Why We're in College

You ever wonder why you're studying? I do when I have to do reading for my history class. Here's a little coping thought process:

What do you really want?

This is my favorite question, and I ask people about it all the time. This question can drive friendships, relationships, romantic interests...anything relating to people. Everybody has an intuitive sense of this inside themselves. Personally, it took me until this year before I really sat down and tried figuring this out. It took me between 3-4 weeks, and how I did it personally was through tons and tons of reading and self-reflection. 

The Nature of Business

You ever heard "It's all right you don't have a job, the economy is bad." Complete and utter bullocky. People will always have needs so there will always be jobs for you to seek out. Sitting on your rear because of an abstract concept of "the economy" is an excuse not to do anything.

The Role of College

Society has somewhat lost sight of what college is really for, its no good to you if you don't why you're going there. You go there to learn the skills necessary to do what you really want to do and get proof you know them. What need you want to fill and what function you want to have in the world. My first two years weren't a waste but..I could've been doing so much better. I didn't know what I wanted. College is publicly accepted proof of self-actualization.

So when you have to do something you really think is unnecessary, remember why you're here.

Credit Card Crash Course Pt. 2

The majority of this post is promotional material straight out of this book.


What to Do If You Miss a Payment

Nobody’s perfect. Despite my warnings, I understand that accidents happen and you might miss a payment at some point. When this happens, I use my Indian heritage to beat the companies by negotiating with them, and you can, too:

You: Hi, I noticed I missed a payment, and I wanted to confirm that this won’t affect my credit score.

Credit card rep: Let me check on that. No, the late fee will be applied, but it won’t affect your credit score. (Note: If you pay within a few days of your missed bill, it usually won’t be reported to the credit agencies. Call them to be sure.)

You: Thank you! I’m really happy to hear that. Now, about that fee . . . I understand I was late, but I’d like to have it waived.

Credit card rep: Why?

You: It was a mistake and it won’t happen again, so I’d like to have the fee removed.

(Note: Always end your sentence with strength. Don’t say, “Can you remove this?” Say, “I’d like to have this removed.”) At this point, you have a better-than-50-percent chance of getting the fee credited to your account. But just in case you get an especially tough rep, here’s what to say.

Credit card rep: I’m very sorry, but we can’t refund that fee. I can try to get you our latest blah blah marketing pitch blah blah. . . .

You: I’m sorry, but I’ve been a customer for four years and I’d hate for this one fee to drive me away from your service. What can you do to remove the late fee?

Credit card rep: Hmm . . . Let me check on that. . . . Yes, I was able to remove the fee this time. It’s been credited to your account. You don’t believe me that it can be so simple? It is. Anyone can do it.

Negotiate a lower APR.

Your APR, or annual percentage rate, is the interest rate your credit card company charges you. The average APR is 14 percent, which makes it extremely expensive if you carry a balance on your card. Put another way, since you can make an average of about 8 percent in the stock market, your credit card is getting a great deal by lending you money. If you could get a 14 percent return, you’d be thrilled—you want to avoid the black hole of credit card interest payments so you can earn money, not give it to the credit card companies.

So, call your credit card company and ask them to lower your APR. If they ask why, tell them you’ve been paying the full amount of your bill on time for the last few months, and you know there are a number of credit cards offering better rates than you’re currently getting. In my experience this works about half the time. It’s important to note that your APR doesn’t technically matter if you’re paying your bills in full every month—you could have a 2 percent APR or 80 percent APR and it would be irrelevant, since you don’t pay interest if you pay your total bill in each month. But this is a quick and easy way to pick the low-hanging fruit with one phone call. 

Pay off your Debt Aggressively

Market a Liberal Arts Degree

Over the past couple months, I've realized how great criticism is. I like to think I've gotten more mature but I think its just that I've grown a thick skin from the constant trash-talking that comes with living in a fraternity house.

Anyway, criticism is the to-do list you're not willing to tell yourself. I've started actively pursuing criticism in some aspects of my life, and one of those was the value of a liberal arts degree. Unfortunately I couldn't attend President Paino's "How to Market a Liberal Arts Degree" presentation at the start of the Career fair.

Marketing a Liberal Arts Education...yoink

Take the popular interview question, "Why should I hire you?" The unspoken full version of this question is "Why should I hire you over every other candidate? What makes you special?" Here's a good liberal-arts way to answer the question:

"Because I know that the one constant in organizational life today is change. I know your company will undergo change, and my strong liberal-arts education has prepared me with the flexibility to adapt to the changes I'll inevitably face."

And another:

"The cultural awareness I've developed as a result of my solid liberal-arts education prepares me to collaborate in a team-oriented and diverse workforce."

Or how about if the employer is even more explicit: "Why should I hire you over a graduate who has business training?"

"Because one of the hallmarks of the excellent liberal-arts education I've attained is the ability to learn. I'm confident I can get up to speed quickly and meet your needs in this job. My education has also prepared me to be an articulate written and oral communicator, so I know I can be a real asset to your firm."

These answers are...as close to perfect as I've found.

My Mom goes "when are you going to start making money from video games?"

When I have enough free time to get really good at them. But I'm going to school, Mom. Jeese.

"The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks."

—Albert Einstein

Finding Knowledge You can Use

Ask yourself: What do you really want? Be brutally honest. Once you've figured it out...wouldn't it be nice if somebody far wiser and more experienced than you--who's accomplished what you want to do--put all their knowledge, insights, stories and emotions at your fingertips?

