A Formula for Success


A formula for success and happiness, in both business and life:

Keep your own expectations tempered, but always try to exceed the expectations of others.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Conservation or Economics?

There seem to be more and more calls to conserve and "save the environment" these days. Now, I'm all for efficiency. I hate to see unnecessary waste, and I love nature. I pick up my trash . I own the most fuel efficient car in its class. I do what I can to keep things nice. The environmentalists have one thing right. We can't continue to consume resources at our current rate. Something needs to be done, but I don't understand the current approach of advertising and trying to "shame" people into conservation. Appealing to morality works in some cases, but it has absolutely no effect on the worst abusers -- corporations. The only reasonable way to affect this behavior is to adjust costs or make laws. So instead of subsidizing cheap, dirty energy , money needs to be forcibly redirected and invested in new research and technology . "But we can't do that! The economy will crumble, and people will lose jobs!" Fine, keep relying on cheap,...
Read more

Decision: Car or Education?

Image
In 2005, I had a big decision to make. I had saved up a decent amount of money with my consulting business, and my current car was just about out of warranty. So should I spend my savings on a  new BMW , or going back to school ? Now, in theory, the "smart" choice was obvious. Pros for Car: Fun! Flashy! Cons for Car: Expensive. High depreciation. Pros for Education: Knowledge = Power! Cons for Education: Hard work. So I went ahead and took a year off doing a full-time MBA program at Wilfrid Laurier . It's nearly five years later.   Did I make the right decision? From a financial standpoint, it's not entirely clear.  Let's say, to make it simple, my savings were $100 . Ignoring inflation, the car would have been worth about $40 today, whereas the education money is completely gone = $0 . Also, had I bought the car, I would have earned my regular income that year (let's say $100 again) instead of the reduced amount while taking full-ti...
Read more

Why do people vote Conservative / Republican?

Image
Add another one to my "things that confuse me" list... Why do average, ordinary people vote for Conservative / Republican / (insert your right-wing party here) politicians? I can see voting for them IF: Your household income is more than $500,000/year You are a majority shareholder in a corporation that employs more than 500 people You are a senior management in a major corporation You have the majority of your net worth invested in energy and "defense" stocks But honestly, unless one or more of the above applies to you, it just doesn't make sense. For the average Joe, voting for Conservative politicians is basically the equivalent to shooting yourself in the foot -- over and over again. Their modis operandi is to systematically underfund and dismantle public institutions, and replace them with private corporations they can profit from. The result is an ever increasing divide between rich and poor, creating a cheap labor force at the bottom (more ...
Read more