Recent Posts
Recent Posts Tagged With 'motivation'
What maketh the man?
I was a scrawny, nervous young lad when I got to high school. For those from overseas, high school is around your 8th year of school through to when you leave school at around 17/18 in NZ. Anyway, I had a hard time. The nickname for my school was Pen...
Creativity
I honestly can’t pin point the time when I knew I wanted to be a creative person. Looking back, I see trigger points. A unique solution to a problem, playing Dungeons & Dragons as a kid and spending more time working on the story line that...
New Zealand – Economic Capital of The World (1/12)
New Zealand’s days as a manufacturer of goods and dairy are well and truly numbered. The high cost and low margins are simply not sustainable. This is a twelve part series exploring what New Zealand might be able to do with strong leadership an...
Dealing With Mr. Big
Masters. They are everywhere. We work our lives through a series of encounters with them. Regardless of whether you are a person in power, sometimes your life will collide with a master, and how you deal with that encounter determines the rest of you...
Ethics, Professionalism and Business – 5 Rules
Businesses are an interesting beast. When they are new, it is usually their founder that guides them, just like a parent and a child. As they reach a certain point, sometimes the founder/owner hands over the reigns, and the business can grow into som...
RE: Why You Can’t Find Better Employees
The following is from Seth Simonds’ Blog. The article “Why You Can’t Find Better Employees” spoke volumes and demanded a comment. Here is the opening: Here’s a phrase you have probably used before: “It’s impossible to fin...
Goals for 2009 – Update
Back in January I set myself 7 achievable goals. You can read the background here. The goals were as follows: Save $25,000 Complete the draft of my first novel Ensure all tax is paid on time Earn at least 20% of my income from freelance writing Pai...
Racist New Zealand
“Reserved places for Maori have proven the ability of Maori students to rise to the challenge if they are given the opportunity.” - Dr. Pita Sharples Hogwash. Maori who have been given an automatic place have preformed 4% less than their ...
Bootstrapping and Start-Up Culture
I have worked with loads of starts ups over the years, and even had quite a few myself. Something that always astonishes me is the cash burn these companies have. The money sack is literally being shovelled into the proverbial furnace at an amazing...
Lauren Kaney - the epitome of stupidity or something else?
UPDATE: This post is likely to change a lot in the next few days. There are inconsistencies in the reporting used as a basis for this post, an apparent breach of protocol by WINZ and somewhere a personal betrayal. Stay posted, this could get very...
The Road Toll and Drink Driving
The NZ Police are calling for a reduction in the legal alcohol limit. It’s currently 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. They want it reduced to 50 milligrams.They insist this will reduce the road toll by 14 per year and sa...
Moving to Spain Update
Having basically set a year for the big move to Spain, it seems to be approaching ever so quickly. At one point, 2011 seemed ages away, but not now. Resolving final issues with IRD, saving sufficient money to ensure Diane and I can be “autonomo...
Minimum Wage
New Zealand’s government has decided to increase the minimum wage to $12.50 per hour from 1 April 2009. Good on them, that’s 1% higher than inflation. For an annual income of $26,000 for a 40 hour week. Not very much, granted, but it...
Unions reject pay freeze talk
Of course they do. They have no idea what a business owner goes through during tight economic times. The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union national secretary Andrew Little, who I personally think is a complete fuck wit, said higher wages ...
Self-Employed Vs Employed
I remember reading a piece by Jim Rohn many years ago about money, employment and the likes. Although I can’t find the article, it did have a life-changing affect on me. The bottom line, in Jim Rohn’s opinion is that everyone is self-empl...
Kill Your Debt
In the early 2000s I came so close to bankruptcy that it was almost inevitable. However, through some very persuasive discussions, mistakes by some of the parties involved and sheer luck I ended up avoiding it. I even managed to keep a pretty clean...
Procrastination as a [Put profession here]
I have yet to find any profession that is not prone to procrastination. My own personal experience with procrastination is intimate and long term. In fact, since I should be working on something else write now, I guess writing this little bitty is ...
Recession? What Recession?
I have been 48 hours from bankruptcy twice in my life, once in 2003 and once in 1993. In 1993, it was a mear $300 cash that saved me. It is interesting that there are ten years between the two incidents. I also find it interesting that my credit ...
