Developage.com

In a long-term survey of 660 people over age 50 in a small Ohio town, published in 2002, Dr. Levy and her fellow researchers found that those who had positive perceptions of aging lived an average of 7.5 years longer, a bigger increase than that associated with exercising or not smoking.The findings held up even when the researchers controlled for differences in the participants’ health conditions.In her forthcoming study, Dr. Levy found that older people exposed to negative images of aging, including words like “forgetful,” “feeble” and “shaky,” performed significantly worse on memory and balance tests; in previous experiments, they also showed higher levels of stress.

(…)

The researchers, who will publish their findings in The American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias, concluded that elderspeak sent a message that the patient was incompetent and “begins a negative downward spiral for older persons, who react with decreased self-esteem, depression, withdrawal and the assumption of dependent behaviors.”

Source

Interesting post on lifehacker:

Method 2: Split your page into quadrants

Another way to visually separate information types is to split your note-taking page into quadrants and record different kinds of information - like questions, reference and todo’s - into the separate areas on the page.

Rumor has it this is how Bill Gates - someone known for taking amazingly detailed meeting notes - gets it done.

That post about Bill Gates says this:

I had heard this before - Bill takes amazingly detailed notes during meetings. I image he has to, given all the information directed at him.

The other thing I noticed during the course of the meeting is how he takes his notes. He doesn’t take notes from top-to-bottom, but rather logically divides the page into quadrants, each reserved for a different thought. For example, it appeared that all his questions were placed at the bottom of the page.

From this Jerry Seinfeld interview:

Will Americans ever find happiness?

The thing about life that no one can believe is that what we’re doing is actually it. When you’re a kid, you look forward to it. You’re seriously concerned when you’re a kid that you might not be able to take the excitement of being an adult, of driving around and people calling on the phone and getting mail addressed directly to you. Now, it’s like: “You drive; tell ‘em I’m not here; and I can’t believe all this junk mail!”

The point is not that youth is wasted on the young, but that everything is wasted on everyone.

I look at kids and say, “Oh boy, it’s the greatest life form of all; the only problem is your bike chain failing.” That was the subject of Our Town — can you realize what life is while you’re living it, or do you have to be dead? We’ll be in heaven going, “If I just had the right robe, I think I’d be happy. I just feel this one is too big and I look ridiculous.”

Are you happy?

I’m happy because I know that this is happy. I believe that people are happy and don’t know it. People get this impression of happy from soft-drink commercials. You see these people in soft-drink commercials, they’re literally airborne. You’re thinking, “If that makes them feel that good, how can I feel good — I’m still just walking on the ground.” Spiking a volleyball, that’s happy. Getting a jet-ski six feet off the top of a wave….

Anecdote #1:

George Bush criticized Democrats for saying that they would focus on taxing the rich. That’s just not realistic, said the president who considers tax cuts one of his signature legacies: “Most people in America understand that the rich people hire good accountants and figure out how not to necessarily pay all the taxes and the middle class gets stuck.”

Anecdote #2:

Leona Helmsley once told a housekeeper at her Connecticut home that “only the little people pay taxes,” the housekeeper testified yesterday at Mrs. Helmsley’s tax-fraud and extortion trial.

Ms. Baum said she and Mrs. Helmsley were in a back hall of the $11 million home. “I said, ‘You must pay a lot of taxes,’” Ms. Baum said. “She said, ‘We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.‘”

Read the rest of this entry »

I stumbled upon this interesting article on the success story of Grey Goose Vodka.

I suggest you read the whole thing, but for now, let’s break it down and see what we can learn from it.

First, let’s put it into perspective:

one of the most astonishing brands in the history of distilled spirits. Grey Goose vodka, invented from thin air that summer morning, had as yet no distillery, no bottle, and—perhaps the most pressing order of business—no vodka.

Yet this past June, almost exactly eight years after Sidney Frank gave name to this nonexistent liquor, Grey Goose was sold to Bacardi for more than $2 billion. Cash.

(To understand how much that is, consider that IBM’s personal-computer business, nurtured, honed, and advertised since 1981, recently sold for $1.75 billion.)

Building a brand out of thin air and scaling it up does produce tons of money.

Read the rest of this entry »

Interesting article on the behind the scene story of the Bear Stearns crash.

I recommend you read the whole thing, but are are a few interesting quotes:

On March 10, 2008, Bear Stearns stock [was] $70 a share (…). On or before March 10, 2008, requests were made to the Options Exchanges to open a new April series of puts with exercise prices of 20 and 22.5 and a new March series with an exercise price of 25. The March series had only eight days left to expiration, meaning the stock would have to drop by an unlikely $45 a share in eight days for the put-buyers to score. It was a very risky bet, unless the traders knew something the market didn’t; and they evidently thought they did, because after the series opened on March 11, 2008, purchases were made of massive volumes of puts controlling millions of shares.

