Category Archives: Problems

Quitting When Things Go Wrong

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Last night was a horrible night for my daughter.

For the past few years she has been involved in the yearly talent show at school.  Each year she has been able to wow the audience with her skills in various area.  Last night, she was doing a gymnastics routine and she forgot her next step during the routine.  Instead of improvising, she shut down and quit right there and then.

Up to that point, the routine was excellent and she was far enough into the choreography that I thought that perhaps she just went too fast with it finished before the song was over.  The only think that made me kind of suspicious was the fact that she exited the stage a bit too quickly.

Once she got back to her seat, she started crying.  The funny thing was that this year the talent show was a bit lame, and even with my daughter’s unknown mistakes, her performance was one of the best if not the best in the show.  Directly after she left the stage, I hear people behind talk to each other about how incredible it was.

In contrast, there were a few jump rope routines where the jump roping girls got tangled up more than they were successful at actually jump roping, and even a boy who did a lame attempt at lip syncing a song…  lip syncing?  What kind of talent is that?  Of course none of these kids were affected at all, and they were giggling and running around without a care in the world.  My daughter, whose performance was top  notch even with the small error, was crying like her dog died.

The climate of the entire evening happened when the principal of her school came over and told her how amazing the routine was.  After that point, she really started crying, this obviously mad me made because of her reaction.

This is a skill, or behavior that I’m going to have to work on with her.  Being the best in the show and then afterward crying because you didn’t do an absolutely perfect presentation, even though it was the best, is wrong and needs addressed.  We should all learn to realize that even the best of us make mistakes.  It those that learn how to handle, improvise, and make little of their mistakes that excel in life.  Realize what you did do right during such a routine and make the best of it.

Life is too short to cry over little mistakes, especially when you are the best in show.  If the performance was beautiful, then realize that even with little mistakes, it can still be beautiful!

leaning tower of pisa

 

Sad evening all around,

MR

 

Home Security! Deciding to Spend or Not to Spend

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It’s Jan 1, 2012 at 4:14am, my dog started barking like an entire gang was at my front door trying to break in.

Beagle Boys

Much like the dad in Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “Twas the night before Christmas“, I sprang out of my bed in an adrenaline pumping state ready to encounter whatever threat might exist.

As I flew to the window to see what the environment looked like outside.  After a quick scan of the well-lite front yard, I suddenly came to realize that it’s not “bad guys” breaking in (most likely they are hung over, sleeping off the alcohol they consumed during New Years Eve), but instead the intruder was of a different “four-legged” sort.  Yes the big emergency was another dog, a collared Beagle to be exact.  Now my dog (a chocolate lab), doesn’t ever bark in the middle of the night.  To be honest, I thought she couldn’t hear well.  There has been times when I’ve come downstairs, turned on the lights, then turned on the TV and our dog never even moved, let along bat an eyelid…

The entire incident made me rethink my home protection philosophy!  You see right now I don’t have much in the way of worth at home.  Most of my money is in investments and other financial vehicles that are not lying around  in my house.  When I was in college, this was especially true, but things are different now.  Kids change the equation, burglars breaking in taking possessions is one thing, but burglars breaking in and potentially harming my kids in the process is another.  So since Jan 1, I’ve been thinking about increasing security for our home.

The following are some of the steps I’m considering to enhance my Home Security:

  • Buy a shotgun and put it in a lock protected plastic case.  Actually I want to do this anyway because I would like to go skeet shooting someday.
  • Researching the services provided by ADT Security.  I probably won’t go with them but if I had more money they would definitely be a worthwhile consideration.
  • Search for an individual electronic House Security system for that isn’t tied into a service.  I will probably go with such a system instead of ADT!
  • Keep my dog.  Like I was going to get rid of her (lol).  It’s nice to know that she responds to sounds that she doesn’t recognize.
  • Consider purchasing security signs, if possible.  Sometimes just the warning is enough.
  • Creating a home monitoring solution from old computers that I still have.  Mostly these would be used to capture video of a motion detector triggered it.  I’m just playing around with this idea currently.  No solid plans.
  • Automate lights turning on and off at certain times at night to leave the impression that someone is home (this would be very useful for times when your family goes on vacation).  During the day, the turning on and off of a radio via an automated timer would be of benefit too (although not very green friendly for the environment).

Family is important, and any form of deterrent may be of benefit.  Sometimes just knowing a house is being monitored will be enough to sway crooks from attempt to break in.

Are you well protected from the Home Security perspective?

MR

 

Too Error Is To Learn

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Always try to learn from your errors!

