Five Easy Steps to Staying Motivated

Five Easy Steps to Staying Motivated

Motivating yourself to excel at your job or to be an example to your employees, should not be something you do only when the spirit moves you. It’s an ongoing process that should include every facet of your business life. This means your mental attitude, physical well-being and appearance, work atmosphere, your interaction with others (clients and employees alike), and your off-the-job environment.

Motivational experts get paid big bucks to tell professionals, striving for success, that they must constantly examine these factors. How do you do that? Follow the 5 tips that follow, and watch the changes.

1. Maintain a Positive Attitude – Let’s realize that life is only 10% of what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. We’re responsible for our own actions and attitudes, and changing them when appropriate. When you’re around people/things that are uplifting and positive, you feel that way. You have more confidence in yourself, and know you can change whatever needs changing. If you can make your workplace such a place you’ll find happier workers and higher production. You might even find your employees look forward to coming to work!

2. Leave Personal Troubles Home - Everyone has problems, but they don’t belong at work. Turn your attention and energy entirely to your on-the-job tasks. This will actually be good for you because you’ll get a mental break from your troubles.
3. Create Positive Affirmations - The reason for writing goals for your business is the same as creating positive affirmations on paper. What your eyes see and ears hear, your mind will believe. Try it! After you’ve written them down, read them aloud to yourself – and do it every morning when you get into work. You’ll be amazed at what happens. Come up with a set of new ones every month. Statements such as, “I’m an important and valuable person,” or “I know I’ll make good use of my time today.” Repeating them out loud everyday at a set time will help reinforce positive actions.

4. Make Sure Break Times Are Really Break Times - This is an area where most bosses/entrepreneurs fall down. You become so intense about the project or situation you’re working on that you don’t ease up. Thinking that it’ll be solved in the next few seconds, and then you’ll get a cup of coffee can lead you right up to quitting time. Regularly adhering to a specified break schedule, even if you’re the boss, releases the tension. If you work on a computer this is even a greater problem because before you realize it – you’ve been working in that same position for hours. The best answer to this is to set yourself a reminder on your appointment calendar for every 2 hours, and let the computer reminder chime send you the alert to move around.

5. Exercise, Exercise, Exercise - I know that lately it seems that “exercise” is the cure-all to every physical ailment or your love life, but despite that there is some truth to that ugly word. By “exercise” I don’t mean that you should go out and join a gym and spend your lunch-time, 3-days-a-week there working out. What is really beneficial and workable is that at those chiming alerts from your computer, get up and walk around your desk or room. Maybe go outside and get the mail and enjoy the sunlight (if you’re an entrepreneur that has a home office), or just get up and do a few stretches. Concentrated, tense thinking – typing - plotting plans - or whatever your work, makes all those muscles tighten up and knot up. Then when we move we “ooh” and “ouch” because we’ve knotted up into a ball of tension. Periodic stretching, even at our desk, or just getting up and walking over to the window and getting a different view can help. One of the greatest disservice modern business décor has done to us, is making our offices pristine, sleek, unencumbered spaces. There is nothing more relaxing than getting up from your desk and walking over to a peaceful, serene, seascape or pastoral painting and just drinking it in visually. Momentarily transporting your mind out of work and into that place does wonders. A few good paintings and less shiny chrome in offices would benefit us all.

It only takes a little concentrated effort on our part to keep motivated and productive, which leads to success. I know you’re going to hate hearing this, but it’s true anyway – and that is, “WHEN LIFE GIVES YOUR LEMONS – MAKE LEMONADE!”

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Strange Bedfellows

Strange Bedfellows

June 1, 2017 • Karen DeMasters
Financial advisor Chad Willardson worked very hard recently to get elected to a job that had no financial training requirements whatsoever—treasurer of Corona, Calif.

In that position, he is in charge of investing the city’s $250 million bond portfolio. His predecessors were in charge of the same fund, but he says they didn’t have his financial or investment training. They came into the job cold.

More often than people realize, elected officials in the U.S. have no financial training when they are put in charge of public budgets and pension funds on the local, state and national levels. Even when an official is not directly in charge of a financial department, he or she is frequently expected to weigh in on the financial consequences of legislation.

