Top 10 Predictions for the Year of the Tiger

Well… 2010 is well underway and here we are in Lunar New Year week in the new Year of the Tiger. Gung Xi Fa Cai!

Here are my top 10 predictions for the year of the Tiger.

1.  Asia will BOOM, led by SE Asia, China and India.

2.  Eastern Europe will continue to recover and soar

3. Training and Speaking will be HOT as HR and C-Level people feel the need to ‘catch up’ over what was ‘neglected’ last year

4.  Sales and Marketing will get more cash in their budgets

5.  USA will still be pretty flat with healthcare and IT leading their recovery

6.  Business in Oz will be strong by end of Q1 and NZ strong by June

7.  IF China curtails ‘entertaining’ at government (proposed now), it will spill over to private sectors and kill some F & B businesses, if not… ‘Party on!’

8.  US dollar will be flat but stable until 2012, then drop like a stone (watch for China’s sell-off of $2 Trillion greenbacks or oil getting pegged to another currency)

9.  Recovery will come from emerging markets and they will fuel recovery but at their ‘values’, not foreign values (they buy, sell and produce in their own economic scales, not at the scales or prices first world is used to)  Hence, it may be easier for 2nd world to sell to these nations than first world

10.  Gen Y is starting to move into entry level management. Watch for changes in leadership styles

Debt is a really cruel master. It enslaves the mind while destroying our health and relationships. As my example of how bad it can get, please do not make the mistake America and many Americans are making.

For years, people have looked to America as the world’s richest country. Sadly… no longer. It is the world’s most indebted nation and people.

Please do not take my word for it, simply look at the US Debt clock.

This sight lists all the US Debt like the US Total Debt ($54 Trillion, $807 Billion as of this writing) which is the combined federal, state, personal debt, etc. Considering the USA economy is a whopping $16 Trillion, if every single dollar earned in the USA went into paying off this debt and nothing went for food, clothing, energy, schools, roads, wars, charity or anything else, the USA could pay off this debt in only 4 or 5 years. Of course if they still wanted to eat, heat or cool their homes, use their cars (but little else) it might take 25 years or so but would ravage the USA’s ‘consumer’ economy.

The sight also mentions the unsecured, underfunded credits owed for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid which are promised, paid for by the citizens but no money set aside or held in reserve. That will add ANOTHER $107 TRILLION to the total debt bringing it to $154 Trillion. Now we are starting to talk some real money.

The average American has a negative personal net worth of -$8,000 to -$28,000 in their 50s plus their home mortgage and now often with a 2nd or 3rd mortgage.

Interesting, if every man, woman and child in the USA decided to pay off their share of the $12 Trillion US Government debt, with 300 million USA citizens, it would require $41,107 each (including babies and toddlers). That comes to $164,428 for a family of 4. That is not personal debt, just the portion that family owes for the government’s debt.

A wonderful mentor of mine told me recently not to discount the USA because it always bounces back. She is partly right. It is already discounted and the checks will soon bounce. China… the USA’s largest creditor already slowed it’s rate of lending to the US. It’s $1.2 Trillion reserve of USA banknotes means that EACH of the 1.5 billion Chinese  men, women and children have each loaned $6 to America! In other words, EVERY American man, woman and child has borrowed $4,000 from China. This means, every Chinese family of 4 working a rice field or factory in China has bailed out the banker on Wall Street, the school teacher in Iowa and the accountant in Phoenix, by $24. America should say “she she ne” to their ‘wealthy’ Chinese investors. Debt is a very cruel master.

Long term impact? Billionaire George Sorros was asked at the Devos Summit recently about the US dollar and he said, yes, he worries about it but that there is no other choice yet. He mentioned the Euro has its problems and the Pound may be worse off than the greenback. Interesting, China is buying gold by the ton and is predicted to back the RMB with gold in just 5 years, why would investors buy greenbacks backed by huge debt if the RMB is actually backed by gold?

The wars the USA is fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., according to correspondent Bill Moyers, have cost the USA $1 Trillion, all debt financed. With that kind of money, the USA could have completely rebuilt New Orleans, Detroit, retooled most of the American factories and educated her youth. As a father with 3 children in SIngapore schools, Singapore schools worldwide ratings are #1 in Math and #1 in Science. USA schools are ranked #27 in math and #19 in science. Does borrowing to bomb make sense?

