Selecting securities isn’t the first thing investors do; choosing investments is just one of many elements in the process. To bulletproof your investing, you need to complete many tasks.
The following checklist outlines how you can build a successful investment plan that meets your individual needs and goals:
#1 Determine where you stand. Gain a good understanding of what your financial commitments are now and in the future. Make certain that you have an emergency fund and a savings plan.
#2 Clearly state your financial goals. How much do you need? When do you need it? How much risk can you tolerate? If you lost the principal of an investment, could you mentally recover and invest again?
#3 Determine the appropriate allocation of your personal assets for your age (young adult, middle-aged, retiree, and so on). Develop a regular investing program and stick to it regardless of market volatility.
#4 Select the investments that meet your financial goals and risk-tolerance level. How much time do you have (in years) to invest? Should you be an active trader and invest often during the day or a passive investor with a buy-and-hold policy?
#5 Analyze your investment candidates. Before you call your online broker, make certain that you can tell a child in two minutes or less why you want to own a particular investment. Determine how long you plan to hold the security and decide at what price you will sell (and take your profits or cut your losses).
#6 Select an online broker that suits your needs. Avoid mutual fund loads (a sales charge added to the purchase or sale of a mutual fund) and high fees. Use automatic investment plans, dividend reinvestment programs, investment clubs, and other programs to reduce brokerage commissions.
#7 Monitor your portfolio and reevaluate your goals on a regular basis. Rank the performance of your investments and make the appropriate changes. You can expect that changes in general market conditions, new products that are introduced, and new technology will change how established businesses operate. Use this information to gain an understanding of when to hold and when to fold.
Just remember. Every successful investor starts with a financial plan. The plan includes clearly stating your financial objectives, saving a certain amount of money each month, developing investment asset allocation strategies, and so on.
Monitoring your portfolio in a volatile market is very important. You can select the best investments, but if you don’t have a way to track your gains and losses, you can lose time and money.
Good record keeping is invaluable for calculating your taxes, preparing for retirement, estate planning, and taking advantage of opportunities to increase your personal wealth.
Sources on the Internet can assist you in keeping careful records of every stock, mutual fund, bond, and money market security that you own. Setup time can be as little as ten minutes. You can update and monitor your portfolio once a week or once a month.
Your investments can be in one portfolio (for example, your retirement fund) or many (say, your retirement fund, an emergency fund, and your children’s college fund). You can also track investments that you wish you owned or that you’re considering for investment.
Archive for December, 2009
A person who is enthusiastic to develop perseverance in himself is a person who has a big potential to achieve greatness in life. It is an important ingredient in holistic development. In the absence of perseverance, we can be likened to an empty shell without a pearl. Remember that when our minds is filled with self motivation and real perseverance we have a great opportunity to achieve our ultimate goals in life. Therefore, developing perseverance is as substantial as the air that we breath; for in the absence of air we would of course paralyze our total being.
To think, It is through self motivation and perseverance that many personalities throughout history, in their respective societies have dealt to get to their positions. It is the art of trying again, and again, and again after several failures that is the manifestation of real perseverance and self motivation.
In many instances, we are not able to make certain things work after making the first attempt, but with the second try, the third try and so on, eventually the goal is achieved. So when the question ‘what does perseverance mean’ is posed– point to the art of trying again, and again and again until we get what we were looking for.
How is personality development and perseverance related? Well, we can state things this way : the cause and effect or the other way around. Personality, when developed, has an effect on the level of your perseverance. In other words, you will be seen to persevere, more, when you have significantly developed your personality. One thing to remember when you are in the process of developing your personality is to make use of your positive side using it at its optimum level with real perseverance. Showing the positive side of your personality to the world will in turn augment your self and be seen to have a cumulative effect.
To successfully employ your personality development plan, first thing that you need to consider is to identify the area or side of your self to be improved. You can have this done by thinking and listing to the things that you find difficult and then design strategies to sort those weakness and start improving the ones that are the highest priority. Then, you can employ real perseverance until you have that personality that can be proud of.
