My training yesterday and today

Yesterday I was back at the gym after two weeks of. One week to recover from my sickness. And the second week as of inertia of laziness.

Oh boy it was hard yesterday. I was not able to come close to the level of cardio I used to be two weeks earlier. I read an article a few weeks ago. I talked about a guy in his 40s that had the cardio level of a 20 years old and he participated to over 30 marathons that year.

That's may be true that someone in his 40s can develop the cardio and stamina of someone in his 20s. But my guess is that you acquire it slower than the 20 year old and the effects fade much faster. I can tell! After only two weeks off I'm but the shadow of what I was.

But anyway the important part is that I started back (which in itself is an accomplishment). And here are the stats.

Yesterday: cardio training. 20 minutes.

5 minutes at 3.5 MPH with inclination of 12 degrees.

5 minutes at 6.0 MPH

5 minutes at 3.5 MPH with inclination of 12 degrees.

5 minutes at 6.0 MPH

60 minutes cool down.

Calories burned: 272

I didn't record the other stats.

Training today: cardio 30 minutes

5 minutes at 3.5 MPH with inclination of 12 degrees.

5 minutes at 6.0 MPH

1 minute at 6.3 MPH

1 minute at 6.5 MPH

1 minute at 6.7 MPH

1 minute at 7.0 MPH

5 minutes at 3.5 MPH with inclination of 12 degrees.

5 minutes at 6.0 MPH

2 minutes at 3.5 MPH with inclination of 12 degrees.

1 minute at 6.o MPH

2 minutes at 3.5 MPH with inclination of 12 degrees.

1 minute at 6.0 MPH

60 secs cool down: 30 seconds at 5.0 MPH; 20 seconds at 3.4 MPH

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How to get good at making money

Very good article. Sound advices from someone who has been there.

Act small to grow big

Unemployment rises in nearly all metro area

And you want to get out of school and find a, so called "good job"? Think again! Create you dream job instead. Watch the next link.

Can't find a dream job? Create your own.

Needless to comment on this one.

The laws of success - Napoleon Hill

The audio book transfered to youtube. Worth listening to.

Case Study - Stephane

Here is a good example, with Stephane, for both my philosophy on money and on relationship.

I met Stephane a few years ago in my MBA courses. Stephane is an intelligent, soft spoken blond and handsome professional. He is a insurance representative. But he doesn't need any more customers. He's been able to develop is customer base in the last 15 years and now he can do two thinks he told me: first he can live on the recurring revenues generated by his customer base. And second, this revenue is enough so he can, if he wishes, work for six months and take the other six months off.

Last time I met Stephane after the MBA, he told me he was taking flying lessons. And that he was looking into a big land to buy up north with his brother. So he could devote to his passion: fly his plane to his lands filled with forests and lakes, and hunt with his brother.

Now this is my representation of wealth. Stephane is not rich or millionaire by any standards. But he is debt free, has good money in the bank, earn a good living and his revenue stream is steady and require minimum attention from himself. So he can devote to his passion instead of being in a cubicle for 8 hours per day.

The last time I met Stephane he told me that it was over with his girlfriend which brings me to the second part: my relationship philosophy.

I met his girlfriend once. It is a very beautiful brown hair woman. Attractive, long hairs and intelligent. Funny and articulated. But it didn't work. These things happen. Stephane bought a house a few years ago. And when he met his girlfriend, she wanted them to move together. Stephane refused to sell his house and proposed to his girlfriend to leave her apartment and move with him. So she sold most of her furniture and moved with him.

When Stephane told me that he left his girlfriend, he also told me that he was living in his brother's basement. He told me: "I left her two weeks to turn around, buy some furnitures and find a new apartment. In the mean time I left her the house and I live in my brother's basement for the next two weeks."

So there is my relationship philosophy as a living fact: Stephane never let go of his house nor most of his furnitures. Now that it's over with his girlfriend, she needed to move out. For Stephane, this is to a minimal cost (not to say no cost at all) for he doesn't have to sell a house, look for another house, hire a real estate agent, buy furnitures and all that stuff. He keep his things to himself. But he was gentleman enough to leave her full use of the house for two weeks as a base to make her moves.

Stephane is a living example of my way of life.

