Tonights Video: Is this Real?

More fun then lead painted toys, comes this from China...

Getting through the turmoil

The overall theme of my life is not unique. However sometimes when we are in the midst of the ups and downs, we may feel like we are alone.

I am blessed with a loving, supportive wife, 5 kids (including step-kids) and their spouses and significant others, family and friends.

There were significant changes over the past 6 years at the radio stations that I work, both positive and negative. Yet life is more than what happens to us. It is how we decide to live, given the circumstances that are beyond our control.

As I look forward to the last couple of months of 2008, professionally, things are better than they have been all year. Balance that out with friends that are ill with cancer and it keeps everything in perspective.

The following piece was in my email today. May you take stock of your life and adjust now instead of waiting for the New Year.

Swimming, Splashing or Sinking: Are You Making Progress Towards Your Goals?

Posted: 24 Oct 2008 05:53 AM CDT

Maybe you’ve started a new health and fitness plan. Maybe you’re working on a grand project that will make you millions. Maybe you’re sorting out your financial situation once and for all. Whatever your goal is, you’re know you are putting in a lot of effort. But, do you know that you are making progress?

It’s a bit like being in the pool: you might be churning through the water, leaving others gasping in your wake, or you may be treading water and keeping afloat, or you could be out of your depth and about to hit trouble.

You need to figure out whether you’re swimming, splashing or sinking. Once you understand that, you can either change course or proceed confidently. Not knowing your progress will eventually sink you so let's prepare to be honest with ourselves and determine where we really are.

Swimming
We all know what swimming looks like:

• Not just staying afloat, but making forward progress
  
• Moving in the right direction
  
• Keeping up a good pace
  

Think about one of the big goals you’re working towards – maybe one which you’re beginning to have serious doubts about. Have you made any real progress over the last month? For example:

• If you’re trying to lose weight, has that number on the scale changed? What about your waist and hips measurements?
  


• If you’re aiming to be the next JK Rowling or Dan Brown, how many words have you written recently? Has anyone praised your writing? Have you sent anything to short story magazines, agents or editors?
  


• If you’re building up an emergency fund, how much money have you put into your savings account?
  

Hopefully you have made some progress. If so, you might want to think about how you can speed up. Alternatively, you may need to consider taking a breather; there’s no point swimming faster and faster until you’re exhausted.

Splashing
Sometimes, it’s tricky to tell the difference between splashing and swimming. Here are some warning signs that you might be splashing and expending a lot of energy without getting any closer to your goals:

• You’re making a lot of noise, but you’re not moving much. (You talk about your project a lot, but never do any work on it.)


• You keep “doing stuff” but you’re not sure if it’s taking you closer to your goal or further away.


• You made progress to begin with, but you seem to have stalled.

Could you be splashing rather than swimming? The unfortunate thing about splashing is that you can be working really hard without making any real progress. For example, you’re splashing:

• If you’re trying to lose weight, you might be spending a lot of money on “diet foods”, magazines and club membership fees … yet you aren’t any thinner.
  


• If you want to finish a novel, you might talk to other writers a lot, make loads of plans, have great ideas … yet you’re not doing any actual writing.


• If you want to improve your financial situation, you might be keeping a spending log religiously … but you're not making any changes in your shopping habits.

If you suspect you might be splashing, what tasks are you doing that are just “noise”? What do you need to do in order to move forwards again?

Sinking
Both swimming and splashing can turn into something dangerous: sinking. If your goal has become a burden, or if you’ve gone backwards instead of forwards, you might end up overwhelmed. If you’re sinking:

• You need someone to throw you a lifebelt – or lend you a hand
  
• You have to stop and recover your energy
  
• You may need to get out of the water completely
  

So what does this mean in terms of your grand project? You’re sinking when:

• Your goal was weight-loss butyou’ve gained 10lbs in the past couple of months.
  
• The thought of writing your novel makes you want to scream,and spring cleaning the house is more appealing.
  
• Instead of saving up money, you’re getting deeper and deeper into debt.

When you’re sinking, don’t hesitate to call for help. You might want to talk to a friend, seek professional advice (this could be from a doctor, a life coach or a financial advisor, depending on the area where you’re struggling). And in some cases, consider getting out of the water: you don’t have to write that novel, run that blog, volunteer for that group, or take that course. Yes, sometimes it is important to push through difficult patches in order to achieve what you want – but not at the cost of your physical or mental health.