Develop your perseverance and you will achieve success life–this is the common idea that successful individuals say. So, why not to develop our quality to persevere?
1) What is a Training Strategy?
Training and development in an organization requires implementation to achieve success. Therefore, the strategy will require vision, focus, direction and an action planning document. A training strategy is a mechanism that establishes what competencies an organization requires in the future and a means to achieve it.
2) Why have a Training Strategy?
Many points can be put forward in favor of why you need a training strategy. The most compelling though rests in the results of a recent study of 3,000 companies done by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.
They found that 10% of revenue –
spent on capital improvements, boosts productivity by 3,9%
spent on developing human capital, increased productivity by 8,5%
Remember, anything worth achieving, is worth planning for!
3) What are a Training Strategy’s Components?
There are many important aspects to consider here. To create the Strategic Training and Development Plan, you will need a detailed profile of your;
All of these profiles will further have to be considered within the realms of Equity and Diversity, Organization Values, Business Process Improvement, Change Management and Organization Design and Structure.
Sounds confusing? We have a diagrammatic representation of these elements which can be found at www.SergayGroup.com/training_that_counts2.html
4) How are Training Strategies Created?
After more than 20 years of experience working with Companies and Organization’s, our most successful and profitable approach has been to;
5) How are Training Strategies Implemented?
A strategy designed but not implemented is worthless!
In order to bring about the best results for the training strategy, the training products or services need to be marketed and promoted by manipulating the following;
These can be viewed diagrammatically at www.SergayGroup.com/training_that_counts3.html.
If you are looking for a way to be successful in whatever you do, you may be struggling to find the best formula to help you do so. The truth is that it takes two main components in order to be a success in anything.
The first component is motivation and the second is goal setting. In order to be successful, you need to have a balance of these two components.
Without one, the other is useless. There are many people who are great at setting goals and then follow up with no motivation. They tend to get confused when they rarely meet their goals.
It can be difficult to have the right balance. If you are someone who wants to be a success but will continue to get lost along the way, read more to figure out what you can do to get on the right track.
Finding Motivation:
Motivation is a difficult thing to stir up on your own. We are often motivated naturally to do things. For instance, when we are hungry, we are motivated to find a place to eat. When someone says they lack motivation, they are not being honest with themselves.
Everyone has motivation inside of them. The difficult part may be funneling your natural motivation supply to specific goals you have in mind. Once you know how to motivate yourself, you will find it easier to stay on task.
Each person can be motivated in a different way. Some people work great on a reward motivation system. In this system the participants reward themselves each time they meet a goal.
If you are trying to lose weight, then you can reward yourself with a new outfit each time you meet a goal in your plan. If you are trying to spend less, you can reward yourself with a night out each month you follow your budget exactly.
Many people respond well to this type of reward system, especially if they were raised in a home that practiced the same system.
Setting Goals:
Along with finding your motivation, the other equally important aspect of being a success is learning to set goals.
The most important thing to remember when setting goals is that you should always set realistic goals. Be aware of your capabilities.
It is fine to push yourself a little, but if you create goals that are not realistic, then you will likely give up trying to meet them. Often people who set unrealistic goals are capable of the goal itself, but are exhausted at trying to reach it all at once.
With many goals, like weight loss goals, you should break them up into smaller goals. You can work on part of the goal at a time.
For instance, if you want to lose 100 pounds, it can be difficult to stay motivated with that huge number in mind, especially when the average person can lose a few pounds a week. Try setting a weekly goal of losing two pounds. If you exceed that goal then you can celebrate, but you may find that each goal is right on target.
The less pressure you put on yourself to succeed, the easier it will come.
When you do set a goal, make sure that you are constantly reminded of your goal. You can tell those around you of your goal so you will feel accountable for following through.
You can also create notes to post around your home, office, or car in order to help you keep on track. No matter what your goal is, it must be remembered each day. As creatures of habit, we can easily train ourselves to be successful and meet our goals.
When we are constantly focused on the goal at hand, we will be better able to do so.
When you put 50% motivation and 50% goal setting into something you can guarantee you will succeed. Remember that everyone has the ability to be motivated.
