New Year - "New" Ideas

Ugh! I'm so full, I can't breathe!" says Rose as she finishes her cheeseburger. "And I've got to lose weight. ... I think I'll have the crème brûlée." Across the table, her oncologist friend, Linda, lights up, handling the stress of treating cancer patients by smoking like a chimney. Meanwhile Barb is complaining about her 27-year-old son, Randy. "If he doesn't get a job and move out soon," she says, "I don't know what I'll do." Rose and Linda know what Barb will do—she'll keep cooking and cleaning for Randy until she dies of old age.

In their book The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action, authors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton discuss why our actions often don't match our ideals, and what we can do about it. Although the authors' research is drawn from the corporate world, I read the book as a self-help guide, looking for ways to stop perpetuating behavior I know is bad for me: postponing work, playing addictive computer games, eating hotel minibar food that hardens my arteries and costs more than its weight in enriched uranium. If you're a cognitive dissonance sufferer like Rose, Linda, Barbara, and me, try these dos and don'ts that I've adapted from Messrs. Pfeffer and Sutton for closing the knowing-doing gap:

Don't Substitute Talk For Action

Mike calls me every few weeks to say, "I need to talk to you about my girlfriend. I've been talking to a lot of her friends, and we should talk about what they've been talking about. Maybe she and I should come talk to you together."

Talk, talk, talk. Mike is tolerating his awful relationship by creating storms of verbiage that make him think he and his girlfriend are making progress, even though they aren't. He's not alone. Substituting talk for action is perhaps the most common way we fall into the knowing-doing gap. Many corporate teams spend so much time creating strategies and mission statements, they don't actually implement anything. The same goes for individuals. We plan, consider, discuss, brood—and count the word-spinning hours as "action." We think we're working toward our goals when in fact we're spinning our wheels.

Do Hit Your Mute Button

If you're not sure whether you're in danger of talking your dreams to death, try something for me. Today, whenever you mutter your usual reminders about cleaning the closet, learning to tango, or finding a new job/boyfriend/oven thermometer, make a note of it on a piece of paper. At the end of the day, read over your list and ask yourself, "Did I do anything that created a measurable change toward each goal?" If not, you're substituting words for action. You can close the knowing-doing gap only by focusing on observable change—not plans, comments, or excuses. You don't have to build Rome in a day; small tweaks are more sustainable, and thus more effective, than attempts at total revolution.

Don't Rely on Fantasy Transitions

One of my favorite cartoons shows two scientists working on a massive equation. In the center of countless numbers and symbols are the words, "A miracle occurs." This kind of fuzzy logic is actually very de-motivating. As Pfeffer and Sutton note, companies often fail to act when managers don't know every step in the processes they're managing. The same thing happens when individuals have an incomplete plan. Uncertainty stops people in their tracks—smack-dab in the knowing-doing gap.

Do Figure Out What's Standing Between You And Your Goals

I know what you're thinking: What kind of high-grade pharmaceutical are Pfeffer and Sutton on? They start off by saying not to get bogged down in details—and now they advise against starting without an itemized plan. It's all about calibration, spending enough time to come up with a solid plan but not obsessing over it.

Compared with vague fantasies about achieving great things, grappling with the nitty-gritty realities of action is hard. It requires research, concentration, and creativity. But we're actually happiest when we're pushing the envelope of effort, not when we're lost in daydreams. As you fill in the gaps in your knowledge, you'll feel the kind of excitement that comes from real possibility, not just happy talk. Figuring out a plan of attack will practically catapult you over the knowing-doing gap.

Don't Scare Yourself

In business, Pfeffer and Sutton report, managers who try to lead through fear cause paralysis more often than action. This is just as true when we're managing our own lives. Think of an area where you're trying to scare yourself into action. Right now, focus on your favorite fear-based admonitions:

"I've got to stop spending so much on shoes and save more for retirement or I'll end up a bag lady. A bag lady with a lot of shoes, but still..."

"I've got to stop eating junk or I'll end up the size of an off-road vehicle and no one will ever love me and I'll die of a heart attack before I ever see grandchildren!"

Now, while thinking those things, just notice: With fear ruling your mind, do you want to add to your savings or hit the mall? Do you crave broccoli or fries?