Strategic relationship - Break up strategy

Ok for this post lets leave love on the shelf for a while.

In America, a little over 50% of married couples end up in a divorce. I don't have any statistics for unmarried couples. But I would suspect that the rate of broken relationship is higher. This because, I believe that it's a little easier to break up when you're not married. You don't have the legal part to deal with. And what to say about unmarried couples without children? It's even easier.

So lets make the assumption that the overall blend break up rate is around 60%. So you have more chances to break up than living happy ever after when you start a relationship.

And yet what do people do? They move together. They put their assets together. They even go as far as getting rid of one of the two cars in order to save on the expenses. They put their money together, they buy a house together. And all that is good. As long as the premise holds: that you'll continue to live together.

Then, comes the break up. That is when you found that you're cooked. You don't have your own asset anymore. You have to sell the house because you cannot both live in it. You have to buy yourself a car, furnitures and pay for all the expenses for moving and such. Do anyone prepare for that? Of course not. Because we want our relationship to hold. We want, we believe that this one is the good one, and that we will live together for the remaining of our lives. Well think again...

If I would say to you that we are going to move all your assets by plane. But there is one thing, the plane has 60% chances of falling. Would you put all your stuff in the plane? Anyone with the slightest common sense would say no. But yet that is just what most people do when they are moving together. "Oh but us it's different. We love each other" Well good for you and I sincerely wish that it holds for the remaining of your existence. But what if it doesn't?

If one wants to live his or her life strategically, one must plan for the future and make sure that there is a safe nest somewhere that one is the only one that can tap into.

How large should be the safe nest? Well that depends on what kind of life standard you want after the relationship. If you live in a house and use the family car every day. Make sure that you have enough on the side for a down payment on a house somewhere else, enough also to buy a car and furnitures. I've calculated that to make a move with the lowest monetary impact would take between 30 000$ and 50 000$.

Too much? Well then readjust your standard of life for the after relationship. You can very well decide that you want to live in an apartment for a few years in order to assess where you want to go and also to buy your furnitures little by little, that that is another valid strategy. And it takes less money.

So one needs to sit down with a sheet of paper an pen and assess what is one's needs in the case of a breakup. And then, plan for it: open a bank account, start saving money, some even buy small peaces of furnitures that they store (I've been told).

And while it is preferable to work on the success of the relationship, we need not to play ostrich and put our head in the sand. Think about it coldly and plan for it. If it doesn't happen then very well you'll have a safe nest for when something goes bad. But if it does happen. Then you'll be ready.

Why have one when you can work on both

With all the turmoil that Egypt has been through in the last months there is one thing that stroke me after the fact. All in all it all went smoothly. Compare with what is happening right now in Libya and you will convene that the Egyptian revolution went relatively peacefully.

I wondered why. And I realized that its the army that took the street to protect the people. They separated the pro Mubarak and those who were against him. The army did not take sides. So once again I asked myself why? And I god my answer when I read this article in the Economist.

In this article you understand that the USA did not only have access to the head of the regime. They also had access to its military heads. Now what a clever strategy! I didn't thought of that!

First you tell the regime that, if you keep peace with Israel, the regime will get $1 billions per year as long as the treaty is kept.

Second you tell the regime that this $1 billion will be well spent in modernizing the regime military that was equipped with obsolete soviet equipment. Then you present to the regime a galaxy of US representatives from military company that can "help" the regime modernize. So the billion dollar per year comes back to the USA and makes the US citizens work. And the regime gets modernized. Everybody remains happy ever after.

End of the story? No!

You know that despot regime are unstable and can be overcome. So having strings with the regime is not enough. You need to make sure that your hand will remain firm on the country even if the regime get replaced. So what do you do?

Third, you invite the regime head military into USA to get "trained" and get some useful formations. But while they're there, you develop strings with them. Military for military the US general can develop close strings with the regime's general. And the subordinates can do the same thing.

So when turmoils hit, the general from the regime calls his US "mentor" for advices. And what happens is that without any political intervention from the US president (that could upset the anti american Muslims in the area) you have a friendly army that takes the country over and, as an added bonus, remain a US friend.

Now how about that for a strategy?! Clever.

