Smart Investments Quotes

Elite students climb confidently until they reach a level of competition sufficiently intense to beat their dreams out of them. Higher education is the place where people who had big plans in high school get stuck in fierce rivalries with equally smart peers over conventional careers like management consulting and investment banking. For the privilege of being turned into conformists, students (or their families) pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in skyrocketing tuition that continues to outpace inflation. Why are we doing this to ourselves?

IP is an intangible asset—an idea converted into transferable personal property rights through patents, trademarks, copyrights, service marks, and trade secrets. IP covers every famous animated character you’ve ever heard of, the logos on your clothing. IP covers products and services you use every day—from flashlights to mobile phones, packaging to cars, food and beverage products, to smart thermostats. IP is not only for big businesses. Most start-ups and event microbusinesses have IP of some kind. 

Always choose to be smart There are two types of people in the world, the seekers of riches and the wise thinkers, those who believe that the important thing is money, and those who know that knowledge is the true treasure. I, for my part, choose the second option, Though I could have everything I want I prefer to be an intelligent person, and never live in a game of vain appearances. Knowledge can take you far far beyond what you imagine, It can open doors and opportunities for you. and make you see the world with different eyes. But in this eagerness to be "wise", There is a task that is a great challenge. It is facing the fear of the unknown, and see the horrors around every corner. It's easy to be brave when you're sure, away from dangers and imminent risks, but when death threatens you close, "wisdom" is not enough to protect you. Because, even if you are smart and cunning, death sometimes comes without mercy, lurking in the darkest shadows, and there is no way to escape. That is why the Greek philosophers, They told us about the moment I died, an idea we should still take, to understand that death is a reality. Wealth can't save you of the inevitable arrival of the end, and just as a hoarder loses his treasures, we also lose what we have gained. So, if we have to choose between two things, that is between being cunning or rich, Always choose the second option because while the money disappears, wisdom helps us face dangers. Do not fear death, my friend, but embrace your intelligence, learn all you can in this life, and maybe you can beat time and death for that simple reason always choose to be smart. Maybe death is inevitable But that doesn't mean you should be afraid because intelligence and knowledge They will help you face any situation and know what to do. No matter what fate has in store, wisdom will always be your best ally, to live a life full of satisfaction, and bravely face any situation. So don't settle for what you have and always look for ways to learn more, because in the end, true wealth It is not in material goods, but in knowledge. Always choose to be smart, Well, that will be the best investment. that will lead you on the right path, and it will make you a better version of yourself.

When employees are unhappy with their job, they underperform and they're less productive. Smart employers invest in employee happiness.

Life itself is so extraordinary and unique that the only thing keeping people ordinary is themselves.

Searching for a mentor is similar to searching for a spouse: you two need to share common values, concerns, experiences, communication style, and, of course, have time to invest into meaningful conversations with one another.

Thy shalt not worship thy investment advisor, for if she were so smart she would be retired by now.

All husbands are unfaithful in one way or another.” Lillian and Daisy glanced at each other with raised brows. “Father isn’t,” Lillian replied smartly. Mercedes responded with a laugh that sounded like crackling leaves being crushed underfoot. “Isn’t he, dear? Perhaps he has stayed true to me physically—one can never be certain about these things. But his work has proved a more jealous and demanding mistress than a flesh-and-blood woman could ever be. All his dreams are invested in that collection of buildings and employees and legalities that absorb him to the exclusion of all else. If my competition had been a mortal woman, I could have borne it easily, knowing that passion fades and beauty lasts but an instant. But his company will never fade or sicken—it will outlast us all. If you have a year of your husband’s interest and affection, it will be more than I have ever had.

Word hard, work smart but no matter you do, work in silence. Great battles were won with stealth.

The idea that “it takes money to make money” is the thinking of financially unsophisticated people. It does not mean that they’re not intelligent. They have simply not learned the science of money making money. Money is only an idea. If you want more money, simply change your thinking. Every self-made person started small with an idea, and then turned it into something big. The same applies to investing. It takes only a few dollars to start and grow it into something big. I meet so many people who spend their lives chasing the big deal, or trying to amass a lot of money to get into a big deal, but to me that is foolish. Too often I have seen unsophisticated investors put their large nest egg into one deal and lose most of it rapidly. They may have been good workers, but they were not good investors. Education and wisdom about money are important. Start early. Buy a book. Go to a seminar. Practice. Start small. I turned $5,000 cash into a one-million-dollar asset producing $5,000 a month cash flow in less than six years. But I started learning as a kid. I encourage you to learn, because it’s not that hard. In fact, it’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it. I think I have made my message clear. It’s what is in your head that determines what is in your hands. Money is only an idea. There is a great book called Think and Grow Rich. The title is not Work Hard and Grow Rich. Learn to have money work hard for you, and your life will be easier and happier. Today, don’t play it safe. Play it smart.

If money management isn't something you enjoy, consider my perspective. I look at managing my money as if it were a part-time job. The time you spend monitoring your finances will pay off. You can make real money by cutting expenses and earning more interest on savings and investments. I'd challenge you to find a part-time job where you could potentially earn as much money for just an hour or two of your time.

Worshipping God is like mining for fossil fuels,” someone argued. “Plenty of smart people know it is shortsighted, and yet they have too much invested to stop!

It’s a small price to pay, but investing a little extra effort into the life you choose will move you from average — where all the competition is — to the top.

Every ounce of energy you invest in pursuing your goals will help you grow toward God’s plan for you . . . even if you end up somewhere you hadn’t counted on.

Having goals is great--but it's not enough! You need action, too! You will need to get off your butt and change the world yourself, because no one else will do it for you.

Volatility in the up direction is not a problem-it's only downward volatility that offers discourse.

Understanding the value of a security and whether it's trading above or below that value is the difference between investing and speculating.

The Decentralization of Finance is really good for humanity and it’s ultimately a win for each and every one of us. Because now that we can circumvent banks, exchanges and brokerage companies by using smart contracts on the blockchain… every person, every family, and every business will experience more more liberty, more freedom, more opportunities, more abundance, more power, and more wealth.

SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST born unlucky—so unlucky in fact that they do just the opposite of what they should at exactly the wrong time. Suckers? Maybe. But in the business of investing, those people have a name: retail investors.

The Decentralization of Finance is really good for humanity. Now that we circumvent can banks, exchanges and brokerages by using smart contracts on the blockchain… every person, every family, and every business will experience more freedom, more liberty, more opportunities, more power, more abundance, and more wealth. So DeFi is a win for humanity.