Of course you do.

Trying to motivate yourself with fear is like screaming at a child, "Do something, dammit!" You'll either freeze up or act in counterproductive ways. Fear widens the knowing-doing gap. Don't use it.

Do Discover The Power of Calm

People consistently offer me large sums of money just to say, "You'll be fine." They do this even though I tell them it works almost as well to say it to themselves. Kind self-talk is an incredibly effective way to calm fear and motivate action.

"After my divorce, I was 52 and penniless," my client Mara recalls. "But I'd gotten away from a frightening man, and I just decided to calm myself down. Every time I began to worry, I'd say, 'Mara, everything's fine. You've always been able to make your way, and you always will. There's no rush.' And I was right. Once I was calm, I felt drawn to do things that made me more friends and money than I thought possible."

It seems so simple, but I've seen this strategy work over and over. When people stop scaring themselves and start calming themselves, they become far more productive and successful in every aspect of their lives. Try it right now, so you can use it the next time you're scared. Silently tell yourself simple things like "It's okay." "You're all right." "There's no rush." "You can do this." You'll be amazed at the power of this humble mental-management technique to help you turn knowledge into action.

Don't Fight Yourself

When I met Sally, she was married to a wealthy banker who bought her everything she thought her heart desired—jewelry, clothes, furniture. These things, however, were what Sally's head desired, but her heart actually longed for the company of creative, bohemian people who had little concern for gobs of cash.

Sally had been at war with herself most of her life. Her socialized side was competing with her inner nature. In the corporate world, destructive internal competition widens companies' knowing-doing gaps. Individuals are just as susceptible: Holding two sets of competing beliefs paralyzes them.

Do Stop The Inner Arm Wrestle

If you feel stuck in some area of your life, it's because contradictory beliefs are competing for control of your behavior. The problem is that we're not always aware there is a private struggle going on. One way to figure out if you're in the middle of an inner conflict is to write down a basic belief that's driving behavior you want to change. For example, you may want to get out of a relationship but believe something like "I have to keep every commitment I ever made." After writing down the belief, write the polar opposite of that statement ("I don't have to keep every commitment"). Are there circumstances in which those opposing statements ring true?

When Sally did this exercise, she realized that she'd married for legitimate reasons. Financial security is not an insane thing to want (have you seen the Dow Jones average lately?), but compared with a more artistic lifestyle, her original choice seemed false. The marriage ended when she embraced her bohemian side, and Sally began to know passion—in romance, work, learning, and living—for the first time.

You can end your internal arm wrestles by (a) discovering your competing ideas and (b) identifying the ones that feel untrue or stultifying. If part of you thinks homemaking is a lowly and servile occupation, you won't beautify your home until you flip that thought. If you fear you're not good enough for love, the part of you that loves will always smash into this competing belief. Find the erroneous thoughts, turn them over, and watch yourself finally begin to do what you know.

Don't Track The Wrong Things

According to Pfeffer and Sutton, companies with huge knowing-doing gaps tend to measure things that don't really matter, such as hours worked rather than overall customer satisfaction. We have similar problems. For instance, my client Jessie comes back from her vacations desperately needing a vacation, because she grimly measures the "success" of a trip by sights seen and recreational activities accomplished. Another client, Mollie, often complains, "I practically killed myself to give my kids a good life, and now they're in therapy saying God knows what about me." Here's what Mollie's kids are processing with their therapists: the guilt and despair that comes from being raised by a mom who used her own suffering as the yardstick of her mothering.

Before you do anything, consider what you're really trying to accomplish and determine how you'll chart your progress. Sounds like yet another exercise—except you've likely already done it. Go back and look at the plan of attack you made in Step 4. If you need to find a place to live, don't count the number of hours you've logged sighing over fabulous floor plans online. Track how many realtors you've contacted, apartments you've seen, letters of reference you've gathered. If you want your children to be happy, spend more time teaching them joy by embodying it. If relaxation is your goal, don't force yourself to go sightseeing when lying in bed watching a dozen Dr. Greene–era episodes of ER is the only thing that will recharge your fried self. Whatever it is you really want, count movement toward that, and only that, as your measure of success.