Each person may require a different technique, but we can all be motivated just the same. Also, be sure to set goals often.
Reasonable goals are those that you are capable of meeting. Never push yourself too hard with your goal or you might risk getting burned-out and quitting.
Creating a balance between motivation and goal setting is the key to all success however, so keep trying and you will get it right!
Anyone who decides to become a Yoga teacher gives quite a bit back to the local or world community, through selfless service. In fact, giving is very rewarding when you have the ability, or the time, to contribute to a student’s well-being or give to a worthy cause. You can be so caught up in other peoples’ lives that you tend to forget about your own well-being.
From the outside, looking in, Yoga teachers might appear self-absorbed. The student, who becomes a teacher of Yoga, has taken the practice to a different level; and sometimes, places physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual development, on the “back burner.”
It is important to stop, “smell the flowers,” and take time for self-reflection, once in awhile. It is difficult to “pull your head out of the books.” Many Yoga teachers are researching, finding solutions for their students, or reading scriptures. These are valuable contributions, but we must also find balance in our lives.
After all, we talk to our students about the importance of balancing physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. We are supposed to “walk the talk,” but we are still human. Yet, the time you take for self-analysis and proper direction is valuable.
This reminds me of a story my grandfather used to tell me about a carpenter who never had time to repair his own house. He was always busy making money repairing somebody else’s house. His wife had a list of home repairs, but he was still too busy giving estimates at night. Finally, she hires a handyman to repair her house and falls in love with him.
My grandfather was a jovial general contractor, so he enjoyed telling a joke or story as much as we enjoyed listening. Now, what does this have to do with Yoga? Life is a matter of priorities. You might say, “This sounds like a time management problem to me.”
To be honest, improper time management causes a lot of stress and anxiety. To manage time correctly, you need a system, but you also have to plan “free time” for yourself. You will need to balance time for family, friends, work, co-workers, and students.
One simple method is to plan the day ahead on the night before. This gives you a short-term view of the upcoming day. I still like to write it down with a pen on paper, because I can still envision the handwritten list in my mind later on. However, a lap top, personal digital assistant, or PC will also do.
Another method is to go to bed an hour early, and then wake up an hour earlier. If you are a “morning person,” you can get so much done in the morning, while the world is at rest.
Now, if you become very successful at planning and completing your daily tasks, please do not fill your day with work. Allow some time for family, friends, students, personal Yoga practice, and a little free time to smell the flowers.
Copyright 2008 – Paul Jerard / Aura Publications
We all want to lead full, happy lives…so why is it that so few of us do?
If it’s time you took a good look at your own life and gave it an overhaul, don’t wait another minute. Whether we like to admit it or not, the clock is ticking for each of us. Make each moment count by actually putting into place the practices which will bring you joy and rekindle the passion in your life.
This has nothing to do with anyone else – it’s all about YOU! Following are some tips to help you make the most of each day and ensure you are living your life to the fullest. While they may not sound positive and easy, this is all about being effective. These few key areas are where you can put new practices into place and give yourself the gift of a happier, more satisfying life.
GOALS: The trick here is to make them YOURS. Not what your Mom wants, nor what your guidance counselor told you was right for you…but what YOU want. Have you even thought about this lately? Many people have not thought about what they truly want in years. This is partially due to the vague notion that many carry around that says ’some day I’ll have more time to figure it out and then I’ll get what I want’. This is NOT how it works…some day is NOW. Tomorrow will never come, and our time here is limited. You can either choose for this to be a depressing thought and turn away from it, or face it straight on and FREE YOURSELF. Today is all we have – live it up! Dream with passion! PLAN to do things you love and which are fun…there is no time like the present!
PRIORITIES: In these busy times, it is time we realize that we cannot do it all. We can create everything we want, but the fact remains that we only have 24 hours in a day, and there will simply be things that slip through the cracks. Therefore, the more we hone our focus and decide what our priorities are, the better we can live each day from that focus, and accomplish more of the things that matter to us as individuals.
