blueprinting human capital

Net Impact Austin Chapter Speech

2014-12-10T14:43:00.001-08:00

Thank you for the amazing opportunity to serve our Net Impact professional chapter as its President. My name is Blake Mendez, and I am a financial manager and strategic thinker in the solar industry.

We are living in one of the most amazing times in a growing technopolis with tremendous social physics; but, we also live in a perilous time. Our oceans are rising and our world that we have commoditized over the last 200 years is poisoning us and killing our children.
We have the opportunity to redesign our future.

Your Net Impact Austin board will be meeting within the next month to redesign our future. We will be looking out over the next 3 years at how best to create and deploy our collective resources within the Net Impact framework. It will be a priority to continue our solid work with GivePulse, SXSW Eco, and I Live Here, I Give Here. Our bandwidth will expand to include additional alliance stakeholders focused on improving the world.

Good design is necessary. We must turn the tide against epic sociopolitical and environmental challenges. Our collective capacity and capability is unstoppable with our amazing skills, contacts, and resources. The choice is ours.

Please let me know what are your hot-button sociopolitical and environmental challenges that we can possibly address through Net Impact Austin.

Spending your IRA early and loving it

2014-11-10T12:46:00.000-08:00

In the retirement planning world, the traditional IRA appears to be an effective future income planning tool. You save your wages at a tax discount but remain liable for that discount on amounts withdrawn in the future. The tax discount, as well as compounded interest, dividends, and earnings potential, has wooed financial practitioners for many years and remains a staple recommendation from your CPA, your banker, your money manager, and your financial advisor.

Why we do have societal reverence around the IRA? Why is it held so sancroscantly?

My experience as a financial advisor gave me a firsthand look at how people feel when talking about spending their IRA labor savings. Most people feel regretful and outright guilty about taking a dip in their future retirement funds; of course, my tonality and staccato would follow my clients’ emotions, providing comfort for something considered so silly and financially immature. I told myself that I would never do something like that.

That mental dialogue and verbal statement was frivolous on my part. I clearly have deviated from that path, abandoned my insurance license, and plan on spending my IRA over the next year while investing in my solar technical skills and personal enjoyment. My son’s child support payment as well as rent and what not demand funding, and I would rather not take a job for the sake of a job. A new job cannot deviate from my solar path.

As a personal and professional caveat, my Roth IRA will remain intact and serve as my tax-free retirement foundation.

Harvest those gains

How can we reframe spending your IRA labor savings and make the situation more practical and appealing emotionally? What could you really lose? You are essentially spending money that you will have to pay taxes on anyway, and most importantly, you have already worked for the money. The 10% penalty is a pain, but it is a cost of doing business. You can do better next time when making investment vehicle choices.

We can argue about tax trends, but clearly, the military-industrial complex has a stranglehold on our world economy. War demands taxes. You will probably see higher taxes in the future, and taking out the money now will take care of that concern. It is better to get hit with a 19% marginal tax rate than 77% in the future.

Think dispassionately about it. You are better off taking your gains, paying your taxes, and moving on. This strategy makes sense in today’s volatile economy with its robber barons at the helm. Heavy retirement allocation is not a consistent way to remain financially stable, especially if you have volatile cash flows. Entrepreneurs know this situation all too well and almost invariably have to resort to taking a dip here and there. Why not make a strategy about liquidating your IRA labor savings?

Take that money and reinvest in yourself and electricity capacity generation!

Reinvest your money in yourself

You should go back to school and/or learn a computer programming language. Most students are probably not getting into biomimicry engineering, behavioral finance, decentralized power, smart-grid operating language, or political psychology. Today’s labor market demands multi-dimensional, clever, and tenacious innovators who can master at least two disciplines. Your choices are limited when you focus exclusively on one discipline. It is also a risky proposition with economic changes.

Yes, I am taking my IRA labor savings and reinvesting my cash into a solar career change. To further my solar skills, ImagineSolar has taken me under its wings to learn the solar trade through an intensive work/study program. The program requires a financial commitment to trade time for tuition credit. My IRA labor savings are needed for that end.

This career change will be worth it considering that my finance/business skills will be meshed with the science/engineering behind solar energy. It sets the stage for me to master how to integrate decentralized, clean power systems into civil engineering projects/urban planning.

Build electricity capacity

Mastering the science behind financing and deploying decentralized solar and geothermal energy resources is a fantastic business. Decentralized electricity generation not only provides personal/commercial energy, but it sets the stage for earning profit from creating, storing, and selling your own power. Your own electricity is a truly powerful resource, almost as important as clean food and water.

Power generation over the Industrial Revolution has invariably led to inflation, destabilizing governments and your savings. You can decouple from the inflation gravy-train and immunize your principal investments against capricious exogenous forces. Your money is better off saved in land, energy, food, and water rather than in a tax time-bomb.

How do you build electricity capacity? Where do you put up the infrastructure? You take your IRA labor savings and buy commercial real estate. Your bank will gladly lend you money on quality commercial real estate, and then, you can wrap in the solar panel, the electricity storage, and the geothermal implements. Financing electricity capacity will benefit many generations of my family and other families. Why not use commercial real estate to meet that end?

Conclusion

My IRA labor savings are going to finance my solar career change and to build electricity capacity through commercial real estate investments.

Spending your IRA labor savings for a provident purpose is not idiotic or moronic. It is a reasonable choice among many that you can make to improve your life.

...lost in your inner beard

2014-05-07T09:16:00.003-07:00

What is an inner beard? Why do some people have them while others do not? Is an inner beard something given at birth or acquired off and on throughout life? By the way, who asks these questions and even cares about this abstract metaphysical idea taken out of the ether with a visible hand like a cranberry company logo?

...people who compete in beard competitions and spend hours upon hours twirling their mustaches do, or as Taylor Welden with the Austin Facial Hair Club says, even someone with a clean shaven face should care about her own inner beard.

Do you know if you have an inner beard? If not, you may not be alone. You also probably do not have much choice.

This bizarre dialectic conversation began intriguing me more after working in East Austin over the last three months in the Chicon Collective. Immersing myself and spending at least a few days a week in the area enticed me to think about a unique subculture that exists existing around the Plaza Saltillo light rail station. This geographic area in the entire Austin community houses the East Austin Beard Culture.

Personal and perceptual looks are definitely deceiving in this subculture; or as East Austinite comic Matt Bearden says, oh you mean the Beardos. We exchanged pleasantries in front of The Grackle, a Beardo safe house, while getting truck tacos after interviewing Taylor there.

Walking back to my car, I began chuckling as I thought about chuckles began bubbling in me thinking about baby Fozzie the Bear singing about being a weirdo. He needs to think about rewriting that song, making it about around the Beardos.

My curiosity began in earnest during my working time in East Austin. At the Chicon Collective, Jeremiah Newton, the proprietor extraordinaire of the Bearded Bastard, caught my eye as an interesting fellow worth meeting to trade stories. His burgeoning handmade beard oil + mustache wax utopia sits upstairs in the Chicon Collective, a safe haven for young male Ruby-On-Rails Ruby on Rails software programmers and other off the path types. His space has kept moving and migrating as he unleashes pent up demand from many thirsty Beardos while he adds new staff and expands operations.

Genuine business story dialogue invariably leads to engaging discussion on your personal life. Jeremiah Newton was born in the great year of February 22, 1979 on February 22 and he definitely has the indigo child in him. We both share We’re both a pisces sign; as another possibility, maybe the magnetar radiation blast two days before my birth not only affected me, but it affected him as well.

We definitely see things a little differently than most people. His business card says, “I do what the fuck I want.” He genuinely believes it, and it shows through in his demeanor and style.

Beauty captures his eyes. My Seattle-based friend Marissa Castello, the remarkable co-director of the Creative Health Collective, noticed a sample of vanilla Bearded Bastard oil sample vial of vanilla extract beard oil while after hopping into my passenger seat recently. She definitely locked onto noticed its uniqueness immediately and held eyes on it for a few moments. Although that first sampling is long gone, his vial containers engage people with Each vial has a hand carved wooden labels and thoughtful design. Jeremiah would say that Marissa captured an expression of his love of beauty.

This engagement endears devotion to the product, not only to those within the Beardo subculture, but also to the world at large. Jeremiah talked about people requesting his products in boutique bBohemian accommodations in Berlin via Airbnb. Consumer devotion extends beyond many people throughout those part of the Beardo culture. Confirmed this devotion while drinking out and about in East Austin.

Jeremiah Newton loves making his friends smile and devours beauty in all forms, shapes, sizes, contexts, and emotions. He believes that everyone you are human and should have passion, die happy, sleep well, stay excited, and love have the love of great friends, and, one day, die happy. He also believes that too many of us hide from happiness that from ourselves and others. You should share!

We met up on a windy friday in East Austin behind the Chicon Collective. The trees have just come in with their nubs, just starting to tease ing out a spectacular green not to that won’t be seen but in for a few weeks. Wind blown bleachers greeted us, as we heard the light rail’s whine coming down the tracks. Stern wind licked up dust and pushed it across home plate.

Jeremiah Newton had not thought about the uniqueness of the East Austin beard culture or even if uniqueness is the right word as a descriptive adjective. His facial expressions honestly conveyed a possible belief so; then, his mood shifted, and he said, “Good question.”

Newton’s bearded journey began five years ago when he deliberately and methodically started growing his mustache in a serious and methodical way. He has not looked back since that time. You can see that Jeremiah Newton genuinely feels that the Beardo culture is not afraid to look differently than the status quo. He often wears thick, dark circular glasses — almost like motorcycle goggles— with his twirling mustachio and He sometimes sports a turban around his top hat with a jean jacket and lean, soft, colored jeans.

Beardos challenge society in deconstructing stereotypes either through tattoos, unusual beards, piercings, and/or all of the above. Jeremiah Newton thrives in that environment and loves that Austin is a community building focused city with a twist of hipness and flair. Who you know goes a long way in his opinion. He also confessed that this engagement is not in the usual annoying, snarky, and fake Austin way, but in a genuine way for those who embrace community.

After buying a bottle of the Bearded Bastard’s signature pheromone loaded vanilla extract for my own mystically vigorous ginger black beard, its scent and feel has become a staple of my own grooming process. My own beard has become more shapely and softer. It smells and is beginning to feel amazing to the touch. I absolutely only want mine to get better!

He sponsors beard culture events and stays active in the Austin Facial Hair Club, a 5,000-strong force of Beardos, Bastardos, a few ladies, and one shaven fellow. His professional efforts offer products to enable men to look and feel their best. Hands-on experience confirms this magic. Repeated conversations with Beardos over PBR say so too!

Jeremiah Newton is a premier Beardo who seeks to own truth, make people’s dreams come true, and create cool products for his the facial hair community. His vanilla extract packs juicy pheromones for Beardo admirers while his mustache waxes propel heavy-hitting mustachio competition slugfests.

Some people are hip, and some people pay to be hip in his professional opinion. He does not make or do things that he does not personally like to share with his community. Community tops his list of priorities list and guides his decision to hand-make each beado product. He bleeds himself into his company, seeking to build a craft, niche operation. You should go big and change the model of operation, mode, philosophy, and entire being behind what you do in life.

He said it felt strange paying someone more in a year than he’s been paid got paid for himself in the past 5 five years. His insatiable energy and stamina behind seeking his own truth is evident in how he overcame significant challenges to create an amazing East Austin business. His one passion is to die happy. Creating a craft on your own terms is part of the package.

Jeremiah knows that his product compliments a Beardo’s lifestyle because an unkempt beard is not fun. He has a massage therapy past and knows that skin, hair care should not only smell good but absolutely improve personal well-being. His business process focused on using essential 7 oils, and he frequently talked about the oil Holy Trinity. He spent 6 to 8 months researching molecular weight and other fine particulars.

Making money off your passion is not quite as difficult once you grasp the concept and get it going. He likes impacting people’s lives and feels that too many people are asleep. His true passion focuses on inspiring people to be better and enjoy life more.

His website claims that his father was a mystical Beardo, and in many ways, he was a 1,000% inspiration according to him. Mr. Newton had an amazing mountain man beard and inspired the woodsman theme built around the Bearded Bastard. He always wanted the best beard as a child and not until Jeremiah was 30 did he start growing one in his opinion. His unique style is bohemian Southern gentleman.

Many, many different people inspire his drive. He immerses himself in everything around him and creates things that people would like best. His personal interest in veneer drove his decision to create wood labels on his product lines. Surrounding himself with amazing people helps drive his decision making.

Scents are appealing to him. He vividly recounted walking in a Moroccan bazaar deep in a Casbah and gesticulated while smelling the spices, as if actually recounting the exact moment again. I began to see how he devours beauty.

Being an enigmatic visionary, he does not see an exit from the Bearded Bastard in a traditional sense of creating and selling a company. He desires a Bearded Women line within the Bearded Bastard brand. He shrewdly spoke about parent company with subsidiary organizations built on a house of beauty with limitless brand equity and international growth.

He stays inspired with everything and everyone around him. There is a resurgence in tidying up yourself in many ways. He feels good knowing that no one has done before what he is doing with the Bearded Bastard. People feel special about oil and that makes him smile.

Thinking is most important to him in his life. He ingests beauty, curiosity, friends, and travel and likes staying on the bleeding edge, expecting something unrealistic.

He fondly remembers while growing his Bearded Bastard, he had the business ah-hah moment validating his decision to not get lost in the 9 to 5 life. He feels that the even though the ubiquity behind Austin beards is a trend, as shown by Whisker Wars on IFC, you will have core players who will always maintain the Bearded Bastard lifestyle.

He wants to get into soaps and shaving oils as the pendulum swings back and young men begin shaving again. The Bearded Bastard is not not just bearded oil or mustache wax. It is much more than what meets the eye. He wants brand awareness and solidity.

