it. Sure, it may cramp your style a bit.
2. When money comes in, STICK SOME IN A SAVINGS ACCOUNT. Yes, I know that the rates aren’t great, but wait until you start bouncing checks and receiving those aggregious fees on even the smallest of overdrafts.
3. BE HONEST WITH YOUR LENDERS. If you are in a pinch and can’t make the payments, give them a call before they call you and let them know what’s going on. Often times, if you will simply schedule payments to automatically come out of your account (at a level YOU are comfortable with, NOT one set by the creditors), you can often cut down or even eliminate those calls that do nothing but remind you of the financial pickle you’re in.
4. FOCUS ON THE TASK AT HAND. Sure, they will talk about how you’re going to “hurt your credit score” by closing this account or that one, or making less than the minimum payment….However, when you ask them if they’d like SOME payment or NO payment from you, it’s funny how their tone changes.
5. RE-EVALUATE your needs vs. wants. Yes, television is an inexpensive entertainment option, but did you know you can actually get channels over-the-air FOR FREE? Hey, with the switch to digital television broadcasts, those new shows and channels will look EVEN BETTER than via cable or satellite when you watch them on the HD-TV you financed at 27% on your credit card. Turn off the cable….

Take this opportunity to re-value what’s important to you and your family’s financial future. Take charge of it. Pick up some books from Dave Ramsey! It’s going to be alright.

I don’t know anything about the company whose logo appears on this video, so this is NOT an endorsement. As a speaking professional (and a man), however, this presentation is pretty well delivered. OH, and I think you’ll get a kick out of his message.

Question you can answer in the comment section:

Please share a story about a time when a simple communication issue kept you from achieving a desired result.

One visit to my website, and you know how I feel. Today was simply VALIDATION when I found these two articles at the Wall Street Journal’s website:

• Getting a Handle on Bank Fees
• Banks Boost Customer Fees to Record Levels (Gee, you’re WELCOME for the $700 Billion)

The latter of these two articles backs up the message I’m on a mission to remind bankers: “Your customers don’t need you anymore!”

No one needs to be reminded the crisis our country is in today. (Been “off the grid” all year? Read these posts from Oct 14th & Aug 19th.) While there is plenty of blame to spread around, our nation’s financial system neared collapse earlier this year prior to the U.S. Government’s stepping in to provide a $700 billion “bailout” package. The harsh reality is that it is going to get worse before it gets better. Please fasten your seatbelts and place your tray tables in the upright position!

The U.S. unemployment rate for October, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was reported at 6.5%, up from 6.1% in September. Mortgage foreclosures are happening at rates not seen in this country since the real estate implosion of the late 1980′s. Despite the fact that the United States has a new President headed to the White House and a power shift in Congress, those new elected officials won’t be in office until late January 2009.

In all fairness, it’s not really the smaller, community banks who are to blame for this financial debacle in the mortgage and banking sectors. In fact, many of those banks represent the viable option for consumers who seek someplace safe to keep their money. Should the trends reported by the Wall Street Journal articles above filter down to these community banks, however, I don’t know why ANYONE would want to continue doing business with ANY bank!

The regulatory environment that governs many of the overall policies to which commercial banks are subject has done much to “protect” our banking system and consumers. While I’m not a fan of over-zealous, government regulation, I simply believe there are many predatory practices banks engage in every day that add BILLIONS to their bottom lines to which the regulators simply look the other way. We’ll get into some of those in some upcoming posts, so keep coming back! You won’t BELIEVE what they can do to you!

Consumers: You deserve ANSWERS, TRANSPARENCY, and COMMON SENSE from the financial institutions whose services you employ. Keep coming back to this blog, and you will learn valuable tips your financial institutions don’t want you to know about.

Bankers: You’d better get your act together, because the public is weary of your ways, and frankly, have alternative ways of obtaining the services for which you used to have a lock on delivery. Do the right thing. Get ahead of the wave and do what’s right. You just might be rewarded with more customers than you’d ever imagined. (Shameless plug: This Consultant Can Help)

We’ve all seen the game, Three Card Monte. On a side note, I actually saw some vice cops take down a game that had attracted quite a gathering around it on the Las Vegas Strip. I guess you have to have an actual gaming license in the State of Nevada to actually rip people off….but that’s not my point today.

On the television screen at the gym a few days ago, I watched the mainstream media following the latest on the U.S. financial markets and how they were reacting to the passage of the $700 Billion bailout bill. I was listening to some of my favorite guitar players on my iPod at the time, but just watching the pictures on the screen had me asking, “How in the world get we get into this mess?” Then, immediately, the answer came to me as if in a song, “Greed.” What else?

As a “recovering financial advisor” I have to say all of this madness isn’t all that shocking to me. Don’t get me wrong, as a self-employed person who can’t just take a copy of a paystub down to the local mortgage shop and get a home loan (they still do those, right?) I know it’s going to be a while before I will be able to buy another house….Frankly, that’s okay with me.

It IS the alleged American Dream to own the house you live in…but is all the stuff we see in the mainstream media just financial pornography for the masses?

Somewhere along the way, Americans seem to have shifted from a curious public to public unsaddled with the burden of responsibility, wise judgement, and just knowing what the heck we were getting ourselves into. “It’s okay,” say many. “Someone will come along and bail us out if we really screw this up. Besides, what are the odds this is really going to happen anyway?” [If that last comment intrigues you, here is some recommended reading: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable]

I love this country. I’m also a fan of capitalism – even though it has it’s dark side. Because of the fundamentals (yes, they ALWAYS matter) on which the United States of America was built, we DO have a nearly unlimited ceiling of opportunity for anyone willing to work hard. The problem of it all, though, is when it becomes so difficult to know who you can honestly trust, and who you can’t.

