Exam finished!

The exam is finished!

Woohoo!

Free at last.  Now I can devote my time to what ever I want.  To be porductive... like... NOW!

I feel like there is 200 pounds less on my shoulders.

It is time now to take actions.  Practical and immediate actions.

Actions dictates priorities. So stop planning, stop making congections and assessments.  Just do it.

(By the way my best estimation following the exam is that I miss the pass mark by 10 points.  I'll know for sure in 10 days).

Welcome! To the Hunger Games

Can you imagine that?

You arrive coming from a hole in the ground.  Once the count down is made.  The game is on.

GO!

Anything goes.  There is no rules.  You have to survive and do what ever it takes to remain alive. This is how the Hunger Games are played.  Isn't it?  According to the book and the movie.

What a harsh game isn't it?  Well my friend.  Doesn't remind you of another game?  A game that is pretty much the same as the Hunger Games... no clue?

Let me refresh your memory.

You come out from your mother.  And as soon as you take your first breath.  The game is on.  And the game goes on until you expel your last breath.  That my friend is the true Hunger Games.  For if you don't do anything.  If you lie flat on your back.  You will suffer hunger.  And you will die.

Of course we gave ourselves some rules.  And we cannot kill each other like savages on the street.  Thank god.  But we prevailed for our instinct to manifest itself.  Its called the corporate world.  In the corporate world you cannot be killed of course.  But you can be fired on a dime.  War can be made among corporations with little to no care on the casualties on the part of the workers. You can be beaten morally (if the law prevents it physically).  People will pass over your head, spit on you, plant a dagger in your back, for the slightest hope of the corner office.

And you have to play the game.  Or suffer the consequences.

So you have to become a warrior.  In the Hunger Games they call it going career ( what a coincidence).

So wake up. Wipe your nose and start to get clever.  Develop your skills just what ever that is: good at politics, have college degrees, tons of experience, etc...

Develop your warrior skills on a larger scale than just the office.  If there were a war tomorrow, a civil war like in Syria.  Would you survive?  Or would you be among the first to die?

Either you want it or not we are all in the great Hunger Games called life.  You have to make the most of it with the cards that has been dealt to you at birth.

Think about it.

slaughterhouse

Summary of my study project.

Not good.

Tomorrow I am going to the slautherhouse.

Too much matter to study in too much little time.

Too much free time at the same time so very easy to drift away.  Especially when the subject studied is so boring.

I know that this is a 90 questions pick and choose the good answer question.  The passing grade is 60%.

So I need 54 good answers.  I will have to focus on that.  Generating 54 good answers.  The idea is to pass on each question and answer.  In the margin there will be eather :); ? or :(

:) means I know the answer is good.

? means I don't have a clue.  I will have to make up the most likely answer.  I have % chances of success on each of these question.  Or 12.5% if there is five choices per question.

This is not much.  The statistics are against me.  I can upgrade the odds in my favor by working out the answer as close as what ever choice of answer they provide me.  But then I will deal against the clock.

Well see...

One thing for sure that it made me realize is that the subject of study is of no interest to me.  I was not able to boost myself into genuine study this last week.  Even if the subject of money, making money and acquiring money is dear to me.  The format then provided it sucks.  And I find no joy in that.

Case study: Nadine

One good example of what I just explained in my previous post is the case of Nadine.

Nadine is a girl I know.  She's a nurse.

Now not only does she works in a field that is highly on demand with a continuous aging population, but she also managed to take a specialized course in feet care.

Now don't ask me what feet care is like.  I don't have a clue.  All I know is that this is a niche within the health industry and she sensed a demande in feet care.  She took the courses thhat cost her several thousands of dollars.  But it paid off.

She have a full calendar of appointments.  And she is making tons of money working for herself when she is not scheduled at the hospital.

She has other means of income than the hospital she works for.  And this is exactly the embodiment of what I mean
 when I say that one must not depend solely on one source of income.

Nadine is a single mom.  And I am sure that, as any single mom, she struggled at times to raise her child.  But Nadine has a house and a car and everything that goes with it.  She was able to maintain her standard of living by being wise and understand that nothing will come to her, not even a steady pay check from the hospital.

She took the bull by the horns and he won!

Way to go Nadine! 

My learning experience update

This has been a week now that I study.  I am something like 60% thru the topics.  This not going well.

I am questionning my entire strategy here.  Some times you have to make a step back and assess what is the objective again and see if the strategy undertaken is still the good one.

For my part... I'm not sure.

The objective I pursue is protection.  Get yself an insurance policy against a employment market that can get rid of me at any times.  Because lets face it.  We are all expendable in the corporate world.  Today you're a hero, next thing you know there is a change of manager and this one hates your guts and next you're a zero.  This is the way it is way you don't hold the final decision about your means of income.

So the idea is to give the employee a very good job  A professional one and provide genuine solutions to its problems.  Be part of the solution, not the problem.  But at the same time, work into developing an alternate source of income.  Be not dependable on a sole source of revenues.  This is stupid strategy.  Diversify.

So the course I undertake was to open a door to advancement in my corporation.  A new field of jobs that is denied to me right now because I don't have the papers they require.

But what is the big Why?  Why do I do this?  Is this for the job itself?  Or is it for the insurance policy that I will be able to change job fast if ever something happens to me?  And the answer is the lather.

So am I engaged into the right track?  At the shortest I will get this certification in 1.5 years or 2 years.  This is to say that my insurance policy would be activated in two years from now.  So what happens next week?  And the week after that?  What happens from now until two years?

I am exposed.

And this is not good strategy.

I made a mistake.  I put all my eggs into the same basket which would provides its fruits only in two years.

There is other ways to get my insurance policy in place.

