Get and actively seek Knowledge

This message might sound like something that I have talked about before but I find it so important I feel like shouting it out anytime it dawns on me.

I have been in a very happy mood in recent times since I got back into my knowledge acquiring phase. Which is the reason for my sudden surge in productivity and the reason for recent activities on this blog

We live in a society where a majority of the youth spends most of their time getting entertained rather than getting informed or working on achieving something with their lives. Hours spent behind the TV to a focused mind is really a whole lot of waste. I have nothing wrong with getting entertained; my problem is when it is done in a manner that is random and not planned. It would be ok to get entertained if you had planned for it and ensured that it served as an outlet to get rid of stress.

My Point

What I want to say is this, If you want to do something really meaningful with your time you would have to start taking choices like reading books, listening to audio books and in general acquiring knowledge through studying.

Reading article from blogs like this on can be a good start.

Acquiring knowledge is one major step in moving from failure to success. Read books listen to audio books just do something that helps to get you to the next level.

Remember success is a result of what you do on a daily basis.

image by jscreationzs

Today's Bit of Wisdom

" What time is it ?"

by me

Stop right there, its not really about looking at the time on your watch. Today's bit of wisdom is a question I ask myself from time to time. I see this question as something you do to put yourself back on track.

If you are someone who has a great ability to focus in life you would know how important it is to get the answer to this question right. Finding the right answer could be the difference between success and failure. You should be able to determine what you should be doing right now to enable you achieve your goals. Its easy to loose focus of what is really important in today's world with all sorts of information coming our way faster than we can manage.
A simple question like this can easily restore focus and balance to your day and your life.

Take a little time everyday to ask yourself "What time is it?".

image by Salvatore Vuono

Moody’s and Greece crisis

I have been following the developments in Greece with some interest to find out what is really going on with this whole European crisis. I must say it is a very sad thing to watch. It’s really sad to see a country going down because of its financial rating. Now, what I just want to talk about is the financial ratings that have seen Greece go down.

Disclaimer: I am not some great financial advisor nor do I have a qualification in the area of finances. I just feel something is wrong and I want o express myself. Thank you.

I must say, there is something funny about this whole issue of ratings agencies and the power they wield and that is why I want to talk about Moody’s. Over the past month Moody’s has gone about its business in a way that makes me feel that something should be done about the issue of rating financial investments especially when it comes to the security of countries

Rating agencies like Moody’s are there to help investors who do not have the resources to investigate into certain investment products to make informed choices based on the rating that are giving it my these agencies. Investors should be able to make good investment decisions by following the rating giving. Moody’s is part of the three biggest rating agencies and commands around a 40% market share in this market and wields a lot of power. This kind of power is even stronger in a market that is driven in a large part by speculations. The worth of companies could fall overnight if it ratings go down and vice versa. When a ratings agency like Moody’s lowers the ratings of an investment the market listens and pulls out of that investment driving that very investment to loose a lot of value.

Political leaders in Greece have made very wrong decisions in the past that have cost their country dearly and put them in debt that they are finding difficult to repay. For their current financial situations I would totally blame the politicians who messed up their economy but what Moody’s did to was unacceptable. I fully understand that they have to warn investors when investments are going sour but I believe they are being partial. Their decision to reduce the ratings of Greece has only succeeded in deepening the problems the Greece are facing in paying their debt. Why would I accuse them of being partial? Well we all know the global financial crisis that happened recently and which most of the world is still recovering from, well what was Moody’s doing when they knew very well that US government bonds were just junk but they seemed to have forgotten about their rating standards. When it came to Greece they realized that they had standards to follow.

They (Moody’s) recently announced that they were considering downgrading US government bonds I found that really funny that they would talk about CONSIDERING. If something is bad you don’t consider you just go ahead and down grade it. You can’t sit down and consider if it’s no good, just downgrade it. This whole issue of CONSIDERING bothers me and makes me doubt the credibility of Moody’s.

It is one thing downgrading a company and another thing downgrading government bonds. When Moody’s were making their decision on Greece they didn’t seem to care about the kind of impact it would have on their economy this is why I mentioned “the security of countries”. It is just unsafe for nations to be rated by organizations like Moody’s who are much more of arrogant than friendly. Their ratings could have given Greece a better fighting chance considering the fact that their current leaders had shown their commitment to make decisions to pay of their debts.

