Every now and again, I stumble across something that makes me wonder, “Are you a dumb ass?“  Someone forwarded me a post from a year ago where a PF blogger spent $60,000 on a luxury car right after revealing his net worth was only $55,000!  I mean seriously, is that not a little messed up or what?  It’s almost as dumb as a minimalist owning multiple Apple products, a health nut who smokes and drinks soda, a vegan who wears leather shoes, and an evangelist who embezzles millions from you.

When I innocently asked why he spent more on his car than his entire family’s net worth, another commenter responded that it was because the blogger wanted to save money by spending money so he wouldn’t have money left over every month to spend.  Huh?  What?  Hmmmmm.  That’s just dumb.

THE WORLD IS WONDERFUL

The barriers to entry for being a personal finance blogger are really low.  Just look at all the dumb things on this sight for example!  The hurdle is so low that you can write about amazingly stupid financial moves, and still have a nice readership following. You can literally write about anything and proclaim you have the keys to wealth, without being wealthy yourself.  You can write about the detriments of home ownership, while never having owned a home.  You can rag about how idiotic politicians waste our hard-earned money without ever having stepped in their shoes.  Whatever the case may be, all of you should consider starting your own blogs and get rich!

We have blogs about how to blog.  We have blogs making a lot of money teaching others how to make a lot of money blogging.  There are blogs out there that talk about blogs that talk about blogs!  There are even self-proclaimed social media and self-help gurus.  They better have the bomb ass life or else I ain’t listening to them!  There are blogs that talk about relationships and marriage by single people who’ve never been married.  There are bloggers who making $30,000+ a month who still pretend to write like they are poor as to not alienate their readers.

The point is, we are free to do whatever we please.  So long as we have an opinion, there will be those who will want to listen to what you have to say.

MY OWN DUMB ASS THOUGHTS AND MORE

Frankly, I love dumb ass posts.  It makes me laugh and want to comment profusely.  I’ve got a lot of dumb posts that have engendered a lot of conversation.  One of my favorites is, “How To Increase Your Job Security For Life”.  What an idiotic idea, making babies to save yourself from a layoff!  Or is it?  Kids are not only a great unemployment insurance, they must also be very cheap, otherwise you would never see poor families with multiple kids.

I’ve talked about how we should implement a flat tax system so that everybody has skin in the game to help our nation thrive.  Seriously, what kind of dumb ass system is a flat tax where everybody pays an equal percentage of their income to taxes above a certain poverty threshold?  It doesn’t make sense that those who make less, pay less and those who make more pay more with a flat tax.  It’s such a dumb ass proposal that the post garnered well over a hundred comments saying how stupid it is!  Let’s only make the top 50% of income earners pay for everything, since only the top 50% of income earners use all our governments resources.

Why would anybody bother saving any money for retirement when we have the government to provide us a safety net?  We’ve got 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, fantastic pensions, social security and medicare.  If it was up to me, we’d employ the 5-year unemployment program called the “Shock & Awe Yeah” (SAY)!  We’ve got a government who can’t stop spending the top 50% income earner’s money on everybody, so let it rain baby!  Who are the cheapos who don’t live it up and don’t spend everything they earn?  Life is short and we can die tomorrow.  There’s no point working if you don’t spend.  If the government safety system doesn’t work, you can always find yourself a working spouse!

So many people decided to convert to a ROTH IRA in 2010.  Can you believe that people voluntarily decided to pay taxes to a government whose spending is out of control?  The more money you give the government, the more they will spend on things that won’t benefit you!  Converters and contributors of a ROTH IRA believe that when it comes to paying taxes during retirement, they will be making more money during retirement than when working (???) largely because they will have accumulated 20-40X their average lifetime income!  When people are struggling to save just 10X their annual income in retirement, these patriots think they can accumulate double to quadruple.  Hmmmm.

And then there’s Alexandra Wallace.  She is a dumb ass for making a public rant that could potentially offend 2 billion people!  Doesn’t she know that her name will be forever linked to someone who hates Asians?  The majority of all employers will Google your name just to make sure nothing crazy comes up.  She must be a trust fund baby, because she’s going to have a tough time finding a full-time job unless she wipes her identity clean and changes her name.

My $350 dumb ass chair massage.

