In business, health, like lunch, is for wimps.

No one is going to allow a mere head cold or mild bout of flu to stop them getting on with their work. According to a survey by the UK’s Chartered Management Institute, one in three managers is afraid to take time off when ill. If you’ve got backache, take some pills. Strong coffee can deal with any lack of sleep. For those who want them, or need them, stronger drugs will always be available. Then there is “all that stress” endured by those at the top. Except, of course, that this is to misunderstand (in more ways then one) what really happens at different levels within businesses and organisations.

Successful people welcome the pressure that comes with greater responsibility. They have got to the top precisely because they have a higher pain threshold than others. This is what the sports psychologists call “mental toughness” - the ability to keep going even when it might seem more sensible to stop. The dirty little secret of leadership is that it is not nearly as stressful as being a subordinate. Lack of autonomy and control over your work - now, that is stressful. Boring, repetitive tasks and being excluded from the really interesting networks - this is what makes working life unpleasant and potentially damaging to health.

As the pace of business speeds up, these pressures can only rise. Working days get longer and ever more gets packed in. Admired leaders are often praised by their colleagues for “always having time” for people. But how many direct reports can you really pay attention to at any one time? If you are running a global division, teams will want to see you in the flesh. You can expect to have to live with almost permanent jet lag.

Losing sleep over all this will only make things worse. Irregular sleep patterns boost adrenaline levels, causing blood pressure to rise - which is a big risk factor for heart attacks. But who would ever interrupt a key meeting to request time out for a lie-down, or even a “power nap”? It is not going to happen.

Turning A Business Trip Into A Mini-Vacation

As work is increasingly making inroads into leisure time, many business travelers are finding ways to turn that equation around — combining their travel for work with time for cultural and historical sightseeing. The majority of adult American travelers (81%) have included a cultural or history-related activity while traveling, according to a 2007 report by the Travel Industry Association, while 62% regard learning about other cultures as important when they travel. Almost one in four of all trips in the United States in 2005 included a cultural or historical activity, the survey also found, and those travelers spent considerably more per trip on average, and stayed longer, than those who did not.

 Convenient Yet Pricy

A new kind of medical practice is flourishing nationwide that offers to go to where the patients are — whether a home, an office or a hotel — to treat ailments as diverse as a sprained ankle or a bad case of bronchitis. Some services may even wheel in a mobile X-ray machine or an ultrasound machine, depending on the ailment, or perhaps pull out kits to test for strep throat or to draw blood. They may dole out medication on the spot or arrange for pharmacies to deliver prescriptions. The convenience comes at a price. Appointment fees can range from $250 to $450, with additional tests and medication extra. And payment is due at the time of the appointment.

Doctor delivery is one of many new approaches springing up to address the demand for faster, more convenient medical care. Walk-in clinics are opening in places like pharmacies, retail stores and airport terminals, though not everyone thinks this is a good idea. The desire of consumers for better access to a doctor has also given rise to “concierge medicine,” in which they pay thousands of dollars annually to get convenient, no-wait appointments. There is a separate fee for an actual appointment.

The demand for primary care physicians outweighs the supply in many cities, so patients can wait weeks, and even months, for appointments, and hospital emergency rooms are becoming overloaded with nonemergency cases.

 A file with the answer to “what are you good for?”

The basic idea is simple: you just keep a file of good stuff you do.  When you figure out some trick new process that saves hours per week, you make a note about (don’t forget to datestamp it) and drop it in the yay-me file.  When you finish a project on time and under budget, you make a note that points to supplementary project files and you drop it in the yay-me file. Got a thank you card, drop it in the yay-me file.  Since it’s only your eyes on the yay-me file, you can feel free to drop in even the most trivial bits good cheer.

The reason for the yay-me file is two-fold.  First, when you feel like you need to patch your personal suck you can crack open the yay-me file for a blast of good vibes from the past.   The yay-me file reminds you that you aren’t always lame and that you make good decisions and you do good work.  And gosh darnit, people like you!

