Category Archives: Experiences

Baha Mar Resort, Nassau, The Bahamas

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Baha Mar resort, Nassau, The Bahamas is the newest family vacation destination in the Caribbean.

This blog post on travel and experiences deviates from typical posts that appear on this site. Typically, past blog posts have covered pertinent topics dealing with building wealth, healthy aging, well-being and finding life’s purpose.

However, this blog post provides details of a recent March 2022, five night, six day trip and experiences of vacationing at the SLS Baha Mar Resort located in Nassau, New Providience, The Bahamas.

Baha Mar is an integrated resort, casino, and residential development perched on Nassau’s storied Cable Beach. The destination features three renowned hotel brands and a variety of luxurious amenities including the largest casino in The Bahamas, a Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course, a convention center, and a diverse collection of dining, nightlife, and retail outlets.

Travel and Experiences

New Providence, The Bahamas, is a 35 to 55-minute flight from most of Florida to Nassau’s Lynden Pindling International Airport. Baha Mar resort is approximately a 10-minute drive from the airport. Lynden Pindling International Airport offers U.S. Customs and Immigration pre-clearance in Nassau upon your return to the U.S.

Traveling to The Bahamas during COVID-19 pandemic requires a little advance planning. U.S. citizens traveling to The Bahamas are required to be vaccinated and to have a negative COVID-19 rapid antigen test within three days of arrival. Additionally, The Bahamas Travel Health Visa (BTHV) ($40 cost) is required by international travelers over the age of 2 in order to enter the island country.

According to available government literature regarding travel to The Bahamas during COVID-19, individuals are required to wear a mask while indoors on the island. Although that is the stated policy of the island, what I observed was significantly different. Instead of people donning masks while indoors, I would estimate that less than one percent of the hotel guests actually wore masks indoor. In contrast, every Baha Mar associate worn their masks continuously, even outdoors.

Additionally, the Baha Mar Resorts purports to operate their hotels during COVID-19 pandemic far less than their maximum occupancy for guest comfort and safety. However, the resort was at 99% occupancy during our stay. Thus, they’re effectively operating the resort occupancy-wise as if the pandemic is no longer a concern. However, they are still going through the motions of disinfecting high touch surfaces.

Baha Mar Resort

Baha Mar Resort is located on Cable Beach, which occupies the northwest part of New Providence Island. Within the massive resort, there are three hotel brands that share the property — The Grand Hyatt, SLS Baha Mar, and Rosewood. Many resort rooms provide spectacular views of Cable Beach from balconies and permit access to the experiences of Baha Mar, such as Baha Bay water park and the white sand of Cable Beach.

We stayed at the considerably upscale SLS Baha Mar, which is advertised as “a new era of stylish, playfully sophisticated, luxe, high-design accommodations”. The hotel offers “sleek, well appointed rooms”. Also located on the property are Baha Bay water park and the casino.

During your stay at Baha Mar, you learn quickly about the burdensome Resort’s service charge of 15% and The Bahamas’ value added tax (VAT) of 10%. Added together, the combined resort’s service charge plus VAT adds 25% of additional charges to every already premium priced purchase. For example, a $16 glass of red wine would lighten your wallet an additional $4 for a total of $20 after adding the service charge and VAT. A simple Resort cheese burger starts at $26 which inflates to $32.50 after service charge and VAT are included.

Overall, the Baha Mar Resort has a plethora of amenities and activities to keep even the most acquiring guest interested. Starting with Baha Bay water park, there are death defying water slides named the “Devil’s Backbone”, which the floor drop out from under you before blasting through looping and twisting tunnels, and “Thunderball”, which is a freefall, straight-down slide that delivers an unforgettable experience. Both of these slides invoked fear into a few guests, who chose to walk back down the several flights of stairs instead of taking the faster water slide route down to ground level. Also, the water park contained The River, a typical lazy river with several interesting enhancements such as rapids and high waves. There are bail out points along The River before the rapids and several tubers did choose to abandon their tubes before making the turn to enter the rapids.

Other water activities include kayaking, paddle board and snorkeling the man made reefs a short swimming distance from the Baha Mar white sand beaches.

Dining

Marcus at Baha Mar Fish + Chop House is a celebration of Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s food and beverage creations. At the restaurant, the 8 ounce ground beef brisket and beef short rib sandwich, and Chef Yes cocktail were a favorite. Additionally, T2 Cigar Bar was a great place to relax and watch the fire fountain display during evening hours.

Resort guests are advised to make dinner reservations one week to ten days early at the most popular Baha Mar Resort restaurants like Shuang Ba haute Chinese and Fi’lia Italian restaurants. If you wait until after arrive on the Baha Mar property, it may be too late to attain dinner reservations.

Off the resort, Twin Brothers restaurant located at Fish Fry is recommended for those interested in trying local dishes prepared by local chefs. One appetizer that stands out is the Tropical Conch Salad. The salad is served in a large plastic container and it was by far one of the best dishes on the island. But, avoid the mac and cheese at Twin Brothers.