Although Jeremiah did not talk much about the inner beard, it became evident on the IFC show. The Austin Facial Hair Club represented itself boisterously and talked about your inner beard, the one inside you. We will ask one of the club's most winning members...

While gathering information on the inner beard, my research took me to the Shangri-La Bar on east 6th street in East Austin. Conversation with the happy hour bartendress, Echo, revealed that the Beardos hang out at the Grackle and the Yellow Jacket Social Club. My comfort and familiarity with all three locations spurned my interest more. She did not know about the inner beard.

"The Last Starfighter" raged on with laser blasts and screeching wild alien fucks while talking with a fellow about beards and the faddiness around the beard in general. Confirmed more details about the Beardos with Matthew Helveston, a fellow Beardo who makes boutique furniture out of the Woodshed in East Austin. We all had a gut check about our passion for the beard.

Jeremiah Newton suggested Taylor Welden with the East Austin Facial Hair to help me understand more about the Beardos. Taylor met me at the Grackle on a hot, windswept day. The Grackle is off 6th street behind a taco truck in a dusty parking lot. While preparing for our meeting, I ordered a beer and sat outside under the balcony. The dimly lit bar boasted a 1991 Battlestar Galactica and Ms Pac Man game between a lone pool table and a dartboard area.

Taylor Welden works, lives, and plays in East Austin. He practices industrial design and has racked up many significant wins in beard and mustache competitions over the years for the Austin Facial Hair Club and himself. His favorite Bearded Bastard oil is the opium den, a line exclusively made for select Beardos. You can verify its sold out status online.

His bearded journey simply began back to his father, a fellow aptly named Rex. Rex had a bright red beard, similar to Taylor’s red beard, and mostly all older men in his family sported a beard. He began growing his at age 12 unwillingly and felt somewhat uncool having to shave so early while his peers could barely muster nothing more than a wispy mustache. Wispy mustaches were inside shit back in those days. At age 17, he began to realize his future Beardo powers, above and beyond mundane.

He has grown his mustache over the last 4 years and has had several different styles over the years, beard only, mustache only, chops, you name it.

When asked about the inner beard, he paused, grew silent, and leaned back while dragging a powerful puff off his cigarette. He describes his inner beard as similar to his outer beard. His inner beard is red, soaked in whiskey, and made from friendship. There is a common thread among all of us, but within the thread, you can see uniqueness and glimpse into someone’s personality and character. We talked about my ginger, dark-haired, and gray beard and find commonality.

The essence of the inner beard was a good topic to discuss in his opinion. He talked about another Beardo named Bryan Nelson who feels most natural with a beard. Taylor feels naked without one too. This thought never really crossed my mind for some reason.

The Austin Facial Hair Club embraces being young, weird, going against the grain, and doing what they fuck they want to do. They won most represented group in 2011 while competing in Norway. He feels Berlin was the city to beat, but now, he believes that the Austin Beardos have much to offer competitively.

Taylor feels like he does not have a beard and surely knows it when he does not have one. He says that all facial hair is valid, even goatees. Beard culture in Austin should only get better. The Beardos in the facial hair club lobbied the world championship to come to Austin, and they won in 2013, slotting our great locale for action in 2017. He says that this event will be the biggest in bearded and mustache history.

Even East Austin is home turf for the Beardos, he talked about how many other facial hair club members come from different walks of life throughout our Austin community. You can see fellows sporting beards in the software programming and technology startup world; however, nothing compares to the pirate king spirit of East Austin Beardos.

The facial hair club decided to include women in their festivities and competition back in 2010. Even though one woman has decisively crushed any and all competition with a real mustache, most ladies invest hours upon hours into making realistic fake beards. Taylor says that 40 hours of design and creation is not uncommon; however, real chick beards always trump handicraft work.

He compares a facial hair showdown as a dog show with a bikini contest, and his beard is an ever evolving creation.

He paused again asking for time to think on how he fits into the Beardos. People view him as a figurehead for the facial hair club, even though he resists it, and the Beardos since not everyone gets to travel around the world promoting the subculture. He is one key on the piano and does not feel especially important or unimportant. We need all keys on the instrument.

Short hairs on your mustache are hard for the ladies. We talked about how some ladies especially love beards but do not necessarily like the short mustache hairs. The beard oil has definitely helped me in many, many ways.

He recounted Myk O’Connor with the Gotham City Beard Alliance as a worthy competitor and Beardo comrade. Aye pirate kings! He also recommended Finley’s Barbershop on east 5th Street when asking about how to improve my beard above and beyond high quality Bearded Bastard oil.

...that is all...

my cover letter to the environmental defense fund

2014-04-22T07:38:00.002-07:00

April 21, 2014

Environmental Defense Fund

Attn: Human Capital Recruitment

257 Park Avenue South

New York, NY 10010

Re: Clean Energy Finance Manager Role

To Whom It May Concern:

Thank you for considering me for the Clean Energy Finance Manager role. Our human energy future depends on passion, positivity, education, innovation, tenacity, and genuine human relationships. Your values are my values.

My own unquenchable ambition for protecting our environment goes back to the late 1980’s as a child, feeling tremendous responsibility recycling my parents’ aluminum cans. That ambition to positively impact our environment has followed me throughout my adult life. The compelling and heartfelt argument to walk softly on our earth resonates strongly within me.

While spending more than a decade in banking and finance, my professional experience has traversed the nonprofit, the public, and the private sectors. My unconventional path challenged me to learn core banking and finance activities, above and beyond the ordinary. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and its ambitious clean energy development efforts will benefit from my experiences:

Selling complex financial instruments, such as annuities and long term care solutions;

Reporting to bank boards, bank committees, and a state credit union commissioner;

Running a community bank’s Asset / Liability Management (ALM) modeling process;

Building an indirect auto loan Asset-Backed Security facility with counterparties;

Conducting unassisted state credit union regulatory examinations; and,

Practicing entrepreneurship in the insurance and management consulting space.

These experiences taught me that our society can create significant change through articulation and strategy. Our world must adapt its industrial age energy solutions. Clean energy answers our human energy challenges and will lay the groundwork for information age power generation.

Thank you again for your time. I look forward to your feedback.

With trust and honor,

Blake Mendez

growing your eco-conscious real estate business

2014-03-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

defining a competitive edge in any business industry takes time, effort, and execution. some advantages appear clear and easy to articulate while other advantages are obscurely not. your general residential real estate market has many, many different end-user needs that demand a mind-numbing array of certain building standards, space requirements, etc.; so, where do your team and you begin defining your value proposition?

your team can begin with your typical status quo target market, the high-end market. this market generally provides the most dollars per effort with commission activity well in excess of $100,000; unfortunately, sales ultimately depend on heavily watered lawns, wanton hvac practices, car dependency, and low cultural diversity behind housing gates. this market generates high commissions, but at what social license cost?

a successful real estate agency does not have to leave the high-end market off the table; quite the contrary, you should focus on generating the most profit for the least amount of effort at the lowest client acquisition cost. one market that stands out concerns eco-conscious real estate buyers. its niche participants are willing to purchase green goods and services at a premium price point.

let us examine three reasons behind focusing on high-end, eco-conscious real estate buyers:

a) geographic concentrations with higher than normal undergraduate completion levels

ecologically conscious home buyers tend to aggregate around the pacific northwest and in creative center hubs. seattle, portland, san francisco, and austin have established creative hub credibility attracting intelligent people. looking at undergraduate completion levels with the u.s. census tool, you can see that all four locations boast undergraduate completion rates well above their state levels:

seattle at 56.5% vs. washington at 31.6%
portland at 43.1% vs. oregon at 29.2%
san francisco at 52.0% vs. california at 30.5%
austin 44.8% vs. texas at 26.3%

we all can appreciate educated consumers who desire learning more in an engaging manner and have the willpower to complete academic challenges. my own consultancy focuses its energy on insightful clients and has since moved its business development efforts into austin from the west texas area, diving into the clean energy sector. not only does the antiquated oil/gas regime remain incompatible with my business' social license, its primary city midland languishes under the state average regarding undergraduate completion.

in my professional opinion, my most successful clients have generally graduated from college and hold at least one graduate degree. these buyers generally concentrate in certain markets; so the questions become, how can you tap your future eco-conscious home buyers in your market? do you have to move to a creative hub center or help create an entirely new market in your market? choosing the lowest client acquisition and most balanced emotional energy investment would probably revolve around migrating to a creative hub.

b) high post-purchase satisfaction

eco-conscious home buyers express satisfaction after investing in a national green building standard certified home. homes must meet home health, low operating cost, and sustainable lifestyle standards promulgated by the national green building standard certification process.

the eco-building pulse recently reported on a study published by guildquality in october 2013 that showed overall satisfaction among various topics. the most impressive metrics concerned repeat business from a well thought referral program. you must have repeat business and new business from green referrals.

the guildquality study sampled over 187 participants revealed that 92% of respondents would purchase another green certified home; moreover, 94% of respondents would recommend purchasing a green certified home to their friends and family. these statistically meaningful metrics demonstrate high client engagement.

how can you get your brand deeply involved reaching out to potential green home buyers and their friends and family? where can you improve your sales pipeline through targeting green home suppliers? why get your clientele involved in marketing your brand?

as a market player, you must go beyond your purchasing end-user and move upstream towards home building suppliers. you could drum up business through solar panel distributors, water saving irrigation supply companies, and green home builders. these businesses need your support in helping them develop future customers; likewise, you need their help to build a stable green certified home industry. your clients need these products and services. why not help them out too?

repeat business creates economic value in your business. who does not want repeat business, high referrals rates, and high client satisfaction? work on choosing the right target market and begin executing your brand strategy intelligently with sustainable green values at the core.

c) future clientele economic empowerment

the growing green home market not only has an educated clientele with high satisfaction rates, it exists within a growing organic food and sustainable farming practice movement. these people, as evidenced by the guildquality study, exhibit high satisfaction and engagement.

at the opposite extreme, we can analyze home building growth north of austin. you can see unchecked single family dwelling construction, such as crystal falls in leander, that will not only lead to more traffic congestion and strained water resources but also to depleted upstream watershed capability and water quality issues. these home building activities are occurring in the watershed area feeding into the colorado river system, creating potential flooding problems down in southeast austin. what a price to pay for rural excess!

so, how do you combat poor urban planning and economically empower your clientele? you could participate in the wanton land grab and sell poorly created, environmental train wrecks; or, you could work with ecologically innovative property developers capitalizing on sustainable farming practices.

a housing development in fort collins, colorado, called the bucking horse development not only has high quality homes but integrates the housing development into a working farm. depending on how the homeowner's association owns and manages the farm, you could potentially help provide your new homeowner with a stable, quality food and income source. the association can potentially drive future economic growth through farming profits rather than charging continually higher fees for diminishing services.

you can enable community building centered around the production, distribution, and consumption of healthy produce and livestock. neighbors could have a farmer's market sponsored by your real estate business as well as the homeowner's association. they could even start a decentralized, localized energy grid with solar panels and wind towers. you should become a part of the movement, deepen your brand, and fatten your wallet!

newly created and growing communities across the nation from the federal capitol to fort collins, colorado, have begun reversing destructive suburban construction behavior that started in earnest after world war ii. you can help your clients swap out golf courses for urban gardens with positive changes in community, health, and sustainability.

conclusively, you can grow your own eco-conscious real estate business by focusing on high-end, educated consumers who seek out purchase satisfaction and economic empowerment. leading the way to a greener world and your own private wealth rests on attracting these clients. do your due diligence and go for it!

my seattle business trip in early 2013

2013-12-31T00:40:00.002-08:00

on the cusp of the new year, my reflective thought traces back to early 2013. remember getting off a southwest airlines flight in seattle after talking with a congenial but chatty middle-aged woman. our plane had "mechanical problems," which fortunately did not cause a flaming end down to the earth but catalyzed a couple of hours of engaged conversation.

during our mechanical down time in reno, she advised me on my pending divorce, talked about her own divorce, waxed ecstatic about her privileged childhood among the pines, wept over her father's mental health decline and eventual financial ruin, and harped on west texas oil plutocrats. she thought that my appearance, demeanor, and mind would work well for microsoft. she cooed, "you look like a microsoft guy." did not really care to follow up with a clarification question, but nonetheless, she probably sized me up correctly.

my travel arrangements included staying with a friend who also recently got divorced and lives in north seattle with her son. she could not pick me up from the airport since her little dood crashed out before my arduous and lengthy plane flight ended so tardily. do not remember the time getting into her condo but found the key under the door, slipping it in as she instructed me. walked around her flat for a few minutes and imagined her life here. found my assigned bed and bathroom, washed up, and closed down my mind and eyes.

...the mountains, the local food markets, the ski slopes, and the waterways excited me. it made me appreciate sampling a sumptuously socially-motivated, conscientious lifestyle while learning about the seattle business culture. walked around pioneer square, had a drink in the merchant's cafe and saloon, and called on denali financial consulting to learn more about their financial gig. you know, join forces! glad my friend invited me up and instigated a business trip out of her suggestion.

created an amazing interview with brendan kennedy, a cannabis venture capitalist. we met over at zoka coffee in the greenlake neighborhood. he shared with me his background and his reasoning behind backing and funding medicinal marijuana businesses. his privateer holdings company has invested in leaf fly, an algorithm that quantifies your optimal medically recommended strain combination as well as providing you with the most competitive local prices as well as coupons. he apparently invested in groupon rather early and has mastered the sales channel.

enjoyed a pleasurable drive around the lake while driving slowly back to my friend's condo. you can see the direct logic behind creating a new market in the already established marijuana industry. the authorities can share in the growing revenue streams by stepping aside and stopping the "war on drugs [poor people]." a tolerant, northwestern libertarian attitude fits our collective future. we must build and capitalize on our available, renewable resources today and create a self-sustaining future by investing in our ourselves.

coming home from the seattle business trip, it appeared that my own human capital can improve by building on my professional core competencies:

hands-on corporate and solopreneur business management
scrappy and creative entrepreneur
personable and likable
focused on greater good

imagine a future living on a sloop houseboat with a fat cat, who loves canned seafood, and sailing through seattle up to bellingham back home in vancouver. sleeping in a solid but comfortable sloop with boaters kicked off, a button down with a sweater, and khakis. keeping a dedicated business space onshore in seattle while constantly living and working on my sloop.