There are a number of financial advisors in this world who truly DO CARE about their clients. I’ve had the priviledge of working around some of them during my tenure in the business. Unfortunately, when you start moving up the food chain toward the top of so many of Wall Street’s operations, there appears to be a real disconnect between what is “right” and what is “right now”. Big finance is driven by deals (a la capitalism), but it’s also driven by greed. When those two are shuffled, dealt, and flipped over on a piece of cardboard on the side of the road by a huckster, all that remains is a house of cards.

There is more than one way to work through this financial crisis we’re all paying for today, and how we got here is another story (read “Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game“). I’m personally nervous that Congress has put into play a $700 Billion “bailout” plan for our economy.

Did something have to be done? Yes. Might there be a better way? Yes. Is it time for the United States to have it’s leveraged head handed to it for pushing too close to the financial edge of the world? Maybe.

Let’s just make sure we’re not playing a high stakes game of Three Card Monte.

Check it out, readers! I was mentioned in another blog today!

Small Biz Survival: Overcoming powerful failures

If you don’t already read, Becky McCray’s Small Biz Survival blog…you need to add the feed today! Good stuff from a great Oklahoman!

Still don’t have your copy of Powerful People Overcome Powerful Failures? Order one today!

If you haven’t heard, Journey is back with a brand new lead singer. Sure, you die hard fans (Hi, Terry and Shanna!) find this news to be “old”….but for people thinking they could be at the bottom, here’s a great story of what happened to a kid living on the streets in the Philippines was able to achieve.

Congratulations, Arnel, on living your dream!

For this posting, I have invited author Beki Propst to share a bit on her incredible story. Please check out her book , Absent Memories: Moving Forward When You Can’t Look Back. Can you imagine if her story was yours? Post your feedback as a response to this blog, and let Beki know what you thought!

The most effective way to overcome failure is to fail to recognize it. When I lost all memories of my life at age 47, I had no idea what failure was. I couldn’t remember any of my experiences or education; I couldn’t even remember the people I’d grown up with. All I knew was that I had to learn how to support myself. At first, I didn’t even know what kinds of jobs were “out there,” but I learned quickly and managed to find enough work to survive (by working two or three jobs at the same time.)

I hadn’t lost everything; I could still read. But I had lost all my social skills, so I was flying on instinct—and I soon learned that—for me at least—instinct is not intrinsic; it’s based on memories. I lost three jobs in the first five years of my remembered life. I lived in “at-will” states, so I still don’t know why I was fired. I guess some people might view those terminations as failures, but I believe them to be simply a natural result of my ignorance of appropriate behavior. I hadn’t yet learned enough to know how I needed to act and what I needed to do to keep a job.

The only way to fail is to give up. People who have read my book, Absent Memories: Moving forward when you can’t look back, tell me it’s helped them appreciate their lives—and their memories. They tell me I’ve overcome obstacles that would have caused others to give up.

Life is full of challenges, but the ability to learn keeps those challenges from being obstacles. I believe I have no choice but to continue to learn why things don’t always turn out the way I want and expect them to. If reaching a goal is seen as an opportunity to learn, missed goals aren’t viewed as failures, but as steps along the road to success.

Remember: Never give up…not even when you can’t remember what to do!

Learn more about the author at her website: Absent Memories.

Allow me to set the stage with this excerpt from a recent BBC.com article (view it in its entirety here) emphasis added by blog author:

Athletes from Iraq have been banned from taking part at this summer’s Beijing Games, the International Olympic Committee has announced.

The team was already the subject of an interim ban after the Iraqi government replaced the country’s Olympic committee with its own appointees.

Under the IOC charter, all committees must be free of political influence.

Iraq had been planning to send a team of at least seven athletes to the Olympics which start on 8 August.

Two rowers, a weightlifter, a sprinter, a discus thrower, a judoka and an archer were in the frame for the trip to Beijing.

“The deadline for taking up places for Beijing for all sports except athletics has now passed,” said IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies.

“The IOC very sadly has now to acknowledge that it is likely there will be no Iraqi presence at the Beijing Olympic Games, despite our best efforts.”

She added: “Clearly, we’d very much like to have seen Iraq’s athletes in Beijing.

“We are very disappointed that the athletes have been so ill-served by their own government’s actions.”

My thoughts:

• Were the original Iraqi Olympic committee more or less corrupt than the new ones?
• This country has been ravaged by years rule under a rabid dictator (since removed), has been in a state of war for years…can’t they catch a break? For heaven’s sake, it’s the Olympics!
• (Read the words in RED above, then consider this)- If the only sport left to qualify for is “athletics” and Iraq has “athletes” – that’s just puzzling, right?
• Go read the memoirs of ANY person who has ever spent time near the International Olympic Committee and/or it’s governing processes. IT’S ALL POLITICAL.
• Zeus and the gods of Mt Olympus have to be thinking “What happened to the spirit of competition?”

What’s your opinion? Post it below!

Earlier this year, I had the chance to meet the founder of Skydivergirls.com. KFC, as she is known in both the virtual and real worlds, is truly an inspirational gal who lives her life as an adventure. (Here’s a pic of us in the Dayton, OH airport.)

Whenever I speak to audiences, it’s often on the subject of overcoming failure. One way to win back control of your life is to challenge yourself to take on a task you have always wanted to tackle – but something was stopping you. KFC says “just get off the couch and DO IT!”

Here’s a recent TV spot featuring KFC. Check out skydivergirls.com and see even more really cool footage, interviews and more!
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