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Inspiration in a few
words:
A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do
well and to help those who are doing well to do even better. - Jim Rohn
Featured Book Review by
Daniel R. Murphy
Title and Author: The Smartest Retirement Book You'll Ever
Read by Daniel R. Solin
Synopsis of
Content:
Solin does it again - taking complex and difficult investment information
and reducing it to a simple discussion that anyone can understand. Solin teaches the reader at
a very fundamental level what to do and what not to do when investing in stocks and bonds as
well as how to manage cash and other securities both in preparation for retirement and during
retirement. He add a chapter on stretching your money and other tips on how to survive
financially if things get tight.
His explanations of social security, pensions, annuities and other retirement devices are right
on point and again easy to understand. Each chapter ends with a simple single sentence that
sums it all up. The chapters are short and well organized touching on only one major
subject.
In the last chapters he warns about people scamming elders, long term care costs and insurance,
and some tips on how to set up one's estate. Finally he provides his Ten Golden Rules which
summarize the book and then a good bibliography for further reading.
This book is a hit. It is easy to understand whether you are a sophisticated investor or a
total novice. It is a great book for anyone whether you are preparing for retirement,
contemplating it soon or in retirement itself.
Readability/Writing
Quality:
This is easy to read. It is well organized. Each chapter ends with a "What's The Point" summary
in one sentence. Chapters focus on only one subject making them easy to understand.
Notes on
Author:
Daniel R. Solin is a leading securities arbitration lawyer and a registered Investment Advisor.
He has testified before Congress and appeared on major television business news magazines. He
has written two previous and equally good books that are friendly to the unsophisticated
investor: Does Your Broker Owe You Money and The Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read. He
has also published a book called The Smartest 401(k) Book You'll Ever Read. Solin is financial
columnist for AOL. He is a financial blogger on the Huffington Post.
Related
Website:
See: www.smartestinvestmentbook.com his
website.
See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-solin his
blog.
Three Great Ideas You Can
Use:
1. If you have an account with a brokerage firm, close it. Use a fiduciary instead.
2. Never buy individual stocks or bonds except for T Bills.
9. Keep funds sufficient to meet two years of living expenses in an FDIC-insured savings
account, certificate of deposit, Treasury bills, or a money market fund from a major fund
family.
If you want to read Golden Rules 3-8 and 10 get the book - they were worth it.
Publication
Information:
The Smartest Retirement Book You'll Ever
Read by Daniel R. Solin
©2009 by Daniel R. Solin
Published by Penguin Group, NY, NY.
Disclosure: the author
of this review has no financial or other relationship with the author or the publisher not was
this review compensated other than that the publisher provided a copy of the book to
review.
Rating for this
Book:
Overall Rating: Excellent
Writing Style: Easy and well organized
Application: Very practical and up to date.
Technical Difficulty: Easy
Lincoln's
Wisdom by
Daniel R. Murphy
Lincoln on Work
The mode is very simple, though laborious and tedious. It is only to get the
books, and read, and read, and study them carefully. . . Work, work, work is the main
thing.
-Abraham Lincoln
People who read about Abraham Lincoln often marvel at how a completely uneducated back woods
man with no connections and no money transformed himself into one of the greatest writers of
the 19th Century and the greatest President of the United States. While there is more than one
answer to that question, no single factor was more important than Lincoln's understanding of
the value of work and his application of that understanding.
As a boy Lincoln was viewed by most of his friends and neighbors as a lazy boy who sat around a
lot and day dreamed. In fact he did sit and think and spent many hours reading. He would read a
book not once, not ten times but 50 or more times, over and over, memorizing parts of it and
digesting it like no one else. He studied a thing until he knew it inside out.
Lincoln rose from the most humble beginnings, with no more than a year of formal schooling to
become one of the most formidable attorneys in Illinois. He did this by hard work - unrelenting
hard work.
During the Civil War Lincoln wrote a letter of recommendation to the commander of the
Washington Arsenal stating: "My dear Sir: The lady - bearer of this - says she has two sons who
want to work. Set them at it, if possible. Wanting to work is so rare a merit, that it should
be encouraged. Yours truly, A. Lincoln."
It is not wise of course to consume one's life in work. Other pursuits are important for sure.
But it is only through hard work that worthy things are accomplished. If you want to accomplish
a thing, work hard toward that goal. Nothing will be more important than your habit of hard
work in finding success. Lincoln understood this and we all came to benefit from this
wisdom.