Just recently, I went to park at a local drugstore parking lot in the middle of the day.  The lot has a 1 hour time limit so I figured I’d go to the bank to deposit some cash money and then hop on over to the Chair Massage Store and get a free back rub before buying my sundries.  I sunk my way in one of those ridiculously priced $6,000 leather machines and kicked back enjoying a massage I would have paid $80 for otherwise.  The clerk literally let me keep on going for 45 minutes!  All was wonderful until I got back to the parking lot 1 hour 20 minutes later to find Moose GONE!  WTF!  The parking Nazi called the tow company on the 55th minute mark and it ended up costing me $350 to go rescue Moose!  What a burn!  I’m such a dumb ass!

$30,000 for hope, which is not a strategy.

I remember losing some $30,000 (roughly 25%) in a gas trading company because I overly concentrated my risk on one stock and foolishly thought gas prices, and therefore its stock price would rebound.  Well, they didn’t and I had to pull the rip chord in late 2006 only after three months of holding.  If had bought a more regular size position and had a stop loss, I would have lost only about $10,000.  At least I wasn’t the only casualty as Amaranth Capital lost US$6 billion betting the same way.  Damn, that was an ugly dumb ass trade!

A $100,000+ vacation property mistake.

I once had the idea of buying vacation properties all over the world, to relax all over the world, while making an income as well during retirement.  It’s a decent idea if everything stays stable, but of course the real estate market blew up.  I realized I was in the midst of things blowing up, and the trader in me couldn’t resist buying a place $115,000 cheaper than what the owner had bought the place for just a year ago.  Well guess what?  The place went down another $100,000 + a year later because the mortgage market for vacation properties dried up and nobody could get a loan!  The mortgage market has since thawed out a little, and the rents do cover most of the costs, but damn I should have waited just one year longer, or at least bought after seeing an uptick.  Although I never plan to sell, I’m still a dumb ass idiot for buying too soon.  At least I’ll have some fond memories while I’m up there! Note: I classify vacation property differently than rental property.  One is a luxury + rental income, the other is purely for income.

GETTING AHEAD IS PRETTY STRAIGHTFORWARD

Bugatti Veyron

No matter how perfect one seems, know that they have a lot of dumb ass in them.  This is the reason why you should never give up.  There will be openings at work, in relationships, and in life where you just have to pounce when mishaps happen.  Eventually, it will be your turn to be a dumb ass and the reverse will happen so don’t feel guilty.

It really doesn’t take much to get ahead.  You just have to be a little bit smarter, and a little bit savvier than the dumb ass person next to you.  At the same time, you need to always appear dumber and more aloof than you really are.  Personal finance is really straight forward.  Yet, you see a lot of stupid activity anyway.  My advice to you is to secretly do all the right things.  Can someone tell me whether I should go buy a $2.6 million Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4 now?  A company expense perhaps?  Thanks!

Readers, what are some of the dumb ass things you’ve done?  Have you stumbled across some seriously questionable posts before?  Are we all dumb asses?  Please feel free to highlight more of my dumb ass posts as examples!

Note: Besides Moose getting towed, the large majority of my poor financial decisions have been due to my desire to do better financially and live a better life.  No risk, no reward as they say.  Too bad nothing is risk free except for treasuries and CDs under $250,000.

Regards,

Sam @ Financial Samurai – “Slicing Through Money’s Mysteries”

If you are a dumb ass, please sign up for my RSS Feed or E-mail Feed and keep in touch.

One of my favorite business school classes focused on Emerging Market Economies.  We read C.K. Prahalad’s book called, “Fortune At The Bottom Of The Pyramid“, which basically described how entrepreneurs were finding cost effective ways to serve the poorest people in the world and also be profitable.

Conventional business wisdom states that one must go after those consumers with the deepest pockets and the highest propensity to spend.  Prahalad argues that we have a social responsibility to help the other end of the spectrum improve their living standards and not be afraid of going bust in the process.

One of the keys that came out of helping the poor in emerging markets is the concept of micro-lending.  Micro-lending is a fascinating concept which essentially pools together the funds of people in usually small communities, and lends out those funds to a select few.  Together, a community is able to help each other more impactfully than if they were separate.  What’s also very interesting is that the tighter the community, the lower the default rates compared to conventional banks because everybody feels a deep sense of responsibility.

