Category: Gyaan

Leveraging Your Relationships #2: How To Achieve Better Relationships

Now that you have got the idea what leveraging is I want you to know how you can improve upon your relationships? Most of you would know might these simple steps and may know that it is not a rocket science.

The day when you make your first relationship (the day when you are born) you grab the attention of your mom by crying. This practice of grabbing attention stays but the mode with which it is attained changes with age.You give a smile, and that’s the beginning of a positive relationship. But to sustain it you need and later utilize it, it requires certain efforts.

Some days back I had a target to complete a project, simultaneously; I had to make a presentation, both the tasks were of high priority. I asked a colleague of mine for some help to make the presentation. I just asked her to make a skeleton for it and I would add the rest of the details. But to my surprise she completed the whole presentation for me and I got out with both the targets with flying colors. I didn’t forget to appreciate her in front of the team for the help she provided me.

This was a leverage of my relationship with her. Over the period of time I have developed a very positive rapport with my colleagues that we have a very healthy competition and a great helping team.

I achieved this by following certain simple steps.

Respect: You should be giving respect to the other person; it comes by talking with respect, sticking to time or being punctual with appointments and keeping your commitments. You never know how much it hurts the other person when you don’t keep your commitments.

No disparaging: You should not disparage your friends, colleagues in front of others and even behind them. You never know when your deed reaches your friend/colleague and in what format.

With family members it’s even simpler.
Working closely with family: any assignments or a group activity should be participated with full heart.

Reminding some good old moments: When you are out of touch with a colleague or a friend you can make him remember certain cherished old moments and repeat them more often.

Show interest in future endeavors: Whenever there are discussions in your family/office team show genuine interest and put relevant inputs after researching that subject. This would also help develop your knowledge base.

Help: Try to help from the bottom of your heart as your eyes will surely say whether you are genuinely interested in the tasks/talks or not.

If you don’t want it the straight way to build relationships then you learn to kiss ass from Jon.

Well, I follow a mixture of these tips and I am growing at a decent pace in my organization as well as sharing a beautiful relationship with my friends and family members.

I would pose similar questions to the readers; how well they are with their relationships? and are they in a position to leverage it? And do you think you can add to the list that I have provided above?

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A Five Stage Process of Getting Debt Free

It’s over a year and a half that I am in a bad debt situation and surprisingly it’s nearly one and a half years that I am into a paid job. If I correlate the two then I can conclude that steady income flow increased my debt taking tendency. In other words I will say that the security of getting my paycheck made me to overspend.

When I gave it a thought so as to find the reason for the above I could come up with only one reason I can pay it later when I get my paycheck. If I talk in time frames then I was spending future money into present but the problem with this concept is that you cannot account for future expenses (always) which come as an emergency e.g. bike/car repairs, health problems and many such unforeseen incidents/events.

So what happens next? I have already spent that money in the past and now I am stuck with a high credit card bill with no money to pay for, the result a bad debt and more importantly a way to a debt trap.

The cause: credit card spending! No, the cause here is trying to afford that you can’t just by assuming valid reasons for buying at that moment, but later in debt trap you feel that you could have deferred your purchase. For example, I need a new car, (mental process: the car I am driving is making sound, the mileage is very less and asks for more maintenance so why not replace it, I am getting a good deal with XX dealer). Next day you are with a new car along with a big debt on your head.

Now you are desperate to get out of it but you can’t as you cannot overclock your debt reduction process due to a simple reason, you don’t have any extra source of income and the debt brings interest and other charges with itself which further enhances it.

In this case my mind stopped thinking constructively for alternatives for reducing the debt as it is already preoccupied by the huge debt. The result, time wastage over trivial things and not be able to devise a plan. So what should I do? Well there is a way, which I am following and trying to get out of debt. Continue reading →

Investing into Intangible Assets

In the past week Canadian Financial stuff has put up a post on financial resume. I got really inspired by the post and started to prepare my networth statement. While preparing it I realized an important term which is missing from my balance sheet.