Here’s a list of calculators ranging from Mortgage APR to Auto Rebate vs. Low Interest Financing to Hourly Paycheck.

Wonder where your money goes, especially if you’re not a big spender?

• Coffee:  $360 per year. According to the National Coffee Association, the average price for a cup of brewed coffee is $1.38. There are roughly 260 weekdays per year, so buying one coffee every weekday morning costs almost $360 per year.
• Unused Gym Memberships: $480 per year. Monthly service fee at gyms averages between $35 and $40. At $40 per month, an unused gym membership runs $480 per year.
• Car Washes:  $348 per year. The average cost for a basic auto detailing package is $58. The tab for getting your car detailed every two months: $348 per year.  
• Manicures: $1,068 per year In 2004, the average cost of a manicure is $20.53. A weekly manicure sets you back about $1,068 per year.
•  Weekday Lunches Out: $2,340 a year. $9 will generally cover a decent lunch most workdays. If you buy, rather than pack, a lunch five days a week for one year, you shell out about $2,340 a year.
•  Interest Charges on CC Bills: The median amount of credit card debt carried by Americans is $6,600. The average interest rate on a standard card is about 13%. Making the minimum payment each month, it will take 250 months (almost 21 years) to pay off the debt and cost $4,868 in interest. Ouch!
• Alcohol: Drink prices vary based on the location. But assuming an average of $5 per beer including tip, buying two beers per day adds up to $3,650 per year. Figure twice that for two mixed drinks a day at the local bar. That’s not chump change.
• Cigarettes: The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids reports that the average price for a pack of cigarettes in the United States is $4.54. Pack-a-day smokers fork out $1,650 a year. Weekend smoker? Buying a pack once a week adds up, too: $236.

The Power of Hormones 

SAC Capital is a powerful $10 billion hedge fund run by superstar trader Steven A. Cohen, one of Wall Street’s most prolific players who regularly takes home $500 million a year. What’s their secret? Telling their traders to swallow female hormones to trade better. It was alleged that one of Cohen’s top bosses at SAC chided traders for being too aggressive - and that they must use a soft feminine touch to score in their trading pitches.

One junior trader claimed that the boss, Ping Jiang, a key producer at the big hedge fund, demanded that the young trader take female hormone pills to help erase his aggressive male ways so he could be more effeminate in his trading style. Eventually, the hormones caused the junior trader, Andrew Tong, to start wearing dresses, avoid his wife’s touches altogether and allegedly begin a sexual relationship with his boss, the trader claims. Tong said that when he was instructed by Jiang to start taking an unspecified dosage of the pills to improve his trading.  Tong had to search the illegal black market to find his hormone pills.

The method apparently worked for Jiang, who’s listed by Trader Monthly magazine as one of Wall Street’s top 100 traders, with estimated income of $100 million a year.

Recognize The When You Deceive Yourself

People always tell half-truths, white lies, sins of omission and other types of financial fiction when dealing with money issues. Why? The motivation, of course, is self-protection: If we don’t tell the truth to ourselves and others, maybe no one will know . . . maybe the problem will disappear! Here are three of the biggest lies people make about money:

1. The Lies We Tell Ourselves  Avoiding the truth about your finances is really easy. The trouble is that the lies we tell ourselves about money are hard to spot, because they are often couched as Really Valid Reasons. Here are some other financial cover-ups you may have used:

• “I’ve earned it.”

• “If she can afford it, why can’t I?”

• “I make (insert dollar amount here). I should be able to live better than this.”

• “What’s the harm? I hardly ever buy myself anything new.”

These rationales are externally driven. When you compare yourself to others or to a certain ideal (”all my girlfriends have one“), you avoid dealing with the realities of your own bank account. The need to assuage that discomfort is only natural. The trouble comes when denial becomes your primary way of coping and you avoid reality by overspending, not staying on top of your debt, trying to buy what others have and other financially damaging behaviors.