THE YAKEZIE WRITING CONTEST

The Yakezie Network of 70+ personal finance and lifestyle blogs have pulled together their funds to provide more than $1,000 to be divided among three winning contestants.  If each of us gave just $15 a quarter, we would collectively be able to distribute at least $600, $300, and $100 to the first, second, and third place winners who will use these funds to further their education.  We hope to slowly raise much more than a combined $1,000 as our blogs flourish and the Network grows.

What’s different from the Yakezie Writing Contest is that we are not a micro-lender, but a micro-giver where we expect very little in return.  Whether the recipient ever comes back to the Yakezie Network to interact and learn is up to them.  All we ask is that they use the funds to help pay for their education.  Students often have very little income and rely on low wages or their parents to get by.  I think we can help them.

In terms of creating profits for this particular venture, the idea is to simply have corporate sponsors with a history of giving, support our initiative.  Running the Yakezie Network is an absolute loss-making venture if we were to put a dollar value on the amount of time we spend building, testing, marketing, and running the Network.  Hence, we appreciate any type of support we can get.  The good thing is that neither Chris, nor I, or the majority of our members rely on our blogs as sole sources of income.  We all do this for the love of community, the challenge of development, and the spirit of giving back.

SPREAD THE WORD AND PARTICIPATE

If you know of anybody who enjoys writing, and is looking for funds to help pay for their education, have them visit The CarInsuranceCompanies.com Yakezie Writing Contest today!  All they have to do is follow the directions and write an essay answering one of eight questions.  The submission window is from Monday, April 18th to midnight, April 22nd.  If you would like to pledge any money to help contribute to our micro-giving efforts, please visit the Yakezie Pledge Page.

It’s been six years since adventuring down to Rio De Janeiro for several weeks to study abroad and get a taste of real life micro-lending examples as discussed by Prahalad.  After a lot of thought and hard work, I’m so pleased to say that we’ve finally created our own sustainable micro-giving platform with the Yakezie Writing Contest!

Thanks for all the support!

Readers, have you had an experiences with micro-giving?  There have been a number of micro-giving initiatives in India in particular and I’m wondering if there are other countries that you’ve noticed this practice flourish besides India, USA, and Brazil?

Best,

Sam

For all those who didn’t perform well in college, don’t want to perform well in college, aren’t willing to go back to grad school to give yourself a second chance, and like to make excuses for not trying harder, you’re in for a real treat!  It’s clear from the comments in my article “Examples of Good Resumes That Get Jobs,” that your GPA doesn’t matter.  As someone who has participated in the hiring of dozens of individuals all these years, I’ve got it all wrong and I’m glad you called me out on it.

I’d like to think of myself as a very flexible person who sees both sides of the equation.  Hence, in this post, I want to highlight why your GPA doesn’t matter at all, and why you should feel confident in never putting your GPA on your resume.  Working hard is overrated and employers are certainly looking for as many C and B students out there as they are A students.

WHY GRADES DON’T MATTER

1) You are special. You have done many award winning things that have brought you accolade.  You started a game changing business or are a virtuoso violinist.  In the world of millions, you do not believe there are also people with great grades that can also do great things.  People need to recognize you for who you are.  You are unwilling to conform by getting good grades.

2) You learn for the love of learning. What’s most important is that you absorb the material you are learning and put it to good use.  You don’t feel you have to justify your learning by getting good grades.  You do not believe it is possible to learn for the love of learning and also get good grades.

3) You believe experience matters most. College is a great time to experiment new things and meet new people.  You believe people who get good grades are incapable of experiencing college in its “purest” form.

4) You believe grades are not a barometer for success. Once you get into the school of your choice after high school, that’s all that matters.  Once you have that good school on your resume, you believe your employer will not use grades to differentiate you from your thousands of other classmates.

5) You believe life is too short to get good grades. Why bother studying hard and standing above your competition when there are great shows to watch and places to see? Life is too short to work hard and give yourself the best chance possible to pursue what you want to do.

6) You believe there will be people out there in great positions who will empathize with you. After all, people stick together and look out for their own.  There will be people in charge of hiring who did poorly in college.  You don’t want to risk hurting this potential bond by doing well yourself.