A local off-the-beaten path restaurant that is worth a visit is Sea Shell. The restaurant serves local Bahamian dishes prepared and served cafeteria style. It is well known and frequented by locals and taxi cab drivers, but it is located in an area of town few tourist would likely venture. Nevertheless, the Habanero Chicken Wings with sides of mac and cheese, and plantains, were truly memorable and well worth the short cab ride from the resort.

Casino

The Baha Mar Casino is the largest casino in the Caribbean. It was designed to remove money from every level of gambler, from casual players to high-stakes rollers, according to its literature. The casino offer several different types of gaming tables, a plethora of slot machines, live sports betting, and one of the Nassau’s top dining and nightlife scene.

For resort guest, the casino offers a $25 free play card for the slot machines. The cards must be used by guests within twenty-four hours of activation or the cards will expire.

References:

  1. https://www.onlinevisa.com/bahamas-visa/
  2. https://bahabay.bahamar.com/
  3. https://d3py87e0zuixsk.cloudfront.net/production/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/09122331/BHM_FACTBOOK_20211025_CB.pdf

Financial Freedom

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“It’s the ability to live and maintain the lifestyle which you desire without having to work or rely on anyone for money.” T Harv Eker

Financial Peace guru Dave Ramsey proclaims that “Financial freedom means that you get to make life decisions without being overly stressed about the financial impact because you are prepared. You control your finances instead of being controlled by them.”

It’s about having complete control over your finances which is the fruit of hard work, sacrifice and time. And, as a result, all of that effort and planning was well worth it!

Nevertheless, reaching financial freedom may be challenging but not impossible. It also may seem complicated, but in just a straightforward calculation, you can easily estimate of how much money you’ll need to be financially free.

What is financial freedom? Financial freedom is the ability to live the remainder of your life without outside help, working if you choose, but doing so only if you desire. It’s the ability to have the things you want and need, despite any occurrence other than the most catastrophic of outside circumstance.

To calculate your Financial Freedom Number, the total amount of money required to give you a sufficient income to cover your living expenses for the rest of your life

Step 1: Calculate Your Spending

Know how much you are spending each year. If you’ve done a financial analysis (net worth and cash flow), created a budget, and monitored your cash flow, then you’re ahead.

Take your monthly budget and multiply that amount by 12. Make sure you include periodic expenses such as annual premiums and dues or quarterly bills. Also include continued monthly contributions into accounts like your emergency fund, vacation clubs, car maintenance, etc.

Add all these together to get your Yearly Spending Total.

Keep in mind the lower the spending total, the lower the amount of money you’ll need to become financially independent. Learn how to lower your monthly household expenses and determine the difference between needs and wants.

Step 2: Choose Your Safe Withdrawal Rate

The safe withdrawal rate (also referred to as SWR) is a conservative method that retirees use to determine how much money can be withdrawn from accounts each year without running out of money for the rest of their lives.

The safe withdrawal rate method instructs financially independent people to take out a small percentage between 3-4% of their investment portfolios to mitigate worst-case scenarios. This withdrawal percentage is from the Trinity Study.

The Trinity Study found the 4% rule applies through all market ups and downs. By making sure you do not withdraw more than 4% of your initial investments each year, your assets should last for the rest of your life.

Step 3: Calculate Your Financial Independence (FI) Number

Your FI number is your Yearly Spending Total divided by your Safe Withdrawal Rate.

To find the amount of money you’ll need to be financially independent, take your Yearly Spending Total and divide it by your SWR.

For example:

  • Yearly Spending: $40,000
  • Safe Withdrawal Rate: 4%

Financial Independence Number = Yearly Spending / SWR

  • $40,000 / 0.04 = $1,000,000

Who becomes financially free? According to most financial advisors, compulsive savers and discipline investors tend to become financially free since:

  • They live on and spend less they earn.
  • They organize their time, energy and money efficiently in ways conducive to building wealth.
  • They have a strong belief that gaining financial freedom and independence is far more important than displaying high social status and financial symbols.
  • Their parents did not keep on helping them financially.
  • They have a keen insight to recognize financial and wealth building opportunities.

Net worth is the most important number in personal finance and represents your financial scorecard. Your net worth includes your investments, but it also includes other assets that might not generate income for you. Net Worth can be defined to mean:

  • Income (earned or passive)
  • Savings
  • Investing to grow and to put your money to work for you)
  • Simple and more frugal lifestyle

Financial freedom means different things to different people, and different people need vastly different amounts of wealth to feel financially free.

Maybe financial freedom means being debt-free, or having more time to spend with your family, or being able to quit corporate America, or having $5,000 a month in passive income, or making enough money to work from your laptop anywhere in the world, or having enough money so you never have to work another day in your life.

Ultimately, the amount you need comes down to the life you want to live, where you want to live it, what you value, and what brings you joy. Joy is defined as a feeling of great pleasure and happiness caused by something exceptionally good, satisfying, or delightful—aka “The Good Life.”

