Life

How Much You Keep, Not How Much You Earn

Rich people who die with money issues tells us that spending more than you earn is risky for individuals, and for entire countries

Published

1 year ago

April 28, 2021

Jeff Davidson

The tragic death of Robin Williams in 2014, who took his own life while suffering from severe depression as well as facing money problems among other things, reminds us of a truism of personal finances: it doesn’t matter how much you make in any given year, or in the span of your career.

If you spend more than you make, and do it in a hurry, you can end up as bankrupt as anyone. This last year has been particularly tough for many people and so prudent finances are more important than ever before.

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

Yesteryear, we often read about professional athletes or entertainers who annually earned multimillions of dollars, but then, a few years out of the sport, or out of the celebrity limelight, fell into financial ruin.

How could someone raking in several million dollars a year, we thought, end up penniless? How foolish, how reckless, how wanton could people be with their money?

Today, at least among pro athletes, money managers ensure that said individual will have regular annual income for life. In pro contracts, clauses stipulate how much of an athlete’s earnings will actually be dispensed in any given year.

Hence, 15 to 20 years out of professional sports, an athlete who had been earning, say, $10 million a year will be assured of income for life as a result of effective money management. Celebrities who are wise enough to choose effective professional financial counsel are similarly aided.

Low Debt = Breathing Space

No matter how much you make, if you don’t effectively manage your money, it can all go to pot. Studies show that an inheritance, of any size, is dissipated on average within seven years. So, whether someone receives $5,000 or $500,000, on average, far too soon all that money is gone.

Being in debt is not conducive to having breathing space. In fact, it’s the antithesis. When you’re in debt, that reality has a way of dominating your day. When the next bill arrives, you think about your finances. When the next mortgage or rent payment becomes due, the issue arises again.

Every time you write a check, or surrender your credit card to a vendor, or even take money out of your wallet, you are reminded of your tenuous financial condition.

When you’re in debt and seek to re-pay it, you tend to work longer and harder. You want to make extra money to pay down credit card balances. Living beyond your means, however exhilarating in the short run, is insidious in the long run, for people and for entire nations.

The constant drum beat in the back of your mind, “I’m not making it,” “I owe others,” and “What if people find out?’ can wear down an individual in ways that we don’t even fully understand.

Construct a Cash Flow

The fastest and easiest way to understand the state of your current as well as future personal finances is to construct a 12-month cash flow spreadsheet.

A well-constructed cash flow plots all of the incoming cash and revenue from all sources, and to the best of your ability projects all of the expenses you will be incurring. A 36-month cash flow is more ambitious and more revealing.

It’s too easy to get caught up in thinking, “I’m making a big bucks annually, and my goodness, what do I have to worry about?” The fate of rich people who die with money issues tells us that you have plenty to worry about if you spend more than you earn.

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Jeff Davidson is the world's only holder of the title "The Work-Life Balance Expert®" as awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He is the premier thought leader on work-life balance, integration, and harmony. Jeff speaks to organizations that seek to enhance their overall productivity by improving the effectiveness of their people. He is the author of Breathing Space, Simpler Living, Dial it Down, and Everyday Project Management. Visit www.BreathingSpace.com for more information on Jeff's keynote speeches and seminars, including: Managing the Pace with Grace® * Achieving Work-Life Balance™ * Managing Information and Communication Overload®

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Life

Too Tired for Your Own Good

The realization that you are fatigued is the first step to resolution

Published

5 days ago

June 26, 2022

Jeff Davidson

It’s Sunday. Go back to bed and then return to this article!

Based on what you do an average day, it is understandable that sometimes you feel very tired, but when is the tired feeling that you have bordering on danger? Many signs exist, among them these:

1. Your fatigue is prolonged. Getting several nights of extra sleep in a row or sleeping for an entire weekend doesn’t seem to put a dent in your feeling of fatigue. Perhaps worse, you feel as if you “will never catch up.”
2. You experience indigestion or lack of appetite. You normally look forward to meals, but when highly fatigued, you have trouble getting them down. Maybe, you’re eating less.
3. Loss of sex drive. This isn’t as obvious a sign as you might think. Loss of your libido usually takes place a little bit at a time, such that you don’t notice what’s going on. Your partner probably will, though.
4. You begin to experience trouble getting to sleep, if not outright insomnia. During the night, you find yourself waking more often or tossing back and forth, and then to exacerbate the situation, you spend the rest of the night worrying that you’re not getting good sleep.
5. You feel tired in the morning even after getting a full night’s sleep. Realistically, there’s no reason for this. If by 9:30 or 10:00 in the morning, you can hardly keep your head up, it’s time to take heed.
6. Your ability to focus on the task at hand is diminished. Your powers of concentration are not what they have been in the past. Generally, this is not due to your aging.
7. You feel that you’re no longer in control. In many ways, this is the most insidious of the signs. You doze at highly inopportune moments, such as in an important meeting, or when driving.

Not Enough Sleep, but Otherwise Functional

Here’s a second list of indicators showing that you’re not getting enough sleep, but perhaps you’re not at the danger level:

Your eyes are red.
You’re not mentally sharp.
You avoid tasks that involve adding up numbers.
You find yourself daydreaming often.
In situations with others you simply go through the motions.
You don’t want to handle any phone calls if you can help it.
You watch the clock frequently throughout the day, hoping it will go by more quickly.

