Studies have found that the brain finds making decisions particularly taxing. It also finds it hard work to focus.
If you ever get that feeling that switching tasks feels like turning the Titanic – and you can almost FEEL your brain scraping against that iceberg as you do so, creaking and screeching in protest – well, you’re right!
If we fritter our mental energy away making meaningless or small decisions, like we do in a grocery store, for example ... then we are likely to tire ourselves and – perhaps more importantly - make bad decisions.
The brain capacity involved is easily over-used. Especially in today’s world of split-second decision making, fast cars and fast modems, and not to mention, a plethora of often meaningless choices that we are forced to make every time we enter a shop. And yet we are assumed to welcome a greater choice! Notice how many adverts trumpet the wonderful gift of “wide choice”, “huge range”, “so much to choose from”, “a world of choice”, “lots of options to suit you” and so on.
A morning spent in this way can lead to an afternoon of making important decisions – badly.
Even completely unrelated choices. In the morning it’s which of the fifteen coffees to have, the mocha, the latte, the this, the that – and the afternoon it could be what kind of trust to set up, or how to structure a deal. In this case, the deal is going to suffer, thanks to the coffee choices in the morning.
In this way, your brain is like a muscle. And you wouldn’t go for a long run the morning before a race, would you?
Any kind of choice (which magazine, which breakfast, which coffee) will do this to you. Anything that takes conscious effort and has some kind of consequence, even if it’s not terribly important (decaff or espresso). You could end up making a great decision about breakfast at 8am and a bad one about your finances at 3pm.
Knowing this, it becomes clear that you need to cut down on your choices rather than increase them. Windsurfing or golf? Fishing or a family drive? Wealth Creation or carrying on as before? The black shoes or the brown? The blue tie or the grey? All of these decisions have a price to be paid in terms of your mental energy, focus and effectiveness.
Juggling tasks – what we call multi-tasking – is therefore also not a good idea as you use up energy prioritizing and scheduling things before you even get started.
And the end result is that your judgement suffers. Something we really cannot afford to have happen to us! Other effects – you tend to give up easier when faced with challenges; you tend to put things off repeatedly; the quality of your work suffers; and you even tire physically.
Now – if you were a marketer – signing someone up for an account – knowing this, perhaps you would put a whole string of meaningless and unimportant decisions into your application process (what color card?) , and then when it comes time to negotiate the interest rate, you could benefit from this fatigue! On the other hand, you as a consumer, knowing this, could spot and resist any such distractions and make sure you put your own priorities first!
Remember that Freud’s discoveries about how the human mind and psyche function were used FIRST by the founder of public relations, his nephew Edward Bernays, to help companies and governments control the public ... and only then did they go on to be read and known more widely. A little known fact. Those with the knowledge truly do have the potential of power. The good thing about that is – you can inform yourself, and if you take any action(apply it) to improve your knowledge, you will be ahead of the crowd. Your best strategy, always, is to inform (invest in) yourself.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
Warning on trusts schemes!
Two things have recently come to my attention and they are a serious danger to those uninformed people who haven’t done their homework.
These people have consulted the kind of “expert” who we could call an “omelette maker”: the kind who has his eggs (he gets paid when he draws up trusts) and then when they break (they go wrong) he has an omelette because now he’s got more work defending you from the consequences of his bad advice, for which he gets even more money out of you.
1. Bare dominium/usufruct
Firstly some people are being advised to go the bare dominium/usufruct route. This is sometimes a route that makes sense when you are transferring a property into a trust. It depends on the circumstances. The idea is that you separate the fruits of use (i.e. living in your house) from the official ownership of the house (which goes to the trust) and, based on your age and other factors, this could mean that as little as 10% of the value of your house needs to be transferred, hence you save on those incredibly expensive transfer fees. It’s also supposed to give you security so you won’t lose your house.
Take care! Do you think for a minute that the banks haven’t worked this one out? In your agreement with them, it will simply state that you cede the usufruct to the bank, and assume security in your personal name, which puts you back in the same position as you would be if you owned the house in your personal name – or maybe even a worse one.
This route is being sold to customers on the basis that in these tough times, it is a way of safeguarding your assets. I’m afraid that is simply not true.
“Personal service trusts”
The second problem involves the Receiver of Revenue, who has noticed that a lot of people think they can put their assets into a trust and then lease them back and in that way, claim them as expenses and thus save on tax.