...want to live the pacific coast...

your own power grid

2013-06-27T23:22:00.000-07:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. you can create your own power grid and harness your own human capital. seizing this moment will positively improve our collective energy, ethos, and love while boosting impact far, far beyond our lifespans.

catalyze change. put your own self-interests aside and into context. subjugate them for our collective success. humanity deserves better.

money, power, and greed pollute our reality. its pollution remains so egregious that you often wonder whether some design in the background creates intentional distortion and social chaos. who knows?

comparing answers from a personal questioning session in 2008 to revised thoughts in 2013 revealed some interesting differences:

a) what are my natural talents?

2013 answer - teaching, public speaking
2008 answer - writing, thinking, feeling, forecasting

b) what do i want out of a career?

2013 answer - do not want a career for a career sake, want abundance and lack of worry
2008 answer - independence, creativity, quality of life, ambiguity, travel

c) how can i deliver it?

2013 answer - produce food, provide quality counseling and consultation, love
2008 answer - my own way [big tip and the source of my current quest], technology, support system

d) what do i think is worthwhile?

2013 answer - food, love, and community
2008 answer - learning

e) why do i want what i want?

2013 answer - enjoy sharing rewards with friends and family
2008 answer - n/a

...look within yourself...

lessons learned from my lago vista business trip

2013-04-11T12:05:00.002-07:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. we all have learned important lessons throughout life; often times, we do not consciously understand the meaning instantaneously, and its truthful knowledge resurfaces many years later. we also sometimes have immediate clarity.

taking a long weekend over to lago vista incidentally during sxsw 2013 revealed clear lessons, needing immediate deliberation and action to ensure success in my future austin launch and beyond into seattle and denver. linking up the three nerve centers will remain key to professional enjoyment and personal development.

the following ideas require strategic deliberation and ruthless execution:

you never know enough about distance and time

my younger brother, morgan, came over thursday night before some scheduled meetings at 9:00am in austin and at 3:00pm in brenham. the 9:00am fellow in austin works for a multinational medical device company, who called on my father in midland at his gynecological practice; subsequently after that appointment, the 3:00pm fellow in brenham concerned a client's real property undeveloped land listing. both activities remained relatively important.

morgan came over. we sticked it out tough and raided our parent's wine cabinet with gusto. raiding the wine cabinet may sound trite in your mid-thirties, but no, trite poorly captures our fun. we had a rad mobile awesome blast...

needless to say, we partied until 7:30am when the time came for me to find the coffee shop off west anderson lane in austin. from the map, you should notice the subtle direction change on the map coming from us hwy 183. my midland easy-driving social conditioning had allowed me to keep large margins of error with easy commuting times and short distances; ufortunately, the margin of error from lago vista into austin remained incredibly tight even before factoring in that west anderson lane quirk...much less my slightly altered mind.

my exit came off east anderson lane, and only one time, my entry shot me off too far north. by the time that the car got "rightsighted," our appointment time had come and gone, too late. missed the appointment and had to email my contact my with normal regrets. unqualified the contact after getting back to lago vista due to my pure embarrassment; also, went to bed.

mostly, partying until your appointment overnight all night wears down on you; however, we could have made the appointment had my preparatory awareness knew that my sober awareness could not find the location, especially before jamming with the sticker zombie wine cabinet raider. anecdotal evidence from my friends and family indicated that most people miss that spot anyway.

planning my days more efficiently remains critical. distance remains a challenge in the austin metro area, especially leaving lago vista off the north shore of lake travis. time remains an under-optimized but super important currency that dictates success or failure in new markets with even thinner margins of error than a native market.

we cannot get away with cutting time too short or keeping small margins or error. atrocious traffic swamped me with an marginally aware mental directional compass going down a path unknown.

recommended distance and time management tips for my professional efforts:

print out a detailed directional map and practice your route

drive a hybrid vehicle that does not consume excess fuel when searching out new routes

tailor your service offering tighter in a larger market to take advantage of a larger market

become an efficient middle market player

tap the tremendous value in nature

our family lago vista home rests on a hillside that runs down to a perennially dry creek bed. a strong oak thicket protects the home property against not only wind but noise and intruding eyes. our family derives tremendous strength, wisdom, and protection among oak thickets, song birds, and sunshine.

my lago vista trip revealed much love with nature, and my eyes spied 10 different song bird species. they chirped and flew around, gobbling up buggies with gusto! our cats would love them, but our cats would barely nudge the apex position here, making way for coyotes.

we must fight to protect our environmental sanctuaries. the balcones canyonlands national wildlife refuge rests against lago vista and farm to market 1431 to marble falls. our multi-varied song bird species live within the refuge and provide our family home with comfort and enjoyment. the birds remain sacrosanct, and our land and its inhabitants we will defend it judiciously but rapaciously.

implement a circular economic system that shatters a linear consumption cycle. produce, consume, and waste not only kills song birds but also kills your seeds and you. why not produce, consume, and recycle? reiterate after that point.

practice meditation on back porch

after taking a long hot and cold shower in the late morning, my clean body laid the groundwork for cleansing my mind and spirit. a cleansing soul meditation regimen with zero mental distractions has consistently calmed my nerves and soothed my racing mind. racing thoughts often overwhelm my mental well-being and create stress with impulsive reactions and negative consequences.

my yoga instructor, rebecca speight, always talks about keeping your lips closed but not closed as well as your eyes shut but open. slanted eyes peering through lashes revealed ghostly images tracing around the yard. the images and beings did not cause fear or trepidation. they came into this reality to help me purify, strengthen, and cleanse my heart. my empty mind let them come and go without much fuss...

learn yourself through your spine and connect with your self that transcends this ego driven reality.

...enjoy a meaningful day!

global plutocrats' path - not mine or my seeds

2013-03-01T00:33:00.002-08:00

hello my old landlord. we have talked at length about our nation's ails, and it appears that we share similar libertarian, laissez faire ideas. america has inadvertently created a falsely meritocratic plutocracy that we supposedly escaped from feudal england. we are unfortunately reverting back to those unequal roots.

corporate america rules this country, make no mistake about that, and the globe with a totalitarian iron fist. obama is merely a puppet, as was george w., his father, clinton, and many before them. our country's progress has slid backwards because it no longer values merit, freedom, or justice. it only pays lip service to those ideals.

in this country, you can walk away with $200 million and destroy a company and more importantly human lives, but you cannot smoke marijuana in your own house legally in nearly all states; moreover, we imprison more people per capita than nearly all the other industrialized nations.

our imperial government taxes the citizenry and commerce illegally and capriciously and wages ill-fated, protracted military campaigns aimed at eliminating "foreign problems" we created 100+ years ago. those campaigns benefit a select few monetarily while maiming and killing quite a larger number. who wins here?

have faith in our american ideals, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not greed, which is the cancer that has infected our great country. lest we not forget a meddling central government with its alphabet soup enforcement agencies. our tax dollars only serve the (banking-military-agricultural-prison-petrochemical-bureaucratic)-industrial complex, not you or me, which truly is taxation without representation.

we are going to be ruled by invalid children of the plutocrats, and history has shown where that line goes down. plutocrats proclaim free trade but only socialize risk and privatize profits. thomas piketty, an economist, feared, "...a small group of wealthy but untalented children will one day control vast segments of the us economy, and penniless, talented children won't be able to compete."

that is not a future for blaine or my great-great-great grandchildren.

our outdoor son

2013-03-01T00:10:00.000-08:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. social psychological rigidity and rules-based agricultural civilization have sapped our collective human ethos by focusing on specialized labor division and on patriarchal social hierarchy. we have taken an interesting detour to say the least over the last 10,000 years, becoming self-absorbed, greedy, mindless, and just flat mean, in spite of our collective achievements.

a matriarchal path could have taken us elsewhere, and yes, it appears that we have begun entering a new era with untold wealth and prosperity. hold on mankind and ruling patriarchs...steer our collision course away from mass extinction and towards a more time honed path...letting women control more of our society, and let them build our sons and daughters up well equally with men.

let us examine a hunter-gatherer society within the context of expanding our own personal consciousness and benefiting total human development within our current society. most hunter-gatherer groups relied not just on male hunting adventures, and sometimes misadventures, but also a matriarchal system gathering food, making and spreading love, not unwarranted death and destruction. prize lovemaking not blood-letting.

...we would probably not rely on just one or two feedstock commodities such as oil or corn to fuel our entire industrialized economy if we had more women in boardrooms and behind the wheel of companies. telling me that we have to drive liquid oil drives my human capital towards developing a substitute good, such as liquid natural gas. it can what do liquid oil does, and we do not have to directly or indirectly slaughter arabs or turks, all the while calling them savage muslims and reaping untold wealth for a select few while destroying the "masses" with inflation and systematic death.

liquid natural gas will take us to the next fuel source and beyond liquid oil.

our job as humans on planet earth and beyond focuses on creating bountiful subconscious energy and seeding incalculably beautiful future actions. we must tap our inner human values and paradigms, effectively transcending the necrotic status quo with our collective mindset. positive thought and language determine our course. we will embrace it.

let us start out with our children, the seeds of our destiny. our fast-paced world with fast food, made for tv fast movies, and hydrocarbon fast fuel and plastic has metastasized into a seemingly endless sea of painkillers and psychotropic narcotics. we have grown away from each other and community solidarity with separate single-family dwellings ad nausea, propelled by developers and zoning boards acting on incoherent information and greed. strip malls appear quickly like mushrooms after a strong rain, except the fact that more concrete displaces water drainage and smothers life. evolution did not design mushrooms to break down cement, mostly organic carbon matter.

we have accelerated our lives so recklessly that we demand an alcohol, a tobacco, and a pharmaceutical technicolor pallor. our imperial design and its warmongering culture prize assault rifles over children but shun shamans, natural medicine, and marijuana. what? why? how come?

military-contractor corporate profits demand an illogical dialogue on the 2nd amendment, fueling the fanciful idea that your ar-15 assault rifle buys freedom. yes, you do need protection against your own government, but a state militia system provides that protection, unlike an unaccountable, militarized federal system; unfortunately, we do not make our society any safer with a sea of machine guns created not by personal protection but greed. you trade that off supposed freedom with our children's health and well-being. just get a shotgun and call it day, or volunteer your time and talent to a state militia if you want to shoot a chaingun.

in light of syria, newtown, and other butcheries, let us examine some questions concerning our seeds' welfare:

why choose an assault rifle? a shotgun will kill someone dead, or at least stop them from harming you. you only need an assault rifle to take on invading armies. take a deeper look at the 2nd amendment regarding the militia. a well-trained militia would require assault rifles, but in that vein, we would not need a standing federal military with a properly designed and funded professional state militia system. a state militia that could take on guerrilla forces, not just shoot at protesting university students or crush minor black rebellions, and provide international support. the federal system should only own naval assets that support state militia soldiers and protect our global commercial interests.

why make a big deal about violence in the news? we should report violence but where does the line stop and become gratuitous? showing the hijacked planes flying into the twin towers over and over became pornographic in light of such strong collective american disgust and nationalistic fervor; moreover, continually showing reel after reel of newtown, padukah, columbine, and other butcheries only subconsciously feeds the inner reptilian demons. stop it! people emulate tv death.

why not listen to higher quality and more heartfelt music? modern pop music remains mired in greed and its apparent lack of talent. this decay transcends not just music but also television. repetitive musical lyrics and beats do not stimulate your mind; as an example, look at the 200,000,000 youtube views for rihanna's half-ass "diamonds in the sky" versus 1,365 views for widowspeak's "perennials." you tell me which music taps our true emotions as humans.

why not eat a paleolithic or a mediterranean diet? we have betrayed our bodies so deftly that we inundate our minds with weight loss programs throughout all forms of media while preying on natural human fears of supposed rejection. processed food mayhem has taken our industrialized so far, far away with bulging bellies and bankrupt social services. get back to basics, grow your own food, drink clean water, and yes, have some wine and smoke some herbs.

why not become more an outdoor society? my first son from my first wife exemplifies this desire. his mother used to scold me for letting him play in the cold weather. he loved the cold and its clean crispness, laughing as he put his bare hands in snow; unfortunately, she cannot kill his love of the outdoors. blaine mendez will do well in life and into the next one if he stays connected to our environment and becomes our outdoor son.

why do we have to explore outer space so madly? we unfortunately have not made enough progress exploring our inner mental space or the oceans for that matter. both environments comprise more immediate space than we truly believe. do not let the aeronautical governmental bogeymen or military contractors tell you otherwise. if we run out of room on the planet's surface, we can always go under the ice cap and live underwater. leaving the planet remains a final ditch choice. who knows, we may find spice or other methodologies under the sea that could accelerate space travel? travelling without moving...remember that one when you put your car key in the ignition america...

we must learn how to boil the ocean with our fingertips and tap electricity from the sky. refine our own possibilities, expand and push the envelope, destroy the status quo, create peaceful societies built on holistic wealth not paper, love our seeds, and create stories upon stories.

to my overseas readers...