Clara’s parents, on the other hand, were fourth-generation Americans shaped predominately by the conventions of their gilded social class. A few smart investments—steel and timber did the trick—and they’d watched their inherited wealth grow to numbers so high that even they could scarcely conceive of them. As such, they had a fastidious respect for the orderly following of the rules and systems from which they benefited. It all made them feel quite secure in the correctness of their position within the social order, and security was Clara’s mother’s favorite feeling, outranked only by virtuous womanhood. (She was cousin Charles’s favorite aunt, after all.)

saving habits, and where Average Joe went

You basically get paid according to the amount of time you invest.

A lot of smart people are prone to over-analysis and tend to become paralyzed by indecision

Core participants tend to focus on transactions rather than investing in the long-term effort to build sustainable, trust-based relationships on the edge.

What you lack in smarts or talent, you can make up for with passion and hard work. Effort is the great equalizer.

Smart Risk will shatter the emotional myths to investing and help Canadians see the opportunities in today's volatile market.

It’s worth emphasising this: the benefits of diversification are greater when average returns are measured with geometric means.18

What the efficient market hypothesis doesn't account for is that people are not always rational. Just ask any divorce lawyer.

Developing a wealthy mind-set requires the understanding of the concept that the way you spend, invest, and manage ten naira is the way you will spend, invest, and manage ten million.

The Decentralization of Finance is really good for humanity and it’s ultimately a win for each and every one of us. Because now that we can circumvent banks, exchanges and brokerage companies by using smart contracts on the blockchain… every person, every family, and every business will experience more liberty, more freedom, more opportunities, more abundance, more power, and more wealth. This makes way for more opportunities around financial wellness, permaculture investing, more effective crowdfunding, better ownership and equity arrangements, and more.

Let me share with you one of my all-time favorite quotes. Michael Jordan (yes, that Michael Jordan) once said, “Some people want it to happen. Some wish it would happen. Others make it happen.

Schools don’t teach people to reason thoroughly; they select the applicants with higher IQs, and people with higher IQs are able to generate more reasons. The findings get more disturbing. Perkins found that IQ was by far the biggest predictor of how well people argued, but it predicted only the number of my-side arguments. Smart people make really good lawyers and press secretaries, but they are no better than others at finding reasons on the other side. Perkins concluded that “people invest their IQ in buttressing their own case rather than in exploring the entire issue more fully and evenhandedly.”22

But Matthiesen hit on the concept of return on investment, though she didn’t call it that. Instead, she asked her kids to estimate the hours of fun per dollar that any particular Want of theirs might provide.

The less you “try” to get him to like you, the higher chance he has of growing deeply fond of you. I can guarantee you that generally, this is how men are, thus, if you get the impression that he isn’t engaging with you or asking you relevant questions, don’t try to keep things going on your own. Remember, mirror his investment and let him lead, as it keeps you from looking overly eager and desperate for male attention. 22

Don’t invest in other people’s opinion of you. You can change yourself a hundred different ways to get other people to approve of you and there will still be those who don’t. Your beauty will please some and threaten others. Your intelligence will impress one person and offend another. You will be too tall, too short, too smart, too attractive, too nice, not nice enough, too talented, too poor, and not educated enough for people who are determined to not like you. You must decide that it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks of you. Their opinions don’t make your bed, pay your bills, or fill your stomach, so stop investing your focus and energy into them.

The term bellwether refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) leading his flock of sheep. While out of sight, the sound of the bell is a directive on the whereabouts of the flock. When earning season begins, the bellwether stock is that of the largest (typically industrial) companies who report their earnings. Analysts look to these reports as an indication of how subsequent reports will come in under or over expectations.

Strategic quitting is a conscious decision you make based on the choices that are available to you. If you realize you’re at a dead end compared with what you could be investing in, quitting is not only a reasonable choice, it’s a smart one

Your ultimate success or failure will depend on your ability to ignore the worries of the world long enough to allow your investments to succeed. It isn’t the head, but the stomach that determines [your] fate. —Peter Lynch, Beating the Street

Temperament is also important. Independent thinking, emotional stability, and a keen understanding of both human and institutional behavior is vital to long-term investment success. I’ve seen a lot of very smart people who have lacked these virtues.

Specifying our investment decision-making criteria in algorithms and running historical data through them, or specifying our work principles in algorithms and using them to aid in management decision making, are just bigger and more complicated versions of that smart thermostat.

A sound idea is a form of energy. It can not be destroyed. It evolves from inspiration, to a function of preparation, then determination - till the ideator's dream becomes actualized in real life At the very least, success is a second iteration of the original, unscripted Idea So your idea refinement process needs to be test-driven Test Determine on time if investment in terms of effort and time is worth it Work Smart Fail early, fail often, Success lies on the paths yet to be treaded, Open your mind, Think Disruption, Be Flexible Be AGILE I think this is an idea worth sharing

Within the covers of a single book are ideas that, if acted upon, have the power to rescript every part of your life. Few things are as smart as investing in becoming a better thinker and developing a stronger mind. Relentless learning is one of the main traits of an open and powerful person.

A guy from Bear Stearns had visited our class, thin and bald with a gold watch. He told us that if we were interested in getting into finance, we had better work hard and smart because a lot of machines were able to make investment decisions now, and in the future, computer programs would run everything.

Tomorrow's banks will be decentralized applications of software built on cryptography, blockchain technology and smart contracts. Theyll be platforms for saving, lending, investing, moving and spending that are much more equitable and sensible than they were in the 20th century and ironically it'll be more aligned to what banks were like in much earlier civilizations. So when I talk about banks being to the economy what the heart is to the human body - this is really what I'm talking about. I'm not necessarily talking about the ICBC. The ICBC or Bank of America may play an important role, but so could thousands of small local banks or small apps on a Blockchain.

While we might expect to see venture capital develop further in an increasingly intangible economy, it is not clear that governments can or should do much more to promote it than they already do. As Josh Lerner showed in The Boulevard of Broken Dreams (2012), once tax breaks or subsidies for venture capital get beyond a certain level, they tend to encourage dumb investments (since the tax gain on its own is enough for the investors to profit); since the entire point of venture capital is smart investment, very large tax breaks are self-defeating. For a country to grow its venture capital sector, time and favorable framework conditions are more important than additional subsidies.

Higher education is the place where people who had big plans in high school get stuck in fierce rivalries with equally smart peers over conventional careers like management consulting and investment banking. For the privilege of being turned into conformists, students (or their families) pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in skyrocketing tuition that continues to outpace inflation. Why are we doing this to ourselves?