It is worth clearly articulating what the different levels of financial freedom mean. Grant Sabatier’s book, Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You’ll Ever Need, the levels of financial freedom are:

Seven Levels of Financial Freedom

  1. Clarity, when you figure out where you are financially (net worth and cash flow) and where you want to go
  2. Self-sufficiency, when you earn enough money to cover your expenses
  3. Breathing room, when you escape living paycheck to paycheck
  4. Stability, when you have six months of living expenses saved and bad debt, like credit card debt, repaid
  5. Flexibility, when you have at least two years of living expenses invested
  6. Financial independence, when you can live off the income generated by your investments and work becomes optional
  7. Abundant wealth, when you have more money than you’ll ever need

The difference between income and wealth: Wealth is accumulated assets, cash, stocks, bonds, real estate investments, and they have passive income. Simply, they don’t have to work if they don’t want to.

Accumulating wealth and becoming wealthy requires knowing what you want, discipline, taking responsibility and have a plan.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have great incomes, but you wouldn’t call them wealthy because of debt and lack of accumulated assets, instead:

  • They owe for their homes
  • They owe for their cars and boats.
  • They have little savings and investments
  • They have few “paid for” assets
  • They have negative net worth

Essentially, if you make a great income and spend it all, you will not become wealthy. Often, high income earners’ true net worth is far less than they think it is.

Here are several factors and steps to improve your financial life:

  • Establishing financial goals
  • Paying yourself first and automate the process
  • Creating and sticking to a budget. Know where you money goes.
  • Paying down and/or eliminating credit card and other bad debt. Debt which is taking from your future to pay for your past.
  • Saving for the future and investing for the long term consistently
  • Investing the maximum in your employer’s 401(k)
  • Living on and spending less than you earn
  • Simplify – separating your needs from your wants. You don’t need to keep buying stuff.

Financial freedom can look something like this:

  • Freedom to choose a career you love without worrying about money
  • Freedom to take a luxury vacation every year without it straining your budget
  • Freedom to pay cash for a new boat
  • Freedom to respond to the needs of others with outrageous generosity
  • Freedom to retire a whole decade early

When you have financial freedom, you have options.

“Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have. What you are will show in what you do.” Thomas Edison

References:

  1. https://www.phroogal.com/calculate-financial-independence-number/
  2. https://www.ramseysolutions.com/retirement/what-is-financial-freedom
  3. https://thefinanciallyindependentmillennial.com/steps-to-financial-freedom/

Life on the Edge

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“As you get older, the days go by quicker and you need to make the time count.” Mary Peachin, Octogenarian

As you age, it becomes more important to “live each day right to the limit”, states octogenarian Mary Peachin, in Costco Connection magazine, September 2021, Members Connection. Peachin has “walk the talk” and lived her life as a self proclaim world-traveling, deep sea diving adrenaline junkie. “If your body aches, you ignore it and keep on trucking”, she preaches.

When it comes to going after what you love in life, do not take no for an answer. You should expect and intend to live a life well lived and always believe the best is yet to come

“Life is too short not to enjoy it.”

Make your life happen and take action today. Be amongst the few who dared to live their dreams. Live your life in such a way that there is no regret.

Time is short; live every day for a higher purpose. Let’s invest the limited time we have on your life’s purpose and mission. Do not focus on your problems and challenges; instead focus on purpose and destination.

Life is brief and it passes quickly. The average American male lives to be 70 years 4 months. The average American female lives 70 years 4 months. To live life to its fullest, it is not the quantity of your life, but the quality.

Time is running out for all of us.

“Your job will not take care of you when your elderly and sick, your friends and family will.”

  1. Select a few friends to be close to in your life and communicate and strengthen your relationship with them
  2. Get over those who disappoint you and refuse to let those people steal your joy
  3. Lift up and encourage those who are recovering from failure. Treat people with Grace.
  4. Ignore your critics. Decide to see the good in the experience and growth, the lessons you learned and the relationships you made.
  5. Stay fully focused on your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Believe the best! Christ teaches us to believe the best…faith, hope and love. Remember to rejoice and be glad. If God is for us, who can be against us!

The most effective way to live life on the edge is to “find an edge and Live there”, states Peachin. And, you can start to “find an edge” by writing down your dreams and priorities in life, and then focusing on fulfilling those written dreams and priorities. It starts with knowing what you want, and it ends with getting what you wanted. It’s often that simple.

Save for and invest in the things that matter most!

In every positive or negative situation, there are always options. Remember you are the one pulling the strings, and when things look hopeless, it’s because you’re choosing not look at the things that truly matter. You’re choosing to see the the bad stuff, and they have little to do with your ability to change your circumstances. The trick is that you have to see the ocean of opportunity, not that little bucket of water (problems) that you tripped over.

We must decide to see the good and not dwell on the failure, but instead focus on the positives from the experience. Limits do not exist. You have weaknesses of course and we all do, but focus on your strengths. Remember if you’re feeling scared and fearful, it means you’re trying something new.

People don’t run marathons because it feels good.

When you feel bad about your situation, you’re thinking about the mistakes of yesterday, and not the opportunity of right now and the hope for tomorrow. You’re thinking about what has and what can go wrong, and not what can go right.

When you’re feeling defeated and discouraged, ascertain what you’re really focusing on. It important to focus on how far you’ve come, the opportunities that lie ahead, and the resources available you have to go forward.