7) You believe in equality. It doesn’t matter if someone got a 4.0 GPA, attended 6 more years in medical school, and works 80 hour daily shifts.  You believe you also deserve to make $500,000 a year, provide a luxurious life for your family, and receive the same accolades.  Both of you are human and deserve to be treated equally.

8) You are not American. Apparently, it is very rare for other countries except for the United States (questionable too, hence this post) who use grades as one determinant of whether you will be a hard working, good hire or not.

9) You are already very wealthy. Grades mean nothing because you can always work for your parents company, live off your trust fund, or live off your spouse.

10) You believe that only the best organizations care about high performers. If your organization isn’t one of the “top 10%”, then your company must not care about choosing the best people for the job.

12) You believe there is no correlation with good grades, effort and quality of life. You believe most of the cool kids in school who got poor grades will do great.  You have example after example of very successful people who did poorly in school.  You don’t believe there is a correlation between education and a good life.  Undoubtedly, most of the successful people you see in this world didn’t have good grades.

13) You believe as a student looking for a job, you know more than the person who is looking to hire you. As you a student, you have years of experience hiring, firing, and building a team.  As a result, your beliefs about the unimportance of grades trumps the hiring manager’s beliefs of the importance of grades.  After all, you are special.

14) You believe it is easier to re-invent the wheel than accepting one of many variables that indicate performance. You’d rather make your own tennis racquet than buy one from the store, or program your own website than use one of the thousands of customizable templates.

15) You don’t care if your doctor did poorly at a no-name med school. All doctors are the same when it comes to performing life saving surgery, so long as they passed the medical exam.  Besides, he’s a nice guy.

16) Since grades don’t matter, you don’t believe where you went to school matters either. You don’t believe there is a correlation with some of the most successful people in the world and the schools they attended.  If you had a choice, you’d rather go to Chico State than Harvard because grades don’t matter getting into school, and therefore schools don’t matter.

17) You believe posting your GPA takes up too much space on your resume. 3.3/4.0 takes up seven spaces, which is crucial real estate where you could be writing how great you are.

18) You believe the best way to achieve economic progress is through Socialism. Socialism is when there is no personal responsibility and no reward for hard work.  You are willing to help your 2.0 GPA classmate who parties all night by giving her 1.0 of your 4.0 GPA so both of you can have a chance with your 3.0s.  As a result, everybody will eventually stop working hard in order to gain benefits from others, and tremendous progress will be made.

19) The economy is so hot all you need is a pulse and you can get a job. The situation is exactly like the housing boom where anybody who could sign their name could get a loan.   Good credit is meaningless for banks since they’ve done so well these past three years, just like good grades are meaningless for employers.

LET’S CHANGE PERCEPTION!

After listing all the things which support the fact that grades don’t matter when choosing someone to hire, let’s start a movement and change perception!  It is much easier to change the perception of the thousands of firms, than focus on improving ourselves.  Forget about studying hard or going back to grad school to give ourselves a second chance.  We are special and the world must see who we are!

Readers, please share with us more reasons why grades don’t matter.  If grades don’t matter, are colleges being totally moronic for giving grades?  What’s the point then?  Is it logical to conclude that since most students aren’t A students, most people will concur that grades don’t matter?

LIGHT BULB IDEA!: What about starting a firm that is strictly only allowed to hire C+ or worse students.  Furthermore, the company will pay everybody the same, regardless of performance.  Surely, this will be the best organization in the world, yes?

Best,

Sam

One of my predictions for this year is that the job market will surprise on the upside.  With cashed up corporate balance sheets and a revival in demand, there is little doubt in my mind that unemployment levels will continue to improve.  Unfortunately, 2011 has proven to be a little more challenging than expected, with unemployment levels staying at above 9%.  This is why now more than ever, you need to get all your documents in order, starting with your resume.

It’s in the first half where ideally all hiring shall be done because: 1) The best available people are still available.  There is a bias against people looking in the 3rd and 4th quarter because rightly or wrongly, companies will be wondering what’s wrong with you for not having found something earlier;  2) Companies need to spend their budgets while they are still available.  There’s no time like the present; 3) Hiring an employee at the start of the year gets the most out of the employee, especially if there is a guaranteed compensation package.

Now that it’s the second half of the year, things will get even more challenging for job seekers.  I’ve seen over 3,000 resumes in my career and hopefully this article and subsequent articles linked within can help you out.