I was watching Morning Express with Robin Meade, when a new clip came on about a man that shot mistletoe out of a tree in a parking lot.  Obviously he was arrested.  When they went on to interview him, apparently this had happened before when he shot mistletoe out of his neighbor’s tree the previous year.

Personally, if I were to get arrested for shooting mistletoe out of my neighbor’s tree, I certainly wouldn’t take my shotgun to a parking lot and try to shoot the mistletoe out of the tree in a public location!  When they showed the man talking on TV, it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t the most clever individual.

All of this leads up to the fact that if you error, you must learn from the experience or else you will continually lose and never get ahead personally or financially.  Most of us can’t play a perfect game in life and the stock market, even the investing legend Warren Buffett hasn’t played a perfect game!

I remember the first stock that I bought that went bust (or belly up)!  It’s was a small Canadian company call “New York Seltzer”, and while the company was questionable since part of their name was New York (even though they were based in Canada), their product was great!  So as a young teen with big dreams, I plopped down an even $200 in a company that I thought would expand and grow like crazy.  I was very, very wrong.

From my “New York” seltzer experience, I learned at a young age that sometimes having a great product isn’t enough.  Those that run the company are critical, and if you don’t have an “A+ team” running the company, then even with a great product, you can still lose!  Later, there was a company called SyQuest that also made a superior product (at the time) called Sparq drives.  I bought their product and loved it and considered buying stock in the company.  But then I looked at how it was run and the way they advertised their product and I decided not to take the leap!  This turned out to be a good move.

The point is that we all make mistakes, it’s part of being human, and life would be pretty dull if everybody was perfect.  But continually making the same or similar mistake is something to be avoided!  The man mentioned above should have learned from his mistakes last year, and if you aren’t sure about something, then Google it.  While Google doesn’t guarantee that the answer is correct, most of the time it will be if you read a few articles.

When you make an big mistake, think about and learn what happened and take corrective actions so it doesn’t happen again.

What do you do when you make mistakes?

MR

P.S. I know my title looks weird, but “Too Error” is actually a play on words, the real words phrase is “To Err”, but I thought it would be funny to error on the title (lol)…

Never Lend Money To Friends Unless You Would Give It To Them For Free Anyway

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Borrowing money from friends is always a touchy matter.

Borrowing Friends like Whimpy

Borrowing Friends like Whimpy

Some people will borrow money from you continuously once you lend them money the first critical time.  I’ve even see this kind of borrowing “without repayment” action happen even between brothers.  Both brothers are good guys, but the one would continuously borrow from friends, his parents and his family.  In some ways, it’s like the borrowing brother is playing a game where money isn’t real.  It’s like he chooses to believe that the money is just paper like monopoly money, or that he’s special and doesn’t have to follow the rules and common courtesy conduct when it comes to paying back money.

Such behavior has prompted me to do the following when it comes to people asking me for money.

  1. I never have money sitting around doing nothing.  So once I get paid and have some discretionary income (money after taxes and in my possession), I try to put that money to work towards goals (usually investments).  That way when a friend (or really anybody) ask me for money I tell them that I don’t have any money on me (which is the truth).  If it’s a large number that a friend wants to borrow, I never have that kind of money sitting by idle!  By always running tight, it’s harder for a borrowing friend to slip in and take advantage of you if you have money money going to a cause (in my case it’s kid’s college funds, retirement, and goal specific tasks).
  2. Occasionally, I will lend small denominations to friends, but it’s money that’s less than $20.  When I was younger, it was $5, then later $10.  The amount has shifted as I continue to build my wealth, but it’s always a small number relative to the amount of money that I have.  I don’t see myself increasing the $20 cap that I currently use for a long time.
  3. I make sure that I get the amount that I lent back, or else I don’t lend that person any more money.  When someone comes to borrow money from me again, and if they haven’t paid off the first amount that they have borrow.  I have no problems pointing out that they still owe me money from the first $20 that I lent them.
  4. After anybody borrows money from me, I will then later ask to borrow money from them.  This puts you on the same financial borrowing level as them, and since they hate to lend money out (kind of ironic huh), they will start to avoid asking you from money.  At least this is the case in my experience.  Once I ask to borrow money from people that always ask for money from others, it’s like all of a sudden they think I’m broke all the time too.

Using the techniques above, I’ve been able to twist my way out of lending money to people, especially those that always borrow money from people but never repay the money back.

If you can think of another clever way to avoid habitual borrowers that don’t repay money back, please tell us in the comments section below!

Thanks,

MR