If Rose, Linda, and Barb could stop substituting talk for action, make a plan that doesn't depend on acts of God, calm themselves, eliminate competing ideas, and measure what really matters, their next lunch could be their best ever—healthy, smoke-free, filled with mutual congratulation rather than shared worry and stress. In fact, having written a few hundred words on this topic, I'm feeling motivated to close the knowing-doing gap myself. I'm launching myself into a new era of productivity, here and now! Just as soon as I figure out how to open this minibar.

Source: http://www.oprah.com/ Author: Martha Beck

The Distracted Person and Time Mismanagement

The Distracted Person and Time Mismanagement

Do you start to do a high-priority task only to end up expending your time and energy on a low-priority project? You set today as the day-of-days for getting the taxes done or the mounting pile of bills paid but first the bushes need to be trimmed or the desk organized?

If so, you are experiencing distraction and, occasionally, this can be fun and it doesn’t really matter what you do.

The problem starts when this is your normal behavior.

One of the first, very important, steps to conquering this problem is to be aware of it WHILE IT’S HAPPENING. You then have the option of asserting your self-control, ignoring the beckoning voice of the Sirens within your head, and doing what is most important - that which you planned and set out to do. Priority number 1.

Self-monitoring yourself will help you to keep on course. Writing down everything you do during the course of a day will aid you pinpoint where you get off track. While you are monitoring yourself, you are more aware of what you are doing (and not doing!) which will help you focus, even while “only” self-observing. You can already prevent slipping off to an appealing distraction just because you are more aware.

Planning your day is another helpful way to spotlight high priorities. Avoid 1) planning too extensively, and, 2) spending so much time on planning that you never get down to work. There is something so satisfying about a well-thought-out and detailed plan – but it can be kind of a premature gratification too. Commit to the action as well! Just Do It!!

Write a few cards with your goal on it. Chant it like a mantra. Visualize the steps you need to reach the goal, not just the goal itself.

I used to have a problem with my punctuality. Well, I didn’t but everyone else did! I was content to come late and have people wait for me until, one day, I didn’t want to be rude anymore. I’m not sure why that happened but, since then, I’m never late. I am a punctual person.

I always knew how to be on time yet I didn’t commit to taking the required steps.

Until I changed, I’d tell myself “TODAY I’m going to get to the lecture on time!” or “The dinner party starts at 8, not 9.” But then, I’d see all sorts of tasks that I could do “quickly” and off I’d go. By the time I’d finished and looked at the clock, nothing short of a supersonic jet could have gotten me to my appointment on time. And I wasn’t even ready to leave!

Eventually I learned to ignore the voices offering me interesting choices, the sight of tasks undone, the new idea I just had to begin RIGHT NOW. The voices still try to distract me but it is futile. I squelch them brutally. On top of it all, I have a much better feeling for time and how much of it I’ll need to get from here to there, including going to the car (at least 5 minutes), getting to my destination (30 minutes but adding 20 minutes extra for unforeseen delays, traffic backup and finding a parking spot, 10 minutes to get into the building and up to the designated room) plus about 5 minutes for a toilet break or just to “be”, relaxing shortly before everything starts.

By writing down how long it takes to do routine things – taking your shower or preparing a meal, for instance – you can learn to estimate the time it takes for other activities in your day. One rule of thumb is to over-estimate – most people estimate on the skimpy side. And get caught unfinished when time runs out.

In one of my time management courses, a lady said she was always late. She was even late to my time management seminar!! Both days! I asked her, if she needed to be at an appointment at eleven and the drive to the appointment would take 30 minutes (in the best of situations), when would she need to leave her house.

She said 10:30. I rest my case.

A good help toward awareness for time mismanagement is self-monitoring everything you do each day and every disturbance. Write down what the disturbance was, how long it took to get back on track and who caused the disturbance. Self-observation helps you pinpoint what takes you off course. You have to be conscious of your distractions and how you normally deal with them before you can learn not to heed them at all.

Learning to focus and concentrate on the most important task is a key to excellent time management. The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing!

One aid for staying on-task is to set a timer for five minutes every time you get off your high-priority task. Make sure the timer is far enough away from you so that, when it annoyingly buzzes, you must get up and walk over to turn it off. This makes you more likely to disengage from the impulsive activity and get back on your plan.