THE IMPORTANCE OF AN UPDATED RESUME

Just last week, I had breakfast with an old boss of mine who moved on to do different things last year.  What I thought was a friendly meet up turned out to be a soft sell on why I should join his firm.  “We should talk more next week Sam,” he concluded.  “I think you’ll be amazed at what we’re doing here.”  I proceeded to discuss my meeting with another old colleague of mine who then said, “Sam, actually we also have a 5 year runway to build something great.  You should send me your resume.”

“No problem“, I said.  Truth be told, my resume was one year old and needed some updating.  But, that’s OK, given the changes were quite minor as I’ve been with the same firm for awhile now.

It never hurts to keep employment dialogues open, even if you don’t currently plan on leaving your company.  It’s a courtesy to them, and you never know when someone wants to pay you big bucks for a guaranteed length of time to join their organization!  It’s generally I who evaluate resumes, so it was kind of exciting to update my own to send to someone else.

IMPORTANT RESUME TIPS TO KNOW

* The 7 Seconds Rule. The average amount of time a reviewer spends on your resume is 7 seconds and that’s it!  It’s partly because we have so many resumes to look at, and it’s partly because we’re lazy.  Make sure the top half of your resume pops and everything is clear.

* One Page Resume Or Bust. If you have a resume longer than one page, you just quadrupled your chances of having your resume crumpled and tossed in the bin.  More is much less in this situation.  Having a one page resume shows that you are concise, clear, and to the point.  Again, we only spend roughly 7 seconds on your resume, so don’t bore us with irrelevant details.  It’s all about what you’ve done lately, your education, and an interesting fact about you.  Anything more and we’ll ask you during the interview.

* Don’t Over Think Design. Unless you are a graphic designer looking for a job, there’s no need to over think the design of your one-pager.  Contact info, latest two or three jobs with responsibilities, education, and hobbies done.  Segment the page out in titles, use bullet points if you will, and make that one page as simple to read as possible.  We really don’t care about what type of font you are using, whether the paper has a thicker weave, and all the nitty gritty details of your latest project.  Like blogging, content is king!

* Don’t Hide Obvious Things. If you’ve never had a real job before or are still within 5 years out of undergrad, you better not hide your GPA.  Hiding your bad GPA is a 90% guarantee of getting your resume tossed because it shows that you think reviewers are stupid enough to not realize your grades are missing.  We’ll start thinking the worst, so don’t hide your GPA!  Don’t hide any of your contact details either.  That will surely piss off your reviewer if she wants to contact you.

* A Good Resume Is Standard, Nothing Special. A good or great resume doesn’t make the person.  You and your interview make the person.  A good resume should be standard, which means it’s all the important not to have a bad resume.  A bad resume obliterates your chances, and a good resume is the absolute minimum.  There is no one golden resume format.  It just has to be easy on the eyes.  From the examples below, you’ll see that all are acceptable resumes.

* Customize Your Resume As Much As Possible. Don’t use a generic resume for all your applications.  It’s important to highlight specific skills, attributes, and experiences you have that would be an asset to your new employer.

* Do The Not So Obvious. If you’ve sent out hundreds of resumes already, and aren’t getting any responses, do something different.  Put a picture of yourself up on the top right hand corner.  Change your resume color to a green back ground.  Make your objective statement a prediction on who will win the Super Bowl and why?  Then parlay that with a follow up interview if your prediction holds true.  If you aren’t getting any call backs, you have nothing to lose.  I guarantee you that if you do any one of the following things above, you will stand out and get the recruiter’s attention.

EXAMPLES OF GOOD RESUMES

I like how Adam states right up front his objectives and qualifications.  His resume is easy to read.  Unfortunately, there is no GPA, and his work experience isn’t much to write home about, depending on what job he’s looking for.  If he’s looking to apply as a restaurant manager, he looks like a perfect candidate.  Resume Rating: 8/10.

Edgar has a classically formatted resume which I like.  He must be just graduating from business school because he over emphasizes his education, and under emphasizes what makes Edgar the man.  We already know Edgar went to Darden b-school if I’m reading his resume, so putting his education at the very top is wasting valuable real estate.  Also, I know nothing about Edgar as a person, which doesn’t create any affinity.  Resume Rating: 7/10.
Pamela’s resume has almost everything I want to see.  I like how she highlights a “Profile” portion up top, lists her experience, and then her education and activities.  I would love to know more about what makes Pamela tick.  Also, I would consider removing her earliest work experience and expand a little more on her interests.   Resume Rating: 8.5/10.