Guest
Article
Self Doubt - How to Conquer
It by Alexandra Levit
This is a guest post by Alexandra Levit, career advice
columnist for the Wall Street Journal.
Self doubt has been something I've struggled with all my life, from debating
whether I could get into a top tier university to believing I could succeed as a writer. It's a
very human emotion, and it's made worse for some people because of life experiences or
temperament. Self doubt also makes you feel alone. Sometimes you think you're the only person
in the universe who suffers from a crisis of confidence, and you wish that you could be more
like your successful, self-assured neighbor. Well, I guarantee that your neighbor doubts
himself every now and then too.
You won't ever be able to rid yourself of doubt entirely - believe me, I've
tried. But I hope that these suggestions will lessen your pain when dark thoughts are all
around you.
Go back in time: The first step to overcoming self doubt is to recognize
that it's there in the first place. Think about the circumstances that are leading you to feel
insecure, and see if you notice any patterns. Are there particular situations (for example,
dealing with a new boss, speaking in public) that prompt you to feel this way? Make a note of
times in the past when you doubted yourself but ended up coming through with flying colors.
Knowledge and recognition of your past successes will bolster your courage regarding what you
can achieve in the future.
Defeat the doubtful thoughts: In one column, write a doubtful thought, and
in the opposite column, write facts that dispute that doubtful thought. For instance, suppose
you are afraid to invite a new colleague to lunch because you're afraid you won't have anything
to talk about and she won't like me. Statements that refute that thought might be: "We can
spend at least an hour talking about the office culture here and what she did before this" and
"She will like me because I've made a sincere overture to get to know her
better."
Keep an event journal: If you are a person who experiences a lot of self
doubt, then it's time for a test. In the course of a single day, write down all of the things -
simple and complex - that you accomplished without a hitch. These can be things like "ran
productive staff meeting" or "had great talk with Brandon over coffee." Then, write down the
things that didn't go so well. You will inevitably notice that the list of things that went
well far outweighs the list of things that didn't, and this will hopefully allow you to see
your doubt in a different light.
Call on your cheerleaders: Often, our loved ones can see our lives much more objectively than
we can. Being a natural introvert, I sometimes doubt my interpersonal skills, and when someone
doesn't respond to me in the way that I expect, I occasionally get paranoid. It always helps to
call one of my best friends so that she can assure me that I do in fact have a lot of wonderful
relationships in my life.
Celebrate your successes: When a situation in which you doubted yourself
turns out better than you expected, don't just nod and smile and move immediately on to the
next thing. Take a moment and reward yourself for a positive outcome. Do something you enjoy
like going to your favorite restaurant or eating a delectable dessert. Taking the time to
cement positive emotions in your mind will hopefully make the doubt disappear more quickly next
time.
Alexandra Levit is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal and the author of
the new book "New Job, New You: A Guide to Reinventing Yourself in a Bright New Career." If
you're struggling with what to do with your career in the New Year, visit www.newjobnewyou.com for free tools and
guidance.
Be Inspired
IIby Roger
Thomas Lincoln
He was hated and he was admired. He was envied and despised. He built one of the greatest
fortunes and economic empires in U.S. history and spent the last of his life trying to be kind
to others and giving his money away.
He was born on a small farm in upstate New York in 1839. His father was a part time farmer,
part time entrepreneur and often full time scam artist. They moved to Cleveland where the
father and his devout wife raised his son and four other children. The son began as a
bookkeeper at $4 a week. He became obsessed with numbers in his youth, a trait that would
follow him all his life.
He scrimped and saved until her saved $1800 - enough to set up his own shop in 1859 selling dry
goods. His business thrived and took off even more when the Civil War broke out and he sold
goods to the Army.
He then observed that Cleveland was becoming a center of oil refining and decided to build his
own refinery. His company continued to grow year after year. He bought out competitors or
destroyed them by under selling them and out producing them. The company's early success was
due to his extraordinary drive and great attention to every detail. He would work day and
night.
In these early years he survived a very competitive and brutal industrial battle ground and
rose to the position of leadership in it. He continued to grow his business into the first
truly modern and complex corporation. He came to dominate and control the oil industry in the
United States from the oil wells to the retail sale of the byproducts.
In 1913 John D. Rockefeller had amassed a fortune of over $900 million and created one of
America's greatest philanthropic foundations. He spent the last of years of his life giving his
money away. He died in 1937 at the age of 97.
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