2013-02-13T17:04:00.002-08:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. watching my blog activity spread across the eurasian super continent remains one of the most fascinating business experiences. you could see growth in germany, russia, and ukraine, which led to views from israel, taiwan, malaysia, indonesia, and even china.

we reviewed the statistics all the way back to november 2010 when we switched our revenue model to a more client-centric concierge experience based on retainer fees. that profound change happened in 2011. retainer fees make sense with our sensible clients, providing mutual acceptance.

the united states remains my bread and butter, but looking at your respective area, in germany, taiwan, or switzerland, on the world map stirs unknown energy within me. we will meet soon...

thank you for your readership. enjoy a blissfully engaging and meaningful day tomorrow!

humanity + clarity + courage

2013-01-11T01:12:00.003-08:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. do you actually own human capital? how do you dutifully manage human capital in light of a perceived ownership stake? who gave you unfettered economic, social, and political ownership over another person's life direction, dreams, and aspirations?

we have reached a profound shift within the fabric of our collective subconsciousness. the mind below the surface within the nonlocal will begin influencing society beyond known scope. a new society will sprout from our old society's necrotic toxic soup of souls.

mortar shells and drone missiles will no longer consume 2 year old intestines. torture guards will no longer dissolve fictitious terrorists in battery acid. corporations will no longer veil metastasized greed with high fructose corn syrup, gps tracking, or radioactive tobacco.

...listen to this song dubbed at infinitely separate 60 second increments...wild wild my friends..

a good friend of mine named john gabryel moreno, do, exemplified a true example of our collective future. during raging cancerous illness, he complimented me on my wife and son as well as owning my own business, even after insulting his socioeconomic class in high school in a blind, psychologically intoxicated rage. he did not know that my own business has its own uncomfortable financial debts, and he never lived to see kelly and me divorce over our own differences.

truth told, he far outpaced me in this conscious world up to his life's end. he became a physician excelling in his residency by the age of 33. you did well in this reality and into beyond john!

dropping old emotions off the bridge, we bonded during his death ceremony and discussed healing prayers said in my episcopal sanctuary. felt a transcendentally warm energy flow coursing through my circulatory system while intently praying for his healing. he thanked me, truly knowing that he absorbed my energy, and we made peace. the kind of peace that passes all earthly understanding.

...he left this consciousness several months later.

did he really leave us as people dogmatically assume? where did his soul energy go? will it touch my great-great-great grandchildren's lives? will he meet zoroaster, abraham, vedic scribes, jesus, and/or muhammad among the stars? will he become a little girl or a dolphin born moments after his own body's death? his energy is alive but unfortunately unaccounted for in our narrow way of examining the unknown.

john never left our universe. you touched me with your energy and have begun awakening the gentler, more patient me. that challenge will take much work my friend, but you proved it can happen under even the most pernicious and painful period in your life.

he transcended this current reality but has not left our collective subconsciousness. no, not at all, his soul energy will continue to improve our own energy. much like the young syrian 2yr old taken away by raining syrian artillery death, he will improve our substance if we listen to his energy.

we must forgive our fratricide and make this a much more peaceful world, into this life and into all the other lives. the little syrian toddler's story will remain with me forever.

you can become an architect of your own life. we must know how to not only reap but also how to sow, and yes, you can create profit in a non-zero sum game environment. dog eat dog died with the industrial age and does not deserve its worshiped status within the information age mindset.

tribe walkers fund and absorb talent while creating centers of learning. responsible, creative, and innovative minds not only believe in human capital but support it with investment dollars.

we have structural unemployment without spending investment dollars on human capital. investing too heavily in resource and financial capital crushes the collective human ethos. reallocate your investment into your own human capital potential.

ancient chinese wise men mull whether if you believe for one day and doubt for ten, or if you are diligent in the mornings and not at night, will you eventually veer from gradual development planting quality habits? what habits do you define as quality? how do you ascertain quality? why seek quality? who will pursue and perfect quality?

...setting up quality habits will remain a challenge.

send forth cleanliness in your soul energy. improve your great-great-great-great-great grandchildren's souls with pure goodness that transcends consciousness. your thoughts, language, energy, spirit, and mind always interact and participate in the universe's future reality.

implement the following concepts in your world to alter our collective future reality:

create consumer free choice with open borders and geographically gnostic trade. open borders facilitate trade and prosperity. why do we usurp economic freedom with mercantilist barriers?

renounce greed and material wealth; as an example, your average large corporation executive in the 1950's usually made less than 50x's the managed employees. please add at least one to two zeros on the old example and push it out as far as you can to another zero. making 9,000 times your average managed employee supports criminal plutocratic interests.

warm up inter-tribal unit relations. we cannot get much done with a democrat vs. republican or israeli vs. palestinian or persians vs. kurds mindset. collective annihilation remains a turn off for my unborn great-great grandchildren and uproductive for us all.

practice tolerance. we do not have to elaborate more on this subject since tolerance requires acceptance and human love; however, both remain scarce in today's psychological wasteland. you have to practice what you should preach about brotherly love, and it takes considerable work. work that only you can accomplish supported by a cooperative, loving environment.

awaken your medieval belief in magic. take note, you do not have to burn women alive or disfigure anyone. science + magic + religion = transcendence. just ask the abbot trithemius of sponheim. carrying messages instantaneously...through the agency of the stars and planets who rule time.

demand a gentler, much more personal environment. loud noises, heavy industry, pollution, sterile food, water scarcity, and paramilitary police degrade human life. why not tap common walking areas with mixed usage living and working space, common parks, light rail, plentiful and clean water, simple technology, and food cooperatives? health + ambiance = wealth.

draw from the ancients. we can remain light on our earth. develop paddle wheels and implement mixed usage space that catches and collects water.

develop a home-schooling cooperative with a foundation in intellectual, artistic, athletic, and emotional development. schooling has become a tool for plutocrats and fascists and has quite frankly become dangerous. just ask people in pakistan and in connecticut. we must teach kids how to think on their own and love learning through personal enrichment.

learn yourself through your spine. channel your chakras, open your heart, and let the universe fill you with unspeakably beautiful energy. tap into the nonlocal and mystical.

institute a healthcare cooperative with community gardens, water collection, a food coop, meditation sanctuaries, preventative medical care, and naturopathic medicine. we can improve our quality of life without overly focusing on pharmaceutical or robotic surgical mastery.

channel positive energy towards your clients and think good thoughts about them. pouring your energy into your work will improve your emotional environment.

...get started friends...let me know how it goes and enjoy my tweets.

economic planning for 30 something echo boomers

2012-12-18T22:09:00.001-08:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. much intense financial service industry focus remains affixed on the baby boomer crowd and their aging parents; however, financial wellness professionals should begin building up echo boomer reserves and not just in the mundane and traditional 401(k) sense. integrating health + financial wellness will optimize your lifestyle choice, and most plausibly, will improve your own personal and professional happiness prospects.

we should start out our discussion with the idea that our economic system has endured several structurally tectonic socioeconomic changes to say the least. rapid immigration, absurdly low benchmark central bank rates, cybernetic units, unchecked corporate and plutocratic greed, chinese automatons, corporate amero-roman senators with personal lictors, and certainly, welcome technological change have all combined to unfortunately raise the structural unemployment dead; often, qualified people cannot find work meeting prior technical or experiential training.

any future recovery may not necessarily lift all boats evenly, and quite possibly, may amplify social unrest. this situation sounds dire; however, you will capitalize on this time to retool your human capital and take some cover...

so, what will you control within your own world? why trust a political economic system that sees human suffering as a necessary evil and as a justifiable means in the pursuit of massive personal fortunes or cheap, disposable goods? who says you will fight the corrupt political economic system head on? why not take a more forceful approach, shuck and jive, and leapfrog this consumption plague to your family's benefit over many, many generations?

you can do your part by considering the following tactics within your own intergenerational strategy:

a) invest in your own human capital

our structural unemployment system has created significant business opportunities within agriculture, textiles, and other goods /services taken for granted after the finance graduate boom. you will finally have a chance to make something meaningful and valuable with your own hands as well as your intellect...about time...

for the record, my tulane finance studies blended with my liberal arts education has gone the distance. it just did not teach me how to fix plumbing, how to braise a lamb shank, or how to skin a recently killed deer. my wife says that my father failed me on that account; yeah right, try telling that to a white bearded, accolade-laden robotic gynecological surgeon.

too often, academia has overly emphasized intellect over practicality. who wants to depend on food trucks getting to a sterile grocery store? why hire someone to take a chance on your major household repair that ultimately you could do with family? you will create your own family institute that will teach more than a book or a university professor.

learn to grow many different foods and prepare meals as if your last breath would leave any time after eating that meal. create your own compost. herd some sheep or goats with some chickens.

you do not have to follow the corporate academic system, leveraging your future against a nebulous degree that may or may not pay off; if you just desire money over all pursuits, you do not need quite as much formal business education as you may presume. many successful entrepreneurs have achieved that time and again; however, you should avoid worshiping money like a god since even successful entrepreneurs who worship money and manipulate human capital as means to an end will always remain immoral.

life remains more important than just "making money." our organized academic systems should at a minimum set the stage for teaching the more nuanced skill sets, such as emotional wellness and empathy. the current academic system does not emphasize emotional intelligence, which remains its weakest component. it sadly and absurdly shapes its entire agenda around donors, football ratings, and tuition cash money.

improving your emotional wellness will catalyze massive sea changes in your mindset. you will sharpen your symbolic logic, take up yoga, tap the nonlocal, and yes, get out of your comfort zone.

...relax and slow down....you will shape your new reality tunnel.

b) set aside balanced financial capital

a balanced asset / liability management approach will quantify and immunize your unknown commercial and personal liabilities. do not get too dazzled with asset driven modeling scenarios with ambiguous capital market sideswipes and broadsides. you do not have to take on as much credit risk as you would think to design a robust pension. if you do not know about this topic, you can call me, and we can talk about it.

rigorous pension design builds cash reserves and creates off-balance sheet assets. cash reserves remain easily quantifiable with fancy retirement calculators and supposedly perpetual stock market growth. look beyond the hype to not get caught in the hypnosis.

off-balance sheet asset / liability management appears more elusive, not just psychologically, but in actual practice and design execution. you will hire someone to work with you at this point, right?

judiciously invest your cash reserves and remain alert...your middle class stock market remains an illusion. you will become chum for the shadow traders without constant attention in some risky, sure bet penny stock or high flier securities. question hype.

rather than pour money into a home or a 401(k), which may or may not remain the most reliable household assets, you should consider broadening your pension base. proper pension design requires a stable foundation, creates potential growth options, and deploys cost effective fail-safe mechanisms. your foundation would include health savings money as well as stable non-qualified annuities with a liquid cash reserve and large credit lines. maintain liquid cash reserves at 2.5 times your used overnight credit lines and adjust spending and/or investing based on consistent trends.

we will touch on human capital insurance, but as you can see, it helps to hire someone now...

invest in a roth ira or a roth 401(k). you can get more traction with your roth 401(k) relative to a roth ira but both remain powerful tools with your traditional ira and 401(k). check it out. you definitely want a cash reserve in retirement from which to slip those late night dollars, to feed hungry and sick children, to buy your first yacht, or to pass on tax free to your heirs. you make that choice.

our financial services industry takes a half-baked approach to uninsured healthcare expenses. you must reverse that trend within your own life and not only set aside funds for today but also for tomorrow. a future healthcare expense reserve will cover out of pocket costs from senior health insurance as well as senior custodial care. you could estimate between 5,000 in out of pocket costs per year with at least 78,000 in custodial care per year in today's nominal dollars as a starting point.

liability management estimation remains nuanced and assumption driven relevant to a client's particular situation; however, embrace the ambiguity and get to work!

c) teach your children and yourself how to start your own family business

you will stop working for other people. do it at least once, and you will see...you will try it. you will love it...

you will begin investing in quality projects, expand your interpersonal network and contacts, and integrate a nexus between your personal interests and your profit centers. build an enterprise beyond your family's governing capacity and sell mezzanine debenture interests.

business owners create wealth when retaining meaningful company ownership while extracting financial capital from properly executed financing rounds. your best situation will revolve around getting a large upfront payout with perpetual cash residuals. blueprint your own exit strategy.

your legacy will live on...you will place the perpetual cash residuals into your dynasty trust. perpetual financial capital will finance many generations' productive professional endeavors.

d) own your own mixed-usage rental property

why not live within the same building or building complex with light-commercial tenants, apartment residential tenants, grocery stores, nightclubs, and/or delis? mixed usage real estate remains economically vibrant and sustainable since both residential and commercial market performance do not necessarily correlate statistically.

for instance, you may have a high tech manufacturing industry boom soaking up commercial space while residential tenancy could hurt from a school district laying off many teachers. your vacancy would more than likely fill with commercial tenants needing space for employees. you could also have a tavern that will serve drinks boom or bust.

quality commercial tenants will also attract grocery stores, culinary artisans, or delis. your neighborhood quality of life will not benefit from another fast food grease pit. you will dedicate urban space as a growing space to fill your dinner tables with wholesome food.

e) get your human capital insurance priorities in order

people younger than age 50 will probably endure a disability or illness rather than unexpected death. your human capital's productivity demands disability insurance; as a business owner, you will consider overhead disability as well as a buy-sell disability insurance plan with key partners. you can do the same with life insurance, a most productive and efficient off-balance sheet asset.

most baby boomers have homeowner's insurance while few own long term care insurance. do people care more about homes or their own human capital? our society focuses so much on the homeowner wet dream to the exclusion of discussing the more mundane but dreadfully more important personal and corporate liabilities. invest your dollars in yourself rather than some consumption good.

you will invest financial capital into non-cancellable long term disability and permanent life insurance with long term care benefit riders. this combination will complement your pension design efforts when properly designed by your own retained financial counselor. you can start investing in permanent life insurance with long term care benefits under age 40 now, even as low as age 3.

f) create your own legacy

you will leave financial, resource, and human capital aside for the next generation. avoid taking the mindset that this process only revolves around financial capital.

human capital will prevail over financial and resource capital. who runs the matrix, huh?

the great fear

2012-11-12T07:29:00.000-08:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. many people bemoan president obama's political win and much hand-wringing words stream through our media services. listening to npr and wtul new orleans this morning highlighted that according to npr: a) obama does not have a mandate compared to bush, and (b) cokie roberts said that obama needs to court mitt romney's core constituency, a slowly winnowing population with its own agenda, relative to the remaining population.