On or before March 13, 2008, another request was made (…) and massive amounts of puts were bought. (…) There is only one plausible explanation for “anyone in his right mind to buy puts with five days of life remaining with strike prices far below the market price”: the deal must have already been arranged by March 10 or before.

Read the rest of this entry »

Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, has admitted agreeing to pay billions of dollars for political favours and protection fees to get his hands on the former Soviet Union’s mineral wealth.

The puzzle of how the penniless street trader rose to amass an £11.4 billion fortune is explained for the first time in his own words in court papers seen by The Times.

Mr Abramovich paid older oligarchs so that he could obtain a big share of Russia’s oil and aluminium assets and to escape unscathed from the deadly post-communist carve-up.

He famously emerged triumphant after the “aluminium wars”, in which more than 100 people believed to have been killed in gangland feuds over control of the lucrative smelters. He avoided the fate of a rival oligarch who annoyed the Kremlin and ended up being transported to jail in Siberia for ten years. Read the rest of this entry »

From Madonna’s lawyer in her divorce case with Guy Ritchie:

“I like sticking up for people.  People generally choose the lawyers they deserve.”

Which strikes me as not only true (it’s a mindset thing), but also an absolutely fantastic way for the lawyer to market herself. She is basically saying, “I’m at a premium, but if you don’t feel like you deserve the best, you can always go with someone else”.

Since most people (and especially rich people) always want to treat themselves to the best, this attitude probably gets her more clients than she can handle - even though she is charging more, or rather, because she is.

The more equally attractive two alternatives seem, the harder it can be to choose between them - no matter that, to the same degree, the choice can only matter less.

- Edward Fredkin

From qualitynonsense.com, my new wallpaper:

http://www.qualitynonsense.com/downloads/gtd-wallpaper.jpg

I love it!

Good post on Tim Ferris’ blog, with quotes from his weekend listening to Warren Buffet:

“[If you don’t have time to monitor your invesments, then] put it all in a low-cost index fund like a Vanguard 500.” “Professionals take croupier profits out of the system. No one will give you this advice [index funds] because no one gets paid for it.” M: “The whole secret of successful investing [full-timers] is non-diversification. If you know nothing —> diversity.”

[But having said that], “there are situations, for the full-time investor, where it’d be a mistake not to invest 50% of your net worth in one business.” If more aggressive: small stocks and specialized bonds, but no currencies.

[In an MBA] there are only three courses you need: how to value a business, how to think about market fluctuations, and how to communicate well. There is a great desire of the priesthood [in this case, academics] to teach what they know vs. what you need. If you know the bible in four languages, your ego won’t allow you to teach the true essentials, which might be “follow the 10 commandments.”

Good management is part of the evaluation of intrinsic value. Chief characteristics: passion, excellent communication skills, and the tendency to always do more than fair share.

Just read an article in Le Monde about Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, a French entrepreneur. I’ve never heard of the guy before, but we can pick up a few “success elements” from his story.

• In 1996 , at 34 years old, after 10 years working for L’Oreal, he created The Phone House, a chain of mobile phones retailers
• He sold the company to a British group a couple of years later and made 30 to 40 millions Euros in personal income in the process

He had the 2 key components of a “get rich quick” plan:

1. Scalability - he opened shops everywhere back in the late 90s. Scalability of your business model is key to get really rich. A quick glance at the company history shows he grew it partly through massive acquisitions, which is classical of entrepreneurs on a “quick wealth creation” rampage.

December 96: First shop
October 97: acquisition of 22 shops
September 98: acquisition of 43 shops
Etc etc

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From this article on Obama:

Along the way, some unofficial rules have emerged between the candidate and his aide. From Mr. Obama: “One cardinal rule of the road is, we don’t watch CNN, the news or MSNBC. We don’t watch any talking heads or any politics. We watch ‘SportsCenter’ and argue about that.”

I find that many top performers consciously avoid listening to their critics. It keeps them in state. There is just too much negativity out there.

I used to read interviews of successful people (politicians, writers, actors, businessmen, etc) saying they never or rarely listened to critics, and I wouldn’t believe it.

I was always like “Yeah, right..Come on!”.

Now I do believe it, and I understand where they are coming from.

You see, actually producing stuff and putting it out there got me to realise how negative and bitchy the general public is - most people just don’t understand and/or have no consideration whatsoever for the hard work you put in. They will just pause for a second and blurt out the first negative thing they can think of, even if they know nothing of the subject matter. And they will go on and on, as more reasons to criticize pop up in their head.

The truth is that the very first, automatic natural reaction for 95% of the population is to look for the negatives.

Unbeknownst to them of course, that’s the primary reason why they miss so many opportunities they can’t even see, and the main reason why they are unlikely to ever really be successful.