Sometimes financial advisors or those with similar backgrounds decide to tackle the rigors of campaigning and accept public offices themselves, but it doesn’t happen enough, say industry people.

Willardson, the founder and president of Pacific Capital, a wealth management and financial advisory firm, never had any political ambitions himself. But he wanted to make things better in the community where he and his family work and live. Leaders in Corona, a growing city of about 162,000 residents, asked him to run for treasurer in a nonpartisan election, and he is now starting his first four-year term.

“A lot of cities are in financial trouble and there are many of us with financial expertise who can make a real difference,” he says. “Managing the city’s portfolio was like taking on a new client for me, but it is a very important client. It was easy to fold this in with what I already do as a business.

“I don’t think we can afford to place our investments in the hands of politicians,” he says.

Willardson is using the same resources for the city that he uses in his business, and he has brought in a third party analyst to help show the officials how the city can increase yield and reduce costs on its investments. “My goal by the end of four years is to show how much we have improved with our investments,” he says.

The ways advisors get into the public arena differ, but the goal of effectively influencing public policy so that financial consequences are taken into consideration is the same for most. Some advisors who have taken the public servant plunge are battling financial issues on the state level. Heather Bishoff, co-owner and chief financial officer of Bishoff Financial Group in Worthington, Ohio, an asset management and retirement planning firm, started with a seat on the local board of education when she saw teachers being let go and programs being cut. But she soon found that school funding is a state issue.

She is now a Democratic member of the Ohio House of Representatives in her third two-year term facing numerous challenges in a state ranked fifth worst in the United States for taxes. “It was extremely intimidating to run for office, but we need more people who are financially minded to be at the forefront of these issues. There are public policy issues on expenditures and taxes that affect people on a day-to-day basis,” she says. “We have to put our money where our mouth is, so to speak.”

“I’ve had my say, but, despite my pleas, Ohio has raised a lot of taxes,” she says. “What tends to happen when non-financial people make decisions about public policy is they trip over a dollar to save a penny. As financial advisors, we think long term and for taxpayers it should be the same. I am too passionate about this to see shortsighted public policy made. As financial advisors, we know you sometimes have to make investments up front to save money later on.”

As an added bonus, Bishoff says her children love her holding public office. “They feel special. They know I am good for a peanut butter sandwich for them, but I can also stand on a mountain with a sword and let my opinion be known if need be.”

Another bonus is that holding public office can give a financial advisor added exposure, says Doug Lyons, founder of Douglas J. Lyons Financial Group, a wealth management firm in Red Bank, N.J. Lyons was encouraged to run for office in his hometown of Bay Head, N.J., he says, but commuting to New York City every day left him with little extra time. After opening his own business in the suburbs, he had more time.

A Republican, he is now in his second three-year term as a Bay Head councilman in charge of the finance committee. Lyons encourages all financial advisors to serve in public office as a way of giving back to the community. Being in public office gives an advisor more attention but it also means taking the good with the bad, he notes.

“People will unload their complaints about local issues on you at parties, but as a financial advisor you deal with all kinds of individuals, so you can bring a unique skill to the table in knowing how to deal with people,” he says. “Absolutely, I would encourage other financial advisors to run for office.

“In Bay Head, there were issues in the finance department that needed to be dealt with and I think I brought a new perspective that would not have been there without me,” Lyons adds. Since he has been on the council, he has helped deal with full-time and part-time employee issues.

Advisors in general often show a high level of engagement in their communities, some by running for public office, others by taking different actions, says Blaine Aikin, chairman of the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc.’s board of directors.

“Financial advisors are highly engaged in people’s lives and understand behavior and they know how to bring reality into the picture,” Aikin says. “Sometimes what we want to do is not realistic: Advisors have to point this out all the time, so they know how to work with people to show them what the trade-offs of proposed legislation might be.”

But being in politics can be divisive, and some advisors may not be comfortable with that. “Many people may not realize a public official needs to be a fiduciary, just like a financial advisor needs to be one,” Aikin points out. “They need to act in a way that is best for their constituents” on decisions about whether to, say, pursue revenue growth or focus on other goals like land preservation. In this way, they are acting just as advisors need to act—in the best interests of their clients, he says.