Another tool for reducing spontaneous distracting activities is to establish routines and rituals for your day to provide structure to the day and increase familiarity with time slots. Get up and go to bed at set times. Exercise at the same time daily. Eat your meals at set times. Walk the dog immediately afterward, for example. By setting structures for fundamental needs, you become more aware of scheduled activities and staying on track.

Ultimately, you learn to anticipate what you can or cannot do in a given time period, which will make you less inclined to begin tasks that take you off track.

Some people use wristwatches with multiple alarms, setting them to sound each hour so that an awareness of the passage of time is built up. A brief check of where they are and where they should be on the plan helps keep them on track.

Time slots are a good way for distracted people to divide their day. Designate time sections like 7-9, 9-11, 11-1, etc. and plug into each section tasks or goals you need to finish during that time. What has to be accomplished by nine, by eleven, one? Keep your eye on the goal AND the clock!

Other People’s Stuff

Here I am in the kitchen of my newly acquired house. I don’t say NEW house because it is 90 years old! I’ve been here two days and, because my sister has broken her ankles falling down the stairs here and is in rehab, I am confronted completely alone with all the left-behind junk the former owners escaped from.

The former owners of the house just left everything in it – furniture, files, fully equipped kitchen and – junk.

There are boxes and boxes in the sub-basement – all empty! They take up the whole floor down there. There are shampoos, hair-growing products, conditioners, lotions, sun creams in the bathroom. The guy even left a briefcase and files.

Even though I think “too much crap”, I suspect anyone taking over my apartment in Germany would say the same. Now a guest has moved in and I am also confronted with her stuff! She has put junk on the dining room table, at the bottom of the steps, on the counter in the kitchen… There is even a kitschy Christmas arrangement she’s put in the living room that whistles when you walk by.

I want to keep this place uncluttered – at least the rooms downstairs. Everyone needs an uncluttered space as a haven in this cluttered world. I’m going to tell the lady that everything needs to be kept in her own room. She’ll have a great time with that as she’s staying about 4 to 6 months and could fill a whole flat with her crap!!

I’ve found that people who can’t keep their money together still amass great amounts of stuff. If they have money, they spend it and wonder that they’ve overdrawn at the end of the month. Now my sister wants to buy a new (second) vacuum, so we’ll have an upstairs and downstairs sweeper! She says she’ll keep it in her room. Yeah, right.

One really bright side though: my brother and sister-in-law came over from Texas and surprised me when they, completely unexpected, rang my front doorbell!! What a joy! The next day, they went over to the rehab center and surprised my sister, too. We had a wonderful time eating take-out Thai food and even my niece came over. I haven’t seen her since she was 12 and now she’s 44! What a hoot.

I still think this whole house-owning thing is vastly overrated. For me, a house with its insurances, property tax, utilities, rodent, termite and pest control, garden care, as well as repairs/improvements are a liability. And you’re scared the whole time that somebody could break in and steal your precious junk.

Well, help yourself! And take some boxes when you go…

The Puppy Attitude

When Life poos and pees on you, and you adore it anyway

Take a look at any puppy and what’s the first thing that comes into your mind or from your lips?

“Awww”.

Yes, puppies are adorable. Yet they poo and pee everywhere. They might even keep you up at night for the first few months. A bit like a newborn child.

Still, we don’t get upset with them, we patiently train them, accepting the tiny bloopers when they come as part of their development.

Secrets of centenarians

Living to be 100 years of age is still a rare event.

Among many factors associated with longevity, personality has been linked to health outcomes and longevity. Additionally, several studies have suggested that centenarians also share particular personality traits.

Centenarians have been reported to share personality traits including low neuroticism and high extraversion and conscientiousness. A study showed that two personality characteristics/domains, Positive Attitude Towards Life (PATL: optimism, easygoing, laughter, and introversion/outgoing) and Emotional Expression (EE: expressing emotions openly and not bottling up emotions) are .

What would happen to us and the world, if we had the same attitude as we do with a small puppy: Mistakes happen so we just clean up and keep on learning?

We would be so much more resilient.

Factors in Resilience

A combination of factors contributes to resilience. Many studies show that the primary factor in resilience is having caring and supportive relationships within and outside the family. Relationships that create love and trust, provide role models and offer encouragement and reassurance help bolster a person's resilience.