According to a SARS auditor, the directive from the Taxation Appeal Court (TAC) is that they should be considered “personal service trusts”. In this case, the individual will go back to full taxability on these assets, and who knows, perhaps there will be penalties too. There is a crucial court case coming up in November, and on the results of this, SARS will move to stop this behaviour.
Will SARS win in court? There are no guarantees, but remember that the law, like the educational system, does not operate in a vacuum and is subject to the same pressures by the same powerful sectors of our society.
My trust course
On hearing this, I took a look at my trust course to see how it fitted with what I say, and I found, as I did with my property courses, that it is all entirely in keeping with the legal requirements as well as the current conditions we find ourselves in, even though these have changed since I first started teaching.
The rule, as always? Inform yourself and take responsibility, don’t rely on the “experts”.
These people have consulted the kind of “expert” who we could call an “omelette maker”: the kind who has his eggs (he gets paid when he draws up trusts) and then when they break (they go wrong) he has an omelette because now he’s got more work defending you from the consequences of his bad advice, for which he gets even more money out of you.
1. Bare dominium/usufruct
Firstly some people are being advised to go the bare dominium/usufruct route. This is sometimes a route that makes sense when you are transferring a property into a trust. It depends on the circumstances. The idea is that you separate the fruits of use (i.e. living in your house) from the official ownership of the house (which goes to the trust) and, based on your age and other factors, this could mean that as little as 10% of the value of your house needs to be transferred, hence you save on those incredibly expensive transfer fees. It’s also supposed to give you security so you won’t lose your house.
Take care! Do you think for a minute that the banks haven’t worked this one out? In your agreement with them, it will simply state that you cede the usufruct to the bank, and assume security in your personal name, which puts you back in the same position as you would be if you owned the house in your personal name – or maybe even a worse one.
This route is being sold to customers on the basis that in these tough times, it is a way of safeguarding your assets. I’m afraid that is simply not true.
“Personal service trusts”
The second problem involves the Receiver of Revenue, who has noticed that a lot of people think they can put their assets into a trust and then lease them back and in that way, claim them as expenses and thus save on tax.
According to a SARS auditor, the directive from the Taxation Appeal Court (TAC) is that they should be considered “personal service trusts”. In this case, the individual will go back to full taxability on these assets, and who knows, perhaps there will be penalties too. There is a crucial court case coming up in November, and on the results of this, SARS will move to stop this behaviour.
Will SARS win in court? There are no guarantees, but remember that the law, like the educational system, does not operate in a vacuum and is subject to the same pressures by the same powerful sectors of our society.
My trust course
On hearing this, I took a look at my trust course to see how it fitted with what I say, and I found, as I did with my property courses, that it is all entirely in keeping with the legal requirements as well as the current conditions we find ourselves in, even though these have changed since I first started teaching.
The rule, as always? Inform yourself and take responsibility, don’t rely on the “experts”.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Always continue to grow and evolve
”Constant development is the law of life” said Gandhi. He was right. It is a law of the universe.
There is no such thing as standing still. Think of life as being a bit an escalator. You may try to stand still but the great cycle continues and carries you along passively with it. You can even go backwards without knowing it. And anything that happens to us rather than by our own design is unlikely to take us where we want to go. Probably, we end up going where others want us to go, other people who do have plans, who do take action. Like marketers.
The result of “standing still” (sliding backwards) is that you shrink. And something about living in a tiny prison of your own making leads to bitterness, anger, regrets, blaming, small-mindedness, sorrow. All of which are tragically unnecessary. Leading to families that are unhappy, people who are lonely and isolated.
But it really does not have to be that way! And it is never too late to make the changes! If you are a little reluctant to push yourself, then choose something small and fun to start learning. It could be a hobby. A different routine in the evenings that does not include the TV. A new language. Following up on an old interest. An old talent. Or just something that appeals on a very undemanding level.
Once the blood starts to flow again you will get the taste for more growth and then you can get more ambitious! You will know by then that the rewards are so great – happiness, fulfilment, growth, in other areas of life too, such as family life. Those are the positive spinoffs.
We do have inner resisters to change because at some deep level, just as it is true that we must grow, we also want to stay the same. These resisters, undealt with, will stop us in our tracks every time. Yet they are so easy to remove when you know how! That’s what I teach in my Kaizen Wealth Transformational Weekends.