The findings get more disturbing. Perkins found that IQ was by far the biggest predictor of how well people argued, but it predicted only the number of my-side arguments. Smart people make really good lawyers and press secretaries, but they are no better than others at finding reasons on the other side. Perkins concluded that “people invest their IQ in buttressing their own case rather than in exploring the entire issue more fully and evenhandedly.

screening option was created specifically for this book, magicformulainvesting.com. The magicformula investing.com site is designed to emulate the returns achieved in our study as closely as possible. This site is currently available for free. Step-by-step instructions for selecting stocks using magicformulainvesting.com follow. Other options include, but are not limited to, the screening packages available at aaii.com, powerinvestor.com, and smart money.com.

Forty percent of the thirteen hundred members of Yale’s graduating class of 1986 applied to one investment bank, First Boston, alone. There was, I think, a sense of safety in the numbers. The larger the number of people involved, the easier it was for them to delude themselves that what they were doing must be smart. The first thing you learn on the trading floor is that when large numbers of people are after the same commodity, be it a stock, a bond, or a job, the commodity quickly becomes overvalued. Unfortunately, at the time, I had never seen a trading floor. The

Here are my simple rules for identifying market tops and bottoms: 1. Market tops are relatively easy to recognize. Buyers generally become overconfident and almost always believe “this time is different.” It’s usually not. 2. There’s always a surplus of relatively cheap debt capital to finance acquisitions and investments in a hot market. In some cases, lenders won’t even charge cash interest, and they often relax or suspend typical loan restrictions as well. Leverage levels escalate compared to historical averages, with borrowing sometimes reaching as high as ten times or more compared to equity. Buyers will start accepting overoptimistic accounting adjustments and financial forecasts to justify taking on high levels of debt. Unfortunately most of these forecasts tend not to materialize once the economy starts decelerating or declining. 3. Another indicator that a market is peaking is the number of people you know who start getting rich. The number of investors claiming outperformance grows with the market. Loose credit conditions and a rising tide can make it easy for individuals without any particular strategy or process to make money “accidentally.” But making money in strong markets can be short-lived. Smart investors perform well through a combination of self-discipline and sound risk assessment, even when market conditions reverse.

One way to get a life and keep it is to put energy into being an S&M (success and money) queen. I first heard this term in Karen Salmansohn’s fabulous book The 30-Day Plan to Whip Your Career Into Submission. Here’s how to do it: be a star at work. I don’t care if you flip burgers at McDonald’s or run a Fortune 500 company. Do everything with totality and excellence. Show up on time, all the time. Do what you say you will do. Contribute ideas. Take care of the people around you. Solve problems. Be an agent for change. Invest in being the best in your industry or the best in the world! If you’ve been thinking about changing professions, that’s even more reason to be a star at your current job. Operating with excellence now will get you back up to speed mentally and energetically so you can hit the ground running in your new position. It will also create good karma. When and if you finally do leave, your current employers will be happy to support you with a great reference and often leave an open door for additional work in the future. If you’re an entrepreneur, look at ways to enhance your business. Is there a new product or service you’ve wanted to offer? How can you create raving fans by making your customer service sparkle? How can you reach more people with your product or service? Can you impact thousands or even millions more? Let’s not forget the M in S&M. Getting a life and keeping it includes having strong financial health as well. This area is crucial because many women delay taking charge of their financial lives as they believe (or have been culturally conditioned to believe) that a man will come along and take care of it for them. This is a setup for disaster. You are an intelligent and capable woman. If you want to fully unleash your irresistibility, invest in your financial health now and don’t stop once you get involved in a relationship. If money management is a challenge for you, I highly recommend my favorite financial coach: David Bach. He is the bestselling author of many books, including The Automatic Millionaire, Smart Women Finish Rich, and Smart Couples Finish Rich. His advice is clear-cut and straightforward, and, most important, it works.

To all of you reading this who are on the fence about therapy because of the cost: It’s smart money, spend it. That one hundred bucks an hour pays off down the road when you learn through therapy how to get out of your own way, stop self-sabotaging and thus make good decisions about relationships and career. Think of it as an investment in yourself. Simply going to therapy helps. Just carving out an hour for yourself, and deciding that you and your life are worth spending some time and money on makes a difference. That simple act alone boosts your self-esteem. Don’t think of going to therapy as “I’m a broken pile of crap and need someone to fix me,” think of it as “I’m going to change myself for the better instead of crying, masturbating and blaming my parents for the rest of my life.

Avoid hot stocks in hot industries. • Distrust diversifications, which usually turn out to be diworseifications. • Long shots almost never pay off. • It’s better to miss the first move in a stock and wait to see if a company’s plans are working out. • People get incredibly valuable fundamental information from their jobs that may not reach the professionals for months or even years. • Separate all stock tips from the tipper, even if the tipper is very smart, very rich, and his or her last tip went up. • Some stock tips, especially from an expert in the field, may turn out to be quite valuable. However, people in the paper industry normally give out tips on drug stocks, and people in the health care field never run out of tips on the coming takeovers in the paper industry. • Invest in simple companies that appear dull, mundane, out of favor, and haven’t caught the fancy of Wall Street.

Eventually, Charlie and Rick became fifty-fifty owners of a controlling block of stock in the company, with its management owning the rest. After some time passed, a situation arose where Guerin needed to cash out of the investment. "I still was very poor. We had an informal understanding that one would take the other out if either needed to get out. I went to Charlie and said I need to use that money elsewhere. He said fine, figure out what you want." Guerin looked over the accounting statements and thought about it. "I told him it was worth $200,000. Charlie said 'No, you're wrong about that.' I said to myself, Oh darn,' because I needed $200,000. He said, 'It's worth $300,000.' And he pulled out a check and wrote it. I would have been delighted with $200,000. I would have been the happiest man on earth. It was an opportunity for him to show me how stupid I was," Guerin said with a chuckle. "Charlie has a saying, 'Think about it a little more and you will agree with me because you're smart and I'm right.