Many advisors still hesitate to jump into the political arena, adding more work to what is probably an already busy life and potentially creating enemies along the way, says Paul H. Auslander, the former Financial Planning Association president and chair, who has held leadership positions in the financial community nationally and in Florida where he works and lives. Auslander is the director of financial planning at ProVise Management Group LLC, a fee-based financial planning and investment management firm in Clearwater.

He was selected in 2007 by Florida’s chief financial officer to serve on the state’s first Financial Literacy Council for a four-year term. The council, created by the Florida Legislature, was asked to study the financial issues that affect consumers without basic financial knowledge. The council made recommendations to the legislature on how to help consumers increase their knowledge of these issues.

Auslander is known for urging financial advisors to apply their skills to public policy issues by taking on elected and appointive offices. “Financial advisors in public offices are needed more now than ever, but many do not run because of the time-consuming complications of dealing with their own compliance issues for their firms, or because of a disdain for the political process,” he says.

“I would like to see them do it because they see it as a noble method of service, but most are not interested,” he says. “Some cataclysmic event may spur them to act, but they should not wait until something drastic happens.”

The U.S. Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule, which requires advisors who deal with retirement planning to act in the best interests of their clients, is a perfect example of a law that needed more financial experts weighing in on it, Auslander says. The rule is now set to go into effect in June. “The rule was a great idea in concept but then something went wrong and it is just bad legislation now, which is a shame,” he says.

The reward for those who accept the challenge of being in public office is that “you feel like a public piñata,” says Frank Astorino, a Republican councilman in his third term in North Caldwell, N.J. He heads the Astorino Financial Group, a wealth management and financial planning firm in Fairfield, N.J.

The Seven Economic Rules

SEVEN ECONOMIC RULES:

    A set of seven fundamental notions that reflect the study of economics and how the economy operates. They are: (1) scarcity, (2) subjectivity, (3) inequality, (4) competition, (5) imperfection, (6) ignorance, and (7) complexity.

Like driving has an assortment of traffic laws, a journey through economics has a few rules of its own. While breaking these seven economic rules will not result in a ticket or jail time, it could limit an understanding of the subject.

Here is a brief look at these seven economic rules:

    SCARCITY: The economic pie is limited. Society has limited resources and unlimited wants and needs. Because there is only so much to go around and everyone wants more than they have, what one gets, another does not. That means that virtually every good produced, every action taken has an opportunity cost.

    SUBJECTIVITY: Prices depend on preferences. The value of goods and services is subjective. Buyers have personal likes and dislikes and are willing to pay different prices for goods. Sellers base prices on production costs which depend on the subjective value that resource owners place on their resources.

    INEQUALITY: Life is not fair. Resources, goods, services, income, and wealth are not equally distributed. Some people have more than others. Inequality can be caused by differences in natural abilities, parental wealth, the luck of birth, and other factors beyond one's control. Inequality also results from effort, education, training, shrewd decision making, and just plain hard work.
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    COMPETITION: Competition is good. Competitive markets promote efficiency. Competition among buyers in search of products and competition among sellers in search of buyers brings out the best in both--and in the economy. Limited competition on either side is bad for the market and bad for the economy. Limited competition among sellers causes higher prices for buyers. Limited competition among buyers leads to lower prices for sellers.

    IMPERFECTION: Nothing is perfect and never will be. Society can fix some problems, but not every one. Seeking perfection from an imperfect world can be frustrating and even counter productive. Markets, a useful way to deal with scarcity in many circumstances, have deficiencies that can be corrected only by government action. Some deficiencies are minor, others are monumental. Governments, however, are also flawed. Government actions intended to fix market flaws are also imperfect. Invariably, the choice in a mixed economy is between the lesser of imperfections.
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    IGNORANCE: Nobody knows everything. Information is a scarce good. Acquiring information is governed by the same scarcity problem as any production. It requires limited resources that have alternative uses. This imposes an opportunity cost on society. The cost of getting information limits how much anyone can "buy." That is why everyone is ignorant about something. Sellers who have a good usually have more relevant information than buyers who want it.

    COMPLEXITY: There is more than meets the eye. The world is a complex beast. Society has millions of people interacting in production, consumption, and allocation activities. Every action, every purchase, every production, every sale, has several effects. Some effects are intended and obvious, others are unintended and more subtle. An action that may be good for one person, may be just as bad for another. Click Here!

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