fact: american demographics have begun aggregating in geographic regions within the united states, and marijuana and gay marriage remain a non-issue in many parts of the country; however, the "moral majority" thinks otherwise, believing that they alone have a right into your bedroom and into your life.

unfortunately, the smaller government crowd within the conservative party will not exclude the military and county paramilitary forces with its legions of private military contractors. why retain enforcers when voters approved behavior that has shown nominal social harm? when will state rights' powers remain consistent within political dialogue? how can you compare actual human slavery to smoking a joint as a state rights' issue?

who cares about disproportionate imprisonment of black and hispanics for similar marijuana possession charges as white americans? have we created slavery by another name with this drug enforcement architecture?

the banking industry, weapons manufacturers, hedge funds, mexican cartels, freelance human traffickers, drug runners, private prisons, and american paramilitary enforcement agencies remain above the law. why not stop the charade by legalizing marijuana? just ask colorado and washington!

why have a media outlet crown your mandate, when the people have spoken and handed mitt romney back to his constituents? general mandate appears obvious. think about all the super pac money well spent when we have starving children, monstrous killing in foreign hot flash points, and rising seas; surely, we can spend our money more wisely, or not.

president obama will continue the massive killing overseas and work his best to keep the angry hordes off our shores while enriching the ultra-rich and disenfranchising the poor; even if you do not believe that statement, just know he only has four years left physically and maybe ten years ideologically. he can only do so much during that time.

too bad the pentagon does not remember the roman empire days. why would you arm the afghanis, or any other auxiliary military force with a competing agenda, after helping create the osama bin laden mythology? have the custom made late 1970's and early 1980's stinger military hardware not killed enough americans? some bright-eyed, saggy cheeked pentagon child desired training the afghani security forces, similarly to los zetas trained on my tax dollars at the school of the americas.

to the pentagon and its usury-, military- and prision-industrial complex vampires, you did not ask my permission to conduct morally loose escapades. also, why do you never pick up the tab? our relationship needs more appropriate consideration with less self-aggrandizement from your part; hopefully, we can create some transparency in exchange for my tax dollars.

opaque operations aimed at killing people does not interest me. so, did we really win with obama?

natural gas conversion kits

2012-11-09T10:26:00.001-08:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. our global energy complex sits on the verge of a cambrian explosion. we will leave our industrial age cocoon and shed its poisonously greedy mindset.

the rapidly evolving natural gas industry remains an incredibly profitable long term play; sure, henry hub natural gas prices remain depressed relative to liquid petroleum. you might as well look at the long term futures market for a clue about the market's perception about future prices. prices do not materially rise until 2020 and then peter off in 2022. what? that perception does not make sense considering its sheer abundance among many, many multi-faceted extraction environments.

...necesitamos un mentalidad contrarian mis amigos...

remember the whale oil tale back in the 1850's and 1860's. liquid petroleum eclipsed whale oil technology as supreme within a decade. since our world moves much faster than it did back in the 1860's, you may as well compress a substitute good replacement time-frame. imagine the plausibility behind natural gas eclipsing liquid petroleum as a travel fuel source; without naming names, some energy companies remain so committed to liquid petroleum that it makes you wonder, "who benefits from a divided, conflicted, and tumultuous middle east, and why?" who will come out and meaningfully calculate the middle eastern death premium in liquid petroleum? why double down on suffering?

natural gas does not just have to come out of a permian rock or mid-continent mountain formation. it can come from overflowing landfills, sewage systems, and cooperative animal husbandry...we do not have to just rely on fossil fuel natural gas; in fact, we should capture the natural gas fissures already provided by the earth, such as in undersea environments. the fossil fuel natural gas industry must evolve beyond its industrial age mindset, evolve, and cooperatively benefit our entire global humanity, or step aside; if not, it will probably meet a similar demise as its liquid petroleum cousin.

who will consider distributing liquid natural gas as an alternative to gasoline? gasoline vehicles can drive on liquid natural gas with a minor conversion process; sure, you must invest significant money into the process, which could run on the order of 6,000 to 10,000. you probably invest in worthwhile things anyway, so why would it become a leap of faith to use your financial resources to tap an abundant resource?

as a business opportunity, why not invest in the conversion and lease out vehicles within an urban environment? who needs a personal car anyway? that lifestyle remains way overrated by marketing hipsters and saggy cheeked global megacorporate executives.

humans will always create some waste and will demand energy. why not recycle the energy sources? we can do better than the status quo. more consumers within the conversion kit market will drive down its prices. its market will innovate towards efficiency and effectiveness, since you can burn nearly all natural gasses cleanly with well executed exhaust scrubbing systems.

let us quickly examine a natural gas conversion kit system. you not only provide conversion maintenance service onsite, but you also begin reselling a few natural gas vehicles for profit within the same building. housing a liquid natural gas filling station will create vehicular traffic and enable more repeat business.

as an added bonus, your participation within the filling station client membership automatically comps you a personal lounge and discounted use of the facility's tavern. an austrian beerhouse with mexican polka would probably fit the bill in my case, but you can always choose an equally appropriate theme.

so, why not engineer and sell natural gas conversion kits? who will ride the next technology wave and become the next sir richard branson?

let me know what you think about the idea...more to follow. enjoy a meaningful weekend!

an uninformed plutocrat...

2012-10-27T06:43:00.001-07:00

good morning clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. meeting with a friend the other day, american political babble ultimately came up. we disagreed somewhat.

the "close" election this year begets scrutiny, considering that the american public considers only having two candidates a contest. why do we only have to choose between a blue tie and a red tie while ignoring any other legitimate tie? the two party system does not effectively serve our collective interests. it thrives on obtuse duality and inane dialogue.

you could claim that this inanity exists because over $2.00 billion will be spent during this election cycle; however, ask yourself the following questions:

where else could we spend this money other than trying to pad our own exclusionary interests by using taxation as a weapon of mass enrichment and social control to keep people in check?

why create and support an impolite zero-sum game intended to divide and conquer demographics with rigged political and socioeconomic competition?

who will tear down the broken political, social, and economic system and buck up to its enforcers by playing and subverting the system's bankrupt values?

how will we change our hyper-competitive, greedy mindset?

when does change matter? [almost sounds like a slogan!]

what impact can you make on improving conditions for the common good?

my over-privileged friend considers voting for gary johnson, the libertarian candidate, a vote for president obama. he gravely underestimates the libertarian party and its believers and also slanders the american voting process. who says that you must only vote on two choices? why create anxiety that your vote is a wasted vote? talk about scripted psychological abuse. thank you news outlets and its democratic and republican dogmatic interests.

he remains uninformed and watches entirely too much fox news inebriated with an ax to grind. his right-wing views obscure the mayhem behind our failed palestinian occupation policy in israel and our imperial economic mercantilism. america should unwind its predatory foreign policy over the next 200 years, not only over the next 4 years. we cannot stop too soon, but why continue feeding the fire elsewhere, such as the shift from the middle east to the pacific rim?

my family socioeconomic experience centered around medicine, education, and upper middle class privilege; however, my folks did not come from privilege, and my father immigrated from mexico. the democratic party remained my personal choice for many years. our hard working merchant class values, our social conscience, our collective immigration mindset, and our episcopal faith steered me away from the republican party and its unequal social control, its behavioral dogma, its corrupt regulatory policies, and its xenophobia.

for the record, the democratic party has abandoned my own values. it continues our country's ill-fated drug war while continuing a brutal and senseless middle eastern policy. the drum wars beating towards pacific rim military escapades will only end in more bloodshed and death. military contractors and money center speculators will profit from this engagement, not moral people.

let us think critically about military conflict with china. seeing goosestepping chinese does not scare me; on the contrary, nationalistic pride swells in me, guttural hatred courses through my veins, and my body gets tingly with goosebumps. they would truly meet the might of the american militia, as like minded heroes gather in the rockies, the appalachians, and the texas hill country. why create that carnage?

my mother's austrian forefathers put the french to the bayonet at waterloo and fought valiantly in both 20th century world wars; more recently, my father's mexican grandparents joined our northern chihuahuan brethren against plutocratic tyranny during the mexican revolution. fighting courses through my veins and does not need to come out unnecessarily.

do not recommend a military campaign...we would not fight the chinese in this engagement over 4 years. my great-great-great grandchildren will continue the bloodshed if we truly engage with china, much less iran, militarily. creating that reality and profiting from death will always remain immoral; moreover, we would fight civilizations dating back to the time period when humans began streaming into river valleys 10,000 years ago. the institutional memory lasts many centuries in those worlds.

enjoy the fact that people can vote; more importantly, demand more choices than two regarding our american domestic and foreign policy. we can achieve much but cannot do much with a cleaved, negative duality unwilling to cooperate for the common good.

just walk away and disengage from the uninformed plutocrat...

community health savings trust fund

2012-10-25T15:51:00.001-07:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. after expounding deep thought over the last blogpost, we must further probe a critical statement:

let global citizens rise up on their own and take care of their elderly and disabled citizenry through privately organized, transparent, and ethical pension cooperatives.

organized human society has made considerable progress with developing and implementing pension ecosystems over the years; moreover, historians trace back the pension's lineage to the medieval western experience with many historical cycles. check out the london-based pensions archive trust's website on medieval pensions [search out the pension employed by king charles ii for barbara palmer aka lady castlemain, his beloved mistress]. a safe link dated 10/25/2012 providing access: http://www.pensionsarchive.org/84/.

pensions have always served to accomplish two human desires: a) prevent outliving income and b) satisfy uninsured healthcare expenses. highly effective pension design integrates asset returns with nimble strategic liability management. liabilities run the gamut from income taxes to inadequate non-healthcare related expense coverage to protracted hospitalization due to accidental trauma.

our current pension system heavily focuses on asset returns and taxes while begrudgingly and clumsily managing future cash flow consistency and healthcare financing. acknowledging this flaw helps push the pension design process envelope.

pension design must balance personal asset / liability management with voluntarily pooled social resources. imbalanced management processes do not work well, especially with involuntarily pooled social resources and ethically bankrupt accountability systems.

we must coordinate cooperatively to develop a voluntary community health savings fund system.

the voluntary community ecosystem would uniquely serve as an individual's pension without needing federal government largesse or a fickle employer model; but, you may ask, "who will provide the infrastructure supporting your so-called brave new pension system?"

other questions come to mind as well:

what is effective, ineffective, and just plain wrong with the pension status quo?

how can we fundamentally summon a collective tidal wave against unequal economic, social, and political justice meted out by corrupt washington and brussels technocrats and their intergalactic financier syndicates?

why should anyone care about the helpless and the weak?

where can we draw a line between inequity and passive acceptance?

when will pension systems rely on freelancing professionals or cooperative neighborhood communities as core funding sources?

consider building our foundational financial capital around a health savings account system.

individuals, families, and companies whom consume high deductible medical plan banking services tend to understand liability management and cash reserve creation. a voluntary robust savings system creates a fundamental cash reservoir against future unexpected healthcare expenses; as a positive but unnecessary federal government incentive, people over age 65 can withdraw funds without incurring a non-medical penalty.

...your income tax implications remain relative to your own taxpayer situation. please consult with a cpa if in doubt or call me so we can find a suitable one together. you should never hesitate against hiring competent independent financial contractors as necessary. consider mine.

financial managers seeking a robust funding source would target hsa funding as a core funding source beyond initial capitalization. using or not using the federal reserve system should remain the community's choice. the fdic, the ncua, and its morally hazardous ways have no moral high point.

our beautifully unaccountable central banking system underscores our pension woes. a classic capitalist moral hazard plays out time and again. zombie companies do not provide a solid foundation, and also incidentally, do not fit into a capitalist system. they fit more cleanly within a rapacious plutocracy.

envisioning and blueprinting your community health savings trust, you should focus on the core elements of a pension cooperative:

a) unlimited private party designation choices

the american business and government pension crisis underscores how poorly multicultural, ultra-competitive societies coordinate significantly complex social dynamics, such as facilitating personal pension growth. why do you need a certain tax code number linked up with a certain corporate legal body? the intentional incoherence behind the pension delivery channel only keeps certain professionals in business.

we must dismantle our overly restrictive bureaucratic framework. from disassembling unaccountable, pyramidal pension frameworks, we must empower private pension cooperatives. other than outright social control, why should our federal or state system have so much control over private dollars concerning your own private, personal matters?

why do we have to fight over government money and use arbitrary taxation as a political weapon of mass deprivation? taxation has become a political weapon of mass enrichment for a select few. it facilitates a brutal zero sum game worthy of sun tzu, who would probably still blush at its rapacity.

when will we have the ability to roll out our social security money into our own traditional ira or take a check? how about rolling my medicare into my own health savings account?

you can create your own social safety net with your own needs in mind...imagine offering yourself a pension with current benefits that make sense to you...we can achieve it.

b) unequivocally transparent

many people outside the financial services industry world maintain disdain over the industry. we have growing hordes of financiers, greasy politicos, and robotic technocrats seeking absolute riches at the least dollar cost to them. socially engineering society's safety net around socializing risk and privatizing profits clearly does not benefit all stakeholders.

please take a look at the fannie mae criminal prosecution dismissal posting [safe link on 10/25/2012]:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-20/ex-fannie-mae-chief-raines-dismissed-from-securities-suit.html

why did the judicial system not let the pinnacle element within the criminal mortgage ripoff at least get a complete trial? our unaccountable financial system players, such as fannie mae and the federal reserve, remain an economic impediment, hobbling a properly functioning financial system. this strategy does not build up confidence in a pension ecosystem demanding fiduciary care.

to all "greed is good" schmoes and common thieves, cheating does not equal success or even a place in our meritocracy. if greed is truly acceptable in your opinion, consider ethics courses as well as yoga, meditation, and possibly psychoanalysis. let me know how it goes, especially the byzantine psychoanalysis.