Where are you?
So, how’re you getting on with that big project – whether it’s a personal, business or academic venture? Are you swimming, splashing or sinking – and what are you doing to make sure you stay in (or get back to) a good position?

Written on 10/24/2008 by Ali Hale. Ali runs Alpha Student, a blog packed with academic, financial and practical tips to help students get the most out of their time at university.

Photo Credit: Whatsername?

Saturday Morning Kick in the Pants

Wisdom from Harvey:

Harvey Mackay's Column This Week

Beware of danger in safe havens

"Bad habits," a pundit once noted, "are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of." Sticking with what's comfortable might be one of the deadliest habits of all.

In the bullfighting arena, expert matadors have long gained an edge by pinpointing a bull's comfort zone. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina has studied this phenomenon. "In bullfighting there is a term called querencia. The querencia is the spot in the ring to which the bull returns," she explains. "Each bull has a different querencia, but as the bullfight continues, and the animal becomes more threatened, it returns more and more often to his spot. As he returns to his querencia, he becomes more predictable."

What are the consequences of predictability? "In the end," Fiorina says, "the matador is able to kill the bull because instead of trying something new, the bull returns to what is familiar. His comfort zone."

Many businesses retreat to their comfort zones when challenged. A new form of competition emerges. Or, threatening research undercuts a core product. This is bad news, and who wants to hear that? Even skilled managers sometimes tune out the static.

Merck's arthritis medication Vioxx became one of the most widely prescribed drugs in history. As early as 2000, some research indicated that Vioxx might pose unacceptable associated cardiac risks. Merck & Co. dug in its heels. The firm didn't withdraw the product until further research prompted it to do so voluntarily in 2004. In 2007, Merck agreed to pay out nearly $5 billion to settle existing Vioxx lawsuits.

Few companies were more oblivious to the risks of complacency than the Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers. Lehman started tinkering in sub-prime mortgages in the mid-1990s, lending money to an outfit named First Alliance Mortgage. In 1998, some financial firms began to distance themselves from First Alliance as regulators bored in. Not Lehman. First Alliance's fate? The company shut its doors in March 2000.

Undaunted, Lehman finished gobbling up BNC Mortgage, another sub-prime lender, in 2004. In August 2007, Lehman closed it down. The lure of fast cash had been so great, Lehman spent years in deep denial about the wisdom of subprime lending. Yesterday's cash cow proved to be today's pot roast, as Lehman became the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history last month.

Here are Seven Urgent Hazard Signals that should alert a company when it has become too comfortable for its own good:

1. Do you continue to invest in business strategies with fundamental flaws solely for short-term gain?
2. Have competitors found a way to deliver your core goods or services at a lower cost than you can?
3. Are your suppliers suddenly treating competitors with more favorable terms than you enjoy?
4. Are competitors shifting the spotlight to you as their number-one rival? A good tip-off: Are you losing your best trained and highest potential talent to aggressive competition?
5. Are customers telling you they are taking their orders to new sorts of businesses you have never considered competition before?
6. Is there candid—and sometimes heated—debate inside your organization about what your core business should be today and five years from now? There should be. It's healthy.
7. Are you investing in new product development so that at least 10 percent (preferably 20 percent) of your business will come from products and services you don't even offer right now?

It isn't just companies who scurry for safety in the arena. Individual careers are vulnerable as well:

• Many of us get passed over for a promotion we thought we deserved. Are there new reasons for not making the grade this time?
• Have you recently matched your credentials, background, and training against other comparably paid people in your specialty? Make sure your skills are fresh and current.
• Are you projecting yourself as someone who wants to advance to a higher level? Are you a toreador or a "sitting bull" begging to be gored by an aggressive internal competitor?
• Do you volunteer for new assignments and projects? They can teach you new skills and increase your value to your company.

Retreating to the comfort zone is all about how one takes bad news and what one does with it.

"Bad news isn't wine," former Secretary of State Colin Powell once said. "It doesn't improve with age."

Mackay's Moral: In rough water, sometimes it pays to rock your own boat.

Miss a column? The last three weeks of Harvey's columns are always archived online.

More information and learning tools can be found online at harveymackay.com.