Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich
” Now, with the same frank advice and empowering information that made Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office a bestseller, Lois Frankel tackles the 75 financial mistakes that keep women from having the wealth they deserve. She isolates the messages about money given to little girls that little boys never heard. Then she helps you discover the financial thinking that is keeping you stuck in old patterns, dependent relationships, and jobs where you earn less than you deserve.
Once you get to the root of the problem, Frankel helps you solve it – with fabulous results. Her coaching tips help you take control of your finances and make more money than you ever thought possible. Frankel gives you the financial savvy to change negative behaviors, make smart money choices, and embrace the life you want sooner than you think. “
Ok, I don’t work for Lois Frankel and I don’t get paid for advertising her books however, I advertise it for the sole reason that this book, like the previous, opened my eyes and made me that much more financially saavy. She embarked on topics that one will likely encounter in a lifetime. The book also helps instill a great attitude of- empower yourself and get enlightened! I bought both this book and the previous because they’re both books that I want to keep and potentially lend to family members and people that I care about because I believe they are that useful. Alright, end of ad.
Relevance
I’ve flipped through my posts and realized that there is no cohesiveness between those and my mission statement: making work fun.
So why do I jump from personal finance to corporate trends to my own philosophical curiosities about work and society? Because in order for work to be fun, we need work to not be work. Obvious but not really.
Why do we work? Why do have to have a job? What is the motivation to go to to school and train for the first quarter of our lives to come out and work? … to get a paycheck. A paycheck is our livelihood, is our bread, our butter, our shelter and thus, work becomes a necessity of life because it is seen as the only source of a paycheck. How then, can something that represents so much responsibility and that encompasses so much pressure, how can work be enjoyable?
Work will never be enjoyable for those who live paycheck to paycheck. Chasing the corporate ladder will never be enjoyable for somebody who values life-balance. Hence, the first step to making work fun is to get your finances in order so that the pressure is alleviated and to do some soul-searching to clarify what lifestyle will make you happy.
For somebody who cherishes life-balance (even though I seem to have an extremely tough time attaining it), the idea that somebody could actually enjoy attacking that corporate ladder is difficult to digest. However, some people actually love it! And kudos to them, the important thing is to identify which group you belong to.
When you have your finances in order and know that there is some security even if that paycheck is absent for a period of time, this allows the ease of mind to brainstorm what you genuinely want to do.
This is how my rants about personal finance, outsourcing and philosophical jabber all come together. More to come. (In continuation of my previous post and the rest of my book reviews)
Contributing to society positively…
I was at the hospital last week standing and leaning against a wall awaiting to get some blood tests. Never had I seen so many elderly people in one area, waiting… waiting… waiting. I spent an hour observing the people, chuckling at some of the elderly folk who stood in the middle of the room boldly and silently screaming, “give me your seat, do you not see my age!”. I chuckled because everybody else who had a seat was equally advanced in age. I was intent on observing the nurses, the doctors, bustling about, the elderly volunteer trying to put some order into all the bustling as nobody wanted to lose their place in the never-ending lineup and I thought about how much good these nurses, these doctors, even that elderly volunteer intent on bossing people around, how much good they were doing for society. To put up with the never-ending lineups of grumpy people, to put up with stupid government officials who would pay bus drivers exuberant salaries but cap compensation of health-care providers and to the long, long hours put into one standard work day, I wondered if it were me… I guess I would complain but I would be motivated because I would value every minute I put into my work. I would be contributing directly to the quality of life for people.
And then I think of my life and what is to come, all my hard work contributes to the millions of dollars of bonus that ends up in one individual’s pockets, the CEO of a large company. A CEO whose current fetish is to downsize operational costs and outsource to “high potential, lower cost countries”. It is perhaps, an extremely negative interpretation but that is essentially the truth. I work for somebody else, I contribute to somebody else’s wallet, most of my money gets sucked into the government’s pockets via taxes and I have no job security. Thank God I realize this at a young age?
