Archive for principles
Self Help
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When I was in hospital I had several occasions when I had to tell late night nurses what to do or to stop them doing something wrong. Because I was on a fixed routine I knew when my IV had drugs in it and whether it needed flushing etc. and when I should be taking certain pills.
Now even though I was very sick most of my nurse interaction was pain relief and IV liquid food so the consequences of a minor problem were negligible. But it made me wonder how many times similar mistakes might occur with real serious issues.
Given how hard nurses work and the unbelievably difficult people they have to deal with I am not saying they are the problem.
I guess what I am thinking is this:
Is it realistic to expect a service or system to be “flawless” when it is being operated by imperfect people??
Obviously if someone was given the wrong drugs and they died that would be tragic and I know this does sometimes happen. But just because the consequences are more significant does not change human nature. We all make mistakes and will do as long as we are alive.
So when the recent stats on hospital misadventure was front page news I was reminded that we are trying to run a perfect system with imperfect people perfectly, which will never happen.
We need people who do their best, who are well trained and who are well rested when it comes to nurses.
I don’t know how to make all that happen in a society where nurses are poorly paid and many are raising families as well as working shift work.
One of those unsolvable puzzles I guess………
Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean.
One thing that never changes is the fact that everything changes
Posted by: | CommentsI am sitting looking outside at the rain and wind and thinking, it is February, we haven’t had a summer in NZ and it is going to be autumn in 4 days, what the $)@!&$(_&$_ is up with our weather.
Well we can be sure it isn’t global warming. In fact I think it is very “funny” that the GW theorists have had to rename it climate change because people are freezing to death on several continents right now.
Anyway I wasn’t going to talk about the weather but the fact that our lives, like our weather, can and will change.
The Bible talks about there being a time for every purpose under heaven. Now our actions will impact our experience no doubt but we do need to understand that our life will be a series of cycles.
I have been from zero to hero and back again several times in my life and I am not 50 yet. I am learning that sometimes you just have to hang on for the ride, knowing that this valley will eventually turn into another mountain.
And you know sometimes IN SPITE of our efforts and starategising and goal setting and hard work, life just comes along and says “Suck on this for a while”. And that’s because sometimes life knows better than we do.
The only people I could never learn anything from were those people who had led charmed lives. They had 1 years life experience repeated 20, 30 or 50 times. They knew nothing much about anything except having a good time.
As I grow older I find myself drawn to those with more scars. There is something comforting about someone who walks with a limp, because you get to learn what they discovered in the process of that failure and how they recovered.
In it after all has been my favourite song for nearly 30 years. It sums up the above perfectly.
Enjoy………….
PS: Don’t forget our next USA CASHFLOW Webinar next week!
Taking things for granted
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I attended 2 churches yesterday, both full of wonderful people and both meeting in conditions you and I wouldn’t consider for one minute. Dirt floors, dangerous temporary wiring and no facilities.
But this is life and death to these people. Their relationship with God is everything and they will find a way to meet and to share Him with others no matter what. Things that we would solve with money they solve with ingenuity because they simply don’t have the money.
It causes me to question more and more of our Western life style. (Don’t worry I am not about to become a monk or anything), it is simply a case of looking at what is really important. I have understood this and even taught it for years but sometimes it’s not till you go and live in a culture where there is no room for rhetoric because they are busy actually surviving that you see the reality of some of these principles.
So the lesson for us is not to abandon our lives but to be thankful for what we have and the choices we have.
To understand that what we have is a privilege and by definition it could be taken away at any time.
And lastly to ensure our goals and dreams are about people, passion and purpose rather than money toys and glory.
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus.
Why the left is doomed to fail.
Posted by: | CommentsAn economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that SOCIALISMwould also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
It could not be any simpler than that.
These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
Get going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Perspective
Posted by: | CommentsI have always been fascinated with perspective in art and life.
Whether it’s something like this:
which is funny and clever, well brilliant actually, right through to people’s perspective on life and how that affects them.
For example it has taken me 2 years to change my perspective fully on property investing because I had to reframe my world view to allow for the US market. Even though I have done a lot of investing in New Zealand it has taken me a lot of “work” to stop being surprised at being able to buy houses for only 50K instead of 300K. And to stop looking at 10 to 15% net returns with a “too good to be true” attitude.
