Mental Balance And A Growing Trend

It has been a while since I have posted. What can I say? I have been busy. I don't mean to sound like one of those people who always say they too busy to do something, but in actuality whatever they are too busy for just is not that important to them to begin with. I think my commitment to blogging over the past year or so has demonstrated how important writing, learning, and introspection are to me. I must admit that I have consciously chosen to not be committed to consistent posts. I like to think that I am fairly tough mentally, however being put through adversity always does wonders for the psyche as it both builds confidence and strength while simultaneously reminding you just how fragile you actually are. My day to day life over here in the desert has been hard on me. By all accounts I feel fairly blessed to have the deployment set up that I have. There are others who have it much worse. However, working fourteen hour days with a few meals and a workout thrown in for good measure leaves limited personal time to work with. I have found that I have to consciously monitor my mental well being out here much more closely than my normal life. You have to take care of yourself mentally. You have to let loose a bit at night through simple activities taken for granted stateside. Whether it is watching a World Cup game with the boys, playing an hour or two of guitar, or just reading in silence for an hour before bed I have felt the heightened importance of decompressing activities that counteract the increased life tempo I am experiencing in Baghdad. Couple that commitment to a balanced mental state with a strong commitment to dedicating time to the ones I love back home and there just isn't much time I am willing to sacrifice for consistent writing. Life is all about choices right?

With all that being said I have made a commitment to writing when something ignites that spark within and gets the gears churning upstairs. I was forwarded an article today that inspired me to sit down and get back at it. The article I am referring to was published on the NPR website at the end of last month about corporate America's growing appetite for recruiting junior military officers. You can read the article or listen to the podcast in its entirety here.

There are many things that frustrate me about being a junior military officer. I am often frustrated by the bludgeoning bureaucracy of the military. I am often disenfranchised with a system that has limited options for which to distinguish great performers from the average and poor. However, as I look back on my relatively short career I cannot help but be grateful for the incredible opportunities I have been afforded during my service. I think of all the other 27 (28 tomorrow) year olds I know that never served and the great majority just aren't put in the leadership roles that junior military officers are at such a young age.

KAUFMAN: From Amazon to Unilever, dozens of other Fortune 500 companies are also wooing these officers. Rene Brooks recruits military talent for many of them.

Ms. RENE BROOKS (Recruiter): They say there is no room for a failure. And they feel like these junior officers who have immense challenges under their belt, who understand accountability, mean you must get results, these are the kind of people that they prefer to hire.

KAUFMAN: In the military, young officers hone their decision-making skills by making lots of tough calls, sometimes with life or death consequences. Even Zadack, who wasn't in combat, made recommendations about who in her unit would be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Mike Useem who teaches leadership at the Wharton School says the young officers have their decisions scrutinized all the time through after-action reviews. They quickly learn what works, what doesn't and why. And says Useem, they have a strong sense of mission.

Professor MIKE USEEM (Leadership, Wharton School): And people do acquire this amazing ability to cut to the chase and say, look, here are the steps in this order we really have to take to make this happen.

Obviously I am excited in that I am currently a junior military officer, but I am also excited that corporate America is beginning to recognize the value that I see in so many of my peers. I love the fact that the military focuses so intently on character and leadership. I have seen why this approach is so beneficial first hand. People who have good character and leadership skills can always learn new jobs and skills. The military environment is full of uncertainty and ambiguity. Military leaders are often thrust into new jobs, new positions, new areas of responsibility and are forced to adapt quickly. I think military leaders are used to dealing with change, and change at a high operations tempo. When you have the ability to successfully navigate new challenges rapidly and have a solid base of character and leadership skills I think you are a valuable member of the team no matter what that team is.

KAUFMAN: On a recent afternoon, Zadack was conducting an employee team meeting at the Wal-Mart store in St. Helens, Oregon. At 27, she's one of the company's youngest store managers. Ordinarily it takes years to become a manager, but
Zadack did it in just six months, this in spite of the fact that she knew nothing about retail when she was hired.

Ms. ZADACK: No. I'm not even one who really shops very much. And honestly, I had never even set foot in a Wal-Mart.

KAUFMAN: But she had overseen training missions involving hundreds of soldiers, making sure transportation was in place, meals were hot and that everyone from cooks to intel officers learned what they needed to know. She kept tabs on millions of dollars of equipment spread across eight different sites and often had to show that she was in charge.

Ms. ZADACK: People assume that in the military you would just say jump and they'd say, how high? That's not the truth. You have to buy in, no matter what organization you're a part of. So it's different, of course, but it's not tremendously so because people are people.

KAUFMAN: Junior military officers learn to accomplish a variety of assignments quickly. In the process, they learn flexibility, responsibility and accountability.

Mr. GARY PROFIT (Former Brigadier General, U.S. Army): Each of these young men and women has benefitted from a large national investment in his or her leadership capabilities.

KAUFMAN: Former Brigadier General Gary Profit is in charge of military recruiting for Wal-Mart. He describes the junior officer corps made up primarily of captains and lieutenants as the largest, diverse, talent-rich pool in the world. And two years ago, the giant retailer launched an aggressive effort to recruit the young officers.