CONCLUSION

A good resume is standard, which also means good resumes are everywhere.  If you have a badly formatted resume with glaring holes, your job seeking life is over.  You might as well become an entrepreneur or lifestyle design blogger instead, because nobody will be willing to give you a chance since you can’t even present yourself properly on one sheet of paper.  Beyond the basics of resume writing, it’s the content which really helps get you an interview and that job.  Now that you’ve digested everything, go read “The Art of The Interview” where I discuss some very important aspects to lock down that dream job.  Good luck!

Note: After more than a decade of looking at 50-100+ resumes every year and participating in the hiring of dozens of people, I really suggest you take this post’s advice to heart if you’re looking for a job.  Competition is fierce!

If you liked this post, sign up for my RSS feed or e-mail list and keep in touch.

Best,

Sam

Yale law professor and mother of two Amy Chua penned an incredibly fascinating article entitled, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” on the WSJ.  Professor Chua is a first generation American who went to Harvard undergrad and then to Harvard Law School.  As a tenured professor teaching at the most prestigious law school in the world, I feel for her kids first and foremost!  Think about all the expectations that are put on them since her husband, Jeb, is also a tenured law professor at Yale.

Let’s say you had parents who walked 10 miles to school every day.  Do you think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that you will have a car in high school?  You might, but you’d feel guilty every time you get behind the wheel and your parents will likely remind you as well.  In the end, you’d probably compromise and either bike to work, have your parents drop you off, or walk yourself.

Here’s a non-offensive excerpt from her article where she justifies calling kids names such as “lazy”, “fatty”, “worthless”, “stupid”, and “disgraces” when they aren’t performing up to par:

“As a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child’s self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there’s nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn’t.”  Amy Chua

I agree with her quote, but I definitely don’t agree with calling one’s kids names to shame them into conforming.  The main issue I have with Amy’s view is that she pits Asian mothers against “Western Mothers” who are by default deemed inferior.  I would be incredibly insulted if I was a Western Mother because who is Amy to impose her dictator-like ways on me.  Amy talks in stereotypes all article long about how Asian children always seem to be gifted in math & sciences and music.  Amy argues that it is in fact no coincidence since Asian mothers are such master motivators and disciplinarians.

NATURE vs. NURTURE

I’ve always wondered how I’d turn out if my parents hadn’t been there for me.  I got into a lot of trouble growing up because I had little regard for personal property or the law frankly.  I remember my friends and I would trespass onto this farm in the mountains so we could have firecracker wars and sneak a smoke.  We were in the 5th grade.

There were other times where my friends and I would skip school to go movie hopping and chase girls.  We’d go around town with our illegal mopeds.  Another time I remember punching my friend in the face because he pushed me over while I tied my shoe.  That was in the 9th grade and I got suspended for a couple days.

My parents weren’t super strict, but they laid down the law when I didn’t obey.  With enough disciplinary action, I grew out of my rebellious teenage stage and started hitting the books hard.  They basically told me if I didn’t do well in academics and sports, I would severely lessen my chances of making a comfortable living for myself because no good school would accept me.  They somehow instilled in me the absolute fear of ending up on the streets.

I’m almost certain that if my parents weren’t there to set me straight, I would end up struggling financially and be stuck in a job that I hated.  Then again, I wonder if nature would have eventually kicked in to set me straight on my own.  Perhaps it would, but if it kicked in at age 22 instead of 14, it may have been too late.

PERHAPS IT’S A LOT OF NURTURE AND A LITTLE BIT OF NATURE

I used to think that I would always send my kids to public school because I experienced both and didn’t feel private school was any better.  I used to believe that my kids would be able to discern what’s right from wrong and not hang out with the bad crowd.  Now I have my doubts.

Private school administrators know parent’s insecurities and therefore skillfully market to their fears.  “Why risk your child’s future?“, is a favorite line to convince parents to spend $20,000 a year in 7th grade tuition vs. $0 for a public education.  And you know what?  I’m starting to get nurtured by their propaganda as well.  If I’ve got the money, why risk sending your kid to a less nurturing environment, even if you have all the confidence in the world your kid is good.  Why risk tarnishing your star?