I have been amazed at how long it has taken me and just how hard it was to reprogramme myself so that I could look at this new market and learn to benefit from it without being starry eyed. And what I also learned was that cliche’s can be dangerous programming also.
I have often said and heard it quoted ten gazillion times: “If it sounds too good to be true it probably is”.
And in many ways that statement is absolutely true. HOWEVER it is true positionally but not situationally. What do I mean? Well avoiding shonky deals by applying this principle will keep you out of a lot of trouble, but if you uplift a set of rules from one country and drop them down in another country, change the situation in other words, then this principle itself becomes silly.
For example if you were offered a twenty five percent return property today in Auckland you would know immediately that there was an error in somebody’s numbers or there was something seriously weird/dodgy going on. But that very level of return is on offer every day of the week in the USA so it is no longer too good to be true, it is situation normal.
I have used the US example because it has been my recent journey but you will have mindsets and stories embedded in your mind that affect/protect and limit you everyday.
My encouragement to you this morning is to stretch yourself mentally. What is your biggest worry or daily issue, your reprogramming needs to start right there. What are you believing about yourself that is a lie??
Discover it, expose it, and then start changing it!!
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus!!
What we need is a great big melting pot…..
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Or so goes the song. Certainly as we look at what is happening in the world we are indeed all in a great big melting pot of uncertainty, natural disaster and strangely, opportunity.
In New Zealand, USA and many other countries there are people going under and people going over. Trouble and opportunity all wrapped up in the same package.
So the important question is why? How come some people do well in difficult times and some fold. Obviously ones starting position and circumstances affect our ability to move forward but it is never as simple as that.
For example I have a client who is ten seconds from bankruptcy, however he saw the opportunity in the USA and begged and borrowed enough to purchase a property there. That cash flow is now helping him to stay afloat and he is very close to his second purchase.
So what makes one person take action in the midst of adversity while another rants at the sky?
I have concluded that it is all about our internal principles. These come to the fore when things are tough. For me personally I keep looking for solutions no matter how bad things get. The worst thing that can happen is I will fail but at least I know I have done my best. I have successfully turned terrible investments into good ones, learned form mistakes and viewed them positively as a growth opportunity many times and the fruit of that is that I am a happier, wiser person.
Some people conversely go looking for someone to balame and hunker down waiting for something to happen. And what happens is they get bitter, old and somehow “smaller”.
Man I have seen a lot of this in the last 12 months. One person going gang busters, another pursuing enormous energy on a no win situation.
So what about you my friends. Where does your internal clock sit. Are you looking for answers or looking for justice in your situation? And whichever way you answer ask yourself: “Is this working for me? Is this making me a bigger, better person?”
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Lessons from the trenches
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I have had 2 big lessons this year in business. One is too complex to comment on here, it will be in my next newsletter. But the other one was a promoter of mine in Asia. They appeared to be honest and we got on well. We ran our first event successfully and all was good in the world. A short time later one of my US partners caught this company passing confidential information to a competitor. When confronted they lied to my face until the evidence forced them to stop denial. It transpired that in their greed they were setting up in competition to provide a lower level of service to their clients but make more money for themselves.
They have since gone on to try to set up against us without knowing what they are really doing, all in the name of blind greed. To try and get some traction they have spread defamatory lies about us in their market.
Fortunately our business partners are the best in the business so their smear tactics have failed and if anything we are doing more business through their clients who are coming to us disgusted with this companies behaviour.
Fortunately we had our relationships tied down and our clients results speak for themselves but it has been an interesting and sad experience. Especially for me personally as I ventured into this business to help the owner recover form a dishonest business partner. So to have them be so dishonest to some trying to help them is doubly sad.
What have I learned?
1. Never assume someone who is referred to you is to be trusted without testing them first.
2. Never proceed on a trust basis, if it isn’t contracted it doesn’t exist.
3. Don’t return dishonest competitors behaviour with like kind, let your results and your clients defend you.
4. Saddest lesson, you have to keep a watchful eye even on trusted partners.
5. Pray for blessing on your business, leave the judgment to Him
6. Build your business based on what is best for the client, the money will follow.
6. Structure your business to minimise the points where dishonesty can occur.
More lessons in my newsletter this week 
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