As we’ve seen, one of the most frequently pursued paths for achievement-minded college seniors is to spend several years advancing professionally and getting trained and paid by an investment bank, consulting firm, or law firm. Then, the thought process goes, they can set out to do something else with some exposure and experience under their belts. People are generally not making lifelong commitments to the field in their own minds. They’re “getting some skills” and making some connections before figuring out what they really want to do. I subscribed to a version of this mind-set when I graduated from Brown. In my case, I went to law school thinking I’d practice for a few years (and pay down my law school debt) before lining up another opportunity. It’s clear why this is such an attractive approach. There are some immensely constructive things about spending several years in professional services after graduating from college. Professional service firms are designed to train large groups of recruits annually, and they do so very successfully. After even just a year or two in a high-level bank or consulting firm, you emerge with a set of skills that can be applied in other contexts (financial modeling in Excel if you’re a financial analyst, PowerPoint and data organization and presentation if you’re a consultant, and editing and issue spotting if you’re a lawyer). This is very appealing to most any recent graduate who may not yet feel equipped with practical skills coming right out of college. Even more than the professional skill you gain, if you spend time at a bank, consultancy, or law firm, you will become excellent at producing world-class work. Every model, report, presentation, or contract needs to be sophisticated, well done, and error free, in large part because that’s one of the core value propositions of your organization. The people above you will push you to become more rigorous and disciplined, and your work product will improve across the board as a result. You’ll get used to dressing professionally, preparing for meetings, speaking appropriately, showing up on time, writing official correspondence, and so forth. You will be able to speak the corporate language. You’ll become accustomed to working very long hours doing detail-intensive work. These attributes are transferable to and helpful in many other contexts.

Why even smart people get bad results by Warren Buffett It' ego, greed, envy, fear…It's mindless imitation of other people. I mean, there are a variety of factors that cause that horsepower of the mind to get diminished dramatically before the output turns out. And I would say if Charlie and I have any advantage it's not because we're so smart, it's because we're rational and we very seldom let extraneous factors interfere with our thoughts. We don't let other people's opinion interfere with it…we try to get fearful when others are greedy. We try to get greedy when others are fearful. We try to avoid any kind of imitation of other people's behavior. And those are the factors that cause smart people to get average to bad results. I always look at IQ and talent as representing the horsepower of the motor, but in terms of output, the efficiency with which the motor works, depends on rationality. That's because a lot of people start out with 400-horsepower motor and get a hundred horsepower of output. So why do smart people do things that interfere with getting the output they're entitled to? It gets into the habits, and character and temperament, and it really gets into behaving in a rational manner. Not getting in your own way.

Today it is widely accepted that there is no one essence that all religions share. What they share are family resemblances—tendencies toward this belief or that behaviour. In the family of religions, kin tend to perform rituals. They tend to tell stories about how life and death began and to write down these stories in scriptures. They tend to cultivate techniques of ecstasy and devotion. They tend to organize themselves into institutions and to gather in sacred places at sacred times. They tend to instruct human beings how to act toward one another. They tend to profess this belief or that about the gods and the supernatural. They tend to invest objects and places with sacred import. Philosopher of religion Nina Smart has referred to these tendencies as the seven "dimensions" of religion: the ritual, the narrative, experiential, institutional, ethical, doctrinal, and material dimensions.¹³ These family resemblances are just tendencies, however. Just as there are tall people in short families (none of the men in Michael Jordan's family was over six feet tall), there are religions that deny the existence of God and religions that get along just fine without creeds. Something is a religion when it shares enough of this DNA to belong to the family of religions.

It is a truism today, in this highly technologically-developed culture, that students need technical computer skills. Equally truistic (and, not incidentally, true) is that the workplace has become highly technological. Even more truistic – and far more disturbing – are the shifts in education over the last two decades as public elementary schools, public and private high schools, and colleges and universities have invested scores of billions of dollars on “digital infrastructure,” computers, monitors and printers, “smart classrooms,” all to “meet the demands” of this new technological workplace. "We won’t dwell on the fact – an inconvenient truth? – that those technological investments have coincided with a decline in American reading behaviors, in reading and reading comprehension scores, in overall academic achievement, in the phenomenon – all too familiar to us in academia – of “grade inflation,” in an alarming collapse of our students’ understanding of their own history (to say nothing of the history of the rest of the world), rising ignorance of world and American geography, with an abandonment of the idea of objectivity, and with an increasingly subjective, even solipsistic, emphasis on personal experience. Ignore all this. Or, if we find it impossible to ignore, then let’s blame the teachers...

History favors the bold. Compensation favors the meek. As a Fortune 500 company CEO, you’re better off taking the path often traveled and staying the course. Big companies may have more assets to innovate with, but they rarely take big risks or innovate at the cost of cannibalizing a current business. Neither would they chance alienating suppliers or investors. They play not to lose, and shareholders reward them for it—until those shareholders walk and buy Amazon stock. Most boards ask management: “How can we build the greatest advantage for the least amount of capital/investment?” Amazon reverses the question: “What can we do that gives us an advantage that’s hugely expensive, and that no one else can afford?” Why? Because Amazon has access to capital with lower return expectations than peers. Reducing shipping times from two days to one day? That will require billions. Amazon will have to build smart warehouses near cities, where real estate and labor are expensive. By any conventional measure, it would be a huge investment for a marginal return. But for Amazon, it’s all kinds of perfect. Why? Because Macy’s, Sears, and Walmart can’t afford to spend billions getting the delivery times of their relatively small online businesses down from two days to one. Consumers love it, and competitors stand flaccid on the sidelines. In 2015, Amazon spent $7 billion on shipping fees, a net shipping loss of $5 billion, and overall profits of $2.4 billion. Crazy, no? No. Amazon is going underwater with the world’s largest oxygen tank, forcing other retailers to follow it, match its prices, and deal with changed customer delivery expectations. The difference is other retailers have just the air in their lungs and are drowning. Amazon will surface and have the ocean of retail largely to itself.

Overall look: Soft and delicate   Hair: Most often blonde or golden grey   Skintone: Light, ivory to soft beige, peachy tones. Very little contrast between hair and skin   Eyes: Blue, blue-green, aqua, light green IF you are a Light Spring you should avoid dark and dusty colors, which would make you look pale, tired and even pathetic. Spring women who need to look strong, for example chairing a meeting, can do so by wearing mid-tone grey or light navy, not deeper shades. If you are a Light Spring and you wear too much contrast, say a light blouse and dark jacket, or a dress with lots of bold colors against a white background, you ‘disappear’ because our eye is drawn to the colors you are wearing. See your Light Spring palette opposite. Your neutrals can be worn singly or mixed with others in a print or weave. The ivory, camel and blue-greys are good investment shades that will work with any others in your palette. Your best pinks will be warm—see the peaches, corals and apricots—but also rose pink. Never go as far as fuchsia, which is too strong and would drain all the life from your skin. Periwinkle blue toned with a light blue blouse is a smart, striking alternative to navy and white for work. Why wear black in the evening when you will sparkle in violet (also, warm pink and emerald turquoise will turn heads)? For leisure wear, team camel with clear bright red or khaki with salmon.   Make-Up Tips Foundation: Ivory, porcelain Lipstick: Peach, salmon, coral, clear red Blush: Salmon, peach Eyeshadow for blue eyes: Highlighter Champagne, melon, apricot, soft pink Contour Soft grey, violet, teal blue, soft blues, cocoa Eyeshadow for blue-green and aqua eyes: Highlighter Apricot, lemon, champagne Contour Cocoa or honey brown, spruce or moss green, teal blue Eyeshadow for green eyes: Highlighter Pale aqua, apricot, champagne Contour Cocoa or honey brown, teal blue, violet, spruce.