2. The Lies We Tell Others   These financial fictions are much easier to spot. Who doesn’t know when they are lying to someone? But they are harder to correct for the following reasons:

• You feel entitled to your privacy. “Hey, my money is nobody else’s business.”

• You don’t want to look bad. “If I told even my best friend about how much debt I have, he would think I was an idiot.”

• You know you’re about to fix the problem. “There’s no point in telling anyone we’re behind on our mortgage — I’m about to get a raise and everything will be fine.”

The nugget of truth here is that you really don’t have to tell anyone the truth about your financial life . . . unless hiding the financial facts is getting or keeping you in trouble. The lie you tell about your financial situation could be concealing numerous other emotional issues. There is an overall refusal to accept one’s limitations. We say we don’t have such-and-such limitations, we’re fine and we get into deeper problems as a result. Admitting a particular truth to someone else also makes your money problem more concrete and harder to avoid.

3. Sins of Omission   Sounds innocent (as though you just forgot to mention something) but they too can be poisonous. In reality, they are an ugly combination of personal denial and lying to others.

• Your friend admits that she’s in debt, but you just nod sympathetically, even though your debt could eat her debt for breakfast.

• You make a major money mistake, and you’re so ashamed that you vow to take it to your grave.

• Your pals are planning a ski vacation this winter and invite you along. You’re broke, but you book the hotel and flight anyway.

• You just found out that your spouse is $25,000 in debt, you can’t make your car payments and you have no idea where to get help — so you don’t even ask.

Wrapping a key financial matter in a cloak of silence is really about keeping up appearances and fooling yourself that you haven’t lied, you just didn’t tell the truth.

Clinical Evidence That Sunlight Supports The Productivity Theory

As the country embraces “green” building design - be it in the workplace or at home - daylight has become a premium. Not only does it save energy - more sunlight means less bulb light - but research shows that workers with access to natural light are more productive. Recent studies supporting the productivity claim are helping architects convince developers that such green features are good for business - everybody’s business. Not only can landlords charge more for the space, but companies can achieve better results from their employees.

Based on a 1999 analysis Lisa Heschong, founder of Heschong Mahone Group, performed with shoppers and schoolchildren, she already knew that natural light caused shoppers to buy more and students to perform better in school. But in the study requested by the California Energy Commission, she wanted to analyze worker productivity and whether it mattered if people had a view. “We found really, really big effects,” said Heschong, who studied two call centers operating 12 hours a day with 100 employees. In each study, employees with views outside their windows answered and processed calls 7% faster than employees doing the same work without a view. It’s almost too big to be believable,” she said. “In both of those cases, the importance of a view jumped out of the data.”

As a result, some companies even going so far as to move executives away from windows to give more workers access to daylight. Companies have also discovered that offices designed to make workers more comfortable pay for themselves. Standard industry norms say that during a building’s 30-year life cycle, a company will spend 90% of the costs on salaries for its workers; 3% on energy for lighting, heating and cooling; 4% on operating the building; and 3% on constructing the building. All companies are realizing that their most important asset is their people.

Hire A Personal Chef

As lives get increasingly busier with careers, kids, commutes and other chaos, a growing number of people are turning to personal chefs to make sure that there’s a hot meal on the table at the end of a long day. Hiring a professional to cook for you isn’t a whole lot different from hiring someone to clean your house or walk the dog, and it’s not just for the wealthy. It’s not ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’.  People don’t have personal chefs because they’re loaded, they have them because it solves a problem. It puts dinner on the table.

Personal chefs typically prepare several days worth of customized meals in advance, potentially for several clients. The meals are prepared and packaged, ready to be popped in an oven or microwave whenever a client wants to eat. Some chefs charge a flat rate, while others are paid by the hour. The chef does the grocery shopping, along with the cleanup, and those costs are added to a client’s bill. For regular clients, the week’s meals are discussed in advance and are created in accordance with their dietary needs and personal tastes. Organic, vegetarian and kosher options are available and nothing is repeated for six months unless requested, he said.So how much for the custom made dinners? Total costs usually range between $15 and $20 per person per meal, depending on the kind of food prepared and other related costs. That’s not much different from a meal at a restaurant. Overall the pros for hiring a personal chef: eating custom made food, people don’t have to go out and no paying for parking or tip.

