People who spend a great deal of time together share the same personality traits and often emulate each other’s actions.  This pattern starts when we are young and continues on throughout our lives. You need to put a lot of thought into whom you are surrounding yourself with.

Want to feel pessimistic about your business and your future? Then spend most of your time with professionals who whine and moan.  These are the people who sit around and cry about business being down and the horrible economy.  If you hang out with these people long enough, you will soon adopt the same attitude.

Want to find success in both your personal and business life? If you answered, “yes,” you need to surround yourself with successful people – the true entrepreneurs who see opportunity despite a slow economy.  They take action and know what it takes to thrive in just about any circumstance.

Here is a challenge for you – look for people who are more successful than you and learn what you can from them. If they are making more money than you, they obviously have figured out something that you have not. Watch how they approach problems and what they are doing to succeed.  Then apply what you learn to your business and personal life.

Find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, by visiting Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

If you view writing down your goals as some pointless exercise, you need to change your mindset.  Your goals will act as a step-by-step guide for getting from where you are at this moment to where you want to be in the future.  You might have an amazing vision of your future, but without clear direction (a.k.a. goals), it will never become reality.

Mr. Spence has a great whitepaper, Strategies for Success, which among other things, lists out the reasons why goals are so important.  Here is what he has to say:

- Goals tell you exactly what you should be doing now.
- Goals tell you exactly what you should be doing next.
- Goals help you decide what NOT to do.
- Goals serve as a way to mark your progress.
- Setting and reaching goals is a repeatable process – once you achieve one goal, you simply set another.

Goal setting is not a one-time event.  You need to revisit your list of goals on a regular basis to ensure that you are on the right path to achieving the future of your dreams.

Find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, by visiting Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

In his whitepaper, Strategies for Success, John Spence defines personal success as “when you live a life in which your core values and self-concept are in harmony with your daily lifestyle and behaviors.”  He goes further to describe success as it means to him personally: “having a set of deeply held personal values, a clear idea about the kind of life you truly want to live and the person you honestly want to be – and then getting up every day and actually being that person and living that life.”

What does success mean to you?

Don’t buy into the definition of success that is shown on TV and movies. You need to be able to define what constitutes a successful life in your eyes.  If success means having a lot of money and prestige and you are able to achieve these things, then great. You have found success in your life.  However, in Mr. Spence’s own words, if you are a “living example of the values you hold and your life is very close to what you hoped it would be – then I think you are extremely successful.”

Be sure to check out John Spence’s book, Awesomely Simple.

Find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, by visiting Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

Here’s the problem with worry – when you are concerned about whether you are going to have a competent staff or if another customer will walk through the door, you are not going to be the best that you can be.  You cannot help someone when your mind is overcome with worry.

To be the best entrepreneur, spouse or parent you have to earn a profit – it’s just the way it works.  In order to eliminate your financial burden and that constant pressure you feel, you have to take action to ensure the dollars keep coming in.

How do you accomplish such a monumental task?  There are a few things you can do. Surround yourself with other successful entrepreneurs who appear to “get it” and are profitable.  Also, create a marketing machine that drives potential customers to you. You can learn more by reading the article, Virginia Small Business Owners, Make Yourself the Obvious Choice.

To find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, visit Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

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This is a question and answer column in the Post by columnist Lily Garcia. Her answer was shocking.

Basically, she identified this as a “problem boss” who needed to be dealt with either by a union pressure or by some sort of a lawsuit. She called it “dehumanizing and demoralizing to be subjected to such absolute rules under the guise of efficiency or fairness.”

This is nuts.

A business owner invests his time, energy, and money in a business to create a profit for himself and financial security for his family. A business owner does not exist for the benefit of the employees. If a business owner decides to ban cell phones from the workplace, this is his absolute right. What Ms. Garcia missed in her article is that the option that the employee has is to quit.

If enough employees quit as a result of the policy, and perhaps the owner will rethink the policy. However, the employee always has the free choice to remain under the “rules of engagement” set by the employer or to seek employment elsewhere.

