This article is somewhat different from the rest. It tells a story, a story about and from people. It’s their story. Their moments of joy and wander all shared with us. I hope it inspires you to do whatever is necessary to get where you want to be. Make sure you do it the right way with keeping your integrity in mind. The world has changed into a cynical place during the last decade but still its beauty is beyond imagination. Let’s make the best of it. Read and be inspired by these fascinating personal stories.

 1. Howard Lutnick’s Second Life

Days after September 11, Cantor Fitzgerald’s notoriously hard-edged CEO wept and promised a new mission: to take care of the families of his 657 dead employees. Then he stopped their payroll. It was weeks before he was prepared to make good on his promise. Was it a mistake? He still says no.

2. Inspiring Video: Birthright – One man’s struggle to transcend

This humble film is about a friend of mine named Michael and his daily ritual to find his natural self through surfing

3. Leadership Lessons from Ernest Shackleton

In September of 1914, Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton set out on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition with the goal of being the first man to traverse the Antarctic continent. Aboard what would become his aptly-named ship, the Endurance, he and 27 men set sail for the South Pole. But along the way, the ship became trapped in ice, setting off a series of events that would lead him away from his original goal and yet test him as a man and enshrine him as a hero far more than the attainment of it would have. While he did not complete the transcontinental journey he had hoped for, he brought back all 27 of his men alive, a feat of magnificent leadership without parallel.

4. Homeless Man Has Three Degrees and Can’t Find a Job

Johnson, 55, has a masters in Plasma Physics from Dartmouth College and a masters in Electrical Engineering and Acoustics from Purdue University. Yet he’s living in a homeless shelter in Boston, Mass. and has been out of work since November.

“It’s just simply bad luck,” Johnson said in a YouTube video interview.

5. Hey Leaders: It’s A Dog’s Life

As I travel through my life, I have often noticed that dogs have some interesting effects on people. In the presence of a dog, even the gruffest, most hardened human beings can become soft and caring.

 6. Boatlift, An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience

Tom Hanks narrates the epic story of the 9/11 boatlift that evacuated half a million people from the stricken piers and seawalls of Lower Manhattan.

 7. Meet the World’s Oldest Entrepreneur!

Or so we think. At 96, Oxman’s Surplus founder Jerome Oxman still clocks a full workday and even began an expansion of his business recently. “I just can’t retire,” he says. “I’d go crazy.”

8. ‘Kissing couple’ witness rushed to help

The so-called kissing couple is shown embracing on a Vancouver street as riot police battled overzealous Canucks fans following their Stanley Cup loss.

9. The Cab Ride I’ll Never Forget

Because I drove the night shift, my cab became a moving confessional. Passengers climbed in, sat behind me in total anonymity, and told me about their lives. I encountered people whose lives amazed me, ennobled me, and made me laugh and weep.

10. Pastor encounters down-at-the-heels traveller who hands out bibles

It was an unusually cold day for the month of May. Spring had arrived and everything was alive with color. But a cold front from the North had brought winter’s chill back to Indiana. I sat, with two friends, in the picture window of a quaint restaurant just off the corner of the towns-square. The food and the company were both especially good that day.

Did I miss a fascinating story?

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A job interview is a two way process, and as such you will want to ask questions about what the position will entail, your responsibilities should you acquire the post, and what benefits there are. Some interviewees shy away from asking relevant questions, fearing asking the wrong ones will affect the likelihood of them being hired. However, it’s possible to tailor questions to give you all the essential information you need, plus impress the interviewer at the same time.

1. How many hours per week can I expect to dedicate to the job?
2. What are my prospects of moving up the career ladder if the post is offered to me?
3. Does the job involve further training, development,  and travel?
4. Can I expect a competitive wage and incentives in return for hard work and excellent input?
5. Are there any further skills you wish me to demonstrate that are useful for the position and are aren’t completely obvious in my resume?
6. What duties will you be performing?
7. What are the benefits?
8. When can you expect to hear back?
9. How long is the learning curve?
10. Could you explain the structure of the company?
11. How do you help employees reach their career goals?
12. I read a recent article that another company was looking to purchase this company. Can you give me any other details?
13. I read on your company website you just named a new Vice President of Operations. Will this change the nature of the job I am interviewing for?
14. How would you describe a typical week/day in this position?
15. Which specific skills are necessary to succeed in this job?
16. Which projects would you like for me to complete in the next six months?
17. What are the long-term objectives of this job?
18. What are my potential coworkers like and how many are there?
19. Would you please describe your management style?
20. How would you describe the working environment?
21. How much autonomy would I have in making decisions?
22. What level of input would I have in determining my objectives and deadlines?
23. What would be my operational budget and spending authority and responsibilities?
24. How many projects must an employee in this position multi-task at once?
25. Are there opportunities for pay raises and advancement in this position?
26. Is this a new position or am I replacing someone?
27. May I seek success tips from the employee who was promoted out of this position?
28. Has anyone ever performed poorly in this position? What were the typical mistakes made?
29. How do you measure an employee’s performance and provide feedback?
30. How does an employee know he or she is performing this job to expectations before annual merit reviews?
31. Is there anything else that I should know?
32. Is there anything else you would like to know?
33. Is there anything that would prevent you from offering this job to me?
34. Do you have any feedback?
35. Do you have any concerns? What can I do to address them?
36. When could I follow up with you by phone or email?
37. What could I expect in the next round of the interviews?
38. If you decide to extend an offer, when would you like for me start?
39. How does one advance in the company?
40. What do you like about working here?
41. What don’t you like about working here and what would you change?
42. Would you like a list of references?
43. What can I tell you about my qualifications?
44. How will my leadership responsibilities and performance be measured? And by whom? How often?
45. Would there be opportunities for advancement, and, how long before I might be considered for one?
46. What is the reputation of the department (or facility) to which I am applying?
47. What have been its goals in the last year, and, did it meet them?
48. What would be the goals of the department (or facility) in the coming year?
49. Do you think those are aggressive or conservative goals? Who set them?
50. What are the most important problems to solve first?
51. What problems or difficulties are present in the department (or facility) now?
52. What will be the greatest challenge in the job?
53. How often would we meet together?
54. What responsibilities have the highest priority?
55. Can you describe a typical day for someone in this position?
56. What qualifications are you looking for in the person who fills this job?
57. What are the traits and skills of people who are the most successful within the organization?
58. Are there any difficult personalities on the staff?
59. Have you already identified staff or staffs that should be let go or transferred?
60. Have you already identified staff members that are stars and are in line for promotion?
61. How many employees would I supervise?
62. May I see an organizational chart?
63. What is the salary range?
64. What is my earnings potential in 1, 3, 5, and 10 years?
65. Why is this position vacant?
66. What is the organization’s policy on transfers to other divisions or other offices?
67. Does the organization support ongoing training and education for employees to stay current in their fields?
68. Would you like to hear what I could do to really help your department?
69. What makes this company different from its competitors?
70. What sort of communication style works best with this team?
71. What are the biggest hurdles you hope to overcome in the next quarter?
72. What can you tell me about the culture and the environment?
73. How often are performance reviews given?
74. How do you feel about creativity and individuality?
75. How do you envision this position supporting you?
76. How does this position fit into the company’s long-term plans?
77. How would you define “success” for this position?
78. What tools will I use the most in my day-to-day job?
79. What is the vision of the company?
80. What pending legislation could impact the company?
81. What are the major changes in the industry, and how is the company responding?
82. What gets people excited about their work?
83. What type of team activities does the work group participate in?
84. What teams and/or people does this position interact with?
85. Can you tell me more about the position and the type of person you are seeking?
86. What kinds of processes are in place to help me work collaboratively?
87. What’s the most important thing I can accomplish in the first 60 days?
88. This job sounds like something I’d really like to do — is there a fit here?
89. What do you think are my strongest assets and possible weaknesses?
90. What do you think can I bring you to add value?
91. Can you tell me why this position is open?
92. How often has it been filled in the past 5 or 10 years?
93. What would you like to see the person who fills this position do differently?
94. What kind of support does this position receive in terms of people and finances?
95. Why are you looking at external candidates for this position, instead of promoting from within?
96. Would it be possible to meet the people who work in the department?
97. Do you have a management development or internal training program?
98. Do you encourage participation in community or professional activities?
99. What are the company’s plans for growth in the next five years?
100. How does the company intend to remain competitive?