Several additional factors are associated with resilience, including:

·       The capacity to make realistic plans and take steps to carry them out.

·       A positive view of yourself and confidence in your strengths and abilities.

·       Skills in communication and problem solving.

·       The capacity to manage strong feelings and impulses.

·        

All of these are factors that people can develop in themselves.

10 ways to build resilience

Make connections. Good relationships with close family members, friends or others are important. Accepting help and support from those who care about you and will listen to you strengthens resilience. Some people find that being active in civic groups, faith-based organizations, or other local groups provides social support and can help with reclaiming hope. Assisting others in their time of need also can benefit the helper.

Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems. You can't change the fact that highly stressful events happen, but you can change how you interpret and respond to these events. Try looking beyond the present to how future circumstances may be a little better. Note any subtle ways in which you might already feel somewhat better as you deal with difficult situations.

Accept that change is a part of living. Certain goals may no longer be attainable as a result of adverse situations. Accepting circumstances that cannot be changed can help you focus on circumstances that you can alter.

Move toward your goals. Develop some realistic goals. Do something regularly — even if it seems like a small accomplishment — that enables you to move toward your goals. Instead of focusing on tasks that seem unachievable, ask yourself, "What's one thing I know I can accomplish today that helps me move in the direction I want to go?"

Take decisive actions. Act on adverse situations as much as you can. Take decisive actions, rather than detaching completely from problems and stresses and wishing they would just go away.

Look for opportunities for self-discovery. People often learn something about themselves and may find that they have grown in some respect as a result of their struggle with loss. Many people who have experienced tragedies and hardship have reported better relationships, greater sense of strength even while feeling vulnerable, increased sense of self-worth, a more developed spirituality and heightened appreciation for life.

Nurture a positive view of yourself. Developing confidence in your ability to solve problems and trusting your instincts helps build resilience.

Keep things in perspective. Even when facing very painful events, try to consider the stressful situation in a broader context and keep a long-term perspective. Avoid blowing the event out of proportion.

Maintain a hopeful outlook. An optimistic outlook enables you to expect that good things will happen in your life. Try visualizing what you want, rather than worrying about what you fear.

Take care of yourself. Pay attention to your own needs and feelings. Engage in activities that you enjoy and find relaxing. Exercise regularly. Taking care of yourself helps to keep your mind and body primed to deal with situations that require resilience.

Additional ways of strengthening resilience may be helpful. For example, some people write about their deepest thoughts and feelings related to trauma or other stressful events in their life. Meditation and spiritual practices help some people build connections and restore hope.

The key is to identify ways that are likely to work well for you as part of your own personal strategy for fostering resilience.

5 Steps to a Happy Life with Positive Attitude

 

Step 1: Believe Happiness is a Choice

People blame misfortune on all kinds of outside forces –- fate, experiences, parents, relationships –- but never really stop to think that they could choose to be happy.

Yes, this isn’t always easy, but it is always an option. When you find yourself in a bad situation, know that it’s up to you to find the good, to be happy regardless of what’s happening around you. You are in control of your happiness level and no one can take that away from you.

Step 2: Rid Your Life of Negativity

If you want to live a positive, joyful and happy life, you cannot –- absolutely CANNOT -– be surrounded by negative people who are not encouraging your happiness.

Stop doing certain things that are causing negativity in my life. Take a step back and examine which behaviors were good for you and which were not.

Learn to focus on the positive things you are doing and let go of the negative ones. This process is not easy and to be honest, it’s ongoing, but know this: having negativity in your life prevents you from living a truly positive existence.

You don’t have to be as radical as I am. I have no newspaper and I don’t watch the news. I have no TV so I can pick what I expose myself to. I like the TED talks to inform and motivate me. I read books on the latest research results in human development. I meditate. Yet I’m not a hermit. I change what I can and refuse myself to become fearful, although I’ve had a few bouts with fearfulness in the last years.

Step 3: Look For the Positive in Life

There is the positive aspect in everything. In every person, in every situation, there is something good. Most of the time it’s not all that obvious. We have to look. And sometimes we have to look hard.

