In The Value of Debt in Building Wealth, bestselling author Thomas J. Anderson writes about strategically using debt to build wealth in the long run. Anderson notes that Debt is a powerful tool that corporate financial officers have understood since capitalism was born. Savvy use of debt provides liquidity and flexibility, allowing smart companies to jump on opportunities and ride out emergencies.
Debt is neither good nor bad. It is simply a magnifier. If you choose investments that deliver higher returns than the after-tax cost of your debt, then debt adds value. If you choose investments that return less than the after-tax cost of your debt, then debt destroys value.
“The single biggest determining factor in your rate of return and in being on track for retirement is your debt, debt structure, and the choices you make with respect to debt. Do not underestimate the power of building up assets early and paying down debt later.”
New York Times bestseller and author of one of my favourite books, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain, writes about bittersweetness in her book Bittersweet (Oprah’s Book Club): How Sorrow and Longing Make Us, The book’s central theme is that there is no happiness in life without sadness, no one lives a sorrow free life, it is not a matter of whether that the tough times would come around; it is more about how we handle it. We all have a choice to either get better or get bitter, learn the lessons or let it lessen us, get the message or stay stuck with the mess.
Book’s Theme
The book is about the melancholic direction which Cain calls the “Bittersweet”: a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. The bittersweet is also about the recognition that light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired. “Days of honey, days of onion,” as an Arabic proverb puts it. The tragedy of life is linked inescapably with its splendor; you could tear civilization down and rebuild it from scratch, and the same dualities would rise again. Yet to fully inhabit these dualities—the dark as well as the light—is, paradoxically, the only way to transcend them. And transcending them is the ultimate point. The bittersweet is about the desire for communion, the wish to go home.
The idea of transforming pain into creativity, transcendence, and love—is the heart of the book.
The Pursuit of Happiness
Americans prioritize happiness so much that we wrote the pursuit of it into our founding documents, then proceeded to write over thirty thousand books on the subject, as per a recent Amazon search. We’re taught from a very young age to scorn our own tears (“Crybaby!”), then to censure our sorrow for the rest of our lives.
Longing
Longing is momentum in disguise: It’s active, not passive; touched with the creative, the tender, and the divine. We long for something, or someone. We reach for it, move toward it. The word longing derives from the Old English langian, meaning “to grow long,” and the German langen—to reach, to extend. The word yearning is linguistically associated with hunger and thirst, but also desire. In Hebrew, it comes from the same root as the word for passion.
Our Longing is the gateway to belonging.
The place you suffer, in other words, is the same place you care profoundly—care enough to act. This is why, in Homer’s Odyssey, it was homesickness that drove Odysseus to take his epic journey, which starts with him weeping on a beach for his native Ithaca. This is why, in most every children’s story you’ve ever loved, from Harry Potter to Pippi Longstocking, the protagonist is an orphan. Only once the parents die, transforming into objects of yearning, do the children have their adventures and claim their hidden birthrights. These tales resonate because we’re all subject to illness and aging, breakups and bereavement, plagues and wars. And the message of all these stories, the secret that our poets and philosophers have been trying to tell us for centuries, is that our longing is the great gateway to belonging.
Bittersweetness
At their worst, bittersweet types despair that the perfect and beautiful world is forever out of reach. But at their best, they try to summon it into being. Bittersweetness is the hidden source of our moon shots, masterpieces, and love stories. It’s because of longing that we play moonlight sonatas and build rockets to Mars. It’s because of longing that Romeo loved Juliet, that Shakespeare wrote their story, that we still perform it centuries later.
All the best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.
In Atlas of the heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience, Bene Brown describes the various emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human – including the language that allows us to make sense of what we experience. She sought to open up the language portal – a universe where we can share the stories of our bravest and most heartbreaking moments with each other in a way that builds connection.
The Alchemists: The INEOS Story – An industrial giant comes of age is an autobiographical account of how British billionaire, chemical engineer and businessman Jim Ratcliffe built INEOS from a single site in Antwerp to the fourth-largest chemical company in the world and Britain’s largest private company. According to Forbes, Ratcliffe is the 77th wealthiest person in the world and the second richest Briton.
The Alchemist – About the rise of an unassuming and perhaps unlikely team with a canny combination of vision, intelligence, integrity, humility and steady competence in the face of recurring high stakes. A team that, together, created a lean, entrepreneurial, expanding business quite unlike any of its kind.
In The Comfort Zone: Create a Life You Really Love with Less Stress and More Flow, Founder/CEO of the Power of Positivity Kristen Butler writes extensively about the comfort zone.
“You are right not because others agree with you, but because your facts and reasoning are sound.—Benjamin Graham
In The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success, author William N. Thorndike profiles eight unconventional CEOs whose firm average returns outperformed the S&P 500 by a factor of twenty—in other words, an investment of $10,000 with each of these CEOs, on average, would have been worth over $1.5 million twenty-five years later. Thorndike referred to these unconventional, radically rational chief executives as “The Outsiders.”