Capitalism built America in to what it is today and we need to return to less government regulation. Don’t let politics, (including what both conservatives and liberals do to thwart capitalism) get in the way

In the book, Richards debunks many of the arguments against capitalism and he demonstrates, time and time again, why an economic system built on capitalism is both moral and, in fact, the best builder of economic wealth for all of the citizens of a country.

I’m going to paraphrase what Richards says are the four questions we must ask about any social policy, particularly and social policy that someone wants to change by fiat (e.g. cash for clunkers, health care reform, etc.)

Here are the questions:

1. Is what we perceive to be true actually true? If they say 46 million people are uninsured we must ask where are they getting this number from; what does it represent; who counted? If someone says the earth is getting warmer, we ask “how do you know–what are you measuring.” Critical thinkers always challenge the assumptions to at least accurately define the problem before trying to “solve” it.

2. If what we perceive to be true is actually true, is it something “bad” that we need to fix? If it were accurate that 46 million people are uninsured but this didn’t mean that they were lacking in health care, the 46 million is no longer “bad.” We can swing back to the policy debates before the economy tanked on a pyramid of bad loans….was it necessarily a “bad” thing that so many people did not own their own homes?

3. If we find that what we perceive to be true is actually true AND bad, then is it our current policy that is the CAUSE of the true and bad situation? As Richards puts it, if the earth is getting warmer and we decide that this is a bad thing is it man who is causing the trend. (Who caused the warming or cooling the last time when man was not around???)

4. If we find that what we perceive to be bad is actually true AND bad and CAUSED by policy then IS the CHANGE to policy being recommended (forced down our throats, sometimes) going to cure the ill and not create its own batch of unintended consequences? (i.e. did “cash for clunkers” which stole money from my pocket to pay for my neighbor’s new car; forced car dealers to loan money to buyers interest free for who knows how long; destroyed many perfectly driveable cars thus cutting the supply of good used car for the poor, driving prices up; and cause who knows how much environmental harm by forcing the destruction of the perfectly good cars to benefit a limited number of industries really make any sense at all?

It is only when all four questions can be answered in the affirmative that a critical thinker would say “go for it.”

We need more critical thinkers.

We have room for 100 people and as of August 16, we are at 67.

Check out this video by Ben Glass and Tom Foster about the Bill Glazer Event.

1. Eliminate the right of an insurance company to deny coverage to someone based on a preexisting condition.

Think about this…. the government would be telling a business that they must accept a customer (in fact, all customers.) The must do so regardless of the profitability of that customer…or whether that customer will be a guaranteed loss. This is craziness. This makes the insurance company the slave to the customer. It makes the rest of the insurance company’s customers slaves to those with preexisting conditions who they (with their premium dollar) must cover. What insurance company would want to keep playing that game?

2. Ban an insurance company from imposing a limit on benefits.

Huh? So the government is going to say to a business that it has no right to set the terms of engagement with a voluntary contract entered into by a willing customer and a willing business? That’s very scary.  Insurance companies exist to make a profit. All businesses should exist to make a profit. How can it be otherwise? Not only is there nothing wrong with profit, there’s nothing wrong with LOTS of profit. Consumers have a choice.. .they can choose to go with one business or another. If all businesses in any industry charge “too much” (whatever that is) them there’s an opporunity for another business to enter the market place and charge less.

But back to my main point. What insurance company would want to stay in the game if they are forced to accept “all comers” and they don’t have the ability to limit their exposure to huge claims? You got it–none… Thus, by way of “rule changing” the government eliminates private companies from the market place, leaving it the sole source provider of health insurance (and with it health decisions for you.)

Bad ideas.

The case is Jones v. Harris Associates. Here’s the synopsis from the Court:

A group of individual investors sued Harris Associates, which advises on Oakmark funds. The investors, who own shares in several Oakmark funds, allege that Harris’ fees are so high they violate the federal Investment Company Act of 1940, which was created to limit excessive investment adviser fees.

This is nuts. There shouldn’t be a law to “limit excessive investment adviser fees.”

Let me explain how this works:

If you think a mutual fund’s fees are too high you should not buy from that fund. If all mutual funds charge too much then you start your own and charge lower fees, taking advantage of the gap in the market place. The market place works to regulate fees and prices in any market.