This is not goal-setting. Goals ARISE from this work, and allow you to accomplish those things that you wish to. Rather, this allows us to live each day with a strong sense of purpose, aliveness and joy.
The trick to living this way is two-fold: the first is to invest the time to look at your life overall and decide what you want it to be about. A good way to think about this is to look at the end of your life. Ask yourself what you will regret most if you don’t change it? What do you want said about you when you’re gone? What kind of a legacy would you like to leave? What will you wish you had done?
The second part ties your priorities and your goals together. The best two tips in this area I have heard in years are extremely simple: 1) Make a list every night of the five things you must accomplish tomorrow, and then DO THEM tomorrow, in the order of those you want to do least first. 2) Ask yourself each day: What can I do today that I’ll be glad I did tomorrow? This one step is amazingly powerful, as you will see after a few days.
VISION: How many times have you heard that you must visualize what you want in order to get it? Did you know that in studies with Olympic-caliber athletes, tests have shown that they performed just as well after visualizing themselves going through the motions with precision, as when they actually practiced physically?
Additionally, in brain and muscle tests, all the same neurons in the brain and muscle fibers in the body were activated during intense visualization as during the actual athletic endeavor. Amazing? YES!
Use this to your advantage in your own life! Practice and improve your ability to clearly and precisely picture yourself being in the situations you wish to create. Make use of guided meditations, visualization techniques, and whatever you find helpful in creating and maintaining a clear vision of what you want.
HEALTH: This has been addressed in many places, but my two best tips are:
Eat less, and more often. Studies have shown that those who eat less actually survive longer, and with this happy, passionate life you are building you’ll want to prolong it as much as you can! Also, eating smaller amounts every 3-4 hours serves to boost your meatabolism and burn more fat…helping you to be healthier and have more energy. Think of your metabolism like a fire…consistently feed it in little amounts. If you starve it or smother it, the results will be less to your liking.
The second tip is to get moving, and do it consistently. This one thing, if you are not already doing it, will make a huge difference for you. Go for walks, take up new sports – do whatever you have to do to stay active, and enjoy increased energy and stamina, as well as more clarity in your thoughts.
ROLE MODELS: Get some new ones. Look for people and situations which empower you, and remind you of the magnificence of the human spirit and what is possible. This lifts you out of your narrow, everyday focus, and gives you a broader perspective.
There you have it…a few key ingredients to living a life with passion! Of course there are many more things you can do, however the fundamentals need to be put in place for people to really feel energy, passion, happiness, and a sense of purpose.
Enjoy, and go create your dreams!
By Denice Gierach
As published in the Naperville Sun – April 29, 2007
If you have a child with special needs, you understandably worry about taking care of their needs while you are alive, but also after you have died. A disabled or special needs parent needs to find appropriate care and services, work with the child to obtain independent living skills to the extent possible and protect that child from any harm. This type of planning involves managing finances and making personal decisions in the event of the disability or death of both parents. A disabled child may need the parent to make decisions for that child well into adulthood and need to look forward to future residential needs, as well as finding the appropriate caretaker for that child when they are unable to do so.
First, one should note that without appropriate estate planning, the disabled or special needs child will inherit from the parents. Since the child is not able to manage the financial assets, this would most probably require the court appointment of a guardian. Such a guardian would have to request for distributions to be made for the benefit of the child and account to the court each year. In addition, if the child inherits from the parents, the assets that the child is entitled to receive may preclude the child from obtaining certain types of governmental assistance benefits without the assets being spent for their benefit prior to applying for governmental aid programs.
The area of governmental benefit programs is complex, as the child may be entitled to one or more programs and the requirements are different for each type of program. For instance, unearned income and ownership of assets do not affect eligibility for Social Security and Medicare benefits (when the child is an older adult), but they do for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid. SSI eligibility is affected not only by cash and checks paid to a child but also by in-kind income in the form of goods and services purchased by third parties. The goal is to insure that the child is not disqualified from receiving assets place in the child’s name at the parents’ death or disability.
