Loaning $ to Others

Hetty Green, has long been passed, but her legend lives on. She was one of the first kick a$$ women to rock it in the male dominated world of investing and business. She was ruthlessly frugal, scouring the places she stayed for the absolute rock bottom places to buy breakfast or a bowl of soup.

She didn't see the need to spend recklessly....on anything. What was the result of her frugality and steel will? She had funds available to lend out at a modest profit to friends or others in the business or political community who found themselves strapped for cash.

One of Hetty Green's investment strategies was stunningly simple:
"conservative buying backed by substantial cash reserves" and her children carried on her strategy after her passing.

My question today is this. If you are lending money to people or businesses, what interest are your charging them? Hetty could well have charged exorbitant interest rates, but she resisted the temptation. She stated that she never charged people more than 6% in interest on loans.

I am quite impressed with that figure. 6% is quite modest and reasonable, especially when she was dealing with those who could well have afforded to pay higher interest rates. But Hetty Green did not believe in usury, and although folks made fun of her extreme frugality, they stopped laughing when they found themselves knocking at her door looking for a loan. I think she set a wonderful example.

Thank you Hetty for being a leader and using your skills to succeed and provide for others in a jam.
May God bless your legend forever.

In peaceful productivity,
Carla.



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Self Care Starts in a Simple Place

Don't roll your eyes just yet.... I know I know...some of us cringe to hear the term "self care"...but I think I am starting to clue in on the concept.

I have a little habit that I would label "self care" in the middle of a busy hectic day. I stop whatever busy work I am doing, and even if I am around other folks, I  grab a tube of hand cream and with a dab I massage my hands and nails with the thick fragrant hand cream until my hands glow. I massage the nail beds, and even in between my fingers. I make sure I massage the cream into the back of my hands where some freckles grow.

After two minutes of calmly applying cream to my own hands, taking the time and peaceful state to nourish the skin I use so ambitiously to accomplish my goals, I smile and realize I am happy. I am happy because I took the time to take a short break and take care of myself. I took the time required to value the skin I live in,  to love myself in some small and tangible way...in the same gracious spirit that God loves me.

                                                      Photo by AsliKaplan at Morguefile.com

You may roll your eyes now, or perhaps you just may dare to do the same one day.....in the middle of a really busy frazzled frizzy haired ambitious day. You rummage in your purse and find your favorite hand cream and begin your calming hand massage from thumb to pinky and don't forget the tops of your hands and between the fingers too. Are your hands glowing now?                                            And don't you just feel special ?

Peace,
Carla.



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I Want to Know as Much about Google as it Knows about Me.

Not to be too dramatic...but have ya thought recently about how many pieces of you that Google currently owns...?

If you have a Blogger blog... ....yes that is owned by Google as of 2003.

If you have Google Home" as the home control system in your home.......you have basically given the keys to your entire home life to Google.

If you store your photos in Google Photos.....snap on.

If you do all your daily searches online using Google's search engine.... search on. ( who searches better than Google?) Btw.....do you remember when we DIDN'T get requests to "sign-in" to do a search in a Google search engine? It wasn't that long ago.

If you write and store your documents in Google Docs.......write on.

If you plan to buy a Google Pixel camera phone....again....snap on and chat on.

If you use Google maps....they know where you want to go and how and when you got there.

How many of my electronics use Google's Android Mobile Operating System ? Even if my phone is not a Google Pixel phone...it can still be "controlled and/or monitored" by Google if it has an Android operating system within it. ( some Samsung, Sony and LG phones do)

Google's expansion into our lives is not limited greatly by the general population because most of us simply do not have the knowledge or desire to stop it. We aren't plotting to  "De-Google" our lives. We aren't trying to prevent Google from gathering unlimited data about every single aspect of our lives. We aren't really afraid of Google.....yet. We haven't started forming "Google recovery support groups".

Do we care? Hmmm..... sometimes. Should we care....Hmmm...I still don't know.

Remember that phrase about "Absolute power corrupts.....absolutely"? If Google has as much social and technological power as I feel they do.....what are they doing with that power? Is that power going to be used to bless humanity or simply to profit from it? Will the folks who control Google's corporate future be able to resist the temptation to manipulate humanity?

Maybe Google itself has not yet come into a full "self consciousness"  about the "absolute" power it holds in it's smart little hands. Perhaps Google is an "accidental" power drone? May I still please stay naive? I prefer the peace of ignorance. I really do.

Maybe once we review and add a few more "Googlified platforms" to the list from the beginning of this post...maybe we will start to feel a little woozy..... a little weak in the knees perhaps.

I am little bit more pragmatic. I simply seek equality. 

I want to know as much about Google as it knows about me.

End point.

I know that certain levels of privacy (thanks in part to common courtesy) that we once took for granted, are gone forever ....never to return.

But are there some ways that we just really SHOULD be a wee bit more proactive in keeping some of "who we are and what we do" away from Google's all seeing EYE?

Would it make sense for me to simply start blogging in a non-Google blog hosting service?
Hmmm....maybe I could start using the same blogging site that Seth Godin uses...Typepad.