“What you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it.” Oprah Winfrey

Always think bigger and focus on your purpose. Build the world as you want it to be.

References:

  1. Costco Connection, September 2021, Vol. 36, No. 9, pg. 119
  2. https://personalexcellence.co/blog/101-ways-to-live-your-life-to-the-fullest/

“Those who are the happiest are not necessarily those for whom life has been easiest. Emotional stability results from an attitude. It is refusing to yield to depression and fear, even when black clouds float overhead. It is improving that which can be improved and accepting that which is inevitable.” ― James C. Dobson, Life on the Edge: The Next Generation’s Guide to a Meaningful Future

Robert F. Smith, Blazing a Remarkable Path

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American investor, inventor, engineer, philanthropist, entrepreneur. Robert F. Smith is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, focused on investing and partnering with leading enterprise software companies.

The software titan Robert F. Smith is a philanthropist and the wealthiest African American in the U.S., with a self-made net worth of more than $5 billion. He was raised in a working-class Denver neighborhood in the 1970s. And, it was a high-school science class in his junior year that sparked his interest in transistors, the building blocks of computers, cellphones and other electronic devices.

Mr. Smith was educated as an engineer at Cornell University, earning his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering in 1985. After graduation, he worked at Goodyear Tire and Rubber, followed by Kraft General Foods, where he obtained two United States and two European patents for coffee filtration systems.

Upon receiving his MBA in 1994, he joined Goldman Sachs in tech investment banking, first in New York City and then in Silicon Valley. At Goldman, he advised tech companies such as Apple, Yahoo and Microsoft on over $50 billion of mergers and acquisitions activities. Mr. Smith knew his talents and his niche, and Goldman gave him the platform to showcase them. He became the first person at Goldman to focus purely on mergers and acquisitions of technology and software companies.

In 2000, Mr. Smith founded Vista Equity Partners to invest in businesses that develop and use technology, software and data to promote economic equity, ecological responsibility and diversity and inclusion for the prosperity of all. Vista invests and develops businesses focused on using tech to create value, new businesses, or helping to solve some of the world’s issues.

He is Founder, Chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, which includes 64 companies. Companies like TIBCO, a technology company. He climbed from humble roots in Denver to the pinnacle of the 1990s dot-com boom as a Goldman Sachs banker in San Francisco; he went on to found Vista in 2000 in Austin, Texas.

Vista currently manages equity assets under management of over $81 billion and oversees a portfolio of more than 70 enterprise software, data and technology-enabled companies that employ over 75,000 people worldwide.

Vista had grown into an impossible-to-overlook force, delivering a 31 percent average annual return since its founding. “Vista Equity Partners Emerges from ­Private-Equity Shadows” read a Wall Street Journal headline.

Mr. Smith is also the founding director and President of the Fund II Foundation. Started in 2014, the foundation has made significant contributions to support scholarships for minority students interested in science, engineering and math, research on breast cancer in Black women and the preservation of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth and family homes. It also backed Mr. Smith’s recently announced Student Freedom Initiative to ease the debt burden of students at historically Black colleges and universities.

Throughout all of his successes, Mr. Smith has demonstrated the importance of giving back. In 2017, Mr. Smith signed the Giving Pledge and was the first African American to do so. In his pledge, Mr. Smith committed to investing half of his net worth during his lifetime “to causes that support equality of opportunity for African Americans, as well as causes that cultivate ecological protection to ensure a livable planet for future generations.”

But it took a grand gesture at Morehouse College to cement Smith’s status as one of the world’s most interesting philanthropists. To the shock of Morehouse officials, Smith went off-script during his commencement speech and told the 396 graduating students that he would pay off their student loans at a cost to him of about $40 million.

“I was looking at 400 students 400 years after 1619,” he says, referring to the beginning of American slavery. “And they were burdened. And their families were burdened. They had taken on a tremendous amount of debt to get that education. And liberating them was the right thing for me to do. Honestly, I didn’t think it was going to be that big of a deal,” he continued. “I mean, globally. I didn’t realize how many people understood the pain and debilitating effect that student debt has for decades—not just on that individual but on families.”

Mr. Smith believes strongly that “anyone can achieve success if they believe they are worth it and think deeply about how to achieve their goals.”

From an August 2020 article in Urbjournal.com, here are 5 pieces of advice Mr. Smith gives to all young professionals:

  1. You need to recognize and use all your skills – Understanding and evaluating your skillset is important; it will let you know what skills you have and more importantly, which ones you need to improve or acquire. It will also give you a very good indication as to who you need on your team, depending on what skills they have.
  2. Give yourself the best chances of succeeding – To achieve a level of success, you’ll need to give yourself the best chances of succeeding by picking promising sectors and business industries which are projected to grow in the long-term. By focusing on growing and promising industries, you’ll give yourself the best chance of coming up with innovative products, services or solutions that create demand.
  3. Learn to take risks – Taking risks whilst you’re young is important. Smith has consistently taken risks. “So what makes me tick? I didn’t want to be ordinary. I wanted to create something that had not been done on this planet,” Smith said. Taking risks doesn’t mean jumping into any and everything – that can be as detrimental as not taking enough risks. In Smith’s words, “take thoughtful risks”.
  4. Recognize the importance of diversity, and work to increase it – Diversity has become increasingly important to companies, everyone is looking at ways to increase the diversity of their leadership and people. And, Black professionals have an important role to play: yet, to become successful, you first have to get through the door by creating processes and institutions which value equal opportunity above all else. “We must get as much mass pushed through the system by opening up the process as wide as you can. We need to take that approach instead of going retail in which corporations only select one or two exceptional students from elite schools,” Mr. Smith said.
  5. You’ll need to make sacrifices – It’s no secret that to achieve success, you’ll need to make some sacrifices. For Mr. Smith, it was work-life balance: “Our world isn’t designed for spectacular success and a balanced life” he said in an interview.

References:

  1. https://www.vistaequitypartners.com/about/team/robert-f-smith/
  2. https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a32804478/robert-f-smith-summer-2020-cover-interview-philanthropy/
  3. https://2021.vistaequitypartners.com
  4. https://urbjournal.com/the-rise-of-robertfsmith/
  5. https://www.wsj.com/articles/whos-afraid-of-robert-smiths-philanthropy-11559084951
  6. https://robertsmith.com/videos/

The Youtube video interview features Robert F. Smith and Robert Green, President & CEO of the National Association of Investment Companies (NAIC). NAIC is the largest network of diverse-owned private equity firms and hedge funds. NAIC is focused on increasing the flow of capital to high-performing diverse investment managers often underutilized by institutional investors.

Warren Buffett Defines “True Success”

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“True success’ in business and life has nothing to do with money.

In an interview, legendary investor Warren Buffett offered his definition for “true success.”

“Well, I’ve said many times that, if you get to be 65 or 70 and later, and the people that you want to have love you actually do love you, you’re a success,” Buffett said in the Yahoo Finance interview.

Buffett doesn’t believe money or power or social status makes a person successful. “I know people who have a lot of money, and they get testimonial dinners and they get hospital wings named after them. But the truth is that nobody in the world loves them,” said Buffett. “If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don’t care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster.”

Buffett offers three pieces of advice for people looking to succeed in business and life.

  • Invest in yourself, and in particular, try to improve your communication skills. “If you can’t communicate to somebody, it’s like winking at a girl in the dark,” Buffett quipped.
  • Take care of your mind and body. “You get exactly one mind and one body in this world. And you can’t start taking care of it when you’re 50,” he said.
  • You should associate yourself with others who “are better than you are.” He added, “Basically, you’ll go in the direction of the people that you associate with. And you want to have the right heroes.”

Key takeaway — the amount you are loved — not your wealth or accomplishments — is the ultimate measure of success in life. “The problem with love is that it’s not for sale,” Buffett explains. “The only way to get love is to be lovable. It’s very irritating if you have a lot of money. You’d like to think you could write a check: I’ll buy a million dollars’ worth of love. But it doesn’t work that way. The more you give love away, the more you get.”

The most important lesson of a life well-lived, according to Buffett, has nothing to do with wealth and everything to do with the most powerful human emotion: love. 

“Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.

I know many people who have a lot of money, and they get testimonial dinners and they get hospital wings named after them. But the truth is that nobody in the world loves them.

That’s the ultimate test of how you have lived your life. The trouble with love is that you can’t buy it. You can buy sex. You can buy testimonial dinners. But the only way to get love is to be lovable.

It’s very irritating if you have a lot of money. You’d like to think you could write a check: I’ll buy a million dollars’ worth of love. But it doesn’t work that way. The more you give love away, the more you get.” Warren Buffett, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder

References:

  1. https://money.yahoo.com/warren-buffett-definition-success-174700744.html
  2. https://selfmadesuccess.com/warren-buffett-success-quotes/
  3. https://app.landit.com/articles/buffets-5-step-process-for-prioritizing-true-success
  4. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/13/billionaire-warren-buffett-says-this-is-the-only-measure-of-success-that-matters.html‬
  5. https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/warren-buffett-says-it-doesnt-matter-how-rich-you-are-without-this-1-thing-your-life-is-a-disaster.html

Public Speaking—Most Persuasive Things People Do

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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence therefore is not an act but a habit.” Aristotle

Aristotle believed that we speak for one reason: to persuade.  Which can be challenging since most people have never been formally trained to think strategically about communication, despite the fact that “it’s one of the most critical skills in life”.  According to Aristotle’s teaching on persuasion, “the art of eloquence is all about the audience and about learning how people listen to us”.  Thus, it is important to shape the info you have, in the way that is ideal for the intended audience.

To be a great public speaker, you must first define two things:

  • Your audience: Who are they? How do they view the world or the situation? What do they already know about you and your topic? What will they benefit from listening to you talk?
  • Your purpose: Why are you speaking to them? What do you want them to know? Why is it important? What are you trying to get them to do?