This newsletter is not intended to ‘Bash America’  but just a simple reality check and a lesson to learn for all of us: Debt is a cruel master. No government, company or individual can afford to go deeply into debt. Instead, I suggest you follow my family’s simple formula: We tithe 10% to God first, pay taxes next (less than 20%… thank you Singapore!), live simply on 30% of our income and invest the rest. We have only borrowed for our mortgage because at less than 2% interest (I LOVE banks in Singapore), it makes more sense to invest the money rather than pay off a mortgage.

IF you are in debt, here is a 10 point plan to dig yourself out and to gain your freedom from debt, the cruel master:

1. Pay off all credit cards starting with the highest interest rate first (Suzy Orman’s advice)
2. Cut out everything you do not NEED from your budget. Needs are shelter, food and basic replacement clothing for worn-out items. We do NOT ‘need’ designer clothes, the latest fashions and to eat out at restaurants every day or even every week. A car may not be a necessity. We don’t own one in Singapore and spend $450 SGD on transportation a month for a family of 5 by using buses, trains, taxis (sparingly) and walking.
3. Invest time in your children so you do not feel guilty and begin placating them in your guilt by spending more money on them.
4. Save the environment and your pocket book by buying used furniture and appliances. Why buy new when used will do!
5. Don’t throw away what you no longer use, sell it on Yahoo or ebay. People will even buy spoiled computers and televisions.
6. Follow our simple rules: A. If we do not have cash, we do not buy it. B. If we have the cash, we still don’t buy it (unless we positively MUST have it)
7. Before you go to the store, look in your drawer. You may already have what you need.
8. Invest smarter and make your money work as hard for you as you work for your money.
9. Eliminate the words, “It’s only…” from your vocabulary.
10. Stop window shopping until you are debt free. The temptation can be too great to resist a ‘bargain.’

Free yourself from Debt the Cruel Master. Stop being enslaved. If you know someone in debt, share this newsletter with them. Let’s see how many people we can help live a happy, healthy, debt-free life! God bless you all.

Smile Maker: Are you financially independent?

A gambler said, “I finally achieved financial independence. No one will lend me any more money.”

Got comments or questions? Just leave your comments here.

Grow Your Business, Grow Your Career

Whether you work for big organisation or are self employed, the steps to growing your business or your career are often the same. Here are 3 `Growth Hormones` for growing your career or growing your business.

Growth Hormone # 1: Loyalty. Loyalty to your customer will make them more loyal to you. Frequent flyer points for free trips are expensive ways to buy loyalty. Instead, giving your regular customers a better deal, more then what they asked for or special treatment including recognising their names, one to one attention or a free gift is more effective and demonstrates loyalty. This works in business and in careers.

If you are loyal to your boss, your team, your company, speaking well of them, building them up and standing up for them. This pays off in increased loyalty towards you. A good career move.

Growth Hormone # 2: Perpetual marketing. Do you think this newsletter just happens by itself? Writing, e-mailing and posting it to our Web site  is a major commitment. So are the 2000+ e-mails we send out to reconnect with past clients and prospective clients. Hundreds of postcards, journal articles, writing books and more are all part of our perpetual marketing.

Does all this effort pay off. No way! In reality, very little does. Most people are too busy to respond or to care. Why do it?  Two out of one hundred DO respond and forward this newsletter to someone who hires us or they call us in for work.

In your career, if you expect every little thing you do will get noticed, you are deluded. Most of what we do is what we were hired to do. It is consistency and more importantly, the innovative things we do that get us noticed; another good career move.

Growth Hormone # 3: Think IN the box. Instead of trying to think outside of the box, think IN the box. That is, think of current procedures and how to refine them. How can you make them run on automatic so you can focus your attention on something that will bring you a better return on your investment of time?

Work your systems to get them to run on automatic. Coach your people instead of telling them what to do so they learn to solve problems on their own. Look into your box so it runs so well, you can live most of your life completely outside the box.

In a career, if your team can run autonomously of you, think of the ways you can exert your effort and ideas to transform the organisation you work in and propel your career.

Loyalty, perpetual marketing and thinking IN the box are just 3 tools out of thousands we cover in our workshops, speeches and seminars to help you grow your career or grow your business. The next time you hear of someone looking for a speaker, trainer or facilitator, how about passing on our contact details to them and THEIR contact information back to us? I will gladly send you a FREE e-book for your effort. See… I practice what I preach.

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3 Lessons Learned in Shanghai, China

4 days in Shanghai is not enough to `know` the city, but I did pick up some lessons I thought might help you, particularly those of you who have not been there yet.