Links of the week - Glimpse of intelligence

Higher intelligence, use of your rational, awareness and acute reading of the reality surrounding us is a sure strategy to get an edge over your surrounding people, competitors or plain and overt opponents. Here is my links of the week dedicated to intelligence and genius.

How great entrepreneurs thinks

Get a sense of how great entrepreneur thinks and try to emulate.

Child Genius

This one is just a very good representation of my definition of "thinking outside the box".

200+ IQ Smartest people ever

The world top 8 smartest people

Now I don't say that in order to make it you absolutely have to be the most intelligent person in the room. But fully using the cards that has been dealt to you certainly will help. Go study them. Their way of thinking and how they process data. Grow and learn. You're realize a difference in just a few weeks, I can tell.

Signs that you might be in trouble

A few years ago I read an excellent book called Intellectual Capital. This book was worth reading.

There is a part in it that I never forgot on signs that you might be in trouble at work. Here it is for your considerations:

The old trapping of success - a leather chair, your own secretary - are gone. So are the old signs of trouble. Says Richard Moran, a leader of the change-management practice for Price Waterhouse consulting: "The rule used to be incremental promotion every year or two. If you miss one - hmm - that was warning. You don't get the little clicks now." Warnings are subtler - many audible only to you, not your boss or colleagues. If several of these click, wake up:

• Are you learning? If you can't say that you have learned in the past six months, nor what you expect to learn in the next, beware. Says Havard Business School professor John Kotter: "When there's nothing you can learn where you are, you've got to move on, even if they give you promotions." If your job has become easy, someone else will do it for less.

Well on that part I should be very worry. Not only I do learn nothing, but I teach others to do my job. I'm way over paid for the work level I occupy, my job is so easy that I'm bored to death and others get promoted while I'm the one with the more qualifications.

• If your job were open, would you get it? Benchmark your skills regularly. Look at want-ads for jobs in your field. If they ask for skills you don't have - with phrases such as familiarity with Lotus Notes a plus" - get on the stick.

I would probably not get it. Not at the price they pay me right now. I am highly paid for being a mere glorified personal assistant. Others could do... close to the same work I do but for much less money. As per skills, I am over skilled for what I do.

• Are you being milked? When you sacrifice your long-term growth for short term benefits, especially your employer's, you are living on intellectual capital. A salesman who wants to learn marketing but keeps hearing, "You're so good we need you here" or a finance guy who is asked to keep the old system running while others learn the new software - these are people in whom the company has stopped investing.

Well at the point I am I'm not only milked, I've turned cream and even borderline cheese. I'm so good at what I do that I know that if I leave they will be going back 6 months to 1 year in progress. That is why they want to keep me there and that is why they tolerate to pay me so much for so little. I have the benefits of the superstar effect. But this wouldn't last. The day they will hire some young hound with my computer skill for half my salary, I'm doomed.

• Do you know what you contribute? If you can't give anyone a two minutes summary of what you do and why it matters, your boss probably can't either.

Some times people ask me "what do you do for work" and half honest and half laughing I answer:" I don't know really". I told you I am a glorified personal assistant. If my boss asks me to take the blue file on the left and put it on the right, I do it. The next day if he asks me to take the blue file on the right and put it on the left, I execute the order, period. The only advantage I bring is automation of his admin work with my computer skills.

• What would you do if you job disappeared tomorrow? If you can't answer that question, you haven't thought about what marketable skills you have. More and more, you have to sell yourself inside the company.

On that part I do think a lot of what I would do if my job would disappear tomorrow. In fact it is one of the prime thought I have everyday on which I work on. It's also one of my prime strategy that I explained at the very beginning of this blog: being totally financially independent. So if my work would disappear into thin air tomorrow, I would simply laugh at their face, for I won't need them to live my life and sustain my level of life.

• Are you having fun yet? Sure they call it "work", but you'll be less eager for new challenges if your heart's not in it.

Having fun? I'm bored to death and the only time I feel alive is when I work on my business projects.

• Are you worried about your job? Says Moran:"If you are, you probably should be."

I am not worried for my job. And I probably should. But I sleep like a baby at night and I won't die from stress any time soon. In fact I couldn't care less about my work or my so called career.

And you will understand why. Reading this post must have puzzled most of you. But I hope I will make it all clear when you read my next post: Kill your career.