I hate being so negative, so let me pro-active, what can I do with a degree that focuses on technology, what can I do with my engineering degree, my common sense and my good intentions, what can I do to contribute to society? What can I do to add value to humanity?
That is my question of the day.
Millionaire Women Next Door
“… Readers everywhere will be fascinated by Stanleys thoroughly researched findings and conclusions. More than a simple extension of his studies of male millionaires, Millionaire Women Next Door presents groundbreaking concepts involving the nature, lifestyle, and business choices of successful American women that reach far beyond the scope of the authors previous studies. The book examines the choice of businesses elected by self-employed women, ranking over 150 categories in terms of their profitability and probability of success. It also describes the women’s background, highlighting the fact that most millionaire women were raised in nurturing family environments that were literally training grounds for success, instilling the values that make this group one of the most generous in American society as demonstrated by its level of giving to charities, family, and friends. While many characteristics such as frugality and simplicity of lifestyle are similar to those of their male counterparts, Stanley demonstrates that most millionaire women work harder and do better at school, in business, and in investment practices…”
This is one of my favorite books. The book is a thorough study on millionaire women supported by statistics from the IRS, surveys and interviews with millionaire women. The study focuses on what these women did in their lives, where they worked, how they grew up, their attitudes, their influences, their battles …, truly finding what drove and motivates a millionaire woman. The stories are inspiring and I truly appreciate the work put into justifying the findings. Facts are provided and not opinions, because we all know how many opinions are out there in regards to women and money. This book truly taught me that dreams are not just dreams but attainable goals no matter where you are in life, this supported by real evidence of those who actually did it.
Rich Dad, Poor Dad
“The New York Times #1 Bestseller is changing how the world views money by shifting your context to that of a rich person. If you are like many – dependent on your paychecks to cover your monthly expenses – then you don’t think like the rich. The rich don’t accumulate cash. They accumulate assets that generate cash flow for them. In reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, you’ll better understand the power that thinking can have on your life. If you are looking for financial freedom, then Rich Dad Poor Dad is a great place to start your learning process.”
I walked away from this book with a very positive attitude. When I did a search on Google for other opinions, I stumbled upon both negative and positive remarks. The trend I saw when reading the negative comments were that these readers expected a step-by-step recipe on “how to get rich”. This book did not provide a recipe, rather, it provided the basics and foundation of effective personal finance. If the book had provided a step-by-step recipe, such a recipe would have likely been nothing short of a quick-get-rich scheme which I happily did not find. I enjoyed the ideas, the tips, the method of thinking that this book taught. The examples provided by the author of their own success stories illustrated the possibilities resulting from such a school of thought which for me, were plausible given the timing and the market. The nay-sayers called it arrogance, I call it supporting info expressed in an American fashion. This is a great book if you read it fully understanding that what you learn will be a train of thought and not a recipe.
Personal Finance & Self-Help books
For some, such a title might spawn a sarcastic chuckle or two. For others, this might urge them to read on in the hopes of being referred to a useful book. I am not particularly an avid fan of the genre but I have an open mind when it comes to books. I believe that you can learn from any book so long as you think about the information you are reading. Perhaps parts of the content of the book does not apply to you but other parts might, perhaps you’ve learned nothing useful from this author in your own life but at the least, you exercise the skill of judgement in deciding what works and what won’t. If your thought process ventures deep enough, this might even lead you to discover and eradicate certain fears that result in your dismissal of the books content. The first step to conquering a fear is to be aware of it.