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Acquiesce Submit or comply silently or without protest.

Ailurophile A cat-lover.

Ameliorate To make or become better, more bearable, or more satisfactory

Assemblage A gathering.

Becoming Attractive.

Beleaguer To exhaust with attacks.

Brood To think alone.

Bucolic In a lovely rural setting.

Bungalow A small, cozy cottage.

Callipygous Having beautifully proportioned buttocks.

Cathartic Inducing catharsis; purgative.

Chatoyant Like a cat’s eye.

Comely Attractive.

Conflate To blend together.

Crestfallen Dejected; dispirited; discouraged

Cynosure A focal point of admiration.

Dalliance A brief love affair.

Demesne Dominion, territory.

Demure Shy and reserved.

Denouement The resolution of a mystery.

Desuetude Disuse.

Desultory Slow, sluggish.

Diaphanous Filmy.

Dissemble Deceive.

Dulcet Sweet, sugary.

Ebullience Bubbling enthusiasm.

Effervescent Bubbly.

Efflorescence Flowering, blooming.

Effluence The act or an instance of flowing out.

Elision Dropping a sound or syllable in a word.

Elixir A good potion.

Eloquence Beauty and persuasion in speech.

Embrocation Rubbing on a lotion.

Emollient A softener.

Ephemeral Short-lived.

Epiphany A sudden revelation.

Erstwhile At one time, for a time.

Ethereal Gaseous, invisible but detectable.

Evanescent Vanishing quickly, lasting a very short time.

Evocative Suggestive.

Fetching Pretty.

Felicity Pleasantness.

Forbearance Withholding response to provocation.

Fugacious Fleeting.

Frisson A moment of intense excitement.

Furtive Shifty, sneaky.

Gambol To skip or leap about joyfully.

Glamour Beauty.

Gossamer The finest piece of thread, a spider’s silk.

Halcyon Happy, sunny, care-free.

Harbinger Messenger with news of the future.

Imbrication Overlapping and forming a regular pattern.

Imbroglio An altercation or complicated situation.

Imbue To infuse, instill.

Incipient Beginning, in an early stage.

Ineffable Unutterable, inexpressible.

Ingénue A naïve young woman.

Inglenook A cozy nook by the hearth.

Insouciance Blithe nonchalance.

Inure To become jaded.

Labyrinthine Twisting and turning.

Lachrymose Given to tears or weeping.

Lagniappe A special kind of gift.

Lagoon A small gulf or inlet.

Languor Listlessness, inactivity.

Lassitude Weariness, listlessness.

Leisure Free time.

Lilt To move musically or lively.

Lissome Slender and graceful.

Lithe Slender and flexible.

Love Deep affection.

Loquacious Talking or tending to talk much or freely

Mellifluous Sweet sounding.

Moiety One of two equal parts.

Mondegreen A slip of the ear.

Murmurous Murmuring.

Nemesis An unconquerable archenemy.

Offing The sea between the horizon and the offshore.

Onomatopoeia A word that sounds like its meaning.

Opulent Lush, luxuriant.

Palimpsest A manuscript written over earlier ones.

Panacea A solution for all problems.

Panoply A complete set.

Pastiche An art work combining materials from various sources.

Penumbra A half-shadow.

Petrichor The smell of earth after rain.

Plethora A large quantity.

Propinquity Proximity; Nearness

Pyrrhic Successful with heavy losses.

Quintessential Most essential.

Ratatouille A spicy French stew.

Ravel To knit or unknit.

Redolent Fragrant.

Resplendence Splendid or dazzling in appearance.

Riparian By the bank of a stream.

Ripple A very small wave.

Saccharine Overly or sickishly sweet.

Scintilla A spark or very small thing.

Sempiternal Eternal.

Seraglio Rich, luxurious oriental palace or harem.

Serendipity Finding something nice while looking for something else.

Soliloquy The act of talking to oneself

Summery Light, delicate or warm and sunny.

Sumptuous Lush, luxurious.

Surreptitious Secretive, sneaky.

Susquehanna A river in Pennsylvania.

Susurrous Whispering, hissing.

Talisman A good luck charm.

Tintinnabulation Tinkling.

Umbrella Protection from sun or rain.

Untoward Unseemly, inappropriate.

Vespertine Relating to, or occurring in the evening.

Vestigial In trace amounts.

Wafture Waving.

Wherewithal The means.

Woebegone Sorrowful, downcast.

Zephyr A gentle breeze

I know I’m going to use many of these words in written. Might even try to squeeze some in in formal documents. Excellent !

Its full source can be found here. With many thanks to their comment section.

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The first economists were ancient Greek and Indian philosophers, among them Aristotle (382-322 BC)—who discussed the “art” of wealth acquisition and questioned whether property should best be owned privately or by government acting on behalf of the people. Little of real substance was added to the discussion during the next two thousand years.