Smart Sexy Money is About Your Money As an accomplished entrepreneur with a history that spans more than fourteen years, Annette Wise is constantly looking for ways to give back to her community. Using enterprising efforts, she qualified for $125,000 in startup funding to develop a specialized residential facility that allows developmentally disabled adults to live in the community after almost a lifetime of living in a state institution. In doing so, she has provided steady employment in her community for the last thirteen years. After dedicating years to her residential facility, Annette began to see clearly the difficulty business owners face in planning for retirement successfully. Searching high and low to find answers, she took control of financial uncertainty and in less than 2 years, she became a Full Life Agent, licensed Registered Representative, Investment Advisor Representative and Limited Principal. Her focus is on building an extensive list of clients that depend on her for smart retirement guidance, thorough college planning, detailed business continuation, and business exit strategies. Clients have come to rely on Annette for insight on tax advantaged savings and retirement options. Annette’s primary goal is to help her clients understand more than just concepts, but to easily understand how money works, the consequences of their decisions and how they work in conjunction with their desires and goal. Ever the curious soul who is always up for a challenge, Annette is routinely resourceful at finding sensible means to a sometimes-challenging end. She believes in infinite possibilities as well as in sharing her knowledge with others. She is the go-to source for “Smart Wealth Solutions.” Among Annette’s proudest accomplishments are her two wonderful sons, Michael III and Matthew. As a single mom, they have been her inspiration and joy. She is forever grateful to the greatest brothers in the world- Andrew and Anthony Wise, for assistance in grooming them into amazing young men.

Key Points: ● Transparency - Blockchain offers significant improvements in transparency compared to existing record keeping and ledgers for many industries. ● Removal of Intermediaries – Blockchain-based systems allow for the removal of intermediaries involved in the record keeping and transfer of assets. ● Decentralization – Blockchain-based systems can run on a decentralized network of computers, reducing the risk of hacking, server downtime and loss of data. ● Trust – Blockchain-based systems increase trust between parties involved in a transaction through improved transparency and decentralized networks along with removal of third-party intermediaries in countries where trust in the intermediaries doesn’t exist. ● Security – Data entered on the blockchain is immutable, preventing against fraud through manipulating transactions and the history of data. Transactions entered on the blockchain provide a clear trail to the very start of the blockchain allowing any transaction to be easily investigated and audited. ● Wide range of uses - Almost anything of value can be recorded on the blockchain and there are many companies and industries already developing blockchain-based systems. These examples are covered later in the book. ● Easily accessible technology – Along with the wide range of uses, blockchain technology makes it easy to create applications without significant investment in infrastructure with recent innovations like the Ethereum platform. Decentralized apps, smart contracts and the Ethereum platform are covered later in the book. ● Reduced costs – Blockchain-based ledgers allow for removal of intermediaries and layers of confirmation involved in transactions. Transactions that may take multiple individual ledgers, could be settled on one shared ledger, reducing the costs of validating, confirming and auditing each transaction across multiple organizations. ● Increased transaction speed – The removal of intermediaries and settlement on distributed ledgers, allows for dramatically increased transaction speeds compared to a wide range of existing systems.

Manhattan Prep started out as one lone tutor in a Starbucks coffee shop. Less than ten years later, it was a leading national education and publishing business that employed over one hundred people and was acquired by a public company for millions of dollars. How did that happen? We delivered a service that customers liked more than what was otherwise available. They sought us out and rewarded us with their business. We hired more people, grew, and kept improving. This process—a new company filling a need and flourishing as a result—is an example of value creation. It’s the fuel of economic growth, and what our country has been seeking a formula for. It’s the process that leads to new businesses and jobs. Value creation has a polar opposite: rent-seeking. In the 1980s, economists began noticing that countries with ample natural resources experienced lower economic growth rates than others. From 1965 to 1998 in the OPEC (oil-producing) countries, gross domestic product per capita decreased on average by 1.3 percent, while in the rest of the developed world, per capita growth increased by 2.2 percent (for an overall difference of 3.5 percent). This was a surprise—if you had lots of oil in the ground, wouldn’t that give you more wealth to invest and thus spur more rapid growth? Economists cited a number of factors to explain this “resource curse,” including internal and external conflict, corruption, lower monitoring of government, lack of diversification, and being subject to higher price volatility. One other possible explanation on offer was that a country’s smart people will wind up going to work in whatever industry is throwing off money (like the oil industry in Saudi Arabia). Thus fewer talented people are innovating in other industries, dragging down the growth rate over time. This makes sense—it’s a lot easier for a gifted Saudi to plug into the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources and extract economic value than to come up with a new business or industry. Does this sort of thing happen in the United States? Yes, you can make money through rent-seeking as opposed to value or wealth creation.

