What Do You Make?

At work yesterday, someone sent out an email that had a link to a poem by a slam poet named Taylor Mali where he encourages us to speak in declarative statements. It's very motivating and I highly suggest anyone that cares about how they present themselves in daily conversation to check it out. However, I also searched on youtube after seeing this video and found another poem of Taylor's. It's about a dinner party he attended where a lawyer is criticizing teachers and then asks Taylor (who is a teacher) to be honest and say what he makes (i.e. $$). It's a great video and you should check it out as well. It really doesn't matter how much money you make as long as you believe that what you're doing is making a difference in the world. Some people choose their career to make their mark. Others have a job or a business, and choose to invest their time into a non-profit organization or charity and make a difference. Many others just don't make a difference at all and become a burden to society. I've chosen a slightly different path just because I feel that in the grand scheme of things, it will help me make the greatest difference in the world in the grand scheme of things.

Cheers everyone. Have a great weekend!

Return On Investment

Return On Investment (ROI) may be the most important fundamental tool in society today. Almost every significant business decision is made with at least some kind of ROI statement justification. It's something I learned about in high school to a slight degree in math class. In college, we learned how to calculate ROI for investments as well as projects inside a business. When I got my first sales job, it was one of the most critical points of my sales training, but once I started my actual job, I forgot about it and focused on product knowledge and let ROI fall by the wayside. What I've learned now, looking back, is how critical being able to understand and calculate ROI truly is. Now not every decision in life should be made with an ROI statement in mind, but when it comes to major purchases, weighing investments, and deciding on education, I believe an ROI statement is vital to each individual's success in business and in life.

How Things Have Changed

So it's been quite a long time since I last wrote an entry in this journal. Since then, I have been hospitalized, was unemployed for about 3 1/2 months and filed for bankruptcy after an unfortunate series of events, my wife left me and took the kids, and my home is being foreclosed on. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I am working again, which puts me back on track toward my financial goals. My wife and I are going through marriage counseling together, and we're planning to move back in together. I've been afraid to write in this for a while because of the sleepless nights and fire that it put inside of me. However, I do feel that eventually some good may just come out of it.

Last night, I went to a financial planning seminar at a fabulous restaurant where you sit and listen to a presentation and they give you a free meal (I looked at the real menu afterward and it was about a $50 meal). The presentation was very informative for most of the people that attended and quite a few of them learned about a new product they have never heard of, fixed index annuities, which offer some of the potential gains with the stock market, but none of the risk for losing money. I will probably never invest in this product for several reasons, but the main one I want to bring up here is that tying up money in this particular asset can only make me money if the stock market goes up. That's only 1 out of 3 ways that markets move. But I did get a nice dinner out of the deal.