The 18^th century brought a virtual explosion of economic thinking. “Classical” economic philosophers such as Adam Smith (1723–1790), Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834), and David Ricardo (1772–1823) introduced basic concepts such as supply and demand, division of labor, and the balance of international trade. As happens in so many disciplines, early practitioners were presented with plenty of uncharted territory and proceeded to formulate general maps of their subject that future experts would labor to refine in ever more trivial ways.

These pioneers set out to discover natural laws in the day-to-day workings of economies. They were striving, that is, to make of economics a science on a par with the emerging disciplines of physics and astronomy.

Like all thinkers, the classical economic theorists—to be properly understood—must be viewed in the context of their age. In the 17^th and 18^th centuries, Europe’s power structure was beginning to strain: as wealth flowed from colonies, merchants and traders were getting rich, but they increasingly felt hemmed in by the established privileges of the aristocracy and the church. While economic philosophers were mostly interested in questioning the aristocracy’s entrenched advantages, they admired the ability of physicists, biologists, and astronomers to demonstrate the fallacy of old church doctrines, and to establish new universal “laws” by means of inquiry and experiment.

Physical scientists set aside biblical and Aristotelian doctrines about how the world works and undertook active investigations of natural phenomena such as gravity and electromagnetism—fundamental forces of nature. Economic philosophers, for their part, could point to price as arbiter of supply and demand, acting everywhere to allocate resources far more effectively than any human manager or bureaucrat could ever possibly do—surely this was a principle as universal and impersonal as the force of gravitation! Isaac Newton had shown there was more to the motions of the stars and planets than could be found in the book of Genesis; similarly, Adam Smith was revealing more potential in the principles and practice of trade than had ever been realized through the ancient, formal relations between princes and peasants, or among members of the medieval crafts guilds.

The classical theorists gradually adopted the math and some of the terminology of science. Unfortunately, however, they were unable to incorporate into economics the basic self-correcting methodology that is science’s defining characteristic. Economic theory required no falsifiable hypotheses and demanded no repeatable controlled experiments. Economists began to think of themselves as scientists, while in fact their discipline remained a branch of moral philosophy—as it largely does to this day.

The notions of these 18^th and early 19^th century economic philosophers constituted classical economic liberalism—the term liberal in this case indicating a belief that managers of the economy should let markets act freely and openly, without outside intervention, to set prices and thereby allocate goods, services, and wealth. Hence the term laissez-faire (from the French “let do” or “let it be”).

In theory, the Market was a beneficent quasi-deity tirelessly working for everyone’s good by distributing the bounty of nature and the products of human labor as efficiently and fairly as possible. But in fact everybody wasn’t benefiting equally or (in many people’s minds) fairly from colonialism and industrialization. The Market worked especially to the advantage of those for whom making money was a primary interest in life (bankers, traders, industrialists, and investors), and who happened to be clever and lucky. It also worked nicely for those who were born rich and who managed not to squander their birthright. Others, who were more interested in growing crops, teaching children, or taking care of the elderly, or who were forced by circumstance to give up farming or cottage industries in favor of factory work, seemed to be getting less and less—either proportionally (as a share of the entire economy), or often even in absolute terms. Was this fair? Well, that was a moral and philosophical question. In defense of the Market, many economists said that it was fair: merchants and factory owners were making more because they were increasing the general level of economic activity; as a result, everyone else would also benefit . . . eventually. See? The Market can do no wrong. To some this sounded a bit like the circularly reasoned response of a medieval priest to doubts about the infallibility of scripture. Nevertheless, despite its blind spots, classical economics proved useful in making sense of the messy details of money and markets.

Importantly, these early philosophers had some inkling of natural limits and anticipated an eventual end to economic growth. The essential ingredients of the economy were understood to consist of labor, land, and capital. There was on Earth only so much land (which in these theorists’ minds stood for all natural resources), so of course at some point the expansion of the economy would cease. Both Malthus and Smith explicitly held this view. A somewhat later economic philosopher, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), put the matter as follows: “It must always have been seen, more or less distinctly, by political economists, that the increase in wealth is not boundless: that at the end of what they term the progressive state lies the stationary state. . . .”

But starting with Adam Smith, the idea that continuous “improvement” in the human condition was possible came to be generally accepted. At first, the meaning of “improvement” (or progress) was kept vague, perhaps purposefully. Gradually, however, “improvement” and “progress” came to mean “growth” in the current economic sense of the term—abstractly, an increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but in practical terms, an increase in consumption.

A key to this transformation was the gradual deletion by economists of land from the theoretical primary ingredients of the economy (increasingly, only labor and capital really mattered—land having been demoted to a sub-category of capital). This was one of the refinements that turned classical economic theory into neoclassical economics; others included the theories of utility maximization and rational choice. While this shift began in the 19^th century, it reached its fruition in the 20^th through the work of economists who explored models of imperfect competition, and theories of market forms and industrial organization, while emphasizing tools such as the marginal revenue curve (this is when economics came to be known as “the dismal science”—partly because its terminology was, perhaps intentionally, increasingly mind-numbing).

Meanwhile, however, the most influential economist of the 19^th century, a philosopher named Karl Marx, had thrown a metaphorical bomb through the window of the house that Adam Smith had built. In his most important book, Das Kapital, Marx proposed a name for the economic system that had evolved since the Middle Ages: capitalism. It was a system founded on capital. Many people assume that capital is simply another word for money, but that entirely misses the essential point: capital is wealth—money, land, buildings, or machinery—that has been set aside for production of more wealth. If you use your entire weekly paycheck for rent, groceries, and other necessities, you may have money but no capital. But even if you are deeply in debt, if you own stocks or bonds, or a computer that you use for a home-based business, you have capital.

Capitalism, as Marx defined it, is a system in which productive wealth is privately owned. Communism (which Marx proposed as an alternative) is one in which productive wealth is owned by the community, or by the nation on behalf of the people.

In any case, Marx said, capital tends to grow. If capital is privately held, it must grow: as capitalists compete with one another, those who increase their capital fastest are inclined to absorb the capital of others who lag behind, so the system as a whole has a built-in expansionist imperative. Marx also wrote that capitalism is inherently unsustainable, in that when the workers become sufficiently impoverished by the capitalists, they will rise up and overthrow their bosses and establish a communist state (or, eventually, a stateless workers’ paradise).