About to go bankrupt, I invested some money in stocks and was able to make a couple of thousands of dollars. This initial success gave me a glimmer of hope and confidence. About the same time, I was mentored on cryptocurrency trading, which seemed very promising. I could see the fruits of this new venture from my friends and colleagues who were reaping substantial rewards. Mindful of that, but encouraged by all their success stories, I went all-in-investing $390,000. At first, it seemed like I did something smart, putting my money into cryptocurrency. I went online, found what, at the time, I felt was a pretty legitimate broker-a decent website with apparently very real positive reviews. It was easy onboarding, further reinforced by the self-reinforcing feedback loop-my account showed a profit rise. I was even able to make small withdrawals, which pretty much sealed it in my mind. But then, things took a complete turn for the worse when I tried to withdraw an amount a little larger. I was then shut out of my account. I panicked as I tried to reach out to the broker's customer support and got no response. It was clear that I had been working with a phony broker, which proved to be a fraud and a full-on scammer. My entire investment of $390,000 worth of Bitcoin was at risk. I browsed the internet in desperation and came across Rapid Digital Recovery. Their website had great reviews and was very informative, so I had a little bit of hope. Skeptical but hopeful, I contacted them for help. The Rapid Digital Recovery team has been very professional and user-friendly since the very first contact. They listened to me with empathy and understood my situation, which alone gave me the much-needed emotional support. They explained the process of recovery to me in detail and maintained clear communication throughout the process. Knowing their field of activity pretty well in cryptocurrency questions, they used very professional methods of restoration. And with great relief for me, the firm called Rapid Digital Recovery succeeded in returning a significant amount of my Bitcoins. They even provided guidance on how to secure my digital assets to avoid similar situations in the future. I highly recommend it to anyone who has fallen into this problem, just like me. A mix of skill, efficiency, and supportive manner-that is what Rapid Digital Recovery is when it comes to cryptocurrency fund recovery. If you have fallen under this scam, reaching out to Rapid Digital Recovery will probably be one of your best shots at getting what rightfully belongs to you. Reach Out To Rapid Digital ( What sapp Info : +1 4.1 4 8.0 7 1.4 8.5) ( Web site Info : htt ps: // rap id dig ita reco very. org ) ( Em ail Info : ra pid dig ital reco very @ ex ecs. com )

PeerStreet

The key to rehabbing a BRRRR property is to make the property as “tenant proof” as possible, using materials that will last a long time and won’t need to be redone later.

If you are going to use automated testing and Continuous Integration (CI) to dramatically improve your productivity, you need to treat your testing investments as being at least as important, or even more important, than your development investments, which is a big cultural change for most organizations. In

According to the media and other stock market "experts," the equities bull is forever hiding just around that next corner on Wall Street. But millions of investors who listened to the experts back in 1998-2001 about "the New Economy" get hammered in the stock market and are still trying to get back to even. The smart investor looks for opportunities to acquire value on the cheap, with one eye out for a dynamic change in the offing that might make that investment even more valuable.

Like Bitcoin, there is little stopping Ethereum from being an alternative currency to fiat and commodity currencies. You can conceivably trade anything using Ethereum, but this is not Ethereum’s strength in comparison to other cryptocurrencies (CCs) – they can all do this. It’s rather the computing language that allows the smart contracts to exist that makes Ethereum more valuable than BTC (in my opinion).

TD Ameritrade, E*TRADE, Scottrade, and Fidelity all have compelling offers and are good places to start.

Around $300,000 of the total $600,000 that was raised by Augur's funding team comes from a man named Joe Costello. Costello is a successful tech entrepreneur, known to be one of Steve Jobs' top picks for the new CEO position of Apple itself. Following the smart money isn’t always a dumb idea. Gambling or casino are terms never used by Joey Krug, a young Pomona college dropout, but also Augur's lead developer. He and the small team of just five employees use the term “prediction market.” Due

Rookie assignments create learning windows; hence they make good targets for your training and development investments.

Don’t think that Ether is only used within the Ethereum network. It is now actively traded in many places. It will be a matter of time before it gains more popularity and gets recognized as a bona fide currency. In fact, several banks already use it to conduct b2b transactions thereby making it an important asset to adopt. The use of smart contracts makes it extremely reliable and a hit with many businesses. Although businesses are not using it in their mainstream operations, Ethereum is slowly climbing the ranks. The value of Ethereum is on a steady rise, and mainstream recognition can help it rise further. With many developers coming up with Dapps to support Ethereum, it is only a matter of time before it reaches its full potential. It will also be easier for you and me to use it and not have to rely on traditional currency. It is not just individual developers who are working on developing the apps but also organizations and governments.

Investing In Gold Not everyone would associate Ethereum with investing in gold, but that is exactly one of its uses. Using a process developed by Digix, users can use tokens to buy gold on the Ethereum blockchain. How does this work? Using the Digix app, you can exchange either Ether or fiat currency (real-life money) with gold tokens. This gold is linked to the Singaporean gold vault through a complex crypto-code. Whenever the user wants, they can switch their gold tokens for actual pieces of gold without needing to go through an intermediary or paying any large fees. This also opens up the possibility of creating similar processes for all sorts of commodities.

The Internet of Things First of all, what is the Internet of Things? The Internet of Things is the link between the internet and everyday objects that allows them to send and receive digital information and data. Its potential is huge and some say it could become a multi-trillion-dollar market. One start-up called Slock.it is attempting to tap into this potential by developing an app on the Ethereum blockchain that links physical assets, such as apartments, bikes, or vans, to a smart contract that allows users to rent the item out. The application is called Ethereum Computer and could potentially eliminate fees to rent the assets of others. It is a kind of blockchain version of Airbnb and creates a much cheaper option for both affiliates and users.

Stablecoins The ground is currently being laid to set the way for a new type of currency –the stablecoin. What is the stablecoin? The stablecoin is an asset that typically features price stability. Cryptocurrency is notoriously unstable, with volatile prices that are often difficult to predict. The advantage of them is that they give the user total control over their holdings. On the other hand, the US dollar is a great example of a fiat stablecoin, as it offers low volatility and so provides a reliable unit of money to invest in both the short term and the long term. However, the US dollar doesn’t give the user any form of control, as it is monitored by the Federal Reserve Bank and is dependent on the banking network in the US for commercial use. To get a combination of the two –full user control and reduced volatility –is an exciting prospect. Maker is a company that is currently working on a project to make this happen by creating a currency known as the Dai, which is set to become a stablecoin that combines user control with price stability. Social Networks

Insurance is expected to be revolutionized thanks to blockchain technology. The technology can streamline the user experience by using smart contracts that can automate policies depending on the customer’s circumstances. It means that insurance claims could be made through the blockchain without the need for talking with an intermediary. One app known as Dyanmis uses the blockchain to manage supplementary unemployment insurance. Based on peer-to-peer technology, it uses the social media network, LinkedIn, to help confirm the identity and employment status of its customers. Another such app is Inchain, which is a decentralized insurance platform that reduces the associated risks of losses of crypto-assets in the event of cyber-attacks or online hacking.

