zebra3performanceSurviving Another Recession Depends On Doing These Four Things Right Dinks Finance | Mar. 14, 2012
I am almost certain that many of us have felt the effects and aftermath of the recent economic recession.
Whether we lost our income due to job cuts or we lost our home due to foreclosure, we have all felt the financial pressure to survive during these tough times.
All we can do is try to make it out of the recession with some personal dignity, some personal savings, and hopefully some precautions that we need to take in case another crisis comes into our lives. It can be a huge personal defeat to lose our job. Maybe some of us lost our jobs and were forced to re-enter the workforce by accepting a position that offers a lower salary and does not necessarily utilize our skills and experience. I always tell people that some income is better than no income. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter where our money comes from because it can all be spent in the same places.
As this is an election year in the United States the stability of the economy is still a little bit unsure, especially from an outsider’s point of view. Every time that opposing presidential parties appear together on television and argue like children in a sandbox the market becomes more volatile. I am not sure if the emotional aspect of a recession is as important as the financial aspect but both are definitely important. Some of us not only lost our money, but we also lost our lifestyle and maybe our circle of friends. I am not sure if people ever fully recover from a financial (or personal) crisis. Our money mentality for some will forever be changed as we live in constant fear that another crisis is just on the horizon. This mentality is very similar to people who survived the Great Depression of the Dirty Thirties. I have clients who to this day tell stories of their financial lives during a time when they couldn’t even afford to buy a loaf of bread each week. Hopefully most of us will never have to live through those types of financial circumstances.
Here are some tips to help you prepare for market uncertainty, job loss, and/or another financial crisis:
Have a Back Up Source of Income.
Having a secondary income helps us save money while working two jobs. It also helps lighten the financial load if we ever lose our primary source of income. If we ever do lose our primary income at least we can use our secondary income to stay financially afloat until we find another full time primary source of income.
Save a Little Bit More Now.
Saving an additional amount each pay check or each month is a great idea because it helps our savings accumulate over time. Saving a little bit of extra money every month is a lot easier than trying to come up with all of our monthly expenses in one lump sum payment if ever we do lose our income.
Learn to Live on Less.
Go over your personal budget and see where you can make cuts in your monthly spending. Most of us may be living with something that we don’t necessarily need to survive. Just because we can afford to have something doesn’t necessarily mean that we should buy it. The transition to living with less during the loss of our income will be easier if we are only living off of the essentials.
Secure Your Investments.
If we are an aggressive investor with a high risk investment portfolio then maybe we should reconsider our current investment strategy and add some secure investments into our portfolio. This will help protect our assets in case of a financial crisis.
Cultivate (your better self). What’s the point of “education” anyway? One point of view says: t the point of education is greater productivity; you study so you can be a faithful, loyal, unquestioning “employee” with the commoditized, routinized analytical skills to get the (yawn, shrug, eye-roll) neo-Fordist job done. I’d argue the reverse is true: the point of productivity is education — the “output” of authentically thicker value, greater social benefit, is a process that culminates in the act of being a wholer person. I’d argue, on reflection, what society really might have is a shortage of living, breathing well-rounded humans; with a moral compass, an ethical core, a cosmopolitan sensibility, and a long view born of historicism. What we’ve got plenty of are wannabe-bankers whose idea of a good life goes about as far as grabbing for the nearest, biggest bonus — what we’ve got less of are well-rounded people with the courage, wisdom, and capacities to nurture and sustain a society, polity, and economy that blossom. So put immediate gratification to one side and cultivate your higher sensibilities; learn the arts of nuance, subtlety, humility, and grace. I don’t mean you have to spend every evening at the opera — but I do mean you probably have to do better than thinking Lil Wayne is the apex of human accomplishment. Let’s get real: without a refined, honed, expansive sense of what great accomplishment is, you stand little to no chance of ever pushing past its boundaries yourself. Create (something dangerous). Mediocrity isn’t a quest to be pursued — but a derelict deathtrap to be detonated into oblivion. Hence, I’m firmly of the belief that your youth should be spent pursuing your passion — not just slightly, tremulously, haltingly, but unrelentingly, with a vengeance, to the max and then beyond. So dream laughably big — and then take an absurdly huge risk or two. Bet the farm before it’s a ranch, a small town, and an overly comfy place to hang your saddle and your hat. Create something: don’t just be an “employee,” a “manager,” or any other kind of mere mechanic of the present. Be a builder, a creator, an architect of the future. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a sonata, a book, a startup, a financial instrument, or a new genre of hairstyles — bring into being something not just fundamentally new, but irrepressibly dangerous to the tired, plodding powers that be. Think about it this way: if your quest is mediocrity, then sure, master the skills of shuffling Powerpoint decks, glad-handing beancounters, and making the numbers; but if your quest, on the other hand, is something resembling excellence, then the meta-skills of toppling the status quo — ambition, intention, rebellion, perseverance, humanity, empathy — are going to count for more, and the sooner you get started, the better off you’ll be. Forgive (and fail). I hate the slightly dehumanizing, mechanistic words “high achievers.” Because the truth is that the mark of someone reaching for the stars isn’t “achievement” — but failure, of the kind that makes the hair on the back of your neck snap up. If you’re going to live a life that matters, I’d bet that sometimes in your 20s, you’re going to fail — spectacularly, in Technicolor. You might launch a successful, disruptive venture — only to see your marriage fall apart. You might meet the perfect life partner — only to discover your career is flaming out. Or you might be on top of the world, financially — only to discover you’ve never felt emptier. These are all failures, of the “omg” variety — and they’re reliable triggers of a mid-to-late-twenties-where-the-hell-is-my-smoking-trainwreck-of-a-life-going anyways quandary. So consider this: when you fail, and fail big — forgive. Forgive the people around you. Forgive yourself. Examine the past, but don’t let it imprison you. You can dwell on your failure for years, and turn a trauma into a crisis. Or you can gently remember that mistakes aren’t the end of the world, but the beginning of wisdom — and firmly step forward into possibility. As the great poet Antonio Machado once wrote: “walker, there is no path; the path is made by walking.” Never was this truer than in an era of abject institutional failure, social fracture, and economic meltdown. We know where yesterday’s paths lead — not to a shining city we once called prosperity, but to here; dying metropolises, battered exurbs, mass unemployment, nail-biting fear of the future, plutocracy and protest, the crumbling ruins of empire. So map the horizons of your own journey, and, when the status quo tells you it can’t be done, tell the status quo to go to hell. What’s important is that what you’re doing matters — to yourself, to the people you love, and to something bigger, whether your community, society, or even humanity. Choose fulfillment and passion over “money” and “success.” The latter follow the former — and without the former, the latter are empty. When you’re sorting through your passions, consider what you have the potential to be not merely mediocre, but world-beating, at. And as you refine your choices, consider which are going to matter most in the sense of the greatest good for the greatest number — perhaps for the longest time. Because one world-changing accomplishment that knocks the ball out of that park is likely to give you more satisfaction than a lifetime of designer jeans.
Business differentiations
Sure you can out service or out price or out experience competitors.
But to compete long term with a business you need a differential advantage.
Here are four of the best proven advantages:
Sustainable competitive edge
Brand power or unique ingredient
Scale
Growth capacity. Speed to capture opportunity. Adjust to curve in demand.
Ownership of demographic
Specic target audience or segment domination
Disruptive technology
Patents or innovation or invention or application
Coaching Issues/ Consulting Executives
With the complexity of issues that challenge executives, there is never a loss for discussion topics between a coach and client.
Below are a few of the issues that many of today’s top-performing leaders discuss with their executive coaches:
• Staying focused on top priorities • Increasing accountability for follow-through • Building skills in particular areas (such as communication or decision making) • Dealing with organizational politics • Thinking strategically • Handling stress and avoiding burnout • Managing teams and dealing with sensitive personnel situations • Influencing others • Negotiating • Brainstorming new ideas/creative thinking • Personal career planning • Work-life balance issue
• Establishing clear goals and action plans Success Factors
In addition to finding the right coach, here are a few success factors to keep in mind for those who engage in a coaching process. • Establish clear guidelines for the relationship and coaching process on the front end. Don’t make assumptions. • Share feedback. If something is not working, discuss it. • Acknowledge progress and successes along the way. This helps build momentum. • Involve other stakeholders if necessary. In some cases, others in the organization can participate in the process to share input and feedback. Executive coaching is not for everyone. It’s only for those executives who are highly motivated, who are committed to leadership development and who want to engage in the process. Expect a minimum commitment of six months to a year.
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