The ruthless capitalism of the 19^th century resulted in booms and busts, and a great increase in inequality of wealth—and therefore an increase in social unrest. With the depression of 1893 and the crash of 1907, and finally the Great Depression of the 1930s, it appeared to many social commentators of the time that capitalism was indeed failing, and that Marx-inspired uprisings were inevitable; the Bolshevik revolt in 1917 served as a stark confirmation of those hopes or fears (depending on one’s point of view).

Beginning in the late 19^th century, social liberalism emerged as a moderate response to both naked capitalism and Marxism. Pioneered by sociologist Lester F. Ward (1841-1913), psychologist William James (1842-1910), philosopher John Dewey (1859-1952), and physician-essayist Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), social liberalism argued that government has a legitimate economic role in addressing social issues such as unemployment, health care, and education. Social liberals decried the unbridled concentration of wealth within society and the conditions suffered by factory workers, while expressing sympathy for labor unions. Their general goal was to retain the dynamism of private capital while curbing its excesses.

Non-Marxian economists channeled social liberalism into economic reforms such as the progressive income tax and restraints on monopolies. The most influential of the early 20^th century economists of this school was John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), who advised that when the economy falls into a recession government should spend lavishly in order to restart growth. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs of the 1930s were a laboratory for Keynes’s ideas, and the enormous government borrowing and spending that occurred during World War II were generally credited with ending the Depression and setting the nation on a path of economic expansion.

The next few decades saw a three-way contest between the Keynesian social liberals, the followers of Marx, and temporarily marginalized neoclassical or neoliberal economists who insisted that social reforms and Keynesian meddling by government with interest rates, spending, and borrowing merely impeded the ultimate efficiency of the free Market.

With the fall of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s, Marxism ceased to have much of a credible voice in economics. Its virtual disappearance from the discussion created space for the rapid rise of the neoliberals, who for some time had been drawing energy from widespread reactions against the repression and inefficiencies of state-run economies. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan both relied heavily on advice from neoliberal economists of the Chicago School (so called because of the widespread influence of the University of Chicago School of Economics, which graduated several generations of economists steeped in the ideas of monetarists like Milton Friedman, 1912-2006; as well as Austrian School economist Friedrich von Hayek, 1899-1992). One of the most influential libertarian, free-market economists of recent decades was Alan Greenspan (b. 1926), who, as U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman from 1987 to 2006, argued for privatization of state-owned enterprises and de-regulation of businesses—yet Greenspan nevertheless ran an activist Fed that expanded the nation’s money supply in ways and to degrees that neither Friedman or Hayek would have approved of. As a side note, it’s worth mentioning that the Austrian School of Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) and Hayek should be distinguished from the Chicago School: the former has followed a more purely individualist, libertarian line of thinking, and usefully critiques central banks and fiat currencies; while the latter is more results-oriented and heterodox and accepts central banks and fractional-reserve banking as givens. Both reject Keynesian government intervention in favor of unfettered markets.

There is a saying now in Russia: Marx was wrong in everything he said about communism, but he was right in everything he wrote about capitalism. Since the 1980s, the nearly worldwide re-embrace of classical economic philosophy has predictably led to increasing inequalities of wealth within the U.S. and other nations, and to more frequent and severe economic bubbles and crashes.

Which brings us to the global crisis that began in 2008. By this time all mainstream economists (Keynesians and neoliberals alike) had come to assume that perpetual growth is the rational and achievable goal of national economies. The discussion was only about how to maintain it—through government intervention or a laissez-faire approach that assumes the Market always knows best.

But in 2008 economic growth ceased in most nations, and there has as yet been limited success in restarting it. Indeed, by some measures the U.S. economy is slipping further into a recession that might more correctly be termed a depression. This dire reality constitutes a challenge to both mainstream economic camps. It is clearly a challenge to the neoliberals, whose deregulatory policies were largely responsible for creating the housing bubble whose implosion is generally credited with stoking the crisis. But it is a conundrum also for the Keynesians, whose stimulus packages have failed in their aim of increasing employment and general economic activity. What we have, then, is a crisis not just of the economy, but also of economic theory and philosophy.

The ideological clash between Keynesians and neoliberals (represented to a certain degree in the escalating all-out warfare between the U.S. Democratic and Republican political parties) will no doubt continue and even intensify. But the ensuing heat of battle will yield little light if both philosophies conceal the same fundamental errors. One such error is of course the belief that economies can and should perpetually grow.

But that error rests on another that is deeper and subtler. The subsuming of land within the category of capital by nearly all post-classical economists had amounted to a declaration that Nature is merely a subset of the human economy—an endless pile of resources to be transformed into wealth. It also meant that natural resources could always be substituted with some other form of capital—money or technology. The reality, of course, is that the human economy exists within, and entirely depends upon Nature, and many natural resources have no realistic substitutes. This fundamental logical and philosophical mistake, embedded at the very heart of modern mainstream economic philosophies, set society directly upon a course toward the current era of climate change and resource depletion, and its persistence makes conventional economic theories—of both Keynesian and neoliberal varieties—utterly incapable of dealing with the economic and environmental survival threats to civilization in the 21^st century.

For help, we can look to the ecological and biophysical economists, whose ideas have been thoroughly marginalized by the high priests and gatekeepers of mainstream economics—and, to a certain extent, to the likewise marginalized Austrian School, whose standard bearers have been particularly good at forecasting and diagnosing the purely financial aspects of the current global crisis. But that help will not come in the form that many would wish: as advice that can return our economy to a “normal” state of “healthy” growth. One way or the other—through planning and method, or through collapse and failure—our economy is destined to shrink, not grow.

Business Cycles, Interest Rates, and Central Banks

We have just reviewed a minimalist history of human economies and the economic theories that have come into vogue to explain and manage them. But there is a lot of detail to be filled in if we are to understand what’s happening in the world economy today. And much of that detail has to do with the spectacular growth of debt—in obvious and subtle forms—that has occurred during the past few decades. That phenomenon in turn must be seen in light of the business cycles that characterize economic activity in modern industrial societies, and the central banks that have been set up to manage them.

We’ve already noted how nations learned to support the fossil fuel-stoked growth of their physical economies by increasing their money supply via fractional reserve banking. As money was gradually (and finally completely) de-linked from physical substance (i.e., precious metals), the creation of money became tied to the making of loans by commercial banks. This meant that the supply of money was entirely elastic—as much could be created as was needed, and the amount in circulation could contract as well as expand. And the growth of money was tied to the growth of debt.

