The economic crisis has done one thing positive in the last two years – allow us to reflect on what we do, how we do, and why we do certain things. Of late I am meeting more folks who are at a crossroad with respect to their career predicament, many are unfulfilled in what they do, and more so in a downturn where one has to take on more workload with greater pressure and less pay. Alas many are simply going through the motion because it is better to glue one’s bum to a chair with crazy glue (read have a job) than to deliberate the ponderous task of what is it that we really would like to do and allow us to make a decent living, if circumstances allow us?
I invite you to answer the following 3 questions silently or aloud (however it suits you), but honestly, in your spare moments. I recently went thru this exercise with a friend, and it was much harder than either one of us expected. And after you figure out the answers, you will know tangentially at least, what direction you need to take to marry your passion and your skills to achieve your own IEFF. The path to it may be a circuitous one but that is what makes it a worthwhile journey. Now it will be tough if you have no answer to any of the following questions!! Give it a try, you may be surprised!
1) What are the top 3 things YOU are passionate about (i.e. things that you would do everyday if you had to get up for it)?
2) What are the 3 talents or skills that YOU think you have?
3) What are the 3 talents or skills that OTHER people think you have?
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Who Moved My Cheese?
I have over 200 books on my book shelves in my study, with disparate titles ranging from “The Idiot’s Guide to Dealing With Difficult Employees” (given to me as a gag gift at a team Christmas dinner by a former colleague, I found it very amusing but my team did not then!) to “The Reason for God” (given to me by a friend who believes I need to understand the enormity of faith). Yet thru the years whenever someone asks me to name my favorite book or recommend one, I invariably revert back to “Who Moved My Cheese?” authored by Spencer Johnson, M.D., published in 1998, given to me as a Christmas gift by the head of a dept at a former employer during the Asian Financial crisis (he gave one to everyone in the dept).
This book is compact (all of 94 pages); it has decent font size; it is an easy read; and it is profoundly enlightening. It is a very simple parable about 4 little characters who ran thru a maze looking for cheese to nourish them and make them happy daily. Two were mice named “Sniff” and “Scurry”, and two were little people named “Hem” and “Haw”, they were the size of the mice except they act like humans. Everyday each would put on their jogging suits and running shoes, left their little homes and raced out into the maze looking for their favorite cheese. Then one day the cheese disappeared, much to their surprise, dismay and chagrin!! The story went on to describe and contrast the differences in how each dealt with the situation. Dr. Johnson utilized brilliantly the metaphors of “Cheese” and “Maze” to illustrate the things that we each want in life; where we look for them; how we define success and happiness and what we would do in the face of unexpected changes. The WHAT: a good job, a loving relationship, money, material possessions, health or peace of mind. The WHERE: workplace, family, community, etc. The HOW: is entirely up to you!
It is a uniquely delightful book on dealing with changes, one that I reread over and over through the years.
As it states on the inside cover of the book: “Written for all ages, the story takes less than an hour to read, but its unique insights can last for a life time”.
This book is compact (all of 94 pages); it has decent font size; it is an easy read; and it is profoundly enlightening. It is a very simple parable about 4 little characters who ran thru a maze looking for cheese to nourish them and make them happy daily. Two were mice named “Sniff” and “Scurry”, and two were little people named “Hem” and “Haw”, they were the size of the mice except they act like humans. Everyday each would put on their jogging suits and running shoes, left their little homes and raced out into the maze looking for their favorite cheese. Then one day the cheese disappeared, much to their surprise, dismay and chagrin!! The story went on to describe and contrast the differences in how each dealt with the situation. Dr. Johnson utilized brilliantly the metaphors of “Cheese” and “Maze” to illustrate the things that we each want in life; where we look for them; how we define success and happiness and what we would do in the face of unexpected changes. The WHAT: a good job, a loving relationship, money, material possessions, health or peace of mind. The WHERE: workplace, family, community, etc. The HOW: is entirely up to you!
It is a uniquely delightful book on dealing with changes, one that I reread over and over through the years.
As it states on the inside cover of the book: “Written for all ages, the story takes less than an hour to read, but its unique insights can last for a life time”.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Ask not what Social Security can do for you ......
About a month ago I received my annual Social Security Statement with the usual Estimated Benefits and Earnings Record, and for the first time I decided to read every word in the statement. Michael J. Astrue, the Commissioner, implored in the section that was titled: “About Social Security’s future….” in the second paragraph he wrote: “In 2017 we will begin paying more in benefits than we collect in taxes. Without changes, by 2041 the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted and there will be enough money only to pay about 78 cents for each dollar of scheduled benefits. We need to make sure Social Security continues to provide a foundation of protection for future generations.”
Today I came across this on the internet and I thought it explains very well what you need to know about Social Security and the potential changes: http://finance.yahoo.com/retirement/article/107761/what-you-need-to-know-about-social-security.html?mod=retire-planning
Bottom line is I don’t know of anyone in retirement right now who can live on Social Security alone. And I am certain that when I retire I can not live on it alone. And if I live to 99 (my grandmother is 99, God blesses her), I wonder if SS will still exist. Both my mother and my grandmother each gets a check for about $350 per month after Medicare is taken out, and that is their only source of income! So it goes without saying that we need to take retirement into our own hands, be it setting aside a certain contribution into your 401K, or if you are investment savvy, be disciplined enough to set up your own monthly contribution plans through one of the discount brokerages. I like 401Ks for its forced savings feature where you can not touch since it comes with an early withdrawal penalty of 10% before 59 ½. When I was working I maxed out every year on my contributions as a way to force myself to save. The 2009 annual limit is $16,500, with a catch-up contribution limit (if you are older than 50) of $5,500. Just think, if you max out on the annual contribution and if I assume the limit stays constant (it does not, the limit has gone up every year), and assuming you work another 20 years, you would have set aside $330,000 pre-tax savings. Now that catch is in your allocation of these savings to the funds, we all saw what happened through out the financial crisis and it behooves one to diversify. There are days that I wish I had allocated all my 401Ks to money market funds instead of equities. Only you know what your risk appetite and tolerance is. Hopefully over the course of 20 years the markets will give you better returns than a money market fund.