Earlier this month I read a similar article that garnered the cover story of March's Fortune Magazine. The article, titled Meet The New Face Of Business Leadership, cites some interesting statistics that certainly caught my eye. According to the article in 1980 59% of America's large publicly traded company CEO's had military experience. By 2006 that number had decreased to 8%. The large representation of board room veterans in the 80's was attributed to a WWII generation that learned valuable lessons in leadership during a time of war. Could the resurgence in junior military officer recruitment today be attributed to a new generation of leaders whose skills were honed in two wars? The Fortune article seems to present that argument. However, the article also attributes the recent aggressive recruiting push to the nature of American business itself. With the prevalent character and ethical voids visible for all to see many corporations are looking for people that can handle today's fast paced environment, and can do so with integrity. Seeing as the military is consistently one of the institutions that the nation has the most confidence in, 82% according to Fortune, the junior military officer recruiting play seems like a natural fit

I think everyone has experiences that are unique and valuable to a team, however there are many military experiences that just cannot be replicated in other environments. Does this make military veterans more valuable than the next person? Not necessarily, but the transcendent skill sets that many veterans possess would certainly make them unique and valuable members of many of the high performing organizations the nation has to offer. Judging by all the articles I have stumbled across lately it looks like I am not the only one who holds this sentiment.

Finding Balance In Your Finances

“The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.” - Euripides (Greek playwright, c. 480-406 BC)

Balance is something that I struggle with daily. As a man of passion it is easy to get swept from one extreme to another, and finances are no exception. I came across a great post on Get Rich Slowly the other day that offers some great insight into the topic of balance in your personal finances called "Financial Balance Lets You Enjoy Today AND Tomorrow." Below are some of the main points of the post but do yourself a favor and read the entire post as I am sure you will find some of yourself within it.

Finding balance
In order to find balance, you’ve got to do some soul-searching. I think of it as a three-step process:

Find what makes you happy. Look inside yourself and ask, “What is it that brings meaning, pleasure, and joy to my life?” Be honest. How can you create a life that features more of the good stuff and less of the mundane?

Focus on your goals. Set personal goals based on the things that make you happy. If you like music, maybe one of your goals could be to learn to play the guitar. If you want to change careers, maybe one goal would be to go back to school. Make meaningful goals a priority, and let the other stuff be secondary.

Seek balance. Strive for moderation in all things. Pursue your goals, but don’t forget frugality. Be frugal, but don’t forget your goals. Work hard to build your financial fortress — but let yourself have a little fun, too.

The balanced money formula
One tool that I’ve embraced for the past year is the balanced money formula introduced by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi in their excellent book, All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan.

Here’s what it looks like:

As you can see, when your financial life is in balance, you’re allocating enough for savings and needs, but you’re also setting some aside for the things you want. This idea is simple, but it was a revelation to me. No more spending too much on wants, but no more pinching pennies, either.

I really like this outlook. On the one hand the majority of people can relate to the struggle my fellow Oregonian went through with compulsive spending. But on the other hand I am sure many can also relate to becoming obsessive regarding saving and investing to the detriment of your daily happiness. I know that sometimes I go the opposite way and get stressed out if I am not saving enough or investing “enough.” Sometimes the percentages can be deceiving. “I am only saving 10%, I am not saving enough, I will never get to X,Y, or Z,” your brain might be saying. That is why I really enjoyed the visual representation of what it takes him to be balanced. It helps to focus and provide structure to your spending habits without becoming obsessed and disrupting that mental balance that is necessary for your happiness.

When I start to get stressed about how much I am saving and investing I think back to one of the main lessons from the ever-insightful classic The Richest Man In Babylon by George S Clason. The book states that saving a mere 10% over a lifetime is a surefire way to reach your financial goals. If you haven’t read that book, read it now. It’s about 100 pages set to a backdrop of what I would describe as Aladdin meets personal finance. Pretty interesting, very simple, and timeless.

If you are getting stressed that you are only saving X percent, keep in mind that you are probably doing better than most in the sense that you are actually keeping more than you spend. As I have stated before on BadskiBlog, if you are keeping more than you spend then it is only a matter of time until you reach your financial goals. If you don’t like how long that timeline is you can either spend less or make/keep more. It is an iterative process that is definitely more challenging mentally than tactically. Maybe I am a product of my generation and our culture in that patience is not one of my strongest virtues, however I have to remind myself that my wife and I are saving more than a quarter of our income and we are still living the life we want to live as far as experiences go. Which brings us to the most important lesson from the Get Rich Slowly post.

The quest to achieve financial balance is about more than money. It’s also about meaning. Money is important, yes, but it’s not the only thing. Money is a means, not an end.

Money is a means, not an end. I love that. Remember your goal is happiness and living the life you envision yourself wanting to live. That can start today….as in NOW. You can work on your personal finances by slowly course correcting over time, but you need to enjoy life now. That is why the concept of balance is so important and like most things it must be worked on over time.