core pension assumptions revolve around longevity, morbidity, money rates, asset rate of return, liability growth rates, and future claims estimation; unfortunately, actuaries remain shrouded within the wizard's palatial hut, cranking out esoteric math while chiefing away day by day.

financial wizardry does not calm the nerves and barely begets trust. we must simplify the assumptions and discuss them openly. transparency breeds ethically balanced success.

your pension ecosystem must operate in a decentralized organizational environment. all employed workers, including senior management, must have 360 reviews and post all compensation online. if senior management has a problem revealing compensation relative to fellow "rank and file" workers, why? where do think union organization aspirations come from? how can you engender a positive working environment that efficiently and effectively addresses its purpose without relying on an industrial age resource capital mindset?

health savings accounts and long term care insurance serve as a solid foundation behind a robust pension scheme. you cannot adequately manage your assets and liabilities focusing on wall street's mantras. asset return alone will not help you manage outliving your income and paying uninsured healthcare expenses.

allocate towards your off-balance sheet liabilities...prepare against health decline and dementia mentally, psychologically, physically, spiritually, and yes, financially.

well taken care of...who knows without asking her?

c) unabashedly ethical

the organizing financiers behind governmental and employer pensions have absconded on integrity, and ethical principles have fallen by the wayside. we have become beholden to crooks and predatory profiteers hiding behind personal nothingness.

the social security and corporate pension crisis has unfolded not since our prior few presidents but over the last 50 years. we have fallen asleep on our core asset / liability management assumptions.

getting above average financial capital returns at any price became desirable beyond the initial intention behind the pension system. remember the pension raider talk behind a hostile corporate takeover during "wall street," yes - the original one, for the pension cash.

when did the pension side of ford motor, ancient airlines, or general motors hold strategic sessions with the senior management system backstopping their non-executive employer-based pension system? even if the pension team had a major role, they must have absconded on their fiduciary role when doubling down on gas guzzlers with low gasoline prices. did they not see that gasoline prices would not stay low forever based on prior price and volume volatility?

excluding maternity care within any medical plan will always remain unethical. why does a insurance carrier or a government setup a major disincentive to a growing family with individual medical insurance? who gave them the fundamental right to warp and manipulate human social patterns?

...apparently, you must work in a corporation or own a corporation to get adequate medical coverage and beget children.

thank you washington and brussels for enabling a corrupt, morally bankrupt zombie banking and corporate system. my great-great-great granddaughter appreciates it. who will join me and others against this morally bankrupt financial corruption?

stop participating in their house first and foremost.

d) adamantly original

modern financial + health wellness programs manage not only major medical care but also address mental, physical, spiritual, and psychological concerns. pure yoga activities, gym benefits, swim lessons, social club organizations, mental therapy, and meditation remain cornerstones around balanced living.

why not create physician access through retainer-based concierge medicine? who desires stymieing a cooperative community health savings trust fund? results oriented people will find similar talent and address the challenges with brutal honesty and deliberate thought. look at silicon valley as a good example with its transformational collective mindset focused on innovative change.

maybe, the brooklyn healthcare system supported by the freelancers union will push the boundaries and expand across the nation...acupuncture therapy works better than resusitating someone from molecular manipulation and pharmaceutical poisoning.

aside from traditional and nontraditional mind, body, and spirit benefits, your membership should purchase time with your own concierge financial counselor. we should look at our obsession with financial and resource capital as something worth tempering down, so we can focus on building our human capital.

our own human capital will build community health savings trust funds. financial and resource capital only follow in line, never forget that. let's get to work...

structuring the good life

2012-09-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. the word "downshifting" generally connotes negative feelings, such as defeat and remorse. stick-shift drivers the world over also know that downshifting maintains road stability and even more powerful driving experiences. only a handful of experiences rival accelerating off a tight turn controlled with power downshifting.

...we must present an alternative good life rather than a socially enforced "automatic" transmission experience. demand your right to craft your life's user-defined transmission experience. you will appreciate controlling the shifting process more than letting the world fold around you automatically.

how do we downshift our collective mindset, redefine our social contract, and get back to our fundamental human desires? our frenetic pace with self-defeating multitask objectives has torn our attention away from our social contract with fellow humans. we have become uncomfortably self-absorbed, straying far away from meaningful human discourse; moreover, collective greed has dissolved much of the remaining fabric with our social contract's tapestry.

where do we sense our own being and feel fulfilled doing what we do on a daily basis? much political rhetoric abounds between the feuding american plutocratic political parties. rather than face the fact that the industrialized economies remain mired in structural unemployment, politicos would rather misplace blame. we can thank many forces: corporate america, fiend politicos, technological change, the disintegration of the tribal / family unit, overtly reckless monetary policy, mercantilist national objectives, and other broad social changes.

needless to say, rather than blame, we should take steps towards addressing marginalization and eliminating our zero-sum game. our collective ability to manage destabilizing but potentially bountiful social forces such as technological change requires a different approach. we cannot apply the same old industrial age technological mindset to the developing information age. society must not accept economic starvation and social humiliation.

how do we assess our true meaning and impact in our highly personal but social consciousness? we must reevaluate our tribal and family unit's worth and maintain trust with other tribal and family units. global conflicts not only thrive on greed but also on unstable tribal and family relationships.

as a common developmental experience, a child comes into the world, and she begins to recognize herself and identify her own family unit. too often, many children do not make the connection to a family unit, due to war, famine, plague, or socially engineered and rigged policies. we have, and have had, too many young black american children falling into this basic human need deficiency.

she recognizes her tribe beyond her family unit, ultimately bringing in global human life. true enlightenment begins accelerating when she sees beyond geographic borders and human life, making biological and plant life equally sacrosanct. we cannot achieve mutual success when we degrade our planetary home; tragically, after we ultimately overpopulate and pollute earth, moving to other planets will not cure our separation or control our dysfunctional social-psychological issues.

go son...build into the mountain gently but firmly!

thinking about mutual success on a grand scale requires contemplating some core questions:

what lessons do we teach about success?

how do we frame success mentally?

where can we redefine success?

why redefine success?

who will redefine success?

when can we start redefining success collectively?

the last question may seem rather simplistic and rudimentary; however, redefining success as a group takes initiative, discipline, and coordination. you may have an easier time answering the first five questions than tackling the last one; but, we must start...

structuring the good life does not appear elusive considering the global challenges presented by greed, self-absorption, and our decaying social contract. the following concepts will push forward progress, counteracting collective social decline:

a) creating cooperative urban gardens with walking plazas

unfortunately for my fellow americans, shopping strip-malls called plazas do not count towards this definition. modern urban society has grown up uncomfortably detached from its food sources and the meaningful human interactions built up around providing food. food does not just come from our supermarket mega-corporations.

clean green-space with walking plazas off urban gardens may solve this man-made dilemma. raising edible and cash crops within open, infield lots and abandoned warehouse space provides utility for otherwise unused space. warehouse space could accommodate massive water collection systems, seed storage, and hydroponic crop environments; moreover, marginalized groups such as the working poor, the chronically unemployed, and the homeless may also have a shot at social integration, helping grow society's crops for food and medical access in a rehabilitative environment.

we could push the envelope and grow medicinal herbs in our community urban gardens. scientific evidence has begun showing that the pharmaceutical molecular engineers generally miss the boat compared to naturally grown sources; case in point, rather than giving a whole deluge of toxic pills to chemotherapy patients, why not treat pain and physical nausea with medicinal marijuana? surely, we can, and should, utilize homegrown remedies garnered over many years of human experience without fear of reprisal from scheming politicos. nature made it, so why reject it as false?

we could feed and heal our community, generate cash flow among cooperative participants, and integrate the marginalized into our communities.

b) ending political and economic social control

we will have difficulties improving our collective human condition and redefining our social contract under the status quo. xenophobia, homosexual crusades, futile drug wars, mercantilist economic policies, prison profiteering, and white collar crime siphons off precious economic resources. our children must know tolerance through parental and societal leader actions, restraining corporate, tribal, and governmental tyranny.

creating artificial constraints, such as geographic borders, farm subsidies, and black markets, only creates more conflict. please fellow humans, live and let live...

c) facilitating pension cooperatives

aging and disabled humans deserve respect and care. our forced pension systems through byzantine federal, state, municipal, and corporate bureaucracies relies excessively on an arcane tax code and unequal intent. why make it so difficult to plan for those who worry about outliving their income and managing uninsured healthcare expenses? do we need two or more governmental agencies and two or more corporate interests supervising every healthcare "transaction" ad nauseum?

long term thinking over the last 200 years has helped developed solid asset / liability management principles and robust risk management systems; however, we have not used enough common sense or integrity in the equation. governmental "regulators" and multinational mega-corporations amplify the situation beyond overload with unequally engineered policies that socialize financial risk and privatize public profit.

arbitrary market entry barriers preclude high quality service options for financial, resource, and human capital management resources. why create consumer choice when we can cloak market competition and progressive options with outright economic plutocracy? this late industrial age idea from the progressive movement fails considerably for consumers but creates economic rent for the top end of the bureaucratic pyramid.

in that same vein, progressive ideology missed the mark as well with its psychotic eugenics philosophy. nazi war criminals learned much from north carolina's enforcers who dehumanized the mountain poor with high technology social cleansing methods. so, with this horror in mind, why trust the progressive philosophy? does it cover as a front for totalitarian forces?

the question belies the energy necessary to vet out the answer. let global citizens rise up on their own and take care of their elderly and disabled citizenry through privately organized, transparent, and ethical pension cooperatives. trust me, we can do better than the status quo.

d) establishing food and water cooperatives

our long term human survival revolves around consistent food and water sources. without protection from marauding warlords or exclusionary bureaucratic police forces, food and water cultivation becomes rather difficult. take the ethiopian and south african experience as examples in point.

ethiopia has always had its own coptic empire aspirations but lacks clear access to the coast as well as clear leadership. feuding warlords and imperial forces have fed some well at the exclusion of many, many humans who starved to death. will never forget my experience as a five year old in 1984 watching my own proverbial brothers and sisters perish via television over the olympics...why continue armed conflict in this manner and brush it away under the table?

the south african platinum miner clashes underscore exclusionary bureaucratic police tactics. why would you have striking miners show up with crude weaponry and angry energy? how did it come to pass that police enforcers mowed down striking miners? we must look at both sides of the equation and understand that protracted warfare and brutal employer / employee relationships do not help our food and water supply.

employers and employees must balance total ownership in our new information age. yes, refusing employee ownership remains an individual or corporate choice, but why meet it with pain of death? platinum does not power the human soul, only universal love.

without force, and yes, cooperatively, we can gather around resources equitably and in due fashion; however, military arm sales greed, nationalistic pride, and social psychosis stymie that effort. we have had the technology over the last 10,000 years and the ability to manage both food and water resource capital sources.

time to stop dealing with the profiteering white-collar plutocrats and their shoddy business, political, and social models. tolerance, transparency, and integrity will go a long way concerning this matter.

e) enabling education cooperatives

we must abandon the winner take all approach to education financing and delivery. a well-rounded educational system focuses on ethics and reason, far removed from the test-score madness promulgated by business executives and politicos. why do we need to compete with the chinese for a superior military industrial complex when we can accomplish much more? our societal leaders have undermined our educational system for exclusionary profit with some help from the federal reserve and misallocated capital resources.

we do not need corporate or military automatons; on the contrary, we must demand more independent minds, a stronger grammar school slant, and an internal ability to think on your own. why exclusively direct energy to the university systems and its cronyism + financial profit when we should focus on our children and let love blossom within our children's hearts? this process takes a lifetime with a proper foundation set in preschool and even in utero.

our global structural unemployment conundrum will not dissipate with additional global financial market wizardry. why subsidize future speculative financial market bombs while punishing our collective future wherewithal? we must plow more money and reinvest social proceeds into quality education, not save banks' profits but to manage collective human financial misery!

watch people...federal reserve wizardry doing its thing via manipulating long term interest rates [operation twist], vainly trying to revive the 1961 magic hat trick. check it out via the san francisco bank's research: http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2011/el2011-13.html. tested safe link on 9/12/2012 at 7:40pm cdt.

it appears sadly ironic watching "well-educated" technocrats intentionally miss underlying structural unemployment for privatized gain off socialized risk management! socializing risk in this manner adds injury to insult without equal profit sharing, such as equity owner or educational funding dividend checks. why should my financial resources invest in a public project without equal profit opportunities? moreover, how can anyone justify equality in lending out money freely to banks via interest free short term money rates at 0%, turning around and paying 12.50% on the same money from my own pocket? how does this economic gerrymandering benefit our educational resources and our next several generations? it does not benefit our global society.

we must cease working with this socialized racket orchestrated by extrajudicial multinational banking conglomerates. we will blueprint educational systems that teach children to see inequity in our plutocratic system. we will even empower them to tear it down equitably, judiciously, and fairly. sending more and more minds into business schools lacking without an ethical foundation misses the point entirely. we will counteract that trend.

opt out of the current educational system and create your own educational ecosystem laser focused on ethics and reason. global humanity will appreciate it, and our great, great grandchildren will reap the benefits many times over.

downshift from the path to ruin, cultivate a conscientious mindset, create an enjoyable day, and blueprint your own destiny!

relax...slow down

2012-08-24T09:16:00.001-07:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. modern socialized human patterns demand constant motion and psychologically-manipulated consumption creating unnecessary stress. we must learn to relax and slow down, sever the marionette strings, and not consume beyond our earth's carrying capacity.

leaving the slippery slope towards collective human suffering, how do you redefine your existence? taking leisurely drives through the texas hill country from lago vista into austin around 9:30am on a weekday helps tremendously. stopping your work mid-day and enjoying your son, daughter, or loved one also furthers your leisure. eating longer than thirty minutes for lunch as well; but, most importantly, thinking deeply about your valuable importance within the collective consciousness.

