Rich Snail

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The Art of Story Telling is ancestral. I believe this art was born the same minute our ancestors started using language to share ideas, thoughts, and stories. Great stories succeed because they are able to capture the imagination.

Story telling is also an essential component of successful businesses. Many thrive thanks to great story telling.

For those who like to be inspired, I highly recommend reading a great interview from PingMag (Highly recommended read BTW).They went to interview Yoshihara Shinohara, a Furin Craft Master - to discover what Furin is about, go check the interview…

My most memorable extract:

But, wasn’t it difficult with the cultural differences and everything?

Well that’s the tricky thing, isn’t it. In Japan, people have emotional associations with wind chimes and they are a part of the culture. But if you go over to America it’s, “What’s all that racket?!” (laughs) So I thought about it. Yeah, just like in Japan, in America the ghosts come out at night. And my furin come in five colors; red, green, yellow, blue, and white. I could put a meaning to each color. Red is for the sun, so if you have this you can keep the ghosts away. Blue is for the sea and the sky, two things that people all over the world can’t live without. Then green, that’s the color of plants and trees. Thanks to that green, we can have clean air. So green is for health, you won’t get sick if you have this. Next, yellow. In Japan in the autumn, the fields go golden yellow with the rice crop. This rice represents money. So if you have a yellow furin, you won’t have any worries about money. And lastly, white. Pure white, like a wedding dress. In other words, you’ll have good luck with this one. Once I did that, it was off to the races. No one said they were a noisy racket anymore after that. They flew off the shelves. That’s how you sell things.

Inspiring isn’t it?

I just finished reading The Brand Called You written in 1997 by Tom Peters, and I have to say: I am blown away ! This article is piece of art which contains so many nuggets of wisdom I don’t know where to begin !

I actually read it 3 times. The first was a discovery. The second was to extract more honey out of it. The third was to decide which were the parts inspired me the most so that I can quote them hereunder.

I highly, highly advise you to go and read this gem and save it, bookmark it, delicious it, share it… The 3 quotes hereunder are teasers. They are great nuggets of wisdom taken individually. But the full article hold so much more !

Everything you do and are defines your brand

When you’re promoting brand You, everything you do — and everything you choose not to do — communicates the value and character of the brand. Everything from the way you handle phone conversations to the email messages you send to the way you conduct business in a meeting is part of the larger message you’re sending about your brand.

Loyalty is key - at least if you understand its re-definition

Today loyalty is the only thing that matters. But it isn’t blind loyalty to the company. It’s loyalty to your colleagues, loyalty to your team, loyalty to your project, loyalty to your customers, and loyalty to yourself. I see it as a much deeper sense of loyalty than mindless loyalty to the Company Z logo.

4 points to check to be successful

No matter what you’re doing today, there are four things you’ve got to measure yourself against. First, you’ve got to be a great teammate and a supportive colleague. Second, you’ve got to be an exceptional expert at something that has real value. Third, you’ve got to be a broad-gauged visionary — a leader, a teacher, a farsighted “imagineer.” Fourth, you’ve got to be a businessperson — you’ve got to be obsessed with pragmatic outcomes.

I started this blog with the idea to “help individuals with their personal finance, and of course learn many new things along the way”. I waited quite while before writting my first line because of “too much thinking, hesitating and procrastinating”. Reading back on these lines I realize that I set myself obstacles from the start !

I am now back to the starting line in terms of what do I want to do with this blog. I tried for a few months to get it going on the subject of personal finance, with a twist towards expatriates; but I have difficulties getting in front of the keyboard as often as I intended to - and feel guilty because of it. At times I simply don’t know what to write, at others I want to write about many many things, but which are not what this blog was created for.

I think I started with too high and focused objectives. I think I simply need to start my blog. Not one about personal finance, or SEO, or the latest digital wonders. A blog where I can come and write a few things when I want to, without setting myself obligations, where I would not hesitate one second to post 3 succeeding posts from the economist (yes, I’m still a fanboy!). A blog without a precise focus, where I can write everything that goes through my mind - if I feel like writing !

I am not sure this URL is the right one for such a blog. I may switch to a new domain name along the way; but for now, I’ll stick with it and see how things evolve.

I promise myself I’ll not think too much and simply get writing.

Sounds like a great idea right now !

Busy weeks are following busy weeks lately. I just finished catching up with some of the reading I saved over the past few weeks & came across this “acorn” of wisdom on bull & bear markets. It is an extract from Howard Marks’ most recent memo to his Oaktree investors on March 18, 2008.

Fortunately, one of the most valuable lessons of my career came in the early 1970s, when I learned about the three stages of a bull market:

1. When a few forward-looking people begin to believe things will get better,
2. When most investors realize improvement is actually underway, and
3. When everyone’s sure things will get better forever.

To aid in your consideration of the future, I’ve formulated the converse of the above, the three stages of a bear market:

1. When just a few prudent investors recognize that, despite the prevailing bullishness, things won’t always be rosy
2. When most investors recognize things are deteriorating
3. When everyone’s convinced things can only get worse

We surely are not in a bull market right now. If I were to guess where we are, I would say in the second phase of a bearish market. Which in my view is good - time to start searching for cheap but fundamentally sound markets !

With oil prices hitting new high every day, many Americans are starting to re-consider their SUV, Hummers, and other oil-thirsty cars. Some Indians find another way to solve this problem. The Financial Times has a very interesting article on how the current rising food and energy prices give a second life to traditional transportation “vehicles”.

“It’s excellent for the camel population if the price of oil continues to go up because demand for camels will also go up,” says Ilse Köhler-Rollefson of the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development. “Two years ago, a camel cost little more than a goat, which is nothing. The price has since trebled.”…

Market prices for these “ships of the desert”, which crashed with the growing affordability of motorised transport, are rising again as oil prices soar. A sturdy male with a life expectancy of 60-80 years now fetches up to Rs40,000 ($973), compared to Rs5,000-Rs10,000 three years ago, according to Hanuwant Singh of the Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan, a non-profit welfare organisation for livestock keepers. Entry-level tractors cost around $4,000.

“It’s very good news,” says Mr Singh, whose organisation aims to dispel the image of backwardness associated with camel ownership and tries to promote higher economic returns for breeders. “We had started to see camels, even female ones, being slaughtered for their meat. Now they are replacing the tractor again.”

Funny how things turn out for our spitting friends. Instead of being eaten because of rising food prices, they are now seen as a viable alternative to tractors - despite rising food prices.

Pfiou - what a mess ! We just spend an hour yesterday tracking our expenses for the current month. We enjoyed some EPF withdrawal which directly lowered our mortgage principal - it is great, but we did not anticipate the additional work we would have to track it! It kind of messed up all of our calculation. It took us 30mn to get a hand on things. We ended up revamping our excel file - the new one is way better! - and sipping a few beers to help our thinking.

What is important here is that we now are back on tarck. We know how much we spent last month, and can better prepare ourselves. Tracking ones expenses can be difficult; especially when you start doing it. What you need is a few easy tricks and some dedication. You’ll find hereunder a few I found useful:

• Keep all your receipts
• Take a piece of paper and write the figure down when you forget or lost the receipt
• Update your tracking file every 2 days – it only take 5 minutes
• Keep your excel file with you all the time - a USB key is the idea companion
• Print your budget and stick it somewhere visible (fridge, mirror, TV…)
• Do it with your spouse / fiancée / GF / BF – doing it together will help you stay on track

Got any other? Please share