There is no such thing as standing still. Think of life as being a bit an escalator. You may try to stand still but the great cycle continues and carries you along passively with it. You can even go backwards without knowing it. And anything that happens to us rather than by our own design is unlikely to take us where we want to go. Probably, we end up going where others want us to go, other people who do have plans, who do take action. Like marketers.
The result of “standing still” (sliding backwards) is that you shrink. And something about living in a tiny prison of your own making leads to bitterness, anger, regrets, blaming, small-mindedness, sorrow. All of which are tragically unnecessary. Leading to families that are unhappy, people who are lonely and isolated.
But it really does not have to be that way! And it is never too late to make the changes! If you are a little reluctant to push yourself, then choose something small and fun to start learning. It could be a hobby. A different routine in the evenings that does not include the TV. A new language. Following up on an old interest. An old talent. Or just something that appeals on a very undemanding level.
Once the blood starts to flow again you will get the taste for more growth and then you can get more ambitious! You will know by then that the rewards are so great – happiness, fulfilment, growth, in other areas of life too, such as family life. Those are the positive spinoffs.
We do have inner resisters to change because at some deep level, just as it is true that we must grow, we also want to stay the same. These resisters, undealt with, will stop us in our tracks every time. Yet they are so easy to remove when you know how! That’s what I teach in my Kaizen Wealth Transformational Weekends.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Be yourself
Gandhi said …
“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”
At a very deep level, we can tell when someone is being truthful, authentic, and well-meaning. In spite of the most honeyed tongue, someone who is a fraud does not fool us forever. We seem to have a kind of ‘radar’ for this.
Our radar gets contaminated and doesn’t always work, though. We may be conditioned to over-ride our instincts. To think so little of ourselves that we do not trust our own reactions. Or we may have had the misfortune to have been influenced by someone who was not authentic at so young an age that we internalized it as being okay, acceptable. (It depends though – the effect is not always the same – it may make us de-sensitized to authenticity – or more sensitized to it.)
Either way, the key to sensing authenticity is first and foremost to be authentic ourselves. Trying to tell the truth even when it is very uncomfortable may be liberating, and empowering. It makes us more authentic. And it clears up that contaminated radar – we become better at sensing the truth about others.
Interestingly, con-men and fraudsters are harder to detect as inauthentic than other people. This is because their body language and the other clues that tell us whether someone is authentic or not, are not out of kilter. This in turn is because they feel no internal dissonance or discomfort when they lie, unlike the rest of us. But even they give themselves away at some point, sometimes because of a kind of flatness or lack of depth.
To see it, be it. You will be far happier and waste less energy if you are authentic and do not try to be something you are not.
And, as I am always saying, why bother to make money (or anything!) dishonestly when it is so much easier to do it honestly!
“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”
At a very deep level, we can tell when someone is being truthful, authentic, and well-meaning. In spite of the most honeyed tongue, someone who is a fraud does not fool us forever. We seem to have a kind of ‘radar’ for this.
Our radar gets contaminated and doesn’t always work, though. We may be conditioned to over-ride our instincts. To think so little of ourselves that we do not trust our own reactions. Or we may have had the misfortune to have been influenced by someone who was not authentic at so young an age that we internalized it as being okay, acceptable. (It depends though – the effect is not always the same – it may make us de-sensitized to authenticity – or more sensitized to it.)
Either way, the key to sensing authenticity is first and foremost to be authentic ourselves. Trying to tell the truth even when it is very uncomfortable may be liberating, and empowering. It makes us more authentic. And it clears up that contaminated radar – we become better at sensing the truth about others.
Interestingly, con-men and fraudsters are harder to detect as inauthentic than other people. This is because their body language and the other clues that tell us whether someone is authentic or not, are not out of kilter. This in turn is because they feel no internal dissonance or discomfort when they lie, unlike the rest of us. But even they give themselves away at some point, sometimes because of a kind of flatness or lack of depth.
To see it, be it. You will be far happier and waste less energy if you are authentic and do not try to be something you are not.
And, as I am always saying, why bother to make money (or anything!) dishonestly when it is so much easier to do it honestly!
New website - www.warriorsagainstdebt.com
My new website www.warriorsagainstdebt.com is up and running.
Any comments?
What do you want to discuss in the forum?
Read the latest articles at http://www.warriorsagainstdebt.com/debt-articles.html
and give me your feedback.
Any comments?
What do you want to discuss in the forum?
Read the latest articles at http://www.warriorsagainstdebt.com/debt-articles.html
and give me your feedback.
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