Getting a second job part time
Reimbursing all my debts on a fast track pace
Getting a cushion.  A emergency fund
Talking to people.  Networking.  Getting myself known so if there is a problem, opportunities would be at my grasp.

That is the conclusion I came to yesterday.  I took the entire day of yesterday.  And I am very proud I did.  It opened my eyes.

So now I am not going to trow this course out the window.  I will continue on studying.  But the outcome of the exam will be of no major relevance to me.

If I pass, I will pursue at a slower pace and develop some of the solutions I came up with above.

If I fail.  Then I will abandon that idea and pursue more than one, if not all, of the above solutions I came up with at a faster pace.

We'll see.

Update on my studies

Its day three of my study experiment.

Monday I packed 10 hours study. More than planned.  Yesterday I packed 8 hours.  And today, I should pack something like 9 hours study.

The stuff is more dense than I expected.  Not that its complicated.  Its just dense... a lot of stuff.  And a lot of details.

I am nit sure this is the way to go.  Packing 7 days straight of studies back to back, scraping a week vacation in the process.  Its so sunny and hot outside.  I will never the less have a few laps in the pool later.

I am committed to go on this experiment.  We'll see at the end.

The bet I took

I took a bet with myself a few months ago.  I have this finance certificate that I wan to do.  I know that this will open doors for me on new jobs opportunity (in the mean time that my own business kicks off).

Because you see.  This certificate will provide me with a joker in my cards.  This will open doors on jobs I didn't have access before in my own firm.  And this also represent a wonderful employment insurance policy for I know that, having that certificate, I will be able to find a job in any financial company there is.

The problem is... I have absolutely no time to study.

But I have to do this course if I don't want to stand still.

This is a distance course.  So I can study on my own pace.  There is ten courses to take and as per the education center, it takes from three to six months each courses on average.  Now I don't want to take three to five years to complete the curriculum.  It would deceive my purpose of moving as fast as I can.

So here is the bet I took.  As per the education center, this course should take at least 45 hours study.  I took one week vacation.  My exam is scheduled for August 27 at 1h00 PM. This means that there is seven days remaining.  I made absolutely  no study so far except reading and high lighting the books.  If I put five yours a day study on this, I should pile up 35 hours study.  I will get short as per their proposed requirement.  But I am a fast learner and I count on it.

That is the bet I took: piling up study hours and trash the exam in one week.  If I succeed, I will do the same with all the other courses.  So I should be able to do something like one course each two months or so.  May be less (two weeks reading and highlighting, one week study then exam = course done in 3 weeks). I should finish the curriculum in one year and a half (may be less) instead of the three years minimum they suggest.  (This is still long by my standard for I would like to have the certificate like... yesterday.  But never the less, its better than five years).

That is a challenge I know.  But I'm in it now and there is no turning back (I already paid for the course).

I will report my advances and findings here.

The list

Do you have a list?  If you don`t then you should make it a priority to make one for yourself.

But what is the list?

Its all sort of dreams, realization that you would like to achieve for yourself.  Now there is one thing that is of prime importance when making the list!  It must be a list of EVERYTHING you would like to realize.  What to walk on the moon? Write it down.  Nothing is too stupid.  The first thing is to have a liste.  What we don with it we`ll see later.

Think it cannot be done?  Think again.  As an inspiration I strongly recommend you go visit John Goddard list on his web site.  It will open your eyes.

Here is my list in no particular order:

1. Make a world round trip
2. Make a world round trip by sailboat
3. Become a government deputy for at least one mandate
4. Have the body of a Greek god
5. Become a mPUA
6. Develop the FoS project (to be explained)
7. Learn bass guitar
8. Learn to sing
9. Become black belt in a martial art10. Practice Olympic shooting
11. Learn to program
12. Learn to speak 5 languages
13. Start my own micro-enterprise
14. Make 1 000 000$ aka. become financially independent
15. Do a PhD
16. Take part in a Triathlon17. Make a round America trip in a Winnebago
18. Go into space
19. Learn to fly a plane
20. Be a teacher for at least one semester
21. Own a personal library of 10 000 books
22. Own an office/laboratory
23. Be a wine connoisseur
24. Become good in mathematics
25. Publish a book
26. Participate to the Olympics
27. Become a very good cook
28. Take part to the Paris-Dakar race
29. Do parachute jumping at least once
30. Go kayaking
31. Get into the Arms forces reserve
32. Climb the Kilimanjaro
33. Climb mount Olympus
34. Climb mount Sinai35. Learn to dance Salsa
36. Run 10 km easily
37. Take part to the Sun Dance Festival
38. Get a custom motorcycle
39. Get a Cadillac
40. Meet the president of United-States at least once.
41. Participate to La Tomatina in Spain
42. Do scuba diving once more
43. Go to Antarctica
44. Do Planeur
45. Become an international specialist in something
46. Win the Peace Nobel Price47. Learn Karv Maga
48. Repay all my debts
49. Found and name a star
50. Become good at chess
51. Learn Hypnosis
52. Become a member of the Mensa
53. Stop completely to bite my nails
54. Make a consistent revenue on the side of my main source of revenue
55. Make the CFA certification
56. Pass a day in a nudist camp
57. Win the Solaris price
58. Host a seminar
59. Write a book
60. Take part to the desert race61. Do some Delta Plane
62. Do at least one show with a band
63. Make my own garden
64. Visit Nunavut
65. Meet the Queen (or the King) at least once
66. Become good at poker - Texas Hold'em
67. Become one of the richest man in my state
68. Break a Guinness record - One with the largest personal library in the world.
69. Patent some invention

70. Run the China Wall run

71. Climb Machu Picchu

72. Go to Burning Man

73. Participate to the SunDance festival
74. Make relatively close friends all around the world (want to be mine?  Click here)