Many parents make use of a discretionary special needs trust. This trust document is established and funded by the parents and must clearly state that the purpose of the trust is to supplement, not to replace, funds available from governmental and other benefit programs. The trustee must have complete discretion to use the funds in any way for the beneficiary. In addition, the child must not have any legal right to access the assets of the trust or the income of the trust. The trustee chosen must understand the rules concerning the governmental programs, so as to not make a distribution that will adversely impact the child’s eligibility to obtain governmental assistance.
It may also be advisable to obtain a comprehensive professional evaluation of the child’s physical, medical, social, emotional, education and services needs, if one has not yet been done. This will assist your attorney and financial advisor to refer you to the appropriate case manager or agencies that service children with the particular disability that the child has that will be the most beneficial to the child.
Caring for a disabled child or one with special needs is a 24/7 job. If you are no longer around to do this job, you should plan ahead to make sure that your child will obtain proper care and be able to live a life that will be the best under the circumstances.
Every one of us is involved in some for of self improvement or personal development. This is true of you whether it is something you currently realise or not! If you have any desires, dreams or goals then you are striving to better yourself, your environment or your world and this we call self improvement.
However, there is one key area of your life that stops you from progressing in a fast and effective manner towards your desires, dreams and goals. I will now highlight this obstacle and show you how to effectively remove it forever so that you can create the life you want!
One of the worst things you can do when you need to motivate yourself to reach your long held goals and dreams is to criticize yourself. This is a pattern that has been taught to you since you were very young with school tests, grading, placement in your class and class evaluations. Teachers, parents and peers constantly compared you to others as if that was a way of gauging your true worth. This kind of personal evaluation probably continues to this day with employment superiors over-viewing your work, progress and most likely conducting some form of personal evaluation.
This view of assessing your strengths and weaknesses, although probably well-intentioned, has set a pattern within your own mind for self-criticism and self-doubt. Are you in a perpetual state of comparison? Do you find yourslef comparing how you perform to the performance of other people? Do you beat yourself up for not having attained the same level of success as those around you or those you view from afar? Are you disappointed in yourself when you fail to achieve exactly what you set out to achieve in the time you gave yourself?
Being self-critical can cause untold damage in your life. Criticism, regardless of what area of yourself or your life you have focused it, has a ripple effect that damages all other areas. By believing you are less than you should be you are sending a very strong message to your subconscious mind that you are just not good enough. Such a belief halts your progress towards your desires. It leaves you feeling frustrated and extremely unhappy. If you are really and truly not good enough then how could you ever change anything? If you are not good enough then there can be no way for you to change yourself, your circumstances or your life.
The first step to overcoming this self-defeating pattern of thinking and feeling is to become aware that it is there. Look carefully at yourself and how you interact with yourself internally. Notice when you have a tendency to berate yourself. When you notice yourself comparing your behaviour, talents, abilities or results to those of someone else immediately stop. Only judge your own performance. If you must compare yourself to anyone then compare yourself with yourself. Look for how you have improved. If you give a task everything you’ve got and do your best then you are already a success regardless of the outcome. You have stretched yourself and your personal self-imposed boundaries.
Keep a journal of all your goals and list the success you have already created. When you can look back at where you once were and see the improvement that you have made personally then your confidence will be increased and your self-esteem will rocket. If you compare yourself to someone else then bare in mind that you do not know the other person’s circumstances. You do not know what advantages they had when they began, so comparing yourself to them is a futile exercise. Even if these people did overcome serious adversity to achieve the same things that you now want take it as a positive sign. If they did it then so can you!
Try to encourage yourself when you are faced with a challenge. The difference between internal criticism and internal encouragement can mean the difference between a life of fear, dread, discouragement, pain, frustration and a life filled with abundance, joy, peace and harmony.
Giving yourself approval takes practise, so start right now. If you look at what you are doing when you criticize yourself it is really a form of self-disapproval. Approving and disapproving are just choices. You make them internally and you can re-make them in a different way. Approving of yourself and dispproving of yourself is merely a choice you make!