Everything –- good and bad -– is a learning experience. So, at the very least, you can learn from bad experiences. However, there’s usually even more to it than that. If you really take the time to look, you will usually find something good, something really positive, about every person or situation.

Lots of times, what started out bad turns out to be a windfall in the end. Who woulda thought???

Step 4: Reinforce Positivity in Yourself

Reinforce positive thoughts and behaviors in yourself so they stick. As with any sort of training, practice makes perfect, and, yes, you can practice being positive.

The best and easiest way to do this is to be positive when it comes to who you are. Learn to appreciate yourself. Learn from mistakes but don’t dwell on them. Think of the puppy – this is a poo-and-pee moment to clean up.

Be honest with yourself, but do your best to look for the good. And, whatever you do, don’t focus on the negative. Nothing good can come of telling yourself that your butt’s too big or your latest career goal wasn’t met.

Remind yourself of the good in you. We all have positive attributes and it’s up to you to remind yourself of them every day.

Step 5: Share Happiness with Others

Not only do you need to be positive with yourself for this new positive attitude to really take effect, you also need to be positive with others. You have to share your wealth of positivity with the world.

The best way I’ve found to do this is quite simple and basic: be kind. Be nice to other people, no matter what. Tell someone he or she looks nice today. Tell someone they did a great job on that presentation. Tell your parents or children (or both!) how much you love them and how great they are.

When someone is feeling down, do what you can to cheer him or her up. Send flowers. Write notes. Don’t gossip. Be kind to all living things. All of these things sound basic enough, but, you’ll need to consciously think of them at first.

People appreciate positivity and, even though you not going to become a preacher on the subject, the more you are sharing it with others, the more you are practicing it and reinforcing it in your own life.

new home owner

Yes, I now own my own house. Too bad that it's there and I'm here. But I can plan to incorporate the home into my life starting next year. I might even move in by 2016.

I have always had a vision of a cute cottage in a place with a pleasant climate. I always thought I'd be too chicken to go through with it.

Guess not.

Make your dreams concrete with Dream Boards

During or after the Christmas Holidays, lots of us start formulating our New Year’s Resolutions. Why don’t you jump start a super future by creating a Dream Board?

To get started with how to make a Dream Board, you’ll need these supplies:

-- Poster board. I always use giant flipchart paper.

-- A big stack of different magazines. Make sure you find lots of different types. Or use your old ones and throw the rest away (downsize your stuff, remember?!).

-- Glue. Not Elmers. (It makes the pages ripple.) Rubber cement is perfect. Glue sticks don’t last.

Ask yourself what you want next year, what you want to do, have and whom you want to be with. I love doing this with soft music in the background and a nice glass of wine.

You can also leaf through the magazines with this question in mind.

Step 1: Go through your magazines and tear the images from them. No gluing yet! Just let yourself have lots of fun looking through magazines and pulling out pictures or words or headlines that strike your fancy. Have fun with it. Make a big pile of images and phrases and words.

Step 2: Go through the images and begin to lay your favorites on the board. Eliminate any images that no longer feel right. This step is where your intuition comes in. As you lay the pictures on the board, you’ll get a sense how the board should be laid out. For instance, you might assign a theme to certain parts of the board. Health, Career, Finances, Relationships, Self-Improvement, for instance. Or it may just be that the images want to go all over the place. Or you might want to fold the board into a book that tells a story.  People come up with amazingly creative ways to stage a vision board. It only needs to mean something to you!

Step 3: Glue everything onto the board. Add writing if you want. You can paint on it, cut out text or write words with markers.

Step 4: I like to put an attractive photo of myself in the very center of the vision board. You also could paste yourself in the center of your board.

Step 5: Hang your vision board in a place where you will see it often. This is important and, of course, inspiring. You could ask yourself questions like “What could I do now that would get me closer to these dreams?” or “Which of the themes interest me the most today?”

How to make a vision board if you’re not quite sure what you want:

Go through each magazine. Tear out images that delight you. Don’t ask why. Just keep going through the magazines. If it’s a picture of a teddy bear that makes you smile, then pull it out. If it’s a cottage in a misty countryside, then rip it out. Just have fun and be open to whatever calls to you. Then, as you go through Step 2 above, hold that same openness, but ask yourself what this picture might mean. What is it telling you about you? Does it mean you need to take more naps? Does it mean you want to get a dog, or stop hanging out with a particular person who drains you? You’ll probably know the answer. If you don’t, but you still love the image, then put it on your vision board anyway. It will have an answer for you soon enough.