Goodwill is the element that I cannot quantify in my balance sheet while calculating my net-worth/self-worth. This prompted me to think over intangible assets for an individual that can’t be quantified but forms the basic part of one’s individual financial health. A little thought and I came up with the following:

  • Health: Physical and mental fitness is of utmost importance while considering your intangible assets. Try to refrain from unnecessary stress and work pressure. Stress drains out your energy which can be put into some positive or constructive work.
  • Time Statement: The importance of time and its management has been mentioned many times, but I want to put emphasis on time statement. Do we keep a time budget by estimating our time expenses as we keep a monetary budget by estimating our future expenses?
  • Career: Can career be an asset? Yes it always is! It gives a source of steady income. But have we considered enhancing the value of our career by trying out different strategies e.g. focusing on our core strengths and weaknesses.
  • State of Mind: The only thing that you can control 100% in this world is your mind. And if you can be positive towards the externalities of life good or bad then you build up your confidence as an asset over a period of time. Your mental stamina increases towards the downs of your life.
  • Discipline: This is the most important intangible asset that helps you to manage all the four assets mentioned above. Discipline can provide you best asset allocation and growth for the future.

Coming up with strategies to invest into such assets your networth will show a drastic increase in the tangible or quantifiable assets.

Price of Becoming Rich!

Everything has a price. Price may not be always in monetary sense. It can be anything. If I want something, I may need to spend time to achieve that. The price of achieving that something is time. If I am a workaholic and neglect my loved ones, then the price of achieving a career is the quality of the relationships with my loved ones. Whatever I do, there is a price.

Since I aspire to be rich, I always wonder what is the price of becoming rich? I also wonder why so many people aspire to be rich but yet so few of them actually achieve it? And I found the answer after reading the Guide To Becoming Rich Without Cutting Up Your Credit Cards by Robert Kiyosaki. The answer is that not everyone is willing to pay the price of becoming rich.

That is the reason why not everyone who aspires to become rich actually succeeded to be rich.

For example, I want to have a great body. So I sign up for a lot of seminars and courses to gain a great body. I even hire a personal trainer. He comes out with a three months training program that is customized for me. All I need to do is to following the training program strictly without a failure. According to my training program, there will be hours of workout at the gym daily.

Also, I need to stick to my diet strictly too. To have a great body at the end of the training program, I need to do a lot of workout and control my diet. That is exactly where the problems will begin. I will start to find excuses for myself. Firstly, I am feeling so tired after work, where can I find the time to do workout. Secondly, I like to have the freedom to enjoy great foods.

I do not want to be restricted by my diet. Thirdly, I do not know how to do the workout by myself. I need my coach to be around to hand held me. But he is not always around. Next, someone has better advantages than me, which is why he can do it while I cannot. And the list of excuses goes on. Continue reading →

The Inflation Story

You can call him a bank robber and that too a perfect one, perfect because no one knows that one is being robbed and is always happy sitting on a cushion of huge cash. This is for people who keep large balances in their savings account; inflation erodes the value of their money.

With inflation at 6% and interest of 3.5% on your savings bank account you are earning a differential amount of 2.5% which is negative. This implies 4 lakhs in your account for one year translates to 390000 a loss of 10000 a year. The longer your cash stays in your account the more the loss.

The inflation rate for the whole country means little; if we take it to be city specific then the loss is huge. I leave the calculations to you.

Ranchi 12.8%

Bhopal 11.7%

Patna 10%

Jaipur 8.5%

Hyderabad 7.7%

Ahemedabad 7.2%

Bangalore 6.8%

Lucknow 6.8%
Kolkata 6.4%
Mumbai 6%
Source Money Today January 11 2007

So what is the way out? We know that we can’t avoid the effects if inflation, but we can always move our cash to some better avenues than keeping it our savings bank account.

You can formulate a strategy to have an optimal amount of cash (say one months salary, this amount should be as per your liquidity requirements).

  • You can tell your bank to auto sweep the surplus cash to an FD (giving a better interest rate)
  • If you can take some risks then you can go for Systematic investment plan in a mutual fund or regular investments in shares.

Currently I am planning to have a month’s salary into my account by the year end and rest into equities (see my financial goal for 2007 Holdings). So the next time you feel proud to have large balances in your account then know that you are being robbed.