A Parting Thought From Dr. Brett Steenbarger

When I talk with traders, I can often sense within the first few minutes of conversation whether the trader is successful and talented or not. What hit me was identifying, consciously, how I was arriving at that assessment.The really good traders tend to have differentiated market views. Their thinking is of a higher order of complexity. So, for example, they may be bullish on certain themes, bearish on others. They like some stock market sectors, avoid others. They see in range bound terms sometimes, trending on other occasions.

The really good traders see a large playing field. If they see a weak dollar, they think about how that affects bonds, metals, energy, and international returns. If they see a breakout from a multiday range, they see a swing move in the making, not just an opportunity to make a few ticks. They can be daytraders or portfolio managers–it doesn’t matter.  They see how markets are interconnected. They see how the morning trade relates to the overnight range, and how today’s trade is connected to what we did yesterday. And the less successful traders? They’re bullish or they’re bearish. That’s it. They think in simple terms of causation: We’re having a housing slump; that means we’ll have a bear market. We’re making new highs; that means we should buy because we’re in an uptrend. The news is good, so we’ll buy. The news is bad, so we should sell. No complexity. Sadly, we see much of that kind of thinking in the financial media.

Jean Piaget, the developmental biologist, emphasized that cognitive development occurs through a process of assimilation (taking in new information) and accomodation (integrating that new information with what we already know). Over time, that enables us to develop increasingly complex (and accurate) models of the world (schemas). I strongly suspect that process is at work in the development of successful traders. Interesting!

We often hear advice to the effect that traders should keep things simple. Complexity for its own sake is not helpful in the least. Still, when I talk with successful traders, I am impressed by the relativity of their views: they look at how this is related to that and how they can profit from the relationship. It may be a simple relationship, but it’s not simplistic. The difference is important.

Which Ones Are Less Likely to Work in Teams or Trust Their Colleagues

Chinese engineers are younger, less-educated, unhappier in their current jobs and more likely to join a startup than their American counterparts according to survey released today comparing the hopes and dreams of engineers on either side of the Pacific. The report, titled “The State of Engineering in China,” is modeled on four similar surveys of the attitudes and ambitions of American engineers that were commissioned between 1998 and 2005.

A comparison of the surveys reveals some significant differences between U.S. and Chinese engineers, along with some similarities.With regard to job satisfaction and career ambition, a comparison of survey results reveals some paradoxical twists. For instance, it is an article of faith in Silicon Valley that great teams are the secret to success, and in this regard Chinese engineers seem to lag. They’re less likely to work in teams than their U.S. counterparts (57% and 76%) and when asked to evaluate various on-the-job risks, they were far more likely to consider it problematic to rely on a colleague (26% in China and 8% in the United States).

Kerry McClenahan, a principal of the communications firm behind the surveys, said this lessened sense of job satisfaction, combined with the relative youth of the Chinese engineers, helped explain another of the findings - their self-professed greater willingness to jump to startups relative to their American counterparts. By and large, Chinese engineers expressed less job satisfaction. They reported better job security than their American counterparts, but had far less say about their working conditions and were less likely to be “proud” to be working for their employer. Despite many differences, the survey turned up similarities, starting with the fact that precisely 94% of the respondents in both the Chinese and U.S. surveys were men.

Filing Doesn’t Have To Be A Pain In The @**

Add a little flair to your filing cabinet with custom labels. Blogger Aaron Propst cut the company letterhead off his bills and used them as folder labels for easy visual identification. This project is a time investment, but the result looks good and may make filing a little quicker and easier.

Women need to “connect” with investing because we live longer

Women now hold just over half of all professional and managerial positions, but investing skills and confidence haven’t kept pace. According to the research organization Catalyst, women now occupy 50.6% of workplace managerial and professional positions. Yet as investors, women still don’t get involved or they invest too conservatively, leaving money on the table.  