Lesson #1: Size matters. 16 million people living on 6000 Square Meters means they go vertical. Unlike New York, Singapore or any major cities which have a `downtown` or `CBD` area where you have a dozen or two really big buildings, Shanghai has 10 times the skyscrapers of New York and square kilometre after square kilometre of high rise apartments.

Because China is building cities and infrastructure to house a city population to grow by over 350 million people in the next 8 years, the enormity of their big picture problems might be one reason they overlook the individual`s problems.

I am not saying individual rights are not important. They just seems dwarfed by the size and scope of everything else. Rather than judge, viewing the size helps me put China`s position into perspective.

For your own life, when things seem a little overwhelming, do not feel depressed for feel bad if you get a little worked up. Put it all into perspective and relax a bit.

Lesson #2:  Build it beautiful and then you do not have to decorate it. The buildings and skyscrapers in Shanghai are so unique and architecturally attractive. As such, they have little need for any extra `decoration.`

I compare that to many of the apartment blocks I see in Singapore and elsewhere that are just, well, apartments. Because they have no inherent beauty, they get odd and `creative` paint jobs.

Question: Are you building something at work now that is so beautiful that it sells itself, be it your career, your project or your life?

Lesson #3: Technology and planning. The city I came from, Minneapolis, Minnesota, after 30+ years of heel dragging, finally installed a `revolutionary` trolley to ferry people from the airport to the downtown last year. It runs on railroad tracks and moves up to 30 miles per hour but not for more than a few seconds at a time.

Shanghai has a magnetic elevated monorail that runs between the international airport and the main part of the city, connecting to the national railroad. It travels at 200+ kilometres per hour. Maybe Minneapolis should try to catch up to China?

Technology in the brain is useless. Application with appropriate planning is everything. What `technology` have you heard about you should be applying to your job, your family or your life?

Shanghai is amazing and helped me think through my assumptions about China and more importantly, the way I approach my own life.  Got comments or questions? Just leave your comments here.

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Managing Crisis…How To Come Out of a Crisis?

Look at crisis as opportunities and benefit from it.
What companies can do to come out from crisis and prevent future failures?

Check out my below video.

To your success, find out how Michael Podolinsky will help you and your organization by browsing through the links below:

• Browse through Michael’s Products, Speech Topics, Seminar & Workshop Topics and  Public Seminars
• Check out what they say about Michael
• Click here to contact Michael to find out more about his training

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3 Quick Ways to Improve Your Writing

Everyone writes. E-mails, notices, letters and memos. Want to make them better? Here are 3 Quick Ways to Improve Your Writing.

1) Start with the end in mind. What do you want the reader to think, feel, know or believe? Most people ramble when they write, jumping from topic to topic because they do not think of the impact on the reader.

2) Outline or list key points first before fleshing them out. For an e-mail to your team, after, `Dear QC Team:`, write the 1, 3, 6 key words or thoughts you want to get across.

Example:

Dear Team:
Last meeting (return key)
Problem 1 (return key)
Problem 2 (return key)
Opportunity with X (return key)
Request suggestions.

Go back and type out what happened at the last meeting, the nature of each problem, opportunity you want to share and your request for suggestions. Organized and easy to follow. Leave a space between each point.

3) Cut any excess and be more active in your voice. Instead of `We may have been looking at two options but have since narrowed them down and settled for one.` Change to, `Two options became one.` Instead of, `Our growth has been at around 4% for the past 3 quarters and we are currently hoping to increase this figure to 5% in the coming quarter.` Write, `We need 5% growth next quarter.`

It is all about brevity for clarity. We all have TOO MUCH to read and what we read is rarely written in a clear and concise manner. If you have feedback or questions on how to improve your writing, just leave your comments here.

To your success, find out how Michael Podolinsky will help you and your organization by browsing through the links below:

• Browse through Michael’s Products, Speech Topics, Seminar & Workshop Topics and  Public Seminars
• Check out what they say about Michael
• Click here to contact Michael to find out more about his training

Join other Success Minded People by subscribing to the “Success Series Blog Tips” and GET the eCourse for FREE.

Are you working a job, or building a career? Anyone (and most everyone) can work a job. I had my first `job` when I was 14-years-old scrubbing and waxing floors, setting up tables, sweeping and washing windows. I started a sales CAREER at age 20 and have built that career up ever since. Yup, as a speaker, trainer and coach, I am in sales. I not only have to sell my clients on using our services, but also `sell` ideas to audiences all the time.

