If you are great financial mind listen up

January 22nd, 2008

I was recently asked to have a look at a website for a company called, Willis Consulting Inc, they specialize in financial job placement and while the news reporters keep talking about gloom and doom now may be one of the best opportunities for top financial minds from an employment view point.    You see when money is tight, when profits are down and when recessions hit hard it is the financial expert that turns a company around or keeps it from entering decline in the first place.

Even during the worst economic times there are companies that thrive and excel.   In such times even while laying off parts of their workforce many companies still pay top dollar for bright financial minds because when the chips are down they are needed more then ever.

If I were ever to consider myself “employable” again I would certainly utilize an executive recruiting firm.    If you are really good at what you do emailing resumes and searching job boards is a total waste of time.    My career advice for anyone looking for new opportunities is find a good recruiter, someone you trust and who can do a good job and put them to work marketing you.    If you happen to be a top financial minds this may be one of the best times in recent history to do just that.

Never resent a person doing better then you

November 26th, 2007

EnvyLet me be blunt you will never and I mean never become wealthy so long as you resent people who are wealthy. This has been written about extensively by Robert Kiyosaki in his Rich Dad Poor Dad series. Yet I think it is worth repeating here because I believe it is the single biggest reason the poor and the broke stay poor and broke.

Follow this simple logic, in the 50s and 60s many blue collar families had parents working say construction (you can fill it in with just about any trade) and all through the 70s etc young men grew up and if they were not college bound aspired to work construction. Hence middle Americans worked construction jobs for many decades. These jobs paid for houses, college tuitions, retirements and life in general.

In short being a “construction worker” had a certain status. It was considered a good paying blue collar career. Sure you had to work hard but Americans valued hard work and some kids never wanted college they wanted to build things, run back hoes and tear old buildings down. Who can blame them while hard work playing with heavy equipment is kind of fun.

construction workerNow a whole book on why construction wages fell over the 80s, 90s and 2000’s could be written. Floods of illegal cheap labor, a weakening job market, etc. Today we also seem to believe that every child should go to college and get a degree. We have forgotten that we need a middle class, a blue collar work pool, we have stopped valuing hard physical work as an admirable quality.

So how many kids today have a positive view of being a back hoe operator, or framing houses or building roads? The answer is not many, today that is something most people “settle for” not what they aspire to. Hence not many young men grow up in the US and become construction workers any longer. The logic is quite simple when people have a negative view of a profession, a place in life, a title, etc. they tend not to become what they dislike.

Pretty obvious, not ground breaking, what does this all have to do with wealth and money?

Simple if you see rich people and grumble, if you think the guy that is already in the 35% tax bracket should pay more and if you think all corporate executives are “rich jerks” you are going to have a real hard time moving up in income. Even if you do you will become what I call the “highly paid broke“. That means you will blow all your money and simply match spending to your income to satisfy material needs.

I see people all the time that resent the wealthy and the rich. I watch them grumble when Bill Gates gives 4 Billion to charity, they say with irritation “well he has it to give”. Then you put together an office pool to buy kids toys at Christmas or help a needy family and these same people make excuses and often give nothing. Don’t get me wrong there are poor people that give all they can, very generous folks, most however, don’t resent the wealthy.

Simply put if you want to be wealthy you must first have a very positive view of wealthy people. You can’t begrudge a guy his lifestyle then expect to achieve it yourself. I believe as I stated before this is the NUMBER ONE reason people stay poor and or broke. So the next time the urge to scoff at a successful person crosses your path, ask yourself, “do I want to become wealthy?”.

If the answer is yes think twice before you reinforce to yourself once again that being wealthy is a negative thing only achieved by insiders, the greedy and the lazy. You are going to have a real diffcult time doing what it takes to become wealthy if that is your view of those who have already done it successfully.