Personally I am happy that the European Union is planning on creating a rival ratings agency that would serve as an alternative to the American agencies like Moody’s. Their careless action that has only deepened the crisis in Greece really got the European Union angry and would help the financial industry as a whole. If Moody’s were that good at ratings they could have seen the financial crisis coming and warned investors about US government bonds. I think it is wiser and safer for all major regional blocks to have similar structures to protect them from companies like Moody’s. Moody’s have no moral right to do what they did.

Singer Amy Winehouse is dead.

Sad news today hearing all the horrible things going on in Norway and then news comes in that the singer Amy Winehouse is dead.

It didn't sound shocking giving that she was struggling with addiction to drugs and alcohol and to be honest it looked like her addictions were going to cause her to end like this. I found it really sad although I personally am not a fun of her works but rather that a really talented young lady should loose her life at such a young age. It is easy to blame her for messing up her carrier and the opportunities she had in life and her carrier but I think we should look deeper at the story and learn some lessons from it.

It is sad that our society could watch as she destroyed herself. It is true that she has herself to blame for her downward spiral but it is as a result of the society. There are millions like her who go unnoticed and die from such abuse or even worse get others to join in this form of self destruction. She is not the first and won’t be the last if society doesn’t play an active role in preventing youngsters from becoming drug addicts.

It’s sad to see someone slowly destroy themselves and those around them to drug addiction.

Today we lost someone who could have been a force for good but we just watched as she destroyed herself. Sad and sad indeed.

Getting back to blogging and tweeting

It’s been sometime since I did any bit of serious blogging. I would be honest with all of you and say it as it is, I have been really lazy the past month.

The good news is that I have realized my errors and made significant steps to blogging and tweeting much more often than I have done in recent weeks.

I have started posting videos on my YouTube channel so you can check it out from time to time to see what I have for you.

This time round I would keep you posted on things that are much more personal like the things I do on a daily basis (that was actually the original purpose of the blog).

So expect to here a lot more from me enjoy and your comments are always welcome.

Moody's

It really surprises me why any one would still listen to rating agencies like moody’s who thing they are in a moral position to decide what investment is good or bad.

They couldn’t even determine whether US bonds were safe for investors before the global recession but somehow they know that Greece, Portugal and Italy are not safe for investors.

I would later talk in detail what I think about company's like Moody’s

If you happen to have any comments about Moody's let me know in the comments section

My Productivity: Office Suite

Well one would be wondering why I am still talking about things that seem so simple and have nothing to do with productivity. Well if you’ve read from the beginning I said lets take things one step at a time we would get to some of the things you might expect to see

Now an office suite is a software package containing various software’s that have to do with and usually help with office work. A typical one would be Microsoft’s office. I am not being paid by any one to talk about Microsoft the fact is that I am writing this current post in Microsoft word.

Microsoft office suite is the most popular paid for office suite and it contains very useful programs like

Microsoft word – for text editing

Microsoft Excel – For editing Spreed sheets

Powerpoint –To create presentations

Publisher – To create Professional Publications

Outlook – For organizing Emails and personal Calendars

Access - a simple to use Database creation Software

Most of you who use Microsoft office might only find yourself using word and occasionally Excel but which ever one of these you chose to use they all help to better organize information.

For example I manage most of my financial information using an Excel Spreed sheet it makes things easier to manage and analyze it also has tools that enable you to automatically do certain calculations. And the graph features are really indispensible.

Outlook to me is one of the most important applications for any one who would like to organize his life better. Some might see it quite unnecessary to use but I would talk about all that you can do with Microsoft outlook later on.

I am not a professional in the publishing world but putting together a creative look to a simple news letter is better done in Publisher than in word.

I have gone on and on about some of the things these software’s help you to do in order to help you to realize that using these applications more and more in managing resources is a priceless thing. Most people wouldn’t even want to bother looking at some packages but it is worth spending time to try some of these applications out to see if they really help in organized your life.

Free alternatives

If you feel you don’t have the money to buy a Microsoft office product there are free open source office suites out there which would do pretty much the same work as the one’s you pay for. I would personally recommend Open office Suite. This contains alternatives to Microsoft office and is also available in almost all platforms (Mac, windows, Linux etc.). It works just fine and is compatible with Microsoft office file formats at least for power point, word and excel file formats I know it works pretty well. It doesn’t come with an alternative for outlook but Morzilla Thunderbird would do in addition to some add on’s you could get it to work well.

Most people underestimate the use of such applications but it is worth thinking about what you could do with them to make your work easier.

These are the list of free applications that directly match Microsoft products

Excel – Open Spread Sheet

Word- Open Writer

Power point – Open Presentation

Outlook – Thunder Bird with calendar Add-on

Having an office suite is very important and really essential to everyday use and productivity