The Good Old Days (image by Powerhouse Museum)
I am turning 40 years old in a couple of months. There is no more denying the onset of the middle age. I would like to think I am a little wiser for those years, but more important than that I would like to use this post to celebrate how great life really is.
I Walked Twenty Miles to School, Barefoot in the Snow and it was Uphill Both Ways!
When I was a child, I listened to all of those stories grown ups use to tell about how bad it was for them at my age. They were right! Their childhoods were much more difficult. As a child, my grandmother never had electricity or running water. Think about what that means for a moment.
No refrigerators meant that food either had to be canned (actually put in a jar) or eaten immediately. Animals were only slaughtered in the winter when the cold could preserve them for a longer time. My grandmother lived on a farm so there were few stores to buy groceries. Virtually everything was grown or raised on her own farm. Of course, there…
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Thanks for coming to my wedding, now have I got deal for you!
Mastering social media is not about technology at all. Anyone can learn the tools with a little research and effort. The hard part is really connecting with people. That is what relationships are all about, finding some connection. Getting friends just so that you can sell them something doesn’t work offline so why do so many people expect it to work online? Trust is everything. Where is the trust?
A good way to think about getting good at social media is to consider being the bride or groom at a wedding. Everyone at your wedding has some connection to you or your spouse. Some may be great friends that you have known all of your life, and some might be distant relatives that you hope to never see again. In most weddings there are so many people and such limited time that you can’t possibly give every person much attention. The bride and groom generally go around the room and give everyone a little of their time, but not too much because it is their night after all.
That is exactly what…
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A Penny Saved is More than a Penny Earned!
I have been considering investing in government bonds. I would like to diversify my investments and government bonds are completely risk free. New Zealand and Australia both have relatively high interest rates, so bonds can pay as much as 5 or 6 percent per year. The problem is that 20 percent of the interest income will be deducted for taxes and with other exchange rate risks and fees, it is likely that I would make less than 3 percent. This is comparable to what US government bonds are currently paying.
Therefore, if I invest $100,000, I will make $3000 per year or $250 per month. $250 per month on $100,000 tied up for at least a year. So basically that means, making an extra $250 per month is equivalent to having $100,000 in bonds. In order to make an extra $2500 in passive income, you would need to be the government bond equivalent of a millionaire. A million dollars in bonds would only provide you with $2500 a month of income.
How about looking at this from a different perspective. Every $250 you could save in…
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My Friends
Technology doesn’t change social relationships, it is just a different way to connect with people. People who have many real world friends likely spend a lot of time cultivating those relationships and put themselves in situations to meet and interact with new people.
It is easy to add “friends” to the social media sites you subscribe to but there are different levels of friendship. Thousands of online friends may be a great way to keep score and impress people but they are much more distant acquain-tances than real friends. You don’t mind asking the friends you meet every weekend to help paint your house, but you are unlikely to call your old co-worker from 10 years ago to come and lend a hand.
The same is true for online friends and relationships. Close friends can be called upon for favors, assistance and advice but not before there is a history of mutual sharing and benefit. Asking some stranger online to buy your offering or subscribe to your blog on the first contact is akin to asking a stranger on the street to come and help you paint your house this weekend. The internet…
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