As a group, these CEOs faced the inherent uncertainty of the business world with a patient, rational, pragmatic opportunism, not a detailed set of strategic plans.
A little more asking people questions and a little less telling people what to do.
In The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever, author and speaker Michael Bungay Stanier describes seven essential questions for becoming a better coach. Stanier advocates staying curious a little longer and asking more questions as a tool for coaching.
The real secret sauce here is building a habit of curiosity. The change of behaviour that’s going to serve you most powerfully is simply this: a little less advice, a little more curiosity. Find your own questions, find your own voice. And above all, build your own coaching habit.
In Small Company Big Business: How to get your small business ready to do business with big business, Small Business | Big Business Relationship counsellor Bronwyn Reid describes the five essential steps for attracting and retaining buyers as customers – whether they be national or international companies, Government, or even large Not For Profits.
In The Leadership Handbook, author John C. Maxwell presents 26 insights intended to help build the leader within not only those aspiring to new positions of leadership but also those veterans who aim to improve upon the steps that led them to the front of the line.
In Raise Capital on Your Own Terms: How to Fund Your Business without Selling Your Soul, attorney and capital raising coach Jenny Kassan describes various capital-raising strategies available to mission-driven entrepreneurs and provides a six-step process for finding and enlisting investors who are a match with your personal goals and aspirations.
Jenny has over 25 years of experience as an attorney and advisor for mission-driven enterprises. She has helped her clients raise millions of dollars from values-aligned investors and raised over $2 million for her own businesses.
The average hiring mistake costs a company $1.5 million or more a year and countless wasted hours.
Based on more than 1,300 hours of interviews with more than 20 billionaires and 300 CEOs, Who presents Smart and Street’s A Method for Hiring. In business, you are who you hire. In Who, Geoff Smart and Randy Street offer simple, easy-to-follow steps to put the right people in place for optimal success.
The most important decisions that businesspeople make are not what decisions, but who decisions.—JIM COLLINS, AUTHOR OF GOOD TO GREAT
In The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness, authors Jeff Olson and John David Mann write about the simple daily disciplines required for success: They are usually simple but also hard to do.
The simple things that lead to success are all easy to do. But they’re also just as easy not to do.
In The Power of Your Potential: How to Break Through Your Limits, author John C. Maxwell identifies and examines the seventeen key capacities each of us possesses.
Energy Potential—Your Ability to Push On Physically
Emotional Potential—Your Ability to Manage Your Emotions
Thinking Potential—Your Ability to Think Effectively
People Potential—Your Ability to Build Relationships
Creative Potential—Your Ability to See Options and Find Answers
Production Potential—Your Ability to Accomplish Results
Leadership Potential—Your Ability to Lift and Lead Others
The ten choices
Responsibility Potential—Your Choice to Take Charge of Your Life
Character Potential—Your Choices Based on Good Values
Abundance Potential—Your Choice to Believe There Is More Than Enough
Discipline Potential—Your Choice to Focus Now and Follow Through
Intentionality Potential—Your Choice to Deliberately Pursue Significance
Attitude Potential—Your Choice to Be Positive Regardless of Circumstances
Risk Potential—Your Choice to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
Spiritual Potential—Your Choice to Strengthen Your Faith
Growth Potential—Your Choice to Focus on How Far You Can Go
Partnership Potential—Your Choice to Collaborate with Others
“AWARENESS + ABILITY + CHOICES = POTENTIAL”
If you are aware of yourself and your ability to improve, if you develop the abilities you already possess, and if you make the daily choices that help you improve, you will reach your full potential.
Caps You Can’t Remove
Birth caps: You had no control over where or when you were born, nor can you go back in time and change these things. You don’t get to choose your parents, birth order, siblings, or upbringing. Good or bad, you have to live with these circumstances and make the best of them. You cannot change your genetic makeup, your race, your bone structure, or your height.
Life caps: There are many things that happen to us in our lives that we cannot control. We suffer accidents or illnesses. We lose people we love. We discover that we don’t have the talent or ability to fulfill a dream. I call these “life caps.” We all have life-cap stories, some big, some small. We have our nicks and dents. Part of the process of fulfilling your purpose is becoming aware of the things you can’t change that limit you, so that you can direct your attention toward the things you can change to increase your capacity.
Caps You Can Remove
Caps That Others Put on Us
The first type of limitation comes from the caps that others put on us. People have put caps on you. You’re not even aware of some of them. But you don’t have to let others’ lack of belief define you. Be unwilling to surrender your potential to someone else. Be unwilling to allow others to put caps on you and define your potential. You’ve fought too hard to get where you are to let others control where you are going. Be open to the possibilities that are in you!
Caps We Put on Ourselves
LOOKING FOR APPROVAL FROM OTHERS
LIVING IN A LIMITING ENVIRONMENT
Too many people simply accept whatever environment they’re born into. They think it’s normal, and they start to believe they don’t have any other choices in life. When that happens, they’ve created a self-imposed cap on their life.”
