Sunday, August 19, 2007

You're dumber than you think you are

I recently read that 90% of the working public believe that they are in the top 10% of best employees.

Which means about 80% of the population (or more!) think they're stellar overachievers but are wrong. Are you one of them? =)

At Pizza Hut.... I worked with a large number of very incompetent people and have little doubt I'd be in the top ten percent. My days at Intel.... Oh, I'm smart, but frankly, the job bored me and it probably affected my performance. I doubt very much I was one of the top 10% of their top employees. Fortunately, I'm pretty sure I wasn't in the bottom 10% either which is the place you really want to avoid. I have no qualms about being average. In fact, most people are. That's the definition of average, you know. ;o)

I like to think I do pretty well, but I'm not fooling myself. Deep down inside, I really am average.

Friday, August 10, 2007

It was a wild and wacky week in the stock market....

The last couple of days, I've noticed a strong focus on the stock market. It's been a "wild week" as one news anchor described it. Another said that investors are nervous and fearful. Today the DOW fell about 200 points, but ended up the day off just a few points. Whew!

Well, I'm an investor. Most of my assets are in stocks right this minute, invested in some companies that you may have heard of such as Costco, Boeing, and Microsoft. Guess what? I have absolutely no idea how well the stocks have done this week, and I really don't care. I'm not nervous, nor am I fearful. I am hopeful, however, that stocks will crash terribly hard. For a couple of weeks, at least, so I can buy up more for so much less. When I hear news anchors saying that I'm nervous and fearful, that I should step back and rethink my investments, I get very excited. To me, that means it's time to buy.

Why does the news always get everything so darned wrong?