The system is dynamic and unstable, and this instability manifests in the business cycle. In the expansionary phase of the cycle, businesses see the future as rosy, and therefore take out loans to build more productive capacity and hire new workers. Because many businesses are doing this at the same time, the pool of available workers shrinks; so, to attract and keep the best workers, businesses have to raise wages. With wages rising, worker-consumers have more money in their pockets. Worker-consumers spend much of that money on products from the businesses that hire them, helping spread even more optimism about the future. Amid all this euphoria, worker-consumers go into debt based on the expectation that their wages will continue to grow, making it easy to repay loans. Businesses go into debt expanding their productive capacity. Real estate prices go up because of rising demand (former renters deciding they can now afford to buy), which means that houses are worth more as collateral if existing homeowners want to take out big loans to do some remodeling or to buy a new car. All of this borrowing and spending increases the money supply and the velocity of money.

At some point, however, the overall mood of the country changes. Businesses have invested in as much productive capacity as they are likely to need for a while. They feel they have taken on as much debt as they can handle, and don’t feel the need to hire more employees. Upward pressure on wages ceases, and that helps dampen the general sense of optimism about the economy. Workers likewise become shy about taking on more debt, as they are unsure whether they will be able to make payments. Instead, they concentrate on paying off existing debts. With fewer loans being written, less new money is being created; meanwhile, as earlier loans are paid off, money effectively disappears from the system. The nation’s money supply contracts in a self-reinforcing spiral.

But if people increase their savings during this downward segment of the cycle, they eventually will feel more secure and therefore more willing to begin spending again. Also, businesses will eventually have liquidated much of their surplus productive capacity and thereby reduced their debt burden. This sets the stage for the next expansion phase.

Business cycles can be gentle or rough, and their timing is somewhat random and largely unpredictable. They are also controversial: Austrian School economists believe they are self-correcting as long as the government and central banks (which we’ll discuss below) don’t interfere; Keynesians believe they are only partially self-correcting and must be managed.

In the worst case, the upside of the cycle can constitute a bubble, and the downside a recession or even a depression. A recession is a widespread decline in GDP, employment, and trade lasting from six months to a year; a depression is a sustained, multi-year contraction in economic activity. In the narrow sense of the term, a bubble consists of trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at odds with intrinsic values, but the word can also be used more broadly to refer to any instance of rapid expansion of currency or credit that’s not sustainable over the long run. Bubbles always end with a crash—a rapid, sharp decline in asset values.

Interest rates can play an important role in the business cycle: when rates are low, both businesses and individuals are more likely to want to take on more debt; when rates are higher, new debt is more expensive to service. When money is flooding the system, the price of money (in terms of interest rates) naturally tends to fall, and when money is tight its price tends to rise—effects that magnify the existing trend.

During the 19^th century, as banks acted with little supervision in creating money to fuel business growth cycles and bubbles, a series of financial crises ensued. In response, bankers in many countries organized to pressure governments to authorize central banks to manage the national money supply. In the U.S., the Federal Reserve (“the Fed”) was authorized by Congress in 1913 to act as the nation’s central bank.

The essential role of the central banks, such as the Fed, is to conduct the nation’s monetary policy, supervise and regulate banks, maintain the stability of the financial system, and provide financial services to both banks and the government. In doing this, central banks also often aim to moderate business cycles by influencing interest rates. The idea is simple enough: lowering interest rates makes borrowing easier, leading to an increasing money supply and the moderation of recessionary trends; high interest rates discourage borrowing and deflate dangerous bubbles.

The Federal Reserve charters member banks, which must obey rules if they are to maintain the privilege of creating money through generating loans. It effectively controls interest rates for the banking system as a whole by influencing the rate that banks charge each other for overnight loans of federal funds, and the rate for overnight loans that member banks borrow directly from the Fed. In addition, the Fed can purchase government debt obligations, creating the money out of thin air (by fiat) with which to do so, thus directly expanding the nation’s money supply.

The Fed has often been a magnet for controversy: while it operates without fanfare and issues statements filled with terms opaque even to many trained economists, its secrecy and power has led many critics to call for reforms or for its replacement with other kinds of banking regulatory institutions. Critics point out that the Fed is not really democratic (the Fed chairman is appointed by the President, but other board members are chosen by private banks, which also own shares in the institution, making it an odd government-corporate hybrid).

Other central banks serve similar functions within their domestic economies, but with some differences: The Bank of England, for example, was nationalized in 1946 and is now wholly owned by the government; the Bank of Russia was set up in 1990 and by law must channel half of its profits into the national budget. Nevertheless, many see both Fed and central banks elsewhere (the European Central Bank, the Bank of Canada, the People’s Bank of China, the Reserve Bank of India) as clubs of bankers that run national economies largely for their own benefit. Suspicions are most often voiced with regard to the Fed, which is arguably the most secretive and certainly the most powerful of the central banks. Consider the Fed’s theoretical ability to engineer either a euphoric financial bubble or a Wall Street crash immediately before an election, and its ability therefore to substantially impact that election. It is not hard to see why president James Garfield would write, “Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of industry and commerce,” or why Thomas Jefferson would opine, “Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.”

Still, the U.S. government itself—apart from the Fed—maintains an enormous role in managing the economy. National governments set and collect taxes, which encourage or discourage various kinds of economic activity (taxes on cigarettes encourage smokers to quit; tax breaks for oil companies discourage alternative energy producers). General tax cuts can spur more activity throughout the economy, while generally higher taxes may dampen borrowing and spending. Governments also regulate the financial system by setting rules for banks, insurance companies, and investment institutions.

Meanwhile, as Keynes advised, governments also borrow and spend to create infrastructure and jobs, becoming the borrowers and spenders of last resort during recessions. A non-trivial example: In the U.S. since World War II, military spending has supported a substantial segment of the national economy—the weapons industries and various private military contractors—while directly providing hundreds of thousands of jobs, at any given moment, for soldiers. Critics describe the system as a military-industry “welfare state for corporations” and speculate that some recent wars have been fought in part merely to stimulate the economy.

The upsides and downsides of the business cycle are reflected in higher or lower levels of inflation. Inflation is often defined in terms of higher wages and prices, but (as the Austrian economists have persuasively argued) wage and price inflation is actually just the symptom of an increase in the money supply relative to the amounts of goods and services being traded, which in turn is typically the result of exuberant borrowing and spending. The downside of the business cycle, in the worst instance, can produce the opposite of inflation, or deflation. Deflation manifests as declining wages and prices, consequent upon a declining money supply relative to goods and services traded, due to a contraction of borrowing and spending.