Parental guidance, phenomenal teachers who inspire, and good peers are instrumental to the development of a child.  Not everyone can be a success, however you define the world.  But, with the right environment, there’s no doubt in my mind that a child’s potential will be maximized.

Readers, how were your parents growing up?  Do you wish they pushed you harder?  If they pushed harder, do you feel you would be more successful?  What percentage does nurture play in the part of a child’s development?  Are Asian parents superior as Amy Chua believes?

Regards,

Sam

For all you whipper snappers out there who think school is a waste of time, good grades are a waste of effort, and working towards a great career is for losers, you might be right!  It’s all about being a nonconformist right here, right now.  You can live the life of your dreams on your own terms, or at least that’s what everyone is saying nowadays.

Watch one of the all time classic scenes from The Cosby Show where Dr. Huxtable asks his son, Theo how he expects to get into college and earn a living with poor grades.  What transpires is one of the most hilarious interactions ever!  In this 4 minute clip, you’ll learn everything you need to know about minimalism, relationships, budgeting, work, taxes, career, love, and happiness.

It’s absolutely perfect to be a regular person so long as you are happy.  There’s no need to be successful in anything you do frankly.  So long as you are satisfied with what you have and the direction you’re heading, that’s all that matters.

There are too many people telling you what you should and should not do.  Forget about it!  Do as you damn please, because regular people rock.  Just don’t let the Dr. Huxtables of the world slap any sense into you. They don’t know what they’re talking about because you’ve got it all figured out.

Readers, are you afraid to try because you’re afraid your brain is going to explode and ooze out of your ears? Is what Theo says in the end really “the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard!”?

Best,

Sam

A lot of people still don’t believe there’s a high correlation between good grades and work life success.  Could it be that those who poo poo good grades as unnecessary are the ones who didn’t get good grades themselves?  Let’s imagine for the next couple seconds poor grades are poor indicators of success, even though for the first 22 years of your life, they are used in every aspect of progress.  Now that you’ve had your couple seconds, let’s snap back to reality.

Here you are, about to graduate college with a mediocre “B” average and you’re getting shot down during interviews left and right, assuming you are getting any.  From the employer’s perspective, they can interview from any number of schools, each with a plethora of “A” students, so why bother with you?  Your stubborn self still holds on to the belief that grades don’t matter, because you know you’re going to be a star some day.

FOUR WAYS NOT TO LET POOR GRADES KEEP YOU DOWN

1) Be honest. You’ve not only got to be honest with your potential employer, graduate school, or whatever else you are applying to, you have to be honest with yourself.  You know if you studied an extra 10 hours a week instead of getting blitzed every other night at the toga parties chasing tail, you probably would have done better in college.  Your employer wants to hear from you that you are not delusional, and recognize your faults and have matured.

2) Use weakness to your advantage. Many employers actually fear the superstar straight “A” student because of the belief they might have heightened egos and massive expectations.  If you can prove to your potential employer that you’ve taken steps to change your behavior for the better, you will go a long way.  Nobody can be perfect forever, and so if you can be imperfect during some other time (college) and learn from your mistakes, chances are you will be much more valuable and mature during work.

3) Focus on other activities. Getting a 3.0 GPA isn’t stellar, but it is good enough to get your foot in the door.  To make up for the “missing” 1.0, you need to discuss what you’ve learned in your extracurricular activities, which hopefully includes a part-time job, that made you a better person.  Organization, integrity, work ethic, compliance, and team work are the five key attributes an employer is looking for.  If you can demonstrate you’ve grasped these five things, you have more than made up for your lack of stellar grades.

4) Keep on hustling.  Like it or not, you are at a disadvantage vs. your peers with higher grades right out of college.  As a result, you have to make up for your lack of effort during school, by hustling more out of school.  Reach out more, send out more personalized search e-mails, attend more functions, designate more creative time, and get things done.

CONCLUSION – NO SUCH THING AS “A” FOR EFFORT

Yes, yes, I know you still don’t think good grades are important towards work life, and therefore monetary success.  But just humor for me for a bit and put yourselves in the interviewer’s shoes.  If you have 500 candidates to review for one position, and 400 of them have stellar grades, would you bother reading the other 100?  No, because we all have a limited amount of time, and the sample set of 400 is definitely good enough.  It’s the law of large numbers folks.  If you don’t pick up that $100 bill lying on the ground, someone else will.