The Greek philosopher believed the most persuasive people do:

1. They think about their audience, not about themselves

Aristotle’s advice is to focus instead on the people you’re addressing.  Begin by asking yourself: Who will be listening? How many of them will there be? How old are they? What race and gender? What do they know about you and your topic? Why are they gathering to listen to you? How can you help them?

Before you begin writing, think about the purpose of your talk. It can be beneficial to distill your message to a single line. An effective method is to use this simple, 15-word sentence: “As a result of my [talk], they will understand [this], and respond by [doing that].”

By aiming your remarks at the audience members, and by sticking to your purpose, you will eliminate a tremendous degree of anxiety and uncertainty.

2. They make their audience happy

In your mind, the subject of your talk is quarterly sales, company policy or your amazing new invention. Your audience, however, is focused on an entirely different topic — their happiness.

Aristotle listed a number of things that make people happy: Health, family, wealth, status and so on. Your success as a speaker, regardless of subject, depends on demonstrating to your audience that you’re not just prattling away; you’re talking to them, for their benefit.

Let’s say you’re pitching a financial product. You know that it’s awesome. The numbers prove it. But what’s going to make your audience happier? A lengthy diatribe about numbers, or an explanation of how these numbers will make their life better?

The point, as always, is that every element of your presentation should demonstrate your awareness of what they care about.

3. They speak in their audience’s language

Whether you share much or little, your audience’s decision to accept your words and ideas depends upon how credible they find you to be. “When speakers behave inappropriately,” wrote Aristotle, “their credibility is questioned — even when they speak the truth.”

It’s intuitive that awkward body language or inappropriate clothing will distract people from your message, but instead of worrying about what not to do, train your attention toward the myriad of ways you can frame your presentation in the cognitive universe of your audience.

Every aspect of your presentation, including timing, humor, word-choices, metaphors and statistics, must mean the same thing to them as they mean to you.

Being a great public speaker

I Have Something to Say: Mastering the Art of Public Speaking in an Age of Disconnection by [John Bowe]

“Being a great public speaker has nothing to do with your personality, with overcoming shyness or learning to act confident,” said John Bowe, speech trainer, award-winning journalist, and author of “I Have Something to Say: Mastering the Art of Public Speaking in an Age of Disconnection.”. It’s a technical skill that nearly anyone can acquire, just like cooking.

Tips for preparing your speech

1. Memorize your introduction and conclusion. Brain freeze occurs most commonly during those awful seconds when you first face a crowd.

2. It’s not about you. Every decision you make must demonstrate that you’re talking for your audience’s benefit, not yours.

3. Do everything you can to help them hear and understand you. People are bad at listening. Use short words, sentences and paragraphs to express your ideas; physical, concrete and vivid images that appeal to the senses; and active verb choices in place of abstract or passive language.

4. Don’t drown your audience in data. If your talk relies on heavy data, be sure to explain what that data means — on a human level. People want to know how you think, feel, and believe. That’s why you’re in the same room with them, instead of sending the data by email.

Do everything you can to help them hear and understand you. People are bad at listening.

5. Eliminate anything that doesn’t clearly support your purpose. If a slide, statistic, joke, or anecdote doesn’t serve your goal, cut it.

6. Record yourself or practice in front of real people — or both, if you can. This will be painful. But it’s better to hate yourself before your speech, rather than during (and probably for a long time after) your speech.

References:

  1. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/13/to-be-great-at-public-speaking-distill-message-15-words-speech-trainer-says.html
  2. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/12/aristotles-3-most-important-rules-for-being-more-persuasive-in-public-speaking.html?__twitter_impression=true

Power of Vulnerability

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In a speech that Teddy Roosevelt gave in 1910, Roosevelt said:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

The powerful Roosevelt quote resonated with Dr. Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, who gave the blockbuster TEDTalks “Brené Brown: The Power of Vulnerability”.

In the introduction to her book, Dr. Brown comments on Roosevelt’s words, which she says perfectly encapsulate her research into why she and other researchers find being vulnerable such a hard thing to do.

According to Dr. Brené Brown, Ph.D, in he book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead:

“When we spend our lives waiting until we’re perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable, we squander our precious time, and we turn our backs on our gifts, those unique contributions that only we can make,” says Dr. Brown. “Perfect bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience.”

Here are a summary of the ThenPower of Vulnerability key points:

  • Vulnerability makes you authentic and allows you to feel love, belonging and joy
  • To be vulnerable you have to:
  • – Internalize that you are a worthy (of being loved) and enough the way you are
  • – Have the courage of showing up and engaging even if could hurt
  • “Your willingness to own and engage your vulnerability determines the depth of your courage”

“Daring greatly means the courage to be vulnerable. It means to show up and be seen. To ask for what you need. To talk about how you’re feeling. To have the hard conversations,” according to Dr. Brown.

Source: 5 insights from Brené Brown’s new book, Daring Greatly

  1. https://thepowermoves.com/daring-greatly-summary/

10 Money Lessons He Wished Heard — or Listened to — When Younger | MarketWatch

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Updated: February 23, 2020

Jonathan Clements, author of “From Here to Financial Happiness” and “How to Think About Money,” and editor of HumbleDollar.com., is the former personal-finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He has devoted his entire adult life to learning about money.