Business cycles and regulated monetary-banking systems constitute the framework within which companies and individual investors, workers, and consumers act. But over the past few of decades something remarkable has happened within that framework. In the U.S., the financial services industry has ballooned to unprecedented proportions, accounting for over 40 percent of all corporate profits, and has plunged society as a whole into a crisis of still unknown proportions. How and why did this happen? As we are about to see, these recent developments have deep roots.

Mad Money

Investing is a practice nearly as old as money itself, and from the earliest times motives for investment were two-fold: to share in profits from productive enterprise, and to speculate on anticipated growth in the value of assets. The former kind of investment is generally regarded as helpful to society, while the latter is seen, by some at least, as a form of gambling that eventually results in wasteful destruction of wealth. It is important to remember that the difference between the two is not always clear-cut, as investment always carries risk as well as an expectation of reward.

Here are obvious examples of the two kinds of investment motive. If you own shares of stock in General Motors, you own part of the company; if it does well, you are paid dividends—in “normal” times, a modest but steady return on your investment. If dividends are your main objective, you are likely to hold your GM stock for a long time, and if most others who own GM stock have bought it with similar goals, then—barring serious mismanagement or a general economic downturn—the value of the stock is likely to remain fairly stable. But suppose instead you bought shares of a small start-up company that is working to perfect a new oil-drilling technology. If the technology works, the value of the shares could skyrocket, long before the company actually shows a profit. You could then dump your shares and make a killing. If you’re this kind of investor, you are more likely to hold shares relatively briefly, and you are likely to gravitate toward stocks that see rapid swings in value. You are also likely to be constantly on the lookout for information—even rumors—that could tip you off to impending price swings in particular stocks.

When lots of people engage in speculative investment, the likely result is a series of occasional manias or bubbles. Here’s a classic example, discussed at length by British journalist Charles Mackay in his book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds: In early seventeenth century Holland, tulips became a coveted status symbol, and the trade in tulip bulbs (complete with futures contracts and short selling, about which we will learn more below) assumed bubble proportions; at the peak of the mania in early February 1637, some single tulip bulbs sold for more than ten times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. Just days after the peak, tulip bulb contract prices collapsed and speculative tulip trading virtually ceased. More recently, in the 1920s, radio stocks were the bubble du jour, while the dot-com or Internet bubble ran its course a little over a decade ago (1995-2000).

Given the evident fact that bubbles inevitably burst, resulting in a destruction of wealth sometimes on an enormous and catastrophic scale, one might expect that governments would seek to restrain the riskier versions of speculative investing through regulation. This has indeed tended to be the case in historic periods immediately following spectacular crashes. For example, after the 1929 stock market crash regular commercial banks (which accept deposits and make loans) were prohibited from acting as investment banks (which deal in stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments). But as the memory of a crash fades, such restraints tend to fall away.

Modern investment practices are accompanied by a complex and sometimes confusing jargon. It’s worthwhile sorting out the elements of that jargon that are essential to understanding the financial debacle of the past couple of years.

Let’s start with leverage—a general term for any way to multiply investment gains or losses. As is so often the case, a bit of history helps in understanding the concept. During the 1920s, partly because the Fed was keeping interest rates low, investors found they could borrow money to buy stocks, then make enough of a profit in the buoyant stock market to repay their debt (with interest) and still come out ahead. This was called buying on margin, and it is a classic form of leverage. Unfortunately, when the worries about higher interest rates and falling real estate prices helped cause the stock market crash of October 1929, margin investors found themselves owing enormous sums they couldn’t repay. The lesson: leverage can multiply profits, but it likewise multiplies losses.

Two important ways to attain leverage are by borrowing money and trading derivatives. An example of the former: A public corporation (i.e., one that sells stock) may leverage its equity by borrowing money. The more it borrows, the fewer dividend-paying stock shares it needs to sell to raise capital, so any profits or losses are divided among a smaller base and are proportionately larger as a result. The company’s stock looks like a better buy and the value of shares may increase. But if a corporation borrows too much money, a business downturn might drive it into bankruptcy, while a less-levered corporation might prove more resilient.

In the financial world, leverage is mostly achieved with securities. A security is any fungible, negotiable financial instrument representing value. Securities are generally categorized as debt securities (such as bonds and debentures), equity securities (such as common stocks), and derivative contracts.

Debt and equity securities are relatively easy to explain and understand; derivatives are often another story. A derivative is an agreement between two parties that has a value that is determined by the price movement of something else (called the underlying). The underlying can consist of stock shares, a currency, or an interest rate—to cite only three examples. Since a derivative can be placed on any sort of security, the scope of possible derivatives is nearly endless. Derivatives can be used either to deliberately acquire risk or to hedge against risk. The most common kinds of derivatives are swaps (in which counterparties exchange certain benefits of one party’s financial instrument for those of the other party’s financial instrument), futures (a contract to buy or sell an asset at a future date at a price agreed today), and options (financial instruments that give owners the right, but not the obligation, to engage in a specific transaction on an asset). Derivatives have a history: rice futures have been traded on the Dojima Rice Exchange in Osaka, Japan since 1710. However, they have more recently attracted considerable controversy, as the total nominal value of outstanding derivatives contracts has grown to colossal proportions—in the hundreds of trillions of dollars globally, according to some estimates. Prior to the crash of 2008, investor Warren Buffet famously called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction,” and asserted that they constitute an enormous bubble. Indeed, during the 2008 crash, a subsidiary of the giant insurance company AIG lost more than $18 billion on a type of swap known as a credit default swap, or CDS (essentially an insurance arrangement in which the buyer pays a premium at periodic intervals in exchange for a contingent payment in the event that a third party defaults), and Société Générale lost $7.2 Billion in January of the same year on futures contracts.

Often, mundane financial jargon conceals truly remarkable practices. Take the common terms long and short for example. If a trader is “long” on oil futures, for example, that means he or she is holding contracts to buy or sell a specified amount of oil at a specified future date at a price agreed today, in expectation of a rise in price. One would therefore naturally assume that taking a “short” position on oil futures or anything else would simply involve expectation of a falling price. True enough. But just how does one successfully go about investing to profit on assets whose value is declining? The answer: short selling (also known as shorting or going short), which involves borrowing the assets (usually securities borrowed from a broker, for a fee) and immediately selling them, waiting for the price of those assets to fall, buying them back at the depressed price, then returning them to the borrower and pocketing the price difference. Of course, if the price of the assets rises, the short seller loses money. (“Shorting” can also refer to entering into any derivative contract in which the investor profits from a fall in the value of an asset.) If this sounds dodgy, then consider naked short selling, in which the investor sells a financial instrument without bothering first to buy or borrow it, or even to ensure that it can be borrowed. Naked short selling is illegal in the U.S., but many knowledgeable commentators assert that the practice is widespread nonetheless.

