Conventional Personal Finance

There are many bad things that you can do with your money or to your money. There are also many goods things you can do with or to your money. What should you do and what should you avoid?

(1) Plan Your Finances – Budgets are very hard to stick to and can cause many headaches, however, planning the big purchases can help protect you from a financial blunder. Always plan out the big purchases before reaching a final decision. This will not guarantee that you made a wise purchase, but it will make you think out and research all the details before concluding one way or the other.

(2) Always Use Interest Bearing Accounts When Possible – Many banks offer interest bearing checking accounts, and various other interest accounts. While deciding between investment opportunities or for the money you keep in an account to pay the bills, collecting interest on this idle money can quickly add up. You will not become rich, but this is the easiest, risk free money you will ever collect.

(3) Diversify – This is very common and effective advice. The recent volatility of the real estate market is a perfect example. Many people lost everything because they threw all of their investment money into the real estate market during the boom. Unfortunately, like gravity, what goes up must come down, and that is what the market did, with a vengeance. If these people had been diversified (meaning they had spread their investment dollars through various industries and markets) these people would have minimized, and probably offset any loss they received from the real estate market.

Doing these three, simple things will help you generate and maintain income for many years to come.

Is Leadership Earned Rather than Being a Natural Attribute?

This question is similar to the nurture versus nature debate. Many of us have heard the phrase “natural born leader,” however, it takes more than birth to create a leader. Although I do believe that some people have the natural ability to persuade people or have exceptional charisma and/or personality, leaders are created either through teachings or by circumstance.

Leaders can be taught to be leaders. Examples of such teachings occur in the military, higher education, and/or personal betterment. Although each of these fields of learning can create a “leader,” each creates a different type of leader. No one is better than the other, however, each emphasizes different personal attributes in the potential leader.

Leaders are also created through circumstance. In times of great tragedy (such as a natural disaster and or a historical event) and in times of great achievement (whether financial, scientific, engineerial, etc.) people “step-up” and take the leadership role or become the “face” of the event. What makes these leaders different is that they travel their own path, and most of the time are unaware that they are going to have to assume a leadership role. These leaders, in my opinion, tend to be more passionate about their role because something personal is usually the leader’s driving motivation.

People need to be wary of leaders. When people start to lose their own ideals and passions in order to follow the ideals and/or motivations of a particular leader, that leader can acquire too much power. I firmly believe that “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” therefore we should always keep our own senses when any leader, no matter if it is political, personal, financial, religious, educational, etc. comes to power, because no matter the title of the person, that person is still human and humans are fallible.