A video to rekindle your interest in starting your own business

This will just be a quick post from me today to share with you one of the most inspirational speeches on entrepreneurship that I have ever heard.  I confess that I had not heard of the speaker (Wycliffe Grousbeck, CEO and co-owner of the Boston Celtic) before but rather just stumbled across this video while browsing on YouTube.

Before I share my views on the video and what I took from it I recommend that you watch it.  Note that it is quite long however you can listen to it while doing other tasks (i.e. it does not require you to actually watch the screen).

There were a couple of things which really resonated with me from his talk including:

1. Everyone knows the risks around setting up your own business but most do not think about the risks inherent in employment
2. Pressure from family and friends to take the traditional path often causes us to forgo or forget our dreams
3. The ability to be an entrepreneur is limited by age.  Beyond about 35 we have too many other responsibilities and have lost the ability to fail

There were so many other valuable insights from

Australia's 2013 Rich List released

The Business Review Weekly released it's 2013 rich 200 list today which ranks, profiles and tracks the wealth of Australia's richest 200 people and families.  I confess that I have been fascinated by this list for years and it is the one edition of the BRW that I read without fail every single year.

Below is the top 10 list of the richest Australians for 2013 (Source: BRW) - their combined wealth of $66.4 billion is staggering.

Rank	Name	$m
1	Gina Rinehart	$22,020
2	Frank Lowy	$6,870
3	James Packer	$6,000
4	Anthony Pratt & family	$5,950
5	Ivan Glasenberg	$5,610
6	Harry Triguboff	$4,950
7	Wing Mau Hui	$4,820
8	John Gandel	$3,700
9	Andrew Forrest	$3,660
10	Christopher Wallin	$2,800

It is interesting to see the businesses in which Australia's richest people are involved in.  It is also interesting to note how

What should you do when you decide to quit Investment Banking

I have done a few posts recently which had to do with the decision making process around leaving investment banking.  They outlined why you should quit investment banking, when you should quit investment banking and why I quit investment banking.

Once you have reached the point where you decide that you are definitely going to quit investment banking, reclaim your life and take your career in a different path the temptation to get right onto it is incredible.  You want to call every single recruiter out there and spend all your days on recruitment websites.

Before you do anything....STOP and think about what you want to do with your life

Take a few days or weeks off.  Go on holiday or just relax at home.  But whatever you do make sure you take some time away from the job and away from work to think about what you want to do.

One of the biggest problems with being in the finance and investment banking world is that your view of reality when it comes to jobs, careers and your definition of success becomes extremely warped.  The only thing investment bankers care about is money and your success is your career is defined through how much money you make.  You also get a very warped idea of how much is a 'normal' amount to make.

Stepping away from work will allow you to think about how much you actually need, what you actually want to do with your life and where you should be focusing your efforts when it comes to moving jobs.

Think about what is the minimum amount you want to make when you move jobs

Be realistic about this.  If you are leaving as a third year analyst or above you are probably going to be taking a pay cut.  There are some exceptions to this such as

Be careful about what you post in investment forums: lawsuits bite!

Most of us who are interested in finance and investing find ourselves in discussions about investing with our friends family and colleagues.  Naturally part of this discussion centres around venting when things do not go our way or when we feel we have been cheated or when corporate executives or directors of companies we have invested in undertake actions that we feel are not in our best interests.

Given the important of the internet in modern communications, more and more of these communications are happening online through investment forums (such as HotCopper) or through people expressing views on their own blogs (such as I do on this one) or by commenting on other people's blogs. As readers of this blog would know I have frequently criticised companies - both listed (such as FKP over their rights issue) and small er companies(though less so the small companies - only when I think they are real scams).

However...keep in mind that speech is not free and that you can be sued for defamation

When you post something on the internet it never goes away - we all know that.  It's the reason we are all so careful about our Facebook and other privacy settings.  However we seem to forget this when we are on investment forums talking to other 'hard done by' investors.  What you always need to keep in mind, however, is that you can be sued for these comments.

Although the story seems to have died down somewhat now, this issue got a fair bit of publicity when Susanne Deveraux, a retired nurse from Queensland, was sued by Empire Oil and Gas for defamation in

Controversial investment advice: Only invest in what you understand

This post will cover my firm idea that people should only invest in products and investments which they understand themselves and should not 'trust' others to do hat is in their own best interest.  It is controversial because it suggests that you and I as investors and savers should not be giving over responsibility for our financial well being to others (i.e. those in the investment community).