In the boom years leading up to the crash, it was often the wealthiest individuals who engaged in the riskiest financial behavior. And the wealthy seemed to flock, like finches around a bird feeder, toward hedge funds: investment funds open to a limited range of investors that undertake a wider range of activities than traditional “long-only” investment funds that merely invest in stocks and bonds—activities including short selling and entering into derivative contracts. To neutralize the effect of overall market movement, hedge fund managers balance portfolios by buying assets whose price is expected to outpace the market, and by selling short assets expected to do worse than the market as a whole. Thus in theory price movements of particular securities that simply reflect activity in the overall market are cancelled out or “hedged.” Hedge funds promise (and often produce) high returns through extreme leverage. But because of the enormous sums at stake, critics say this poses a systemic risk to the entire economy. This risk was highlighted by the near-collapse of two Bear Stearns hedge funds, which had invested heavily in mortgage-backed securities, in June 2007.

I Owe You

If this essay were to serve as an economics primer, then plenty more financial terms should be defined and discussed; however, the aim instead is merely to provide the essential background (by way of history and terminology) necessary to understand the recent financial events and trends that have led industrial society to the point where we are today—the end of growth.

As we have seen, bubbles are a phenomenon generally tied to speculative investing. But in a larger sense our entire economy has assumed the characteristics of a bubble—even a Ponzi scheme. That is because it has come to depend upon staggering and continually expanding amounts of debt: government and private debt; debt in the trillions, and tens of trillions, and hundreds of trillions of dollars; debt that, in aggregate, has grown by 500 percent since 1980; debt that has grown faster than economic output (measured in GDP) in all but one of the past 50 years; debt that can never be repaid; debt that represents claims on quantities of labor and resources that simply do not exist.

When we inquire how and why this happened, we discover a web of interrelated trends.

Looking at the problem close up, the globalization of the economy looms as a prominent factor. In the 1970s and ’80s, with stiffer environmental and labor standards to contend with domestically, corporations began eyeing the regulatory vacuum, cheap labor, and relatively untouched natural resource base of less-industrialized nations as a potential goldmine. International investment banks started loaning poor nations enormous sums to pay for ill-advised infrastructure projects (and, incidentally, to pay kickbacks to corrupt local politicians), later requiring these countries to liquidate their natural resources at fire-sale prices so as to come up with the cash required to make loan payments. Then, prodded by corporate interests, industrialized nations pressed for the liberalization of trade rules via the World Trade Organization (the new rules almost always subtly favored the wealthier trading partner). All of this led predictably to a reduction of manufacturing and resource extraction in core industrial nations, especially the U.S. (many important resources were becoming depleted in the wealthy industrial nations anyway), and a steep increase in resource extraction and manufacturing in several “developing” nations, principally China. Reductions in domestic manufacturing and resource extraction in turn motivated investors within industrial nations to seek profits through purely financial means. As a result of these trends, there are now as many Americans employed in manufacturing as there were in 1940, when the nation’s population was roughly half what it is today—while the proportion of total U.S. economic activity deriving from financial services has tripled during the same period. And speculative investing has become an accepted practice that is taught in top universities and institutionalized in the world’s largest corporations.

But as we back up to take in a wider view, we notice larger and longer-term trends that have played even more important roles. One key factor was the severance of money from its moorings in precious metals, a process that started over a century ago: once money came to be based on debt (so that it was created primarily when banks made loans), then growth in total outstanding debt became a precondition for growth of the money supply and therefore for economic expansion. With virtually everyone—workers, investors, politicians—clamoring for more economic growth, it was inevitable that innovative ways to stimulate the process of debt creation would be found. Hence the fairly recent appearance of a bewildering array of devices for borrowing, betting, and insuring—from credit cards to credit default swaps—all essentially tools for the “ephemeralization” of money and the expansion of debt.

A Marxist would say that all of this flows from the inherent imperatives of capitalism. A historian might contend it reflects the inevitable trajectory of all empires (though past empires didn’t have fossil fuels and therefore lacked the means to become global in extent; this time around the empire-building process has scaled unprecedented heights). And a cultural anthropologist might point out that the causes of our debt spiral are endemic to civilization itself: as the gift economy has shrunk and trade has grown, the infinitely various strands of mutual obligation that bind together every human community have become translated into financial debt; and, as hunter-gatherers intuitively understood, debts within the community can never fully be repaid—nor should they be. And certainly not with interest.

In the end perhaps the modern world’s dilemma is as simple as “What goes up must come down.” But as we experience the events comprising ascent and decline close up and first-hand, matters don’t appear simple at all. We suffer from media bombardment; we are soaked in unfiltered and unorganized data; we are blindingly, numbingly overwhelmed by the rapidity of change. But if we are to respond and adapt successfully to all this change, we must have a way of understanding why it is happening, where it might be headed, and what we can do to achieve an optimal outcome under the circumstances. If we are to get it right, we must see both the forest (the big, long-term trends) and the trees (the immediate challenges ahead).

Which brings us to a key question: If the financial economy cannot continue to grow by piling up more debt, then what will happen next?

This article was written by Richard Heinberg. Its original source is located right here.

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Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.

1. Get specific. When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. “Lose 5 pounds” is a better goal than “lose some weight,” because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you’ll “eat less” or “sleep more” is too vague — be clear and precise. “I’ll be in bed by 10pm on weeknights” leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you’ve actually done it.

2. Seize the moment to act on your goals. Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are juggling at once, it’s not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them. Did you really have no time to work out today? No chance at any point to return that phone call? Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers.

To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., “If it’s Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I’ll work out for 30 minutes before work.”) Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your chances of success by roughly 300%.

3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress — if not by others, then by you yourself. If you don’t know how well you are doing, you can’t adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently — weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.

4. Be a realistic optimist. When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation. But whatever you do, don’t underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal. Most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort, and persistence. Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you ill-prepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.

5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability. Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed — that no matter what we do, we won’t improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills.

Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.

6. Have grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime, and earn higher college GPAs. Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first grueling year at West Point. In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The good news is, if you aren’t particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. People who lack grit more often than not believe that they just don’t have the innate abilities successful people have. If that describes your own thinking …. well, there’s no way to put this nicely: you are wrong. As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence, and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.

7. Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control “muscle” is just like the other muscles in your body — when it doesn’t get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time. But when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger, and better able to help you successfully reach your goals.