Right now begin to give yourself some approval just for the heck of it. Many times we disapprove of ourselves and others for little or no reason so turn that around. Begin to give yourself approval just because you are you. Can you imagine how differently you will view the world through the eyes of self-approval? Can you guess what kind of strides forward you can make in your life with an internal voice of encouragement? Do you think you, your family, friends and work colleges would benefit from you taking this new radical approach to how you view yourself?
By taking this approach and viewing yourself in a much more positive way the progress you make will astound you and the speed at which you start to move in the life direction that you have chosen will be amazing. You will gain more peace, happiness and harmony as a by-product and live a life filled with much more contentment, satisfaction and joy. Your personal development is assured!
Like many of our clients, we are constantly updating our Continuous Professional Development (CPD).
One of the many pieces of reading material we were looking through had the title of ‘Advisers Have Vital Role As Persuaders’.
This was based on the results of a survey which asked both individual investors and advisers 5 questions about retirement planning success. Fidelity, an investment group, asked these 2 groups to rank 1-5 the factors below:
The survey aimed to identify how well educated a typical investor is, and to stress how important an advisers job was to ensure that the message they want to get across does indeed communicate itself to individuals. The context for this was that there is a lot of talk about the coming ‘pension crisis’, and how vital it is that investors get the right advice.
Priority / Advisers / Individuals
Amount saved over a lifetime / 1 / 2
Date at which saving started / 2 / 4
Getting the right asset allocation / 3 / 5
Picking the right funds / 4 / 3
Finding the best pension plan / 5 / 1
If we simply concentrate on the first and last factors, we see that the priorities here are reversed. Whilst individuals did understand that the amount saved over a lifetime, identified by advisers as the most important factor, was indeed important, they still rated ‘finding the best pension plan’ as number 1.
Now, we have written many articles on this subject, and are certain that no regular reader will have made this mistake! However, this survey has once again shown that the idea that there is a ‘best pension plan’ out there is still prevalent with individual investors.
We do not have space to reiterate our investment process here, but the long and short of it is that, whilst the pension wrapper is important (as it is tax efficient), the investments within the pension are what really matters.
When we first looked at the results of this survey, it reminded us of a recent experience we had when a new client contacted us after finding our website via Google. He explained that he was concerned about the advice he had been given by his Independant Financial Adviser (IFA), and could we give our view on his situation. When Graeme met him, it became clear that with very little evidence as to why, the IFA was advising the client to invest over £2,600 per month into a Personal Pension. When asked why, the IFA said that it would allow the client to retire earlier, and that this was the ‘best’ pension that he could recommend.
When Graeme asked:
- Were your goals in life discussed properly?
- what risk questionnaire/assessment was used?
- what was the result of the cash flow forecast?
- Have the NHS Pension and State pensions been taken into account?
- where is the expenditure template showing what you need at 60?
- Has the sale of the practice been taken into account?
- Have any possible inheritances been factored in?
- Have the existing investments been built in?
The answers were that none of these had been discussed in detail or at all!
Many things concern us here, including the probability (based on many clients’ case work) that if such planning were implimented, the client would possibly have ‘too much’ for their needs age 60 plus, and in a wrapper which restricts what you can do with it (75% of the proceeds have to be used to provide an income – 25% is available as tax free cash as a lump sum).
This can of course also be at the cost of the client’s life now – what’s wrong with enjoying life and spending money now if more money does not need to be invested?
The key word is measurement – or the lack of it in this case.
To cap it all, the dentist had a copy of the quotation that had been left with him for the Personal Pension. For the few hours work that had been carried out for the client, the last page showed a very interesting remuneration figure for the IFA. This money would be taken from the clients pension account in the first year.
£19,432 to be paid as a lump sum when the client signed up!
The Financial Tips Bottom Line
Be aware that there is no ‘best pension’, and if anyone says there is it’s probably time to take a step back and ask the adviser what form of measurement they have used to arrive at the decision they have.
Action Point
If your adviser has not taken into account the above factors as a minimum to your overall retirement planning, then we recommend you do so now. Retirement planning is not just about pensions – building in all factors and having a life now is quite important!
Also, even if you intend to simply buy policies instead of comprehensive planning, be aware of advisers who charge large amounts of commission and talk about the ‘best pension’.