I don’t blame them, mind you - I used to react negatively all the time, too. Working on my mindset and taking action has done wonders to change the way I react. These days, no matter how awful the effort, I try to give props to anyone who actually does anything, to anyone who puts himself out there.

And I’ve learned to ignore the critics.

You’ve just got to focus on doing your best. That’s the only thing you can control.

Random interesting bits from Joe Francis’ short auto-biography - available at meetjoefrancis.com. I recommend that you read the whole thing yourself.

On life:

I know any life is going to have its ups and downs. Only an idiot would buy a ticket to a roller coaster that didn’t have turns, climbs, loops and dives, and anyone who really wants his money’s worth is going to look for the highest, fastest ride he can find. For me, the same is true of life.

…

I can’t tell you why, but I have always loved work. I would always rather be working than not. I spent all day at school just staring at the clock, waiting until I could run to the bus stop and get back to my job. . I was thrilled to be making my own money. Not because I was anxious to buy anything, but because I wanted to eliminate any chance of ever being poor. I had watched my dad worry about money his whole life, and I was determined not to have my own life defined by constant financial insecurity. So I worked hard and saved.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read this from the FAQ at meetjoefrancis.com…No matter what niche, it’s always the same entrepreneurial mindset.

Q: What is something that most people would be surprised to know about you?
A: Judging from the kind of comments I get, I think the main misconception about me is that I somehow “got lucky” by stumbling upon a clever idea. The fact is, what I’ve been able to achieve – that is, building a multimillion-dollar company out of nothing, and creating what others have called a cultural phenomenon – had nothing to do with luck. More to the point, I would submit that there is no such thing as luck. We all create our own luck. The comment that drives me nuts is when people walk up and say to me, “All you do is film naked girls and make all this money,” usually followed by “I wish I’d thought of that idea.” To me, that’s like going up to Tiger Woods and saying, “All you do is hit a ball into a hole and you make all this money.” I should have taken golf lessons!

The point is, people don’t see the years and years of hard work that leads up to that kind of success. It’s common for people to look at a modern painting, for example, and say, “I could have done that; why is that worth $20 million?” My answer would be, “If you could have really done that, you would have!” “That” may mean painting the actual painting or “that” could mean you successfully marketed yourself as an artist whose paintings are worth millions.

I didn’t invent naked girls. I didn’t create the idea that men like to look at women’s breasts. In fact, it kind of bothers me when people call “Girls Gone Wild” an “idea.” Because it’s not the idea that became such a successful business, it’s the execution of that idea. And that takes sacrifice, risk and a lot of business acumen. So I think the thing that would surprise most people is how hard I’ve worked, and continue to work. I love to work.

And, by the way, it’s never been about the money. If you are just out to make money, most likely you never will. Money is only the scorecard. My passion is being creative, productive and successful.

This quote by Roman Abramovitch, Russian maverick and one the richest men on earth:

“Do you know the difference between a rat and a guinea pig? There is none. It’s just the difference between good and bad PR.”

In 2006 and 2006, Deutsche Telekom was spying on its own board members, top level employees, and journalists, logging and possibly listening in on their conversations. This was just revealed by Der Spiegel.

Only the paranoid survive.

Read this sentence from Pierre Beregovoy, France’s former Prime Minister:

Nothing is that complicated than it can’t be summed up in one page.

Which rings very true to me. People often overcomplicate things, often in an attempt to keep you away from their business and keep all the good stuff for themselves. The truth is though, that nothing is quite as hard as it seems. Don’t let jargon and “experts” scare you away.

Behind The Scenes is a new series of blog posts where I’ll put the spotlight on things that are happening in the shadows; things that not many people are aware of, or want to be aware of.

Most people I know (including myself) are way too naive and innocent, and this my attempt at remembering what’s really going on out there.

And today’s random fact comes from this NYT article on professional background checks:

There is plenty of wrongdoing out there. Employee theft alone exceeds $400 billion annually, according to Automatic Data Processing, the nation’s largest provider of payroll services.

400 billions a year - in the US alone. I don’t know about you, but had I been asked, I wouldn’t have guessed anywhere near that number.

Few face greater risks than start-ups. Mr. Springer cited a technology company that grew from 50 to 500 employees in nine months and recruited a seasoned project manager to handle its physical expansion. The manager hired an acquaintance as his sole contractor and in collusion with him signed off on fraudulent invoices. The company managed to get back $1 million of the $3 million they stole.

In another case:

Once hired, the executive began his scheme almost immediately, buying a large number of computers, returning most of them and depositing the refund checks in an account that he had opened with the same name as the company’s except that it had L.L.C. at the end instead of Inc.

(That guy smuggled 3 millions USD and vanished)

Also:

“Nearly 1,000 workers are murdered and 1.5 million are assaulted in the workplace each year.”

One hour a day…equals nine 40-hour weeks over the course of a year.

Do the math.