Whatever you do, don’t tell sob stories about why you were so mediocre.  Excuses are for losers, and you will never be able to assuage your interviewer about why your pet hamster caused you to play video games for 8 hours a day while you should have been studying.  The only time sob stories work is when your interviewer lets you in on her own tragedy, which you’ve also experienced.  Then, you guys can have a pity fest and go straight to the top!

Readers, any other suggestions on how not to let poor grades keep you down?

Why do you think there is a continued tremendous backlash against the benefits of having good grades and/or having a good resume (activities, school, etc)?

Are we just programmed to make excuses?

Note: The inaugural HowtoSaveMoney.com Yakezie Scholarship for December, 2010 is now live!  Please take a look and forward to a high school student or under who you think may be interested.

Keigu,

Sam @ Financial Samurai – “Slicing Through Money’s Mysteries”

 The following is a guest post by a regular reader who just turned 30.  Hope you guys enjoy and help her share in her thoughts!

So often we let society overly influence how we feel and act. I could go on for hours about topics like body image, nutrition, and politics but for now let’s just touch on age and children.

Maybe I’m on my own in this, but it annoys me that society teaches us that couples should raise a family once they’re married. While I have no ill feelings towards you wonderful parents out there, it frustrates me that I still find myself doubting my lack of interest in having kids because it’s abnormal, against the grain.

TO HAVE OR NOT TO HAVE

More couples are choosing not to have children though and I commend them for knowing what’s best for them and not succumbing to the wishes of their parents, friends, siblings, in-laws, second cousins, and everyone else that undoubtedly approached them countless times with: “When are you having kids”, “You’ll love having a family,” “Your life will be more complete with children”, “You really should start a family now before it’s too late”, “You’ll regret it later if you don’t….” etc etc. Admit it – it’s still a bit odd for a happily married couple not to want children.

If you find yourself struggling with this weighty decision, don’t feel ashamed if you aren’t jumping for joy at the thought of having kids. Instead you should embrace your ambivalence! I think many people underestimate the option to say “no”, and often each spouse doesn’t equally evaluate the lifestyle and financial impacts of this huge decision. Deciding to wait or not to have kids doesn’t mean you’re cold, heartless, or a kid-hater. Sure people may question your decision but they wouldn’t be the ones raising your kids anyway, so who cares what they say.

If you worry about if you will regret it later, there are always other options like adoption, foster care, mentoring nephews/nieces, volunteering with kids, or even just getting a pet to care for. I’d strongly advise against letting fate decide. If you’re not using protection you’d better be 100% ready to have kids! I know many couples that got pregnant on the first try.

THE HILL IS JUST A LAUNCH PAD FOR NEW THINGS

On to the topic of age, I recently hit a milestone birthday entering a new decade and turned to my mother for moral support. “I never worried about turning older” she said with a straight face. “The only birthday I really remember impacting me was when I turned 60, and that was just because I’d been looking forward to it for so long so I could start getting the senior discount when I go to the movies!” How adorable is that?

My mother’s easy going attitude and positive outlook has been a great anchor in my life and I hope to be as happy as she is when I reach 60! It’s still scary thinking about aging, but I’m determined not to let a number define my level of happiness. Instead of fearing getting older, I want to look forward to being a little old lady with lots of wrinkles from all the smiling and giggling I’ll be doing

I’d really like to slap the person that came up with the phrase “over the hill”. Sure we can’t stop the aging process but why do we have to dread that when we reach middle age, it’s only downhill from there? Shouldn’t we strive to die at our happiest and at the peak of our lives? With an over the hill mentality, it’s no wonder people have mid life crises thinking that things are just going to get worse as each day, month, and year passes.

AND SO WE CONTINUE

Our thoughts and feelings are more powerful than we give credit and I believe they can influence us physically too.  If you want to have children, go for it, but don’t judge others for not wanting the same things you do.  If you believe you are young, you are!  Start thinking positively, avoid stress and pessimistic people, and you’ll see the world of difference.

Carpe Diem!

Regards,

Never To Wonder