That might sound like cruel-and-unusual punishment, but he has mostly enjoyed it. For more than three decades, he has spent his days perusing the business pages, reading finance books, scanning academic studies and talking to countless folks about their finances.

Yet, despite this intense financial education, it took him a decade or more to learn many of life’s most important money lessons and, indeed, some key insights have only come to him in recent years.

Here are 10 things he wished he’d been told in his 20s—or told more loudly, so he actually listened:

— Read on www.marketwatch.com/story/10-money-lessons-i-wish-id-listened-to-when-i-was-younger-2020-02-12

1. A small home is the key to a big portfolio. Financially, it turned out to be one of the smartest things he had ever done, because it allowed him to save great gobs of money. That’s clear to him in retrospect. But he wished he’d known it was a smart move at the time, because he wouldn’t have wasted so many hours wondering whether he should have bought a larger place.

2. Debts are negative bonds. From his first month as a homeowner, he sent in extra money with his mortgage payment, so he could pay off the loan more quickly. But it was only later that he came to view his mortgage as a negative bond—one that was costing him dearly. Indeed, paying off debt almost always garners a higher after-tax return than you can earn by investing in high-quality bonds.

3. Watching the market and your portfolio doesn’t improve performance. This has been another huge time waster. It’s a bad habit he belatedly trying to break.

4. Thirty years from now, you’ll wish you’d invested more in stocks. Yes, over five or even 10 years, there’s some chance you’ll lose money in the stock market. But over 30 years? It’s highly likely you’ll notch handsome gains, especially if you’re broadly diversified and regularly adding new money to your portfolio in good times and bad.

5. Nobody knows squat about short-term investment performance. One of the downsides of following the financial news is that you hear all kinds of smart, articulate experts offering eloquent predictions of plummeting share prices and skyrocketing interest rates that—needless to say—turn out to be hopelessly, pathetically wrong. In his early days as an investor, this was, alas, the sort of garbage that would give him pause.

6. Put retirement first. Buying a house or sending your kids to college shouldn’t be your top goal. Instead, retirement should be. It’s so expensive to retire that, if you don’t save at least a modest sum in your 20s, the math quickly becomes awfully tough—and you’ll need a huge savings rate to amass the nest egg you need.

7. You’ll end up treasuring almost nothing you buy. Over the years, he had had fleeting desires for all kinds of material goods. Most of the stuff he purchased has since been thrown away. This is an area where millennials seem far wiser than us baby boomers. They’re much more focused on experiences than possessions—a wise use of money, says happiness research.

8. Work is so much more enjoyable when you work for yourself. These days, he earn just a fraction of what he made during my six years on Wall Street, but he is having so much more fun. No meetings to attend. No employee reviews. No worries about getting to the office on time or leaving too early. he is working harder today than he ever have. But it doesn’t feel like work—because it’s his choice and it’s work he is passionate about.

9. Will our future self approve? As we make decisions today, he think this is a hugely powerful question to ask—and yet it’s only in recent years that he had learned to ask it.

When we opt not to save today, we’re expecting our future self to make up the shortfall. When we take on debt, we’re expecting our future self to repay the money borrowed. When we buy things today of lasting value, we’re expecting our future self to like what we purchase.

Pondering our future self doesn’t just improve financial decisions. It can also help us to make smarter choices about eating, drinking, exercising and more.

10. Relax, things will work out. As he watch his son, daughter and son-in-law wrestle with early adult life, he glimpse some of the anxiety that he suffered in my 20s and 30s.

When you’re starting out, there’s so much uncertainty — what sort of career you’ll have, how financial markets will perform, what misfortunes will befall you. And there will be misfortunes. he’d had my fair share.

But if you regularly take the right steps—work hard, save part of every paycheck, resist the siren song of get-rich-quick schemes—good things should happen. It isn’t guaranteed. But it’s highly likely. So, for goodness’ sake, fret less about the distant future, and focus more on doing the right things each and every day.

You can follow Jonathan Clements on Twitter @ClementsMoney and on Facebook at Jonathan Clements Money Guide.

Ideas for Frugal Living | Three Life Lessons | Fidelity

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“The lessons they taught us about money—about not spending more than we have, saving what we can, and splurging occasionally and mindfully”

Three (3) lasting lessons from my frugal parent

Frugal living can help separate the important financial expenses from the not so important. Learn helpful lessons and ideas on frugal living here.

BY JEANNE THOMPSON FROM FIDELITY – 06/07/2019

I’ll never forget my first “real” vacation.

Most of our family vacations were camping trips where we slept together in a tent or a pop-up trailer and my mom cooked for my 4 siblings and me at the campsite. But the summer after fifth grade, my father decided to take me, my mom, and my 2 older sisters with him on a business trip to California.

That trip really stood out. I remember relaxing by the pool in sunny San Diego, sipping Shirley Temples with my sisters. We were fascinated by the elevators in our big hotel and rode them up and down until we were sternly told to stop. Simply put, it was paradise.