That night, they sat around the hotel room with a bottle of tequila and some salt and limes and talked about names for the new real estate company. A few ideas sprang up right away but got rejected just as fast. A half bottle of tequila later, the name "Real Estate Maximums Incorporated" was tossed around as a possibility. Nobody spoke for a moment because everyone liked it. Maximums meant that everyone would get the most out of the relationship-real estate agents and customers alike. The name did a good job of communicating the everybody wins principle at the heart of the endeavor. But after a few more minutes, they realized it didn't quite work. It wasn't snappy enough for a good brand name, and it was too long to fit on a real estate sign. More tequila got poured. No one could come up with another name that felt as on-target as Real Estate Maximums. Someone suggested shortening it to R. E. Max. That made it snappier and appealing in a brand name sense; but when you wrote it out, it looked too much like a real person's name. You could imagine junk mail arriving at the office in care of Mr. and Mrs. R. E. Max. Collins pointed out that Exxon had formed only a few years before, and the X with a slash through it looked very smart. So Liniger took out the dots and tried a slash through the middle of the word and then capitalized all the letters. They looked at the pad of paper and saw: RE/MAX. A silence came over them, followed by a few backslaps and cheers. Everything about the word looked exactly right, as though they were talking about an established global company. Now, what about colors? They were on a roll. Now was no time to stop. A few more shots of tequila went around while they debated the right look for the new RE/MAX. It didn't take long to figure it out: Everyone in the room was a Vietnam vet and patriotic to the core. The colors, of course, had to be red, white, and blue. When they considered the whole package, they knew they had it. And that's how the idea for the distinctive RE/MAX brand was hatched. Considering the time and resources that get poured into brand development today, their methods might seem unorthodox if admirably effective. No money was spent on advertising agencies, market research, or trademark protection. The only investment was a decent bottle of tequila; the only focus group, a bunch of guys sitting around a room having a good laugh.

recent decades, American utility companies have spent relatively little on research and development. One industry report estimates that, in 2009, research-and-development investments made by all US electrical-power utilities amounted to at most $700 million, compared with $6.3 billion by IBM and $9.1 billion by Pfizer. In 2009, however, the Department of Energy issued $3.4 billion in stimulus grants to a hundred smart-grid projects across the United States, including many in areas that are prone to heat waves and hurricanes.

Social Networks Censorship on social media is common, especially on forums. Some companies are working to create a type of decentralized online community that operates on an open source code. This means that it will be built on smart contracts that will eliminate censorship. Whether this is good or bad is subjective, but it serves to show the diversity of smart contracts and blockchain applications. One example of an Ethereum-based social network is Akasha. Akasha lets users publish, share, and vote for work that has been published on its platform. It aims to provide a decentralized option that gives an alternative to services such as Medium and WordPress. The system works by giving monetary incentives in the form of Ether to users to encourage engaging and rich content. Insurance

Here is my recommendation for President Trump and the new Congress. Turn immediately to our glorious national institutions, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, for a report to the nation on the key areas for science and technology investments in the coming generation. Ask them to recommend an organizational strategy for a science-based scaling up of national and global R&D efforts. Call on America’s research universities to add their own brainstorming to the work of the national academies. Later in 2017, the president and Congress should then meet in a joint session of Congress to set forth a new technology vision for the nation and an R&D strategy to achieve it.

You Are Not So Smart podcast host and psychology buff David McRaney are perfect, bite-sized ways to inspire your curiosity without requiring a huge time investment.

If Cole successfully analyzes an opportunity for the hedge fund and it invests slightly more effectively, that will be a win for the fund’s managers and its investors. But there will very likely be an equivalent loss on the other side of the investment (whoever sold it to them makes out slightly less well for having undervalued the asset). It’s not clear what the macroeconomic benefit is, unless you either favor the hedge fund’s investors over others or have a very abstract view toward capital markets working efficiently.

Why do men get magazines and books on investing and getting rich while women get lectured on pinching pennies at the grocery store and cutting back on our shoe collections?

In June, ICOs raised around $620 million—and July 1 was the start of one of the buzziest ICOs, Tezos. The project, which had also received investment from Tim Draper, was seen as a potential competitor to Ethereum, with two features that improved upon it: formal verification, a way to mathematically prove that smart contracts would behave as the developers intended, to prevent DAO attack–like situations, and built-in governance, right on the blockchain, to manage questions like whether to fork after the DAO. It would go on to raise a record $232 million.

One of the things I’ve observed about white folks who grew up well-to-do: they have a deep investment in the idea of merit, and there’s a special scorn, I’ve noticed, for the poor of their own kind. They may acknowledge that race plays a role in keeping people down; they may even be sympathetic to the plights and sufferings of certain marginalized groups—but white trash is trash for a reason. They can’t help but feel they deserve their position above the fat janitor or the rapidly aging waitress or the bashful handyman—If you were smart, you would’ve gone to college, they think. If you were ambitious, you would have done something with yourself. We worked harder, they think. Our parents instilled proper values, they think—and … well. We. Just. Have. Better. Genes. I think of Patches, the way his eyes grew softly, twenty-watt condescending when he found that I’d never been to high school, let alone university. “You’re self-taught!” he said, as if I were a talking monkey, and he showed his upper teeth in a way that he didn’t mean to. The sneer he’d inherited from generations of good breeding, not on purpose. I can picture the lips of Cammie, and I know she’ll be trying not to make that expression. But I’m afraid that the more she knows me, the more disappointed she’ll be. So I say nothing. The Guiding Star glides past Newcomerstown silent and aloof, and the ghosts of the Delaware tribes watch from the woods. Soon enough, we’ll be joining them in oblivion,

they don’t need to love you. Do your best to address their concerns, be consistent in your messaging, and have faith they’ll come around eventually. If you move seriously to resolve these issues, and if you do it in a smart, disciplined fashion, they’ll eventually notice.

Tyson Dirksen grew up in a family very concerned about the environment, especially California's devastating drought of the 1980's. He started Evolve to try and reduce the use of energy, water, and other raw resources through sustainable design and development and use of green technologies. Tyson is an expert in the high-performance building industry and frequently speaks on the subject at conferences and symposiums. Tyson’s extensive knowledge of real estate investment combined with his expertise in healthy, sustainable, smart and resilient design and construction sets him and Evolve apart.. Tyson received his bachelor’s degree from Brown University and holds a Masters in Real Estate Development from MIT. Tyson is a licensed General Contractor, Real Estate Broker, LEED AP certified, Green Point and HERS Rater, and Passive House builder.

Financially smart people take loans even if they can afford, to save money. Financially weak people take loans knowing that they can't afford, to spend money!

First, let us take a quick pass of the 11 questions. Some of them might seem trite or useless at first glance. . . . But lo! Things are not always what they appear. What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life? What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)? My readers love specifics like brand and model, where you found it, etc. How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours? If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it—metaphorically speaking, getting a message out to millions or billions—what would it say and why? It could be a few words or a paragraph. (If helpful, it can be someone else’s quote: Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by?) What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made? (Could be an investment of money, time, energy, etc.) What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love? In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life? What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the “real world”? What advice should they ignore? What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise? In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to (distractions, invitations, etc.)? What new realizations and/or approaches helped? Any other tips? When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do? (If helpful: What questions do you ask yourself?)