To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you’d honestly rather not do. Give up high-fat snacks, do 100 sit-ups a day, stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching, try to learn a new skill. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up, or just not bother — don’t. Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur (“If I have a craving for a snack, I will eat one piece of fresh or three pieces of dried fruit.”) It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that’s the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout.

8. Don’t tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it’s important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam. Don’t try to take on two challenging tasks at once, if you can help it (like quitting smoking and dieting at the same time). And don’t put yourself in harm’s way — many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.

9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won’t do. Do you want to successfully lose weight, quit smoking, or put a lid on your bad temper? Then plan how you will replace bad habits with good ones, rather than focusing only on the bad habits themselves. Research on thought suppression (e.g., “Don’t think about white bears!”) has shown that trying to avoid a thought makes it even more active in your mind. The same holds true when it comes to behavior — by trying not to engage in a bad habit, our habits get strengthened rather than broken.
If you want change your ways, ask yourself, What will I do instead? For example, if you are trying to gain control of your temper and stop flying off the handle, you might make a plan like “If I am starting to feel angry, then I will take three deep breaths to calm down.” By using deep breathing as a replacement for giving in to your anger, your bad habit will get worn away over time until it disappears completely.

10. Review and celebrate successes, even small ones. This is a discipline of regularly, say weekly, listing all the small steps you took that worked well or that you are pleased about. One problem with highly motivated people, in my experience, is that nothing they do is ever good enough, so they are always beating themselves for what they haven’t managed to get done yet, while they are actually getting a lot more done than most people. To avoid getting discouraged, I think it helps to rigorously list all the positive steps you have taken. We need a sense of making progress, not just a feeling that there is so much more to do.

It is my hope that, after reading about the ten things successful people do differently, you have gained some insight into all the things you have been doing right all along. Even more important, I hope are able to identify the mistakes that have derailed you, and use that knowledge to your advantage from now on. Remember, you don’t need to become a different person to become a more successful one. It’s never what you are, but what you do.

Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. is a motivational psychologist, and author of the new book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals (Hudson Street Press, 2011). She is also an expert blogger on motivation and leadership for Fast Company and Psychology Today. Her personal blog, The Science of Success, can be found at www.heidigranthalvorson.com. Follow her on Twitter @hghalvorson

The original source of this article is located on Hbr.org

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“The ship hasn’t sailed, it’s docked safely in port waiting for the green light. It’s green. ”

This part of life is interesting, the moment(s) between school and the ‘working life’. With or without a proper education. This is my moment for a change. A once in a lifetime opportunity to go for change or go with the old. A decision that defines me and my future. Goals are being set every single day, moments are outlived and the will and power to change and look for (better) opportunities has risen more than the years before. It’s time to act upon the will to make a change and therefore in my case and opinion to be different (in both private and business). Don’t go where the flow takes you, I’ll lead the flow in its rightful direction. In this case I quit school (actually University, though self-acclaimed) because of the lack of motivation (from the school and within me).

Now why would someone quit school when there’s only 1,5 years left? Excellent question. The answer is fairly simple; ‘the University didn’t feel like added value anymore and therefore my action [to quit] was the most humble thing to do by means of taking care of myself instead of others’. This particular decision was made after years (yes, you just read years) of consideration and groping for business opportunities. The last part defines me as a person; explicitly interested in the know-how around and within the world of business. Vision, mission and values are all present within me. They clearly state (for myself) what to do where, why, when, who and how (the how and who are tricky and most important ones). A business is defined by its actions and people. Therefore the people ‘behind the scenes’ are the ones to break or make a company. I’m the one who literally makes the company, others could break it for a moment of time.

My school [name won’t be mentioned for obvious reasons] is all about business and hopefully an Entrepreneurial success where the school can rely or profit from (profit from the means of media attention maybe indirectly financially due to possible new students). But an educational business institute should motivate its students to persuade a career on a higher level and make sure they get there. They make sure getting there is widely available and excellent at my former school. The structure is nowhere to be found. Tasks among its present owners are clearly not properly defined. Another issue, can’t believe I defended this while my leg was seriously injured after a scooter incident a day before, is that the school promised to be more practical than theoretical. One of the reasons why I signed up. The last 2 years where only theoretical. Another promise was that they had strategic alliances with other business related schools in Rome, London, Paris and New York. Only one made it to their curriculum, which is one of the worst ‘Universities’ of England (it’s even not on the top1000 list of recognized Universities). Within every business, educational institute, governments etcetera it’s essential to listen [feedback] to your clients or potential customers. My particular school lacked this, it´s clearly a waste to the ‘cheap’ presence of students who come up with creative solutions to a problem [problems don’t exist, solutions do]. But it’s obviously not entirely their fault, it’s mine as well. Due to a lack of ‘being motivated’ the years diluted [regarding school]. Outside school I was thriving in the digital world by means of blogging (obviously J), trading on the stock market [expense hobby especially during the last couple of years], starting a restaurant related website and many other initiatives. Those where the good days [sort of and outside school].

The days to come will even be better than the ones before due to the fact that I will start from scratch 8.000 kilometers away, in Vancouver (Canada). Opening a new business [radically] within the Canadian financial industry has always been my dream and wish. Studying can always be done (most people say that about working) especially these days through the use of the internet or be physically present in a classroom. Believe me, I’ll have a [business]degree someday. But not now ! Now it´s essential to make proper use of time, assets and be effective in its usage.

“I don’t care whether you think my decision or actions are wise or bad, it’s my life and I do what’s best for me [for a change]”.

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Zoals jullie weten is de website AlleenEten.nl een tijdje geleden live gegaan en met succes. AlleenEten.nl wordt inmiddels (zonder mijn toedoen) op een aantal sites vermeld. Deze zijn; singles.web-log.nl , singles.pagina.nl, mvlife.nl en nog een aantal. Bezoekers liggen op dit moment tussen de 50 en 100 uniek per dag. Best aardig als je nog weinig aan marketing doet.

Per 1 December (dit jaar uiteraard) zal AlleenEten.nl te horen zijn (als commercial) op FreshFM regio groot Amsterdam.

Het enige probleem is dat er nog geen tekst is voor de radio commercial !

Suggesties zijn zeer welkom (onderaan de pagina of via contact) ! Heb je altijd al in je leven iets goeds willen doen? Zo ja dan is het nu je kans om een waanzinnig pakkende tekst van 20 seconden te bedenken ! De beloning is een krat overheerlijke pils of een 6 tal flessen goede wijn (wit of rood naar keuze) ! Zo nee dan verwijs ik je naar de website van Disney.

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