Today I came across this on the internet and I thought it explains very well what you need to know about Social Security and the potential changes: http://finance.yahoo.com/retirement/article/107761/what-you-need-to-know-about-social-security.html?mod=retire-planning
Bottom line is I don’t know of anyone in retirement right now who can live on Social Security alone. And I am certain that when I retire I can not live on it alone. And if I live to 99 (my grandmother is 99, God blesses her), I wonder if SS will still exist. Both my mother and my grandmother each gets a check for about $350 per month after Medicare is taken out, and that is their only source of income! So it goes without saying that we need to take retirement into our own hands, be it setting aside a certain contribution into your 401K, or if you are investment savvy, be disciplined enough to set up your own monthly contribution plans through one of the discount brokerages. I like 401Ks for its forced savings feature where you can not touch since it comes with an early withdrawal penalty of 10% before 59 ½. When I was working I maxed out every year on my contributions as a way to force myself to save. The 2009 annual limit is $16,500, with a catch-up contribution limit (if you are older than 50) of $5,500. Just think, if you max out on the annual contribution and if I assume the limit stays constant (it does not, the limit has gone up every year), and assuming you work another 20 years, you would have set aside $330,000 pre-tax savings. Now that catch is in your allocation of these savings to the funds, we all saw what happened through out the financial crisis and it behooves one to diversify. There are days that I wish I had allocated all my 401Ks to money market funds instead of equities. Only you know what your risk appetite and tolerance is. Hopefully over the course of 20 years the markets will give you better returns than a money market fund.
Is IEFF Achievable?
Recently I sent an email to my friends pontificating about life and and my lofty goal of finding the Holy Grail of IEFF (Intellectual, Emotional and Financial Fulfillment) in the next chapter of my life. At the end of that email I asked a rhetorical question: What is your IEFF? Relatively few individuals have a clear answer, several friends wrote back "my children" (my heart melted when I read that), and many were in the same predicament as I am, still searching.
Rare is the occasion that one finds even one out of the three in one's life time, blessed are those who achieved all three. Is it possible to NOT sacrifice something in the I & E categories while one toils away pursuing F? My personal experience is that when one is singularly focused on one arena, something has to give in other areas. Intellectually I morphed into a finance specialist; I gave up reading anything outside of the Wall Street Journal and research reports because I had few spare hours outside of work. I allowed one exception - People magazine, where I luxuriated in living vicariously thru the lives of celebrities by day dreaming about what it would be like to become rich and famous one day while doing exactly what one wants! Emotionally I learned to shut out the world as I aspired to be a bigger rat in the corporate rat race; I got fatter along the way! I think I spent more time in the past two years bonding and reconnecting with loved ones than I did in the 15 years combined. It is not as if I didn't know that somewhere along the way I was devoid of intellectual or emotional fulfillment, but I thought one day they will find me when I make enough money (and that is always relative). Alas it didn't work like that. It is equally hard work to find I & E as it is to find F, none of them are easy. And there is never enough F if one starts comparing myself to the Jones or if one can not extricate oneself from the game, for it is very difficult to leave a well paying job no matter how miserable the working environment becomes, people tend to stick it out and loses the enjoyment from what they earned.
I am an optimist and I believe there is an IEFF out there for everyone; we just need to take a step back to realize what is important to us. I invite all the readers to share with each other any advice on finding your IEFF, inspirational stories and tools that will enrich our mind, soul and bank accounts!
Rare is the occasion that one finds even one out of the three in one's life time, blessed are those who achieved all three. Is it possible to NOT sacrifice something in the I & E categories while one toils away pursuing F? My personal experience is that when one is singularly focused on one arena, something has to give in other areas. Intellectually I morphed into a finance specialist; I gave up reading anything outside of the Wall Street Journal and research reports because I had few spare hours outside of work. I allowed one exception - People magazine, where I luxuriated in living vicariously thru the lives of celebrities by day dreaming about what it would be like to become rich and famous one day while doing exactly what one wants! Emotionally I learned to shut out the world as I aspired to be a bigger rat in the corporate rat race; I got fatter along the way! I think I spent more time in the past two years bonding and reconnecting with loved ones than I did in the 15 years combined. It is not as if I didn't know that somewhere along the way I was devoid of intellectual or emotional fulfillment, but I thought one day they will find me when I make enough money (and that is always relative). Alas it didn't work like that. It is equally hard work to find I & E as it is to find F, none of them are easy. And there is never enough F if one starts comparing myself to the Jones or if one can not extricate oneself from the game, for it is very difficult to leave a well paying job no matter how miserable the working environment becomes, people tend to stick it out and loses the enjoyment from what they earned.
I am an optimist and I believe there is an IEFF out there for everyone; we just need to take a step back to realize what is important to us. I invite all the readers to share with each other any advice on finding your IEFF, inspirational stories and tools that will enrich our mind, soul and bank accounts!
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