Time traveller He calls himself a time traveller, He travels anywhere and anytime, He is a very adept traveller, Who knows how to bypass time, We once met suddenly, When the traveller was travelling the highway of life, He was pacing very efficiently, And that day I happened to be on the same highway of life, As I was about to cross a junction, He stopped there too, And enquired if I knew how this highway of life did function? “I may not know that better than you,” Was my polite and slow answer, “Ah haa, you appear to be a stranger on this highway, Come let me introduce you to few tricks old and quite a few newer, So, come let us go this way.” Said the traveller as we both stepped on the highway, And paced towards a destination of his choosing, It was a beautiful experience anyway, Though his few ways were very amusing, Then we stopped at a far away corner, And he pulled something from his bag, He was smart but this thing seemed smarter, He opened it and removed the safety tag, Now he turned to me and said, “Look at the sky, what do you see?” And I without being reticent said, “The sky, the Sun, that is all I see,” Looking at me he replied, “I thought so, and here is the fact, You see the sky and just the Sun, But you miss the real act, Time invested cannot be undone, You see I am a time traveller and I travel with it, Today on this highway, tomorrow on another, But I never miss the destination even by a bit, And as we were walking together, I asked you what you see when you look at the sky, You should have said, nothing, I have no time for it, Because the Sun will be there, so will be the sky, Being the time travellers we are not allowed to sit, We have to keep on moving and always seeking, Until we reach our destiny, Now this for you is my lesson worth heeding, If you are to find your final destiny, So let the Sun be, let the stars shine, and let the sky spread its magical blue, You keep travelling, moving, from one destination to another, Then you shall be a time traveller too, Like none other, like none other, So we switched lanes on the highway, He rode in a direction new, And now I was a lone rider on my life’s highway, Having realised what is known to just a few, That to be the time traveller, We should not wander but travel with a fixed aim, Because a true traveller is like a true lover, Who knows love and destiny are not a game, So for the real time traveller, it is always one destiny and one love, Though crossing many destinations is a part of it all, But the passion for love and to love, Supercedes the lure of destinations all! Now I often see the time traveller on the highways that I cross, We just bow our heads and move ahead, Because we have a destination to cross, To reach the final destiny of love, and in this pursuit we shall always stay ahead!

But investing is not a hard science. It’s a massive group of people making imperfect decisions with limited information about things that will have a massive impact on their wellbeing, which can make even smart people nervous, greedy and paranoid

If you are looking for a good long-term investment, buy a company that has the highest sales in its industry. So for home improvement, you want to own Home Depot; for fast food, McDonald's; for toothpaste, Colgate Palmolive; for payments, Visa; for smart phones, Apple; and for social media, Facebook.

It’s no secret that the most expensive line item on just about any corporate budget is payroll. People. Losing and replacing people is enormously expensive. So even if compa- nies can’t quite bring themselves to invest altruistically in a healthy culture, they need to understand this priority from a purely financial interest. It’s a smart business decision to help teams integrate their hearts into the workplace mix; it will save them money. And as a bonus, it will help people make better decisions, synergize their gifts, and actually want to go to work in the morning.

If you reinvest dividends, which can often be a very smart investment move, you will no longer get to see on your statement what you originally paid to buy the position. Instead, our dividend profit masquerades as principal in a very powerful illusion that affects almost every investor.

The best on horses you think will lose are a valuable "insurance policy." When rare disaster strikes, you'll be glad you had the insurance. 71 The exponential growth of wealth in the Kelly system is also a consequence of proportional betting. As the bankroll grows, make larger bets. 98 [2 questions are central to John Kelly's analysis] What level of risk will lead to the highest long-run return? What is the chance of losing everything? 286 As Fred Schwed, Jr. author of Where are the Customer's Yatchs? put it back in 1940, "Like all of life's rich emotional experiences, the full flavor of losing important money cannot be conveyed in literature." 304 Claude Shannon: A smart investor should understand where he has an edge and invest only in those opportunities. 308 The longer you hold a stock, the harder it is to beat the market by much. 316

Non-Round Numbers Are Better at Anchoring Choosing a round number will send the message—especially to experienced negotiators—that you have no specific rationale for that price. And, if you have no rationale for a price, it’s reasonable to assume that you aren’t committed to that price. For example, if a house is listed at $250,000, and you offer $200,000, a smart seller will realize that it’s unlikely that $200,000 number has any specific meaning to you, and that you’re likely just fishing to see if the seller will budge on their price. On the other hand, if you were to offer, $204,200 on that same house, the seller will assume there was thought put into that offer, and will likely believe that the number has some specific meaning. You could reinforce this belief by communicating additional information to the seller when making the offer. For example, before offering $204,200, you might say to the seller: Investor: “I’m glad I met you today… this is actually perfect timing. I just left a closing this morning where I sold a previous property, and I have some cash available to make another purchase.” You haven’t said that the amount of cash you have available is $204,200, but given that your offer is so specific, the seller will likely assume a connection. The seller is now anchored to your $204,200 number, subconsciously thinking that this number is important to your side of the negotiation, perhaps even a requirement for you. Later in the negotiation, you can reinforce this anchor by saying something to the effect of: Investor: “I only have a specific amount of cash available to invest right now. I may be able to increase my offer a little bit, but not much.” Without saying it, you have reinforced the belief that $204,200 is the specific amount you have available to purchase the property, though you’re willing to reluctantly try to find a few more nickels under the sofa cushion.

Let them have their petty quarrels while you pursue your life assignment. Let them waste their time and energy while you invest in what is significant. Let them talk behind your back while you demonstrate what they lack. Let them be jealous of your success while you keep doing your best. Let them win arguments while you go out there and win big battles.

There is this story where NASA tried to figure out how to make a ballpoint pen that works in space. If you have ever tried to use a ballpoint pen over your head, you have probably realised it is gravity that keeps the ink flowing. After a series of prototypes, several test runs and tons of money invested, NASA developed a fully functional gravity-independent pen, which pushes the ink onto the paper by means of compressed nitrogen. According to this story, the Russians faced the same problem. So they used pencils (De Bono, 1998, 141). The story itself, unfortunately, is an urban myth, but the lesson of it encapsulates the core idea of the slip-box: Focus on the essentials and don’t complicate things unnecessarily.