Here are 3 Sure Fire LAWs to Build Your Career.

1) Learn it. We loose information and facts from our lives at an amazing rate. Better than 90% of the bombardment of information thrown at us is totally lost. Of that 10% we `perceive`, we are lucky to retain 10% in 2 weeks time. Either go for a larger volume of information to `learn` (very low likelihood of success) or be more selective in what you expose yourself to daily. Turn down the `noise` and turn up the good stuff. Mute commercials and talk to your spouse. Read that good book and toss the tabloid. Use your laptop on the bus and stop staring at the bus adverts.

Better yet, study one aspect of your business or industry for one hour every day and in 5 years, you will be the world’s leading expert and then EVERYONE will want you because you are the leading authority in the world.

Learn someone else`s job at work. Learn another product in your product line. Learn about a competitor. Learn how to walk better. Learn how to speak better. Learn it. Learn it. Learn it.

2) Ask it. My dad always encouraged me to ask more questions. My Karate instructor reinforced it. Looking back, I still never asked enough questions. Now, when I am attending a seminar, I ALWAYS and SHAMELESSLY ask a TON of questions.

For your career, ask your boss what you need to advance. Ask the most successful person you know what she or he would do in your place. Ask your family if they want to support you in your next career move (which may require sacrifice on their parts as well) Be like a 4-year-old, `Why?`, `Why?`, `Why?` Ask it.

3) Work it. Apollo 13 quote, `Work the problem.` Work the team. Work yourself. Get up an hour earlier and work it. Get to work 1 hour earlier and get a jump on the day. Take lunch away from your desk but alone with your laptop and work it. Work Saturday mornings to get ahead. Yes rest. Yes play hard. Yes have quality `down time.` But make sure you work it. Notice I did not say `Busy it`. Work it.

Not the sum total of possibilities… just 3 quick LAWs. I’d give you 50, but I’m Working it.

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Here are 10 ways to cut waste in your office:

1.  Set up red rules and blue rules for all office supplies. When do you use good letterhead and when do you print on plane paper. When do we print copies VS. when do we send it electronically. Red rules you NEVER break. Blue rules you are flexible on.

2.  Fully use everything you buy. Print out a piece of paper only to find a typo or it wasn’t what you expected? Don’t throw it away. Reuse the back side as scratch paper or for future printing experiments.

3.  Don’t duplicate resources. Each office may not need it’s own set of records. One central space may be enough. Better yet, do it electronically for faster access and pooled sharing.

4.  Put strict email policies in place. NO jokes. NO naughty or funny photos. NO cc everyone. NO Bcc emails. You won’t waste any time looking at useless information.

5.  Replace wall switches with motion sensors in conference rooms, toilets, tea rooms or any room that is infrequently used. You enter, the light goes on. No motion after 5 minutes, the light goes off. (This also tells employees not to hide in the toilet for an hour, making their colleagues work harder to cover for their laziness.)

6.  Instead of receptionists or security guards sitting and doing nothing most of the time, find work for them. If they are not checking Ids or greeting visitors with a smile, they can be sorting, folding, phoning, stapling, conducting research, or some other useful function. I asked two guards outside of a special school. I was interested in helping the children. The guards said, “Oh, I don’t know anything. You must call the school.” At LEAST have them read the organization’s literature so they know what they are doing!

7.  Lease out your resources. Instead of retrenching engineers, do what Honda does and lease them out during your slow periods. You have LCD projectors and AV equipment, lease it or hire it out if not in use.

8.  Sell resources no longer being used. Retrench some workers? Sell off their computers and other no longer needed equipment. In 2 years time if you start hiring again, those old computers won’t be worth much anyway. Ask some employees to volunteer the time at night to sell it or auction it on the Net and the profits go to the company’s Family Day. Alternatively, let employees purchase old equipment for family use at a huge discount. You are not using it anyway and it can be a real perk for a parent wanting a computer for their 12 year old.

9.  Don’t save books, read them and then give them away. You read a great management book? Give it to your 2nd in command and ask what she thinks of it. You get rid of clutter and train your people. When he / she is done, ask them to do the same.

10.  Take a course in Time Management to stop wasting TIME. Most people are BUSY but not very PRODUCTIVE. We offer a fantastic course in Proactive Time and Stress Management at SIM (65) 6468-8866. We also conduct Time and Stress Management Seminars and Workshops in house from 1 hour to 4 days in length (most are 2-days long). Just contact us.

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