humans crave love, clean water, pure food, and meaningful companionship. without these minimums, which many people even in the 0.05% lack, how can you justify living a full and nourishing life? chasing the dollar can only buy so much happiness. yes, money will always buy freedom in this manufactured reality; but, that pursuit has left a hollow vacuum filled with nihilism, polluted water, toxic food, and hate.

we have much to learn from our aboriginal ancestors. why focus your energy on obtaining a new ipad or smartphone when you cannot provide love, clean water, pure food, or relationships? aboriginal societies have shown more focus on community and spiritual development, as evidenced by its deep connection with the unknown, than modern global human society. some aboriginal societies possess uncanny community development, love, spirituality, and cosmic interconnectedness.

you always hear about young chinese girls selling their bodies for a new iphone, but let us look at the western experience. think about the miserable wretch schlepping to work and selling his human capital for a country club membership. women slitting throats for junior league membership, and both genders killing for political parties; but, going back full circle to the chinese girl, the eastern experience has become subsumed with the consumption virus and has even begun perfecting its social control. western police state regimes salivate with envy...

children emotionally and physically murdering one another due to vacuous voids in their parents' hearts. bullets flying through movie theaters, landing in the hands of latent sociopaths, and creating multimillion dollar fortunes soaked in blood. the modern human consciousness must move beyond mechanized death, the most egregious form of consumption, as a means for profit.

manufactured wars always demand fresh credit supplied by immoral financial and human capital as well as the resource capital that mains and kills innocent people. think syria and the remnants of the pyrrhic cold war, claimed as an american victory and a soviet loss!! who won? doubtful that we could argue that the 2 year old syrian eviscerated by ex-soviet / iranian military hardware came out on top. we should also ask marie colvin; yet without a doubt, your question would arrive too late.

western civilization has glorified meaningless violence and social stratification for its own sake and for a marketing dollar. does glorification via media, marketing, and fast food make us ill or better our existence on our planet? based on our current experience, we can answer unequivocally yes and no to the two questions.

pouring our resources and energy into education, healthcare, and necessary technological innovation will improve our odds against collective annihilation. how does relaxing and slowing down relate to education, healthcare, and necessary technological innovation? the three broad take time with few shortcuts and sometimes results take more than one lifetime.

what action plan can you create to relax and slow down?

a) tap the nonlocal

collective human mental energy focuses entirely way too much energy on the here and now. not only must our minds see the present, look back, and envision our future, we must articulately evaluate the unknown. aboriginal societies held shamans in great esteem, but for the most part, our modern collective mind has laughed off the unknown. clear your mind and calm your thoughts to stillness.

b) work on what you want to do

we feel that we must work to survive with some grain of truth; however, you have to buy into that reality. living and working on a farm remains incredibly different, and deep emotional experiences felt in the rural lands resonate with humanity. urban children with decaying family ties must understand this fact and also not buy into the idea that material possessions define your own worth; likewise, urban environments offer much richness in human consciousness potential.

your thoughts and language define your reality...your mindset determines your worth.

urban environments take no pity on the disenfranchised, and honestly, it does not have the means to provide a safety net. urban dwellers doing well know this fact too. your true safety net remains building your family and community ties. cultivating and nurturing those ties generally takes generations, does not happen overnight, and requires incredible work.

c) truly vacation

when you take vacation time, avoid checking business and personal email. you should in fact just put up the vacation auto-reply and check it once you get back into the office.

my lago vista trip this week remains built for quiet, solitude, quality family time, morning coffee, and wildlife viewing. our 2 year old boy insisted that he saw deer in the woods, and as it turns out, a 6 point juvenile buck sat below our back porch. he looked eerily into the glass door. to thank him, we exchanged pleasantries, and his doe and he went on their way.

enjoyed a long, hazy morning drive on ranch road 1431 from lago vista into the austin metro area for coffee and an internet connection. waited all week to pay some bills and write you. we must always remain resolute in enjoying life.

d) live over your commercial interests

why live in the suburbs when you can live above your commercial interests? granted, most zoning laws may or may not permit this practice, but it makes sense to stop the commute. the commute does not allow you to relax and slow down when you cannot control your vehicular commute pace.

imagine working with your doctor, cpa, plumber, or business advisor knowing that they live upstairs and not only maintain the commercial space but also a residential space. you could truly get to know an important person in your life and facilitate a deeper human understanding. we must end the tyranny of the suburb!

e) blueprint your perfect neighborhood

your perfect neighborhood would have not only professional services within walking distance but also independent, neighborhood run services and opportunities that allow you to:

grow your own food

secure your water rights and exercise judiciously

create your own independent, integrated power grid

recycle materials and torn clothes into building materials and other repetitive uses

organize decentralized, community-minded maintenance systems

protect your community's children and infirm

our current social, political, and economic systems have failed us. we must redefine them from the ground up, not from the top down. expand the idea of not for yourself but for your own to the entire human experience.

f) overcome socialized consumption patterns

why participate in the global past time around buying and throwing away? who says that you have to earn 100,000 by age 35 or retire by age 65? some social psychological spinster may have said so, but human experience has shown over the last 10,000 years otherwise. no one can put you in that predetermined box unless you let them do it.

g) enjoy transcendental music

this song always makes me happy...enjoy!! thank you washed out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fYnfE5Cycg&feature=bf_next&list=FLXdB0Muh04EttmwtZH1JJ6A

relaxing and slowing down takes time and does not have a uniform path. start your conversation and determine your own path today! leave a message and let me know...

love + trust + abundance

2012-07-11T09:33:00.016-07:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. a scarcity mindset creates many unnecessary man-made challenges and inequities. your thoughts and language define reality.

when you focus your energy on obtaining more and more goods, you can easily fall into a pernicious scarcity mindset trap. your mental trap lures you with the smell of easy money. consumption demands more consumption, which demands more consumption, falsifying the easy aspect.

americans across various the socioeconomic chasm experience advert agencies' desires and dreams envisioned by multinational megacorporations. consume, consume, and consume, or else, you may not feel welcome in your friends' arms...much less your own family's arms.

let us evaluate negative, scarcity driven consumption patterns:

a) your home size aspirations

why desire a 7,000 square foot ranch home when you have a 5,000 square foot ranch home? better yet, why desire a 5,000 square foot one when you can probably manage with 2,500 square feet?

growing up in a 3,750 square foot gated ranch home with a private pool perversely affected my housing expectations. during my childhood, our family moved from a classic neighborhood with lively parks and old homes to a more modern neighborhood. a sterile neighborhood ambiance and cutthroat environment roamed free.

this trend became much more common as grammar school friends began leaving our old neighborhoods in droves after the initial trickle. although my experience remained privileged, you could feel the intense scorn living outside someone's gate. the scorn became more evident throughout my early adult years, which in turn created my own contempt.

...my contempt took years to dissipate away.

after moving out in my early twenties, two 1,500 square foot condominiums made me feel free as a single fellow. the space should have worked for me; however, my overflowing desire kept growing beyond that floor space with my growing family.

moving to a 2,500 square foot detached home with a clubhouse away from the old condominium quietly pushed our maintenance limits. getting fired, laid off, and creating an incredible independent practice stressed not only our household reserves but affected our mental energy. we could have managed with the 1,500 square foot condominium even with one child.

check out this space. how does it make you feel? we do not need as much as space as we think that we need or deserve.

b) your salary aspirations

evaluating your salary aspirations relative to a higher standard of living appears relatively straightforward. you make more money and will remain happier than without your new salary; however, does this scenario always pan out?

moving my work trajectory away from public sector stability to higher private sector earnings appeared straightforward. my move earned me a raise but also ensconced me in a highly destructive corporate ethos with a crappy commute.

experience has shown in hindsight that the decision remained relatively shortsighted considering subtle clues foreshadowing the mayhem:

the president's office: it remained over 15 times the size of my office. our future conflicting relationship appeared perfectly aligned with our space arrangement. he visually demonstrated to employees and me his favored status, demanding fanatical adherence.

no windows: my office did not have any windows. his presidential office had an entire window panel the size of my interior walls. similar symbolic logic revealed similar feelings as the president's office size disparity.

organizational history: the place seemed too perfect during the interview. perhaps the mental institution had let out too many people from the local clinic, but people seemed off in the local community. the president surrounded himself with boys and men that he desired intimately but professed otherwise, making work undesirable.

in hindsight, we probably could not have predicted these material flaws in my own logic of replacing work positions. emphatically discovered later that the move did not satisfy my three core needs: the ability to practice creative thinking, set my own hours, and travel.

do not move just for a raise...

c) your personal possession desires

this condition has never particularly made my life difficult. even though we grew up in a privileged environment, our folks came from more humbler origins. thrift passed on in this case.

clear thinking beyond the next 200 years requires strategies unfolding over long periods of time and thrift. over-consumption and largess drag down intergenerational legacy aspirations.

d) green lawn aspirations

when you have 1 billion plus people without clean water, how can you justify watering your lawn in a desert ecosystem? mass affluence deceives social responsibility and negates the individual within the entire context of human good. you cannot remain free or healthy while your overseas brethren perish from war, slavery, and waterborne diseases.

our water issue has remained an intractable issue since humanity moved into the river valleys 10,000 years ago. we retell the story on different stages and in different settings, with similar actors.

how to build love + trust + abundance?

my alma mater tulane university says, "not for one's own but for one's self," on its seal. our motto makes sense expanding your own psyche to the collective conscious and subconscious experience. overconsumption patterns do not fit into our perfectly aligned positive mentality.

why purchase bottled water when you can purchase or lease reverse osmosis? the reserve osmosis water remains consistently more clean than bottled municipal water. plus, you get to meet the fellow who services your home or office reverse osmosis system.

we can achieve love + trust + abundance by uplifting ourselves with education, healthcare, and necessary technological change; however, we cannot build anything in a nasty, brutish zero-sum game environment.

our focus should remain on each other as people and treat people as noble ends in themselves.

collegiate + custom-tailored internship program

2012-06-22T14:54:00.017-07:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. you probably hear much about succession planning and blueprinting your exit strategy. keep listening because it always remains a wise investment.

in mendez & co. financial counselors, we have begun a collegiate + custom-tailored internship program. the collegiate definition gives away the idea, but how many college internships can you consider customizable? our internships have a hand in their own development from day one, destroying command and control business ethos.

we discuss our psychological profile. our current intern, ilia dolaptchiev, has a general jungian typology istj, the examiner, but my typology revolves around enfp, the visionary. we balance our strategic and tactical activities with our complimentary, natural psychological profiles.

...and yes, it takes patience and hard work on both sides.

psychological matches will become more difficult as our independent practice builds upon its human capital; however, instituting consistent practices with our collective ethos will ensure sustainable organizational development, value creation, and impact opportunities.

our internship program fits directly into boosting our overall independent practice enterprise value. our human capital investment serves as a foundational piece with our efficient fee-based consultative revenue model. combining the two processes creates significant synergy and value.

consultative fees remain our target revenue source since the client acquisition process involves deeper human relationships on trust and confidence. focusing on obtaining retainer based fee income creates a deeper client bond, in my professional opinion, relative to transactional income. transactional income can create unusual behavior and reputation losses because participants can place profits over multi-generational human relationships.

we could argue about the revenue model all day, but without question, our clients like it and have begun to expect it. our model allows easier cash flow present value calculations to vet out enterprise value. building multi-generational human relationships requires judicious, consistent care.

earning planning certifications and additional licensure would create additional cash flow opportunities, where otherwise not billable; moreover, valuation will help an additional principal value his stake and purchase ownership interests.

as the business model evolves, its revenue model will maintain a balanced mix of fixed and variable revenue sources. the business model choice though will maintain human capital by focusing on people, planet, and profits. profits come last.

you cannot ignore profit but why compromise enduring value with unsustainable shortcuts? your collective mental profit will drive the process behind blueprinting your exit strategy, envisioning your legacy, and your designing your pension. unscrupulous means do not justify noble ends.

both eastern and western histories have shown that a short-sighted profit agenda results in shorter civilization shelf-life. we must measure our progress against our collective history over the last 10,000 years, when we began gathering around fresh water fertility. our current human civilizations remain on a collision course with fresh water depletion, population growth, and personal vanity.

looking at the hardworking medieval merchant class serves as fantastic proxy. during the 1500's, the world endured rapid technological change, chaotic social upheaval, and massive killings through disease and war. we remain on the cusp of something fantastic and absolutely so fulfilling, but only with a similar multi-generational legacy approach.

when you can work alongside your own employee partners and tap together your collective mind, you create human capital energy. well-honed, creative, independent-minded energy remains elusive, intangible, and always for sale. its implicit value far exceeds resource and financial capital due to infinitely valuable options.

our independent exit strategy + legacy + pension practice instructs our collegiate interns to maintain the following core principles:

a) social entrepreneurship

we operate our consultative practice with an independent mindset imbued with social entrepreneurship. if you have never heard of the concept or need more insight, check out this foundation's website:

http://www.skollfoundation.org/approach/

our organization does not financially support or receive any compensation from this foundation or the linked website's legal owners. they have a good idea though.

b) mobile entrepreneurship

our independent mindset embraces mobile entrepreneurship. our rapidly evolving business environment with nimble technology applications facilitates international commerce on a scale not seen for many, many years. we can balance people, planet, and yes, profits this time around.

locking yourself into one geographic or linguistic environ confines your business enterprise impact and your mindset. a prior recorded thought nails the concept well:

http://menco-finco.blogspot.com/2012/03/truly-global-client-experience.html

c) decentralized structure

my prior experience prevents me from practicing command and control military governance over business affairs. we have daily 360 degree reviews between principal and intern, and yes, sometimes you hear things that you would rather avoid. a nimble player keeps positive energy and dialogue going, achieving breakthroughs not dreamed up yet.