• Education. Women growing up are simply not socialized as investors. 76% of women wish they had learned more about investing while growing up. Parents, get your daughters involved.
• Experience. Most women don’t take the investing helm when married.
• Fear. Some 90% of women fear “losing it all,” and even 48% of those with incomes exceeding $100,000 annually cite that fear.
• Adviser Disconnect. Most financial advisers are men, and they’re still geared to talk to men. Most advisers still talk in jargon. There’s still a “tendency to tell women what they want to hear, to comfort them, instead of talking about the opportunities in a situation.”

About 80% to 90% of women will be solely responsible for their finances someday, according to the National Center for Women and Retirement Research. Here’s a fun stat: 96% of men think that financially secure women are sexy. Perhaps because too many women can’t get finances the moral way.

For women who may still be reluctant to wade into investing waters:

1. Think like a business owner.  Business owners understand how businesses work and how to handle the ups and downs. Women are good at this in the business world.
2. Buy businesses you understand.  If inclined to buy individual stocks, this is a fundamental Warren Buffett value principle. As a woman, you probably understand some businesses better than your male counterparts — use this to your advantage.
3. Get the right advice.  Research shows that women prefer the help of advisers. Some 75% of women who rely on advisers are “more comfortable with investing.” That said, finding the right one is important — one tuned in to the needs of women.
4. Follow role models.  In business and in investing it always helps to find good role models and to study their actions and response to business and market stimuli. Buffett, an investor role model for years, is a great place to start.

Tips To Keep Your Audience From Dozing Off

Whether you are watching a presentation or giving a presentation, chances are you know what sucks and what doesn’t. However, in case you don’t know the what sucks, here are ten tips to help insure you are giving a good presentation:

1. Don’t Abuse Your Visuals - Whatever your visuals may be (charts, PowerPoint, etc.), keep them simple and don’t put too many words on them. The audience isn’t there to read your slides, they are there to listen to you present.
2. Look at the Audience - Don’t just single out one person, but instead try to make eye contact with numerous people throughout the room. If you don’t do this then you aren’t engaging the audience, you are just talking to yourself. This can result in an utter lack of attention from your audience.
3. Show Your Personality - It doesn’t matter if you are presenting to a corporate crowd or to senior citizens, you need to show some character when presenting. If you don’t do this you’ll probably sound like Agent Smith from the Matrix. Nobody wants to hear him present.
4. Make Them Laugh - Although you want to educate your audience, you need to make them laugh as well.  In essence, it keeps the audience alert and they’ll learn more from you than someone who just educates.
5. Talk To Your Audience, Not At Them - People hate it when they get talked at. You need to interact with your audience and create a conversation. An easy way to do this is to ask them questions as well as letting them ask you questions.
6. Be Honest - A lot of people present to the audience what they want to hear, instead of what they need to hear. Make sure you tell the truth even if they don’t want to hear it because they will respect you for that and it will make you more human.
7. Don’t Over Prepare - If you rehearse your presentation too much it will sound like it. Granted, you need to be prepared enough to know what you are going to talk about but make sure your presentation flows naturally instead of sounding memorized. Usually if you ask experienced speakers what you shouldn’t do, they’ll tell you not to rehearse your presentation too much because then it won’t sound natural.
8. Show Some Movement - Make sure you show some gestures or pace around a bit (not too much) on the stage when speaking. Naturally people may forget to do so. Remember, no one likes watching a stiff. People are more engaged with an animated speaker.
9. Watch What You Say - You usually don’t notice when you say “uhm”, “ah”, or any other useless word frequently, but the audience does. It gets quite irritating; so much that some members of the audience will probably count how many times you say these useless words.
10. Differentiate Yourself - If you don’t do something unique compared to all the other presenters the audience has heard, they won’t remember you. You are branding yourself when you speak, so make sure you do something unique and memorable.