Smart Money Talk with Genistar

Whenever people ask me what I did before I came to Genistar and I say I was an accountant they always say ‘wow so you knew a lot about finances before, you must have known all about this’ and my answer is always a resounding ‘NO’!

Have the banks learned their lesson from the misselling of PPI, investments and paying out huge bonuses despite the fact that most of them were bailed out by our tax money?

DEBT!! – The banks fault – Or is it?

Debt breaks up families, is a major cause of stress, anxiety, pressure, depression and can ultimately lead to suicide.  According to recent statistics, suicides due to debt are up by 8%. So why do people have so much debt?

There’s the popular cliché ”If wishes were horses, beggars would ride”.  It’s natural to want to have the best things materially for yourself, your loved ones and sometimes maybe to even go over the top, to show off or spend a lot of money buying something special for a loved one.  I believe this is always going to be the case, assuming money permits.

FACT: 95% of the people are dead broke at age 65 and only

FACT: 5% are financially independent.

FACT: 95% of people do not have their goals and dreams written down with pictures up of what they want!

FACT: 5% do have their goals and dreams in writing.

Hmm……could there be a correlation here?!

It really is important that each day you stay focused on your goals.

Do you have them written down?

Do you have pictures of them in a prominent place?

“The first step from poverty to riches is the most difficult….. it can be
defined as having a clear concise mental picture of the thing one seeks” – Andrew Carnegie

Wow, what a statement!

So if the first step is the most difficult, if you can master that one, the rest are easier right?

This made a lot of sense to me, but where to start?

What do you seek? What are you passionate about? What will you regret if you go you whole life and don’t achieve?

Just when you thought you were having a bad day….

Recently I was on a two week, non-stop journey to visit all of the Genistar offices throughout the UK.  It was a gruelling schedule with meetings everyday and a seminar almost every evening in a new city.  I got home to my flat in London, threw down my bags and had a cup of tea to relax after this two week business trip.  I was mentally and physically spent.

1) The Economy

It’s a fact that we have the highest unemployment figures in British history, so, more people are looking for something new and different than ever before.  We have a window of opportunity: until the struggling employment market straightens itself out (if it ever does!) the UK workforce, for a period of time, will have to seriously consider self-employment as a viable alternative.

New Year, New Career? New Plan?

Isn’t it funny that people often wait until the beginning of a whole year to decide to make a change?

What will your 2012 look like? Will it be pretty much the same as your 2011 if you don’t change anything? If you do the same things you have always done you should not expect the results to be any different.

So how do we make 2012 great?

First step is to DECIDE to MAKE it different!