HAVING FEW EXPANSIVE MODELS OF SUCCESS
If you wanted to, you could find plenty of reasons not to strive for your potential. Maintaining the status quo is easier. But that shouldn’t stop you. Trying to build your life without removing your limitations and increasing your potential is like building a car in a small shed and being unwilling to knock out the wall to get the car out on the road. Remove the limitations, and the world is open to you.
Energy Potential—Your Ability to Push On Physically
There are many capacities that we can increase, but there’s nothing we can do to expand time. The number of minutes in a day, days in a week, and weeks in a year are set. Even our time here on earth is fixed. Our days are numbered. That’s why we need to focus on our energy. That’s something we can influence. If we want to get more done and make a greater impact on the world, we need to increase our energy potential.
Focus your energy by using the three Rs to prioritize:
Requirement—what you have to do
Return—what you do well
Reward—what you love to do
Emotional Potential—Your Ability to Manage Your Emotions
Emotional potential is the ability to handle adversity, failure, criticism, change, and pressure in a positive way. All of these things create stress in our lives
• Most people do not see themselves as they really are.
• Many people don’t want to resolve their problems; they just want someone to listen to them talk.
• Some people are not emotionally strong, and as a result, they do not cope well with life’s difficulties.
Take responsibility for the things you can control:
• Attitude—you determine how you think or feel.
• Time—you determine how you spend time and who you spend it with.
• Priorities—you determine what is important in your life and how much time you give to these essentials.
• Passion—you identify what you love and what you were created to do.
• Potential—you determine where you commit yourself to grow.
3: Thinking Potential—Your Ability to Think Effectively
Become an Idea Digger
Becoming a better thinker means having the right mind-set. Two people can see the same things, go through the same experiences, have the same conversations, yet one walks away with a flurry of great thoughts and the other without a single new idea. To increase your thinking capacity, you need to become an idea digger. Always look for ideas and try to mine them.
“The difference between average thinkers and good thinkers is like the difference between ice cubes and icebergs. Ice cubes are small and short-lived. Icebergs are huge, and there is much more to them than meets the eye. Their potential is enormous.”
5: Creative Potential—Your Ability to See Options and Find Answers
WE BECOME MORE COMFORTABLE WITH OUR MISSES
If you throw a lot of ideas at the wall, some will stick and others won’t. And that’s good. You can’t succeed if you don’t try. And once you realize you’re no worse off for having tried and failed, it gives you confidence to keep trying.
Creative people fail, and the best fail often. They’re like children who try an idea before it’s formed, and if it doesn’t work, they move on to the next idea. And they keep moving on until they find one that works. If you want to be more creative, get used to missing the mark.
Responsibility Creates the Foundation for Your Success
The size of the opportunity determines the amount of responsibility required.
Opportunity is lost when responsibility is neglected.
Tomorrow’s opportunity is determined by yesterday’s responsibility
“The more responsibility people take, the more resilient they are likely to be. The less responsibility people take—for their actions, for their lives, for their happiness—the more likely it is that life will crush them. At the root of resilience is the willingness to take responsibility for results.”
The more you help other people, the more they usually want to help others. And that motivates you to help even more. That’s what I call the Abundance Paradox. The more you give, the more you have to give—and want to give.
Discipline Potential—Your Choice to Focus Now and Follow Through
Successful people are highly disciplined in doing their most important work. They are self-disciplined. They guide and encourage themselves to do the work they ought to do, not just the things they want to do. That’s what takes them from average to good, and from good to great. And that’s why the rewards in this world are usually reserved for those who are willing to do what the majority of people are unwilling to do.
Crowding Out Principle – Brian Tracy
If you spend all of your time on highly productive tasks, by the end of the day, you will have ‘crowded out’ all the unproductive activities that might have distracted you from your real work. On the other hand, if you spend your time on low value activities, those low value activities will crowd out the time that you need to complete the tasks that can make all the difference in your life. And the key to this attitude toward time and personal management is always self-discipline.
DON’T LOOK IN THE MIRROR
Take the focus off of yourself; you need to always keep in mind that life is not about you. You can’t worry about how you look to others. You can’t be afraid of looking bad.
DON’T COUNT LOSSES—INSTEAD, COUNT LESSONS
Instead of avoiding losses, learn from them. Ask, “What did I learn?” When you seek lessons more than you avoid losses, you become more comfortable with risk.
FOCUS LESS ON YOUR FEAR AND MORE ON YOUR DREAMS
When you focus on your dreams, your heart is 100 percent in.
All the best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.
In Be All You Can Be: A Challenge to Stretch Your God-Given Potential. Author John C. Maxwell shares strategies for stretching our God-given potential. The book contains lots of biblical references as a tool for teaching leadership principles.
In Habit Stacking: 127 Small Changes to Improve Your Health, Wealth, and Happiness, author S.J. Scott describes the concept of habit stacking and how small changes can lead to considerable improvements in every area of life.