Banks and Balance

Not sure I agree with everything in this article in Forbes, but there are some good points made. I think when it comes to banks it is a little trickier because people don’t act rationally when banks start failing. Banks are only required by law to maintain but a portion of the cash on hand that is managed within their institution. When people start pulling money out en masse banks don’t have the ability to get all the people their money. That reason alone makes it a little trickier to say that banks should be allowed to fail. However, I love how he illustrates the slippery slope of the 'too big to fail' mentality that I have blogged about numerous times.

For the institutions supposedly lucky enough to be tapped by our federal minders as too big to fail, the much remarked upon "optimistic" scenario is one in which their cost of capital will drop for them being protected by Washington. This ensures that the many financial institutions not important enough to fit under the Fed's umbrella will be weakened for having to lend in an environment distorted by larger institutions profiting from their tight relationship with Uncle Sam.

I also like how he spoke about profit and loss being the real regulators. Legislation is flawed and people will always find the most profitable approach given new guidelines, and undoubtedly new problems will arise from new legislation. What remains unchanged though is the desire to make a profit and avoid a loss.

For banking institutions more broadly, the Obama plan involves raising their capital requirements while putting rules in place to make sure they're got more exposure to the loans they securitize and sell. What's forgotten here is that without investor capital there are no banks, so while it may be comforting to think that the federal government can rearrange the path to banking profits, if investors don't agree, they can surely take their money elsewhere.

Along those lines, the beauty of finance is that it is fungible. If the stringent capital requirements make it difficult for stateside banks to operate profitably, the dollars that fill their coffers will move offshore along with myriad financial jobs. Almost to a man politicians worship at the altar of "job creation," but if the new capital requirements prove problematic, the creation of financial jobs will occur in London, Frankfurt and Tokyo--not on Wall Street. "Systemic risk" will simply find a new address.

A truly free market economy does not and will never exist, so to state simply that total free market policy will be a cure all is a little unreasonable. However, I feel that when the choice is the free market or government legislation and intervention I believe we should always err on the side of the free market. People look to blame the free market and capitalism for the mess we are in today, but the free market was only free within the boundaries that were set by legislation. Lobbying and legislation have contributed as much as, if not more than, greed has to fueling the build up and eventual downturn we are facing today. I guess like most things in life it is about balance. What is the lesser of two evils? Letting banks fail unconditionally or going down the dangerous road of the too big to fail mantra?

The Know It All Blogger Syndrome

The longer I maintain BadskiBlog the more torn I am. When it comes to blogging, there is a very difficult balance between sounding like a self indulgent know it all and continuing to write about the types of topics I am interested in covering and exploring with my readers.

Often I feel as though I am shelling out advice, which might cause people to say “who the hell is this guy?” The average person to stumble across my blog doesn’t know (or probably care) who I am. Our society loves experts and credentials. I don’t have ungodly credentials or expertise on the majority of things I am writing about. However, neither does the average reader I would assume. I don’t know a better way of learning and progressing than just jumping in so that has sort of been my philosophy and manifesto with this blog. As I said before it is slightly uncomfortable to put yourself out there in that fashion but I think the value added to my life has outweighed my discomfort. So let this little ditty serve as a disclaimer that I am not perfect. I do not think I am perfect. I do not flaunt a badge of awesomeness. Many of the posts I publish and explore are some of the same areas that I struggle with personally in my everyday life.

I am trying to think of more creative ways to make my blog more interactive than just a section for comments (which most people avoid). The guest post invitation is always open and valuable to the site, but I am looking for more. If you have any suggestions please let me know.

What Do You Want?

I read this post by Ben Casnocha yesterday and found it interesting. He is reviewing a book, which I haven't read, and eventually gets to talking about being consumed with start-up or business success. Read the full post here. Ben argues that this is one of the drawbacks with the start-up life and admits that he doesn't know whether or not it is necessary to success in that area.

Most ambitious companies -- certainly start-ups -- require of their employees single-mindedness. They demand all-consuming focus, and to "give thought to the critical personal and political issues that affect one's emotional present" is seen a distraction. Some of the successful business executives I've met are absolutely immersed in their professional micro-universe. The politics of the world, their personal relationships, their personal philosophies: who cares? Whether they realize they're wearing blinders, I don't know. Whether blinders are necessary to achieve massive professional success, I also don't know.

I would take it a step further and say that this is a drawback to the pursuit of anything in life. When you want something and pursue it you risk becoming consumed by it. I did this with hockey for the majority of my life. I don't regret my personal pursuit of excellence in hockey, and I attribute much of my success to that desire and passion.

People struggle with being consumed by something they love and desire when they aren't honest with themselves about what they truly want out of life and/or by having a narrowed scope of a small portion of their overall life journey. You must know what you want out of life, and just because you want the one thing that is consuming you doesn't mean that there aren't other things in you life you wish to pursue and enjoy as well. So you want business success. What happens when you achieve it? What is the end state? One of my personal mantra's is "always content, never satisfied." This is my personal reminder to always enjoy where you are at and what you are doing, but to always be wanting and driving for more. To always want a better life for myself. I remind myself of this to put into perspective the things I enjoy in life as well; family, friends, experiences, learning, achievement, etc. You can see how focusing on meeting that sales quota for example can drown out those other things. Be honest with yourself and keep the totality of how you want your life to play out in mind.