It took me 20 years to fully realize it but that's exactly what a book is. What I really want is to be at the forefront of the privatization of space, whenever that may happen. To do this, I need to be able to effectively manage people, my network, time, and money. Since the industry doesn't technically exist the way I want it, I need to be able to envision and actualize goals and desires of mine. So I've been reading up, and I've got some books to recommend to anybody who wants to make something of themselves.

I Will Teach You to be Rich is a witty, funny introduction on how to effectively manage your money and the options available to you as a 20-something college student. If you've ever worried about what to do with or how to manage your money, get this book and follow it--your worries will be a thing of the past.

The Wealthy Barber was recommended to me by a CPA in Canada. Where I Will Teach You to be Rich leaves off this book picks up: what/when/why you need certain types of insurance, how to get them, wills, investment strategy and a myriad of other specific tips and insights. This is a book I'll be reading once a year the rest of my life.

Never Eat Alone is about networking. How to effectively manage the thousands of contacts you will get during your life. How exactly to help you and your friends get what you really want professionally and personally. I constantly reread passages from this book.

The Practice of Management is by Peter Drucker. Drucker created the entire field of management theory. If you read one book on management, ever, this is that book. If you don't read anything else on this list, read this book.

Good to Great is about what, specifically & empirically, separates average companies from great ones. At some point in my life, I want to lead a large company. This book is the how-to guide to that. Did you know Walgreens used to be in the restaurant industry? I didn't. This book follows how they've consistently and dramatically outperformed the market for years.

All together these books cost me way under $50. The wisdom, inspiration and insights I've gained from them which I will use the rest of my life are worth far more than that. For a little snippet from one of these books, check out the middle of this post.

The Value of Intensity

Last night I walked by the library to go to the rec and saw some people I knew studying. As I walked back an hour and a half later my friend Nick, who is in all the same classes, saw them there. "They're still in there?" he snickered, "I can do twice the amount of work in half the time."

As Oscar Maroni says, "Humility is the pride of the incompetent."

In order to truly exist at the top of a competitive environment, you have to be able to produce results like Nick. To get and maintain this level, you need intensity and stamina. I have an acquaintance who worked at PriceWaterCoopers in South Korea, one of the most intensely competitive financial firms in the country. He writes about professional development from time to time and his latest entry perfectly coincides with my experience last night.


Intensity makes up for talent. 

REGARDLESS how more skilled someone is, or more talented, intensity can make up the ground for it.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Gattaca, I actually named my son after the actor Ethan Hawke for this movie and 2 others (before sunset, before sunrise). In the movie, Ethan is the older brother who was born 'naturally' in a time where genetic birth modification was possible; he is born with a heart defect and relatively short for that time period; whereas his younger brother was born with the optimal genetic combination of both their parents. 

I won't get into the plot, but Ethan's younger brother does everything better than Ethan and they always played this game of chicken where they would see who could swim out the farthest to the sea. Ethan's younger brother always won, except one day, one day Ethan won that race and actually carried his brother back and then disappear after than and followed his own dreams.

At the end of the film, after many years later, they reunite and Ethan's brother asks, 'how did you beat me that day?' And Ethan says, 'I never saved anything for the swim back...' Intensity...  

From here.

 Intensity is the ability to put in 100% effort every time you work.

Stamina via Routine

Stamina is the ability to maintain the same level of performance over a long period of time. Stamina is ONLY gained through routine.

At many of the top fortune 500 companies, the CEO and the top executives work out or run 5 miles in the morning, every morning before 7:30. The eat breakfast at the same time, they get into the office and have a very minor routine of things they do first, email, paper, coffee. 

Now this all sounds so boring, but what it does is that it eliminates any minor distractions and things that do come up unexpectedly can be dealt with, with their full attention. It as though, you're always prepared to simply leave everything as it is and go right into the issue. 

When you're not routine, all the little things in life add up, you can't work now cause your hungry, you feel bloated cause you didn't work out for 3 days, you're tired cause you when to bed at 3 am, just because. And when there is an issue that requires your intensity, all these little things either nag you at the back of your mind or else will effect your overall performance, because you're not at your best. 

From here. 

 I've looked around for different articles, opinions on how to start a routine...but nobody says it better.

So what to do, how to start. 
1. One time, just go to bed at 9:30 pm, just one time.
2. You'll wake up at 5 or 6 am, you may say, I'm not a morning person, bull@#$&, everyone is a morning person, its just that they haven't woken up that early since they were 6 years old. 
3. Stretch and do a set of exercises that you can do over the next week for 15 mins; 10 push ups, 10 sit ups X 5 (or whatever you can handle) 
4. See what time it is: take a shower
5. Get a coffee or tea or whatever, sit down, get out a note book, and write out all things you need to do today and put the time it takes and when you are going to do it.
6. leave you house and do your day, keep note of when you leave.

Now repeat for a week. Try to get up at the same time, do the same thing, and leave the house at the same time.

Eventually that note book's tasks will become more accurate, eventually your routine will extend throughout the day, and you'll tweak your exercises etc.  

From here. 

Discipline = Effectiveness

1. Do 5 major tasks a day
2. When you touch something, finish it.
3. Don't waste time complaining. Spend it planning.
4. Admit when you don't know something, sit down, and figure it out.

The movie 8 miles with Eminem has him trying to score it big and when he finally does, his boys say, lets go out and celebrate, and you know what he says, 'sorry boys, I gotta go back and work at the factory and keep my shift'. 

From here. 

"No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings." -- Peter Drucker.