Why you should ONLY invest in what you understand

You should only invest in what you understand for a few fundamental reasons including:

• You completely understand the risk / reward trade off
• When you invest in financial products there is a risk / reward trade off
• When you understand what you are investing in, you understand both the upside and the downside
• All too often people only focus on the upside, or are only interested in hearing the upside.  If you do not understand the downside or the potential pitfalls of an investments you may take on more risk than you are comfortable with
  
• You will never be taken advantage of
• We all know that there are unscrupulous operators out there and there is ample evidence in the media of  'scams' and dodgy investments which are constantly being uncovered
• I can guarantee you that the people who get taken in by the scams are those who do not understand what they are investing in, or the true nature of the investment
• It is one thing to lose money because the market moved against you, it is quite another to be taken in by a fraudster because you were promised returns without understand exactly how you  were getting them
  
• You are responsible for your OWN financial well being
• The finance world is one in which survival of the fittest is the rule of thumb  
• We can argue about whether this is right or wrong and whether it should be this way but unfortunately finance is a zero sum game - for someone to win someone else needs to lose
• Although governments and regulators can try and protect against unscrupulous operators they cannot change the win / lose nature of the market
• To be on the winning side therefore you need to be acting in your own best interests 
• I do not think you can act in your own best interests if you do not understand what you are investing in

Note that my focus on understanding what you invest in does not mean that you

Should I try internet dating? What is out there and should I pay the high membership fees?

This weekend warrior post will deal with internet dating.  Once I emerged from hibernation after my recent break up and decided to get back on the bandwagon I thought I would expand my dating pool somewhat and so decided to look at internet dating.

Note, as with most of my posts, this will be from an Australian perspective.

Why did I try internet dating?

 Previously I only ever dated friends or people I had met through friends.  I had never really done any organised type of introduction or dating (e.g. speed dating, introduction services, singles nights) however I decided to broaden my dating pool for several reasons:

1. I found myself constantly meeting the same types of people and this isn't surprising - most of my friends are lawyers, bankers, accountants, economists etc and those are the types of girls I was meeting too
   
2. I looked at the probabilities and it doesn't take a genius to work out that the more people you are exposed to the more likely you are to find the right person for you
   
3. The social taboo is largely gone from internet dating. I think I was one of the few dinosaurs left who thought there was still a social taboo attached with internet dating.  I took a poll of almost every guy and girl I met (in my age group) over a period of about a month.  I asked friends, family, strangers on the street, waitresses in restaurants and everyone knew someone that had found their partner doing internet dating.  Taboo broken!

What sites are there out there?

Typing 'internet dating' into Google is the silliest thing you can possibly do but after a bit of searching I found that for Australians there are a few sites that dominate the 'mass market' and they are all rather

How will the Australian 2013 - 2014 Federal Budget affect you?

The federal government's long anticipated 2013 - 2014 budget was released last night.  It was always going to see what the government did given:

• It is an election year and the Gillard Government is well behind in the polls
• Tax revenue and income to the government has fallen off a cliff with the slowing economic environment

I confess that although I am not particularly drawn to any political party, I have found the Gillard Government's fiscal policies to be frustrating and spineless.  This is probably a function of the hung parliament they have had to negotiate but it was nonetheless very frustrating.

From my point of view this budget surprised me - it was pragmatic, invests in Australia's future and does not do the pork barrelling and vote grabbing that most election year budgets do.  We are all going to be a little worse off but I do appreciate having a government that is willing to acknowledge that we are in a worse economic position now than we were a year ago and that does not spend just to grab votes.

So how will the 2013 - 2014 Australian Federal Budget affect you?

Like all things...it depends.  There isn't really something for everyone in this budget.  From an individual point of view there are not a great deal of positives and some negatives but it really has to do with how much you are already getting from the government (or not getting).

The benefits in the budget for individuals

• $14.3 billion in funding for the national disability insurance scheme
• If you have a disability this will definitely benefit you
• If you do not have a disability you may be disadvantaged through the increase in the medicare levy - see below
• Increased funding for public schools and education
• This will benefit the quality of educational institutions but there will be no hand outs to individuals like in the past
• I'm not against this at all - I think a good system is much better than giving people choice about where to spend their education dollars
• Note that this is for primary and secondary only...tertiary education did not get the same level of funding benefits
• Seniors funding
• $112.4m to help seniors who are downsizing their homes

The rest of the benefits do not really impact individuals at all - they are all about nation building.  It is about infrastructure (roads, rail) and other measures that only a government can fund.  If you're going to try and improve a country and an economy in the long run this is are the types of things that need to be funded.

Personally I got no real benefits from this budget but I'm just glad that we finally have a government that is thinking about the long term.

The downsides for individuals

• The baby bonus