Would it make sense for me to limit the photos I store in Google Photos ? Maybe.

Should I stop using Google Chrome as my web browser? Am I willing to use a slower browser?

Am I willing to give up my searches in Google to start using Bing ( oh the horror)

Time will tell. But I would encourage you to join me....in my quest to at least attempt to
 balance the data imbalance.....Try to find out a little more about Google. Find out where she hides. Find out what she/he is doing with your data....and where and how it is storing it and selling it.
Find out more about the decision makers at Google forming the strategies for "playing" with all that masterful data we have "sent"or permitted them to freely glean from us and our devices for decades. I want to know. I need to know.... and maybe you do too..


Still peaceful,

Carla.





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I'm Not Lazy...I'm Managing My Cognitive Load

It is a wonderfully descriptive concept I have gleaned from the lovely Seth Godin. .....
"Cognitive Load".

"Cognitive Load" entails whatever your brain is required to do to complete a certain task.

My late brother was the creator of several "made for cable tv" tv shows in Canada. After each episode, he was physically, mentally and especially emotionally drained. He didn't always know how to put that experience into words, but I think he would have identified deeply with the idea of managing his cognitive load. Guys are not always that proficient at expressing their feelings...lol
But a solid phrase like "Cognitive load" is perhaps more tangible for some dudes to help them manage the struggle.

Tim Ferriss has also been helpful for "maledom" in putting into words the struggles of the modern male. Figuring out what tea is best served to "waking him up enough to get some work done and stay focused... along with "hacking" what sources of protein help him operate at peak functionality....like spinach, sardines...and boiled eggs ( manly yes, but I like it too")

Creative people are often misunderstood because the work they do is invisible and the majority of the burden or "work" is done within the brain and heart of the artist. Nobody sees their muses, nobody seems to be able to measure what great hidden effort it takes to create a thing of beauty. ( or at least something beautiful enough to pay the bills) Seth Godin and the frank dude/podcaster/human guinea pig Tim Ferriss have done their due diligence in bringing attention to this concept.

Mike Murdock teaches about limiting the number of daily decisions we make in order to preserve our mental and emotional energy. For example, if we choose the same hair dresser every time we get a hair cut, we have just "managed" our cognitive load and reduced the number of decisions we need to make on a regular basis. Limit the number of decisions you make in a day for personal care and Voila! you have granted yourself more free creative mental energy.
 ( btw... if you do happen to check out Mike Murdock's ministry you have to overcome the cringy hyper sales pitch...but if you can overcome that...there are some real gems to be discovered in his writings)

Putting some decisions on "repeat" will free up valuable energy to focus and complete more of your goals, whether in business or in your personal life.


Peace on,
Carla.



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Life Hack on Reading Boring Non Fiction

Have you ever purchased or borrowed a very valuable non fiction book and got it home in your hot little hands, only to realize that it's going to take MAMMOTH will power to force yourself to read it?

Well, a little LIFE HACK, that works for me sometimes is simply this tool:

I go to one page of text in said book and determine which page is most personally valuable for me to input into my brain, and then I simply record myself reading it aloud into the "easy self recording"
microphone on my Samsung Galaxy cell phone. This particular method allows me to process the information orally instead of simply visually and overcomes my instinctive objections to forcing my "monkey brain" to read something that it doesn't "feel like" reading.

I then hang onto that recording for however long it takes for me to absorb the material by listening to it over and over and over until I feel  it is "done". Monkey brain conquered!

How do you overcome your natural inclination NOT to read the things you know you need to?

Peacefully productive,
Carla.


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Hating those Recipe Cards

I am not known for domestic uber organizational glee. But I found I resent little things that used to be a "standby" for most moms and their family homes..... such as REcipe cards kept in some kind of hard plastic file box. Also there are the Knitting or Sewing Patterns ladies keep in a dishevelled folded mess....where? There must be a better way..... no more dust collectors for me.

I have often struggled with keeping things organized partly because I hate being forced to put
random items in a really rigid space....(think Church Lady mixed with nervous librarian mixed with overbearing grandma combined...lol)

But there comes a point, when if you really want to move forward in your home crafts that you need to be able to find your "strategies" or "crafting formulas" in an organized space....for safe keeping and easy retrieval at a later date.

Enter....The CLoud! Such an AHA moment...perhaps I am a tad late on this revelation.
But I really DON"T have to keep folded copies of my old fave recipes in little boxes in my cupboard anymore.

I can simply scan then into my google docs or photos and babammmm! Saved forever :)

Or I can keep it a little bit more ole school and simply make files in my free hotmail account that can hold copies of these scanned items.

So, I really do hope that Google honors it's statement to provide "unlimited" free photo storage in it's Google photos offer. I also hope that Hotmail email accounts remain forever free . I don't mind if they put reasonable limits on the size of the files stored there....because at the end of the day, I am not a data hoarder.

So that's all for now. Mama Carla has arrived in the Cloud. Make room.

C.



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