This trip was an unusual extravagance for my parents, too. You can’t raise 5 children on a limited income without being very frugal. And my parents, who were both first-generation Americans, were used to getting by on very little. Excess was not an option. At Christmas, my mom would save nice wrapping paper and reuse it; boxes were also recycled for many holidays to come. Folding a little piece of wrapping paper in half, writing a note inside, and taping it to a gift worked just as well as buying a greeting card. She reused everything from tin foil to plastic baggies. Her approach to money and possessions was pretty consistent: “Make do with what you have.”

These habits and quirks used to make us laugh. Today, I appreciate the example my parents set. I resist spending money on big-ticket items. My car, for instance, is a 2010 model and has 150,000 miles on it. And most of the furniture in our house is at least a decade old (if not a few decades). I’m not about spending a lot on furniture —with a teenage son, our couch becomes a dumping ground for lacrosse equipment more often than not. I even save nice wrapping paper from time to time, much to the amusement of my kids. And because of the warm memories from that long-ago California trip, I’d much rather spend money on experiences my family can enjoy, like vacations, than on stuff.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I like to believe that my parents’ mindful approach to spending lives on in my kids, who seem to appreciate the value of a dollar on some days at least. My college-age daughter takes pride in her 5-star rating on a ride-hailing app because it entitles her to discounts and coupons. My son, a high school senior, is already savvy about mutual funds and 401(k)s—thanks to conversations he tunes into at home and an intro to business class he takes at school. Both kids know that they need to budget for indulgences beyond the basics and that they’ll have to pay for them with money earned from their jobs.

Both of my parents are gone now, but their frugal approach to working diligently and saving money allowed them to raise kids. And not only that: They put enough away to build a nest egg that funded some retirement travel to Europe, Russia, and Alaska in their golden years. By then my father came around to reasoning: “You can’t take it with you.”

They still managed to leave something behind. The lessons they taught us about money—about not spending more than we have, saving what we can, and splurging occasionally and mindfully—are with all of us. And those occasional splurges they encouraged us to enjoy are as sweet as those long-ago Shirley Temples under the warm California sun.

— Read on www.fidelity.com/mymoney/frugal-living-ideas-and-life-lessons

A Man is What He Thinks

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“A man is literally what he thinks.” James Allen

James Allen, a British philosophical author of ‘As a Man Thinketh’, wrote, “A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts. As the plant springs from, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them.”

The things you choose to focus on, your thoughts, determines how you perceive the world – and influences many of the experiences you have as a result. If you focus only on the negative things in your world, the world can seem like a terrible place and your mood and outlook may suffer.

“Every one of us is the sum total of our own thoughts. We are where we are because that is exactly where we really want or feel we deserve to be, whether we’ll admit it or not.” Earl Nightingale

But when you focus on the positive things in your world, you see that the world is actually full of faith, hope, love, and joy. There is kindness and beauty that inspires people to do incredible things.  Each man holds the key to their own perception and focus, good or bad. He also hold the key to everything that enters into his life. By working patiently and intelligently upon his thoughts and focus, he may remake his life, his behaviors and transform his circumstances. 

“You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.” James Allen

Thoughts of doubt and fear never accomplished anything, and never can. They always lead to failure. Purpose, energy, power to do, and all strong thoughts cease when doubt and fear creep in.

“He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure.” James Allen

The will to do springs from the knowledge that we can do. Doubt and fear are the great enemies of faith and knowledge. The people who embrace readily doubt and fear, who refuses to slay them, hinder himself at every step.

Changing the Subconscious Mind

Daily affirmations are techniques you use to begin he process of improving your life. Affirmations are simply statements that describe a goal or thought in its already completed state. Positive affirmation helps eliminate negative and limiting beliefs.

Affirmations can transform an individual’s comfort zone from a limited one keeping them trapped in mediocrity to a more expanded one where anything is possible. It helps to replace your “I can’ts” with “I cans,” and your fears and doubts with confidence and aspirations.

Affirmations are reminders to your unconscious mind to stay focused on your goals and to come up with solutions to challenges and obstacles that might get in the way.

“These things we bring on ourselves through our habitual way of thinking,”

Daily affirmations are simple, positive statements declaring specific goals in their completed states. Affirmations also hold a key to creating the life of your dreams. Successful people have long known that using willpower alone to energize their success isn’t enough.

Let go of negative beliefs

It is important to let go of and not focus on negative thoughts and images. Instead, individuals should bombard their subconscious mind with new thoughts and images that are positive and stated in the present tense.

In closing, William James said: “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. We need only in cold blood act as if the thing in question were real, and it will become infallibly real by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real. It will become so knit with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which characterize belief.”

James also said,

”If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich. If you wish to be learned, you will be learned. If you wish to be good, you will be good – only you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them exclusively, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.”

References:

  1. Allen, James, As a Man Thinketh: Original 1902 Edition
  2. http://www.jamesallenlibrary.com/authors/james-allen/as-a-man-thinketh
  3. https://www.jackcanfield.com/blog/practice-daily-affirmations/
  4. https://www.jackcanfield.com/blog/become-a-millionaire-never-too-late/