Before I learned how to keep my stress level in check, I used to look forward to going to the dentist. When I got to the dentist’s chair, and they tilted the seat back, it was one of the few times during the day where I actually reclined and had relatively little to do. If there wasn’t to be any drilling or serious poking during the session, such as a routine visit or cleaning, in some cases I became so relaxed that I didn’t want to leave. For me, that was an indication that I was highly fatigued.

You probably have your own personal corollaries to this. The realization that you are fatigued is the first step to increasing your efficiency and defeating the problem. A life of constant exhaustion, no matter what else you accomplish, is not a desirable situation. No one, however, is coming to bail you out.

The road back from exhaustion starts with self-awareness, then resolve, then action. Will today be that day?

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Life

Work-life Balance and the Five-Mega-Realities

Work-life balance is the ability to experience a sense of control and to stay productive and competitive at work while maintaining a happy, healthy home life with needed leisure

Published

1 week ago

June 21, 2022

Jeff Davidson

In the 1st edition of my book Breathing Space which appeared in 1990, I discussed five major trends – what I called mega-realities – that influenced every aspect of our being, and from which no one was immune. Briefly, these five mega-realities include:

* an expanding volume of knowledge
* mass media growth and electronic addiction
* the paper trail culture
* an over-abundance of choices
* population growth.

Knowledge – In one way or another, everyone fears being under-informed. The enormous volume of new knowledge broadcasted and published in every field exceeds our ability to keep pace. More words are published and broadcast in a day than you could ingest during your lifetime. America leads the world in sheer volume of information generated and disseminated.

The impasse of this over-information era is that the time necessary to learn the rules for effective living now exceeds your lifetime. This is why management books so often miss the mark: they list dozens — if not hundreds — of rules, when you are already grappling with more rules than you can handle.

Mass Media – The effect of the mass media on our lives continues unchecked. More than four out of five American households own DVD players. In 1972, three major television networks dominated television – ABC, NBC and CBS. Now, there are more than 500 full-power independent television stations. Many cable TV subscribers receive up to 200 channels that offer more than 72,000 shows per month.

With its sensationalized trivia, the mass media glut obscures fundamental issues that do merit concern, such as preserving the environment or feeding the poor.

Paper Trails – Like having too much data and eyewitness reports, having too much paper to deal with makes you feel overwhelmed and overworked. Americans today are consuming three times as much paper as ten years ago. There are two basic reasons why society spews so much paper:

* We have the lowest postal rates in the world.
* We have the widest base of paper-generating technologies.

The typical executive receives more than 200 pieces of unsolicited mail each month – about 12 pieces daily. The average family receives more than 100 catalogs that they did not request, on top of those they did request.

An Overabundance of Choices – Having choices is a blessing of the free market economy, but it’s overwhelming, increases time expenditure, and is a mounting form of exhaustion. More than 1,260 varieties of shampoo are on the market. More than 2,000 skin-care products are for sale. An excess of 75 different types of exercise shoes are available, each with scores of variations in style, function, and features.

Population – From the beginning of creation to 1,850 AD, world population grew to one billion. It grew to two billion by 1930, and is now approaching eight billion. Every three years, nearly 250,000,000 people are added to the planet.

Each day, world population (births minus deaths) increases by more than 265,000 people. Geometric growth in human population permeates and dominates every aspect of our earth, its resources, the environment, and all living things.

The Quest for Work-life Balance

Against this backdrop, the quest for work-life balance is more vital than ever. Predictably, a preponderance of speakers, trainers, authors, journalists, and others whose professions entail regular communication with the masses, proclaim the virtues of achieving and maintaining work-life balance.

However, a glaring question arises. What, exactly, is work-life balance? Compared to the legions of instances in which the term is cited, surprisingly little has been written in articles and books about what the concept actually entails.

During my 33 years in pursuit of understanding why the pace of society has sped up, what the impact has been on the typical individual, and how each of us can forge our own sense and experience of breathing space throughout our lives, I have honed and refined the tenets of what I consider work-life balance.

What Exactly is Work-life Balance ?

For several years now, those who apparently have no idea what work-life balance is and have virtually never experienced it are proclaiming that it is passe — in favor of work-life harmony or work-life integration.

The truth is, these terms all mean approximately the same things. You can split hairs anyway you want, and I suppose that’s a good way to differentiate a program if you’re seeking to offer one to clients, but the reality is work-life balance is the overarching issue of our time that all career professionals strive to achieve.

Work-life balance is the ability to experience a sense of control and to stay productive and competitive at work while maintaining a happy, healthy home life with sufficient leisure. It is attaining focus and awareness, despite seemingly endless tasks and activities competing for your time and attention.

Work-life balance entails having some breathing space for yourself each day; feeling a sense of accomplishment, while not being consumed by work; and having an enjoyable domestic life without short-changing career obligations. It is rooted in whatever fulfillment means to you within 24-hour days, seven-day weeks, and however many years you have left.

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