In the spirit of such an attitude, I’ve read quite a few personal finance, self-help books and I’ll be sharing my thoughts on these over the next few posts:
Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter
Millionaire Women Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D
Multiple Streams of Income by Robert G. Allen
Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich by Lois P. Frankel, Ph.D
Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office 101 by Lois P. Frankel, Ph.D
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker
Outsourcing, Off-Shoring and Low Cost Countries
The new fad for large companies in this modern day is outsourcing to low cost countries. Pick up the phone to get technical support for your Bell Sympatico Internet Service Provider and you shall be greeted by the warm and friendly voice of an individual situated in India. Shop around for a pair of boots that carry a Canadian brand and flip the shoe over and you’re greeted by the “Made in China” label. I’ve encountered both experiences and albeit the friendliness of the Indian technical support representative or the Canadian brand boot that ought to be robust in volatile Canadian weather, I’ve had a hell of a time understanding the technical support agent with their thickly accented English (whom also refuses to deviate from a script) and all my boots that were “Made in China” never saw a second winter. So why is everybody outsourcing to low cost countries? Does the low cost really compensate for the lowered quality in service and goods, equivalent to lowered customer satisfaction?
Well. I’ve had a chance to see the numbers and you realize what you’re up against. Let’s take the example of an engineer:
- In North America: Average annual income of 70K$US plus benefits and contributions to RRSPs.
- In China: Average annual income of 30K$US … no benefits, no contributions to RRSPs.
- In Mexico: Average annual income of 15K$US … no benefits, no contributions to RRSPs.
With numbers like that, if I were the VP of a large corporation, how could I not be tempted to employ staff in places like China? Like Mexico? Where annual compensation is the fraction of what I’d pay for somebody in North America, where laying them off won’t cost me extra in terms layoff packages and where contributions to RRSPs is not the norm and not expected? I would save millions… even billions in salary compensation if I hired in low cost countries. However, the issue of quality and customer satisfaction would obviously come into the equation and then through a series of thoughts and contemplations I would come to the conclusion that some things can be off-shored with small risks while others just cannot because the risk is too great in terms of customer satisfaction. Insyte Consulting provides a look at the Pros & Cons of off-shoring, note that this is from a US perspective, although Canada won’t deviate too much from our southern neighbors.
So that brings me, the newly graduated Canadian engineer trying to find her place in the world, preferably in Canada, where in this vaste corporate world should I position myself so as not to be layed off because my role is easily off-shore-able?
This question has haunted me the last few weeks, opening doors of regret and wishing that I had gone into some health related field given the fact that baby boomers will be retiring soon and any health related field will be greatly needed in society. However, regret is for losers and bleak situations bring out the creativity in some, so without doubt, I aim to be part of the latter. The obvious answer would be, not anywhere in manufacturing. I don’t think I’m the only one to notice that everything these days has a “Made in China” or “Made in Pakistan” or “Made in Indonesia” label.
The reality is that low cost countries completely beat us out in cheap labor. But what the workpool in developed countries can focus on is services. Somebody in China can make X for a tenth of the price as someone in the US but the Chinese laborer won’t have the skills to recognize how it fits into a potential customer’s requirements. They won’t have the skills to communicate with a potential customer of X’s features, functions and how it can add value to that customer’s business/life. But this is a kind of high-level skill that an applications engineer say, from the US where the company is headquartered, would have. Not just the technical aptitudes required to understand X but also the communication skills involved with speaking to the potential customer.
In other words, we, the higher paid workforce, need to more than ever focus on staying competitive. And in my colleague’s wise words “we gotta run away from the black box and focus on how creative we can use the black box” because manufacturing the black box is just getting cheaper and cheaper. Life Long Learning outlines this in their article, How to Stay Competitive in a Global Job Market .
Why am I here?
I began my working career right after my birthday in mid-summer 2007. 6 months later, I found myself writing and sticking “positive” post-its all around my dilbert-esque cubicle because office politics and the dark loom of a recession were hacking away at my motivation. After months of listening to the experiences of the colleagues around me and learning of business strategies like outsourcing and investing in low cost countries, I am concluding that the previous strategy of depending on a company to take care of their employees will simply not do. Unless of course, I enjoy getting “royally screwed”.
