Hub Blogs

Hub Blogs contains fresh contributions written by Financial Independence Hub staff or contributors that have not appeared elsewhere first, or have been modified or customized for the Hub by the original blogger. In contrast, Top Blogs shows links to the best external financial blogs around the world.

Review: The Disciplined Trader

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81o4jz+QTgLI am not and never will be a “trader,” in the sense of a stock-picker/market-timer.

However, on the suggestion of my financial advisor, I recently ordered and read a copy of a classic trading book called The Disciplined Trader, by Mark Douglas (New York Institute of Finance, 1990).

Personally, my only interest in the topic involves hedging downside risk:  taking actions that limit some downside, at the expense of some potential upside. What surprised me about this book — which bears the subtitle Developing Winning Attitudes — is how much space was allocated to psychology and mental attitudes. In fact, fully all of the third of the four major sections is devoted to what I would call “softer” topics like understanding the nature of the mental environment, how memories, associations and beliefs manage environmental information, managing mental energy and similar topics. Continue Reading…

Hub Book Review: Finding Flow

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findingflowYou have to give credit to Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi, a university professor who has managed to build a mini empire around the nebulous concept of Flow. We have already reviewed here at the Hub the original Flow as well as Creativity and Flow.

I’m pretty sure today’s review of Finding Flow will be my last but who knows? This particular book does have the virtue of brevity when compared to the other two: it runs just 180 pages, or 147 if you don’t count end matter.

As noted in the earlier reviews, I’m intrigued by the concept of Flow as it applies to Encore Careers and life after corporate employment. As many blogs in the Hub’s Encore Acts section have pointed out, aging baby boomers still have a potentially long and creative period ahead of them that lies between the traditional career and what used to be called Retirement.

So it seems to me that if late-bloomer Boomerpreneurs are going to make a success of this new stage of life, they’d better tap into the concept of Flow. It’s all tied in with passion and mastery, which is why I went to the well one last time with Czikszentmihalyi (pronounced, as the book helpfully notes on the back cover, “chick-SENT-me-high.”

He begins with a quotation from W.H. Auden: Continue Reading…

For the love of Money

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By Heather Compton

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

I have invested a lot of my lifetime learning, living, teaching and writing about healthy practises around money.  When a young friend recently asked for some guidance on making peace with money, I wanted to fall back on those well learned strategies.

There are many practises that will bring some ease into your financial life. Living within your means, paying yourself first, getting your financial house in order: but you must lean into your own wisdom to bring peace.  It’s an evolutionary, lifelong journey for all of us and I am moved by the struggles we all have with money and the false powers we grant it.

What we buy, what we invest in, what we purchase for others and what we choose to finance or contribute to can bring us peace or its polar opposite.  What if we had a change of heart or a shift in worldview? A change of heart brings about a change of circumstance:  that’s transformation. Changing our worldview means changing what you believe is true – do big houses, fancy cars, expensive wardrobes and larger paycheques really spell success, acceptance, power or freedom?  Ask your authentic self that question.

The Heart test

We are all vulnerable to ambitions that disregard the balance and wisdom of our intuitive hearts. What if every spending decision had to pass through your heart before you pulled out your wallet?  Would you spend differently?

When we use our resources in ways that truly meet our authentic and universal needs for connection, integrity, joy, inspiration, physical well-being, meaning and choice, we find a path to peace.  That’s when money is in service to us and not the other way around. Money is an admirable servant but a terrible boss.

Lining up money’s flow with our authentic self and using it as a direct expression of our values and our vision is simple but it’s not easy.  It requires daily discipline to follow the practises that are the gateway to peace. Continue Reading…

An air travel horror story: Flight changes, Orphaned luggage

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Santa Catarina Arch in Antigua. Photo RetireEarlyLifestyle.com

By Akasha Kaderli, RetireEarlyLifestyle.com

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

I was really tuckered out after a month-long stay visiting my family in California and was looking forward to an easy flight home to Guatemala. Billy (that angel of mine!) was waiting for me in Antigua and had arranged for our private driver to meet me at the Guatemala City airport about an hour away and bring me to our hotel.

Traffic was smooth riding over Highway 17 from Santa Cruz to San Jose Airport this Tuesday morning and I arrived in plenty of time to go through TSA pre-check security and catch my flight.

Everything was going as I expected, and once I boarded the plane and settled into my seat, I ate one of the sandwiches I had packed to get me through the long day of travel ahead.

Just a moment please

I didn’t even blink twice when the airline pilot said we would be having some repairs done to the fuel gauge before we left the hanger. I figured he’d pick up any extra time we needed while in flight.  I had a tight 40 minute connection in Dallas that would take me to my next flight to Guatemala City, but I tried not to stress about it.

The captain again came on the intercom to tell us that the fuel gauge had been repaired and that we’d be on our way …

Except he didn’t say that.

What? Wait a moment, what did I just hear? Continue Reading…

10 pearls of wisdom to better investing

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“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” — William James, American philosopher & psychologist (1842 – 1910).

Markets spend about two thirds of the time as bulls and one third as bears.

There is plenty of investment moxie to be learned from analyzing market volatility.

Preservation and growth of personal wealth works best on logic, not on emotion.

The good news is that becoming a better investor is not complicated.

Each pearl of wisdom presented helps guide the portfolio.
Together, they make a very powerful team.

Here is my tally of classic investing wisdom: Continue Reading…