You’ll have fun doing this with others, too. I have done this with participants of my seminars. It can point you in the right direction, the direction of your dreams.

Learning Flexibility the Humbling Way

So, it looks like I am buying a house. The first time by myself.

Well, not completely by myself. My sister has found this house in Florida and the price was right so I bought it. Well, I'm TRYING to buy it.

I live in Europe and the banks charge humongous fees for transferring money to America. There are open fees and many secret (hidden) fees.

So I looked for a method to send money over to America without paying thousands of euros to a bank. And I found TransferWise.


"The creation of TransferWise was inspired by the personal experiences of Taavet Hinrikus, Skype's  first employee, and financial consultant Kristo Käärmann. As Estonians working between their native country and the UK, they had personal experience of the "pain of international money transfer"^[5] due to bank charges on the amounts they needed to convert from euros to pounds and vice versa. In the words of Hinrikus, "I was losing five per cent of the money each time I moved it. At the same time my co-founder Kristo Käärmann (also from Estonia) was starting to get paid in the UK and was losing a lot of money transferring cash back home to pay for a mortgage there".^[6][7]
It inspired them to make a private arrangement, with Hinrikus – who was paid in euros – putting this currency directly into Käärmann's Estonian account so he could pay his mortgage without having to convert pounds to euros, while Käärmann returned the favour by putting pounds into Hinrkus' UK account.^[8] This arrangement led them to start developing a crowdsourced currency exchange service to offer a cheaper alternative to established institutions.^[9]


From the customer's point of view, money transfers with TransferWise are not essentially different from conventional money transfers: The customer chooses a recipient and a currency, the money to be transferred is taken from his or her account, the transferring company charges for the service, and some time later, the recipient receives the payment in the chosen currency.^[14]
The difference lies in how TransferWise routes the payment. Instead of transferring the sender's money directly to the recipient, it is redirected to the recipient of an equivalent transfer going in the opposite direction. Likewise, the recipient of the transfer receives a payment not from the sender initiating the transfer, but from the sender of the equivalent transfer. This process avoids costly currency conversion and transfers crossing borders.^[15]
In 2012, the company's charges were €1 or 0.5% (whichever is larger) an equivalent amount in the customer's currency.^[16] Conventional money transfer using British banks usually charge considerably higher fees, or require minimum transfer sums and give less competitive rates.^[17]"    Source: Wikipedia

Can I trust my money to Transferwise?

Security is paramount when it comes to money transfers. Transferwise is certified money service company founded in January 2011 in the UK. They have already earned reputation of reliable and honest financial service. There are thousands of people who trust them and using their services on the regular basis. 

How does it work?

International transfers are expensive but what if there were a way to avoid them? There are many people who have similar needs:

• Frontier workers need to send salaries to the country they live
• Expats may want to send money home
• People may need to pay someone (individual or company) who resides in another country

Turns out, their needs could be satisfied without actually sending money abroad. Money can be just exchanged between them. This requires a lot of cooperation and Transferwise is the one who takes the role of coordinator.

I needed to get some money over to the lawyers called Ernest Money. It's like a downpayment I learned. I wanted to do that fast to show I was trustworthy and used my bank. I paid 25€ for the "service" and 15€ to get the money there the next day. A week later, the money was still not there. I went to the bank asking for the 15€ fee to be reimbursed but got only snippy lip service from the teller.

I then tried to transfer the money to TransferWise's account in Munich. My online banking said no. I'm only allowed to transfer 1000€ per day. Not wanting to be doing this the rest of my life, I called the bank. This time, I was treated nicely and was able to have my limit lifted to 100,000€ per day (Hey! I'm buying a HOUSE here!) After a successful transfer on Friday, I tried to transfer the rest of the money on Saturday. No go on that so I'm stuck until Monday.

And all this time the people in America are waiting to close the house. And my sister is nagging me to death because she gets to live there.

No, I'm not stressed. OOOOOOOHHHHHHMMMMM....