interns can earn up to 10% on new retainers without any additional servicing or clawbacks. we mutually agree on the bonus rate during internship since it remains a practice line item off the top. our focus remains consultative driven with a multi-generational approach.

nimble human capital management requires quick action and deep preparation. we do not allocate our human + financial capital resources to positions not involved in revenue generation. why create a bureaucratic organization with cronies, goombas, and rude free loaders?

thank you ilia dolaptchiev for your ambition, your efficiency, your courtesy, and most importantly, putting up with my boundless personality.

long term care misinformation from npr

2012-06-01T20:19:00.004-07:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. scanning legitimate and worthwhile email blasts periodically yields valuable information; however, you may occasionally find blasts from credible sources that provide misinformation upon further research.

national public radio (npr) recently published a piece on may 8, 2012, called, "long-term-care insurance: who needs it?" the author, marilyn geewax, rhetorically asks an ironic question, and ultimately, lets down her target readers with misinformation. she has perpetuated common myths about private long term care insurance, scaring away target readers who have the most to lose.

npr's target listening and viewing demographic includes the following attributes, according to its 2009 national audience insight and research:

the median age hovers around age 50
the median household income exceeds 80,000, well above the national average of 55,000
65% of listeners have a bachelor's degree, compared to the national average of 25%
listeners are three times more likely to hold a graduate degree

it appears unusual to begin the piece with such a bold statement, considering the baby boomers' future uninsured healthcare liability exposure. most long term care insurance experts predict that many americans over the age 65 will require long term care. insurance industry and government statistics consistently point out that between 60% to 70% will need long term care.

her readership group stands to benefit most from private long term care insurance and has the most to lose considering its relative affluence; moreover, longer lifespans for those sandwich generation members around age 45 will more than likely exceed the age 65 cohort. so, why misinform your readership about a critically vital topic facing massive uninsured healthcare expenses from longevity and aging?

the following excerpts highlight misinformation:

a) long term care insurance costs too much

ms. geewax diligently provides sample premium based policy information with standard options, such as benefit pool, health rating, age, etc. premium based policies generally fit individuals who invest in coverage at an early age and have consistently strong cash flow; however, consumers can choose annuity or life insurance based long term care, not just premium based, solutions.

unfortunately, she misses two highly critical long term care solutions that offer consumers valuable choices. you can explore learning more about long term care combination solutions here:

http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2010/01/25/the-pension-protection-act-and-long-term-care-insu

her readership would stand to benefit from knowing this information, rather than thinking that all solutions revolve around premium based policies; moreover, you do not have use or lose your long term care benefits with a long term care combination solution. your unused benefits remain wrapped up in a financial instrument with residual cash value, creating future legacy or pension opportunities.

b) long term care insurance is cheaper when you sign up by age 60

her statement clearly does not make sense since most insurance carriers will begin considering consumers around age 40. why put off the decision when you should begin considering it much earlier in your retirement planning years? consumers will obtain more favorable benefits when younger and healthier rather than seeking out coverage when approaching peak claim years.

an individual approaching age 60 should consider supplementing existing coverage with a combination solution, rather than a premium based solution; conversely, you should consider a premium based solution much earlier than age 60. your combination solutions work when you can reallocate your savings with larger single premium investments.

how can she discuss the age question intelligently when she does not consider long term care combination solutions?

c) long term care insurance covers various disabilities

long term care insurance carriers will pay claims generally based on cognitive or physical impairment. ms. geewax did not even bother to address the physical impairment by its correct name, your assisted daily living (adl) activities. your adl activities include bathing, continence, dressing, eating, toileting, and transferring.

you must generally have cognitive impairment or an inability to manage two out of six adl activities to receive benefits. most carriers will not pay benefits without meeting that criteria, and they do not call the adl activities definition, "various disabilities."

you can explore learning more about your adl activities here:

http://www.seniorhomes.com/p/activities-of-daily-living/

d) long term care policies are capped off at three years

once again, her position remains incorrect. insurance carriers will provide you with lifetime benefits, provided that you pay additional periodic or single premiums.

for instance, a client had an option to purchase lifetime coverage through a single premium life insurance policy. her proposed 82,000 single life insurance premium would provide 3,426 per month for 50 months; however, an additional upfront 5,000 premium would continue benefits beyond 4 years indefinitely, managing an unusually long stay.

not too bad for an 87,000 investment, far exceeding the "standard" three years!

npr should have considered the entire long term care insurance spectrum, rather than perpetuating stale myths. its target market deserves better editorial financial advice.

...special thank you to ilia dolaptchiev, our summer intern, for proofing and criticizing this critical piece. he definitely earned his keep today!

your user-defined client experience

2012-05-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. humans generally strive to enjoy life through mutual respect, understanding, interpersonal relationships, and community cohesiveness. when searching for an advisor, you should seek out independent mindsets providing a user-defined client experience.

pursue a qualitatively measurable experience that makes you feel emotionally fulfilled yet also accomplishes your objectives. some professional commentators may say that you should solely concern yourself with just asset yield; however, you deserve emotionally connected concierge service that makes you feel valued with your own human and financial capital.

how can you seek out a pleasurable client / provider experience that provides quality measurable results? breaking your search down into components will leverage your choosing experience.

first and foremost, you should clearly have a hand in your experience's design. your advisory provider must either create or provide you with a malleable concierge client ecosystem. the service provider should consider the following suggestions:

a) invite your clients within your professional hosting + email system

valued clients should have real time access to their retainer hour balances, their meeting notes, and all important recorded information. complete information transparency and symmetry will alleviate misunderstanding and boost overall relationship productivity. imagine editing notes to provide more clarity and understanding as well as type in suggested ideas.

your clients should also have their own email address within your system. keeping emails within the same email server exchange will provide tight system architectural integrity. you can balance security as desired in this area without defeating concierge service expectations.

you may also think about building your most profitable relationships with their own website address in your webpage. this service may appear excessive, but your decision depends on how much you value the relationship above and beyond financial investment.

your investment will reap dividends beyond your primary relationships through building your reputation capital. reputation capital management drives our future.

b) invite your clients within your seminar space and media production

your clients drive your reputation capital process, so you should embrace the capital management process with their time and talents. directing and coordinating their energy with your organizational energy and your ambition provides meaningful purpose.

imagine inviting valuable clients to a local seminar addressing prospective client needs. you can directly control your presentation style, knowledge, and demeanor; but, your clients may also create emotional connections with your prospective clients, reinforcing your reputation capital.

you could also co-publish blog entries with valuable clients and tie them not only into online testimonials but into future search results. as an example, you could work out an amenable arrangement with a client whose primary industry involves your target market. your client's professional network will begin creating a mental association with your client and a user-defined client experience through search engines.

search engines have become our collective mental imagery assimilator. use it wisely and create a meaningful emotional connection!

c) create an open-source smartphone application

depending on your user-defined client experience ambitions, you could enhance your service platform with an open-source smartphone application. your user-defined client experience does not have to stop at geographic borders. finding an existing program may help in the short run but denies a sustainable custom tailored client experience.

how may you build an open-source smartphone application? why would you build one? you may have additional prudent questions, but we can narrow down our discussion to those two.

building your own independent practice's smartphone application will require connecting with programming talent. you do not need to fund it all with your funding if you do not mind sharing architectural resources; most importantly, enterprising programming clients may share your vision in providing a meaningful, disruptive technology platform.

you would build your own open-source smartphone application to control your user-defined client experience. relegating your client's experience to existing technology platforms compromises sustainable user-definition. imagine your brand equity possibilities!

d) build a non-employer pension plan

pension plans must constantly balance future asset / liability responsibilities. traditionally, this concept has revolved around employer-based environments, showing obvious deficiencies for the entrepreneurial merchant class. why do you have to work for a bureaucracy to manage your future income and healthcare expenses?

imagine creating a pension trust fund that addresses outliving income and uninsured healthcare expenses without requiring employer participation. many pensions manage the income aspect relatively well; however, few pension funds have desired to take on managing the uninsured healthcare expenses, which remains shameful.

for instance, employer group medical insurance currently covers maternity care while individual plan participants lack this critical coverage. mothers will continue bringing our children into this consciousness, and we must protect ourselves from healthcare exclusion. we can play that game though and succeed triumphantly!

since the medical insurance industry provides rich group protection, marginalizing the individual plan, you should team up with your clients. your clients and you have your own needs, and with proper examination, you will find similar challenges. why not approach your collective challenges together and create a purchasing cooperative?

the purchasing cooperative based on mutual interest and need will drive the medical insurance market soon. your advisory practice should adjust tack or force a new one within your own control.

our future commercial endeavors will involve technological improvement constantly pushing the client experience envelope. your independent practice should participate in the disruption if it improves your client's user-defined concierge experience.

you can count on my professional judgment, my resource access, and my practical counsel. enjoy a meaningful day!

business exit strategy = creating liquidity events

2012-04-30T15:09:00.000-07:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. many individuals know that owning and operating a business entails significant emotional, psychological, and financial risk exposure but clearly offers profound upside. entrepreneurs whom triumph accomplish a feat that most people do not do in a lifetime: not just one but many lifetimes.

savvy entrepreneurs put their human, resource, and financial capital at risk daily. who desires eternally working away on the same project with so much at stake? shrewd human capital creates multiple liquidity events from mental framing and perception as well as diversifying cash flows.

...frame dialogue and perceive your enterprise's value to a financial instrument...set aside emotions...create value based on fundamental quantitative and qualitative asset-liability driven analysis....plow your liquidity events into enterprises with personal control...people, planet, profits...judiciously own the cash flow source...

with that idea in mind, why over-allocate your profit to a stock, a commodity market, or other financial instrument controlled by exogenous variables? you should balance your asset / liability risk profile towards investments that create substantial value and permit more personal control. these investments generally include personally invested projects.

yes, we must all invest in financial instruments that do not always allow personal control; however, you can choose to create value with more personal control, rather than follow asset price trends.

a successful entrepreneur who declined to take on retainer services owns a printer service business. she remained adamant that she did not want to rely on her business for retirement. her viewpoint remains her own but did not recognize that her business serves her personal interests like any other financial instrument.

ironically, her business financial instrument serves her interests exclusively, rather than the stock market diet fed by her advisors. she ultimately has no control over pfizer's business decisions, unless she purchases a large enough stake to warrant control. we could do better looking elsewhere.

as a counter example, an entrepreneur client owns liquid petroleum working interests. she liquidated profitable liquid petroleum properties and generated a significant liquidity event. her liquidity event could finance diversification into natural gas mineral interests and more exciting investments.

she considered natural gas mineral rights' investments as a core investment. the domestic natural gas boom has generated significant excess supply and has depressed commodity prices. excess natural gas supply may potentially drive future energy production, possibly eclipsing liquid petroleum's current relevance.

when oil spikes from a pan-middle eastern conflict between america and china, technological innovators will act and create future opportunities. technological innovators may capitalize on domestic american natural gas supply and create many new industry offshoots. remember the whaling industry and the 1860's!

the whaling industry thrived for many years but became obsolete to liquid petroleum in the 1860's almost overnight, supplanted by technological innovation. it remains arrogant to think that the world will depend on liquid petroleum forever; moreover, that mindset forgets technological innovation and resulting technological obsolescence.

her future investment road-map has potential hazards, but she can exercise control over her natural gas extraction and production process. she feels confident about natural gas' future and also desires investing in converting unleaded gasoline vehicles to natural gas liquids. the ultimate vision involves owning fueling stations that cater to vehicles running on liquid natural gas.

...she is a true vision carrier, but she does not stop there!

her business exit strategy will create not only future business opportunities but most critically create her family legacy and fund her pension. she desires profitable investment projects that generate impact, not focused on the here and now. we tirelessly work on extending her vision far beyond her own lifetime.

she desires to improve the quality and standard of human life through the following work projects:

a) a landlord realty fund

she has always held ambitions to buy and hold real estate that generates consistent cash flows. managing real estate properties carries continuing maintenance investments, but who does not want to earn passive income? this investment strategy will provide ownership opportunities for her great-great grandchildren and help fund her own pension.

her ultimate dream involves owning mixed-use properties that house organic grocery stores, advanced training schools, efficient apartments, and health clinics. this dream will create a sense of community and generate tidy profits as well, if run ethically and maintained well.

b) a health insurance cooperative

she desires to obtain meaningful health insurance coverage without the obscenely inefficient and heartless bureaucratic health machines. with her vision in place, we discuss strategies to invest a portion of her roth ira into a for-profit health insurance trust fund. gathering additional investors takes effort, but who does not want to obtain health insurance coverage and control the process?

her efforts will also pay a bonus by creating coverage opportunities for trust participants. her legacy will also have tax-free upside as well.

c) an urban garden based on community supported agriculture principles

her passionate idea about beginning an urban garden and establishing a community supported agriculture (csa) resonates well in our collective future. many nonprofit organizations, private businesses, and local restaurants have begun taking an interest in her idea. she joined up with several other friends and business allies, providing space, seed, and other critical inputs.

who does not want access to reliable, clean food and water? this investment will positively impact many, many unborn generations if built with sustainability in mind.

d) a local solar array

we have begun discussing an investment strategy that allocates roth ira proceeds into funding a local solar array. the local solar array will not only provide cost effective, reliable, and consistent energy to adjoining households; most importantly, the grid will also power local businesses, the urban garden, and the csa storefront.

who does not want to fund an electric utility and control its profits? she can also potentially create a vast source of tax-free funding for her pension and beneficiaries down the road.

conclusively, when you tie up emotional energy in a business enterprise, you may close off future options. the entrepreneurial oil producer client could have easily said no to expanding her investment footprint and impact. in fact, many do say no...as well as hell no and stick to just one plan.

however, when you can extricate emotions from your core enterprise, you have taken a step forward. you should not rely on one business line in perpetuity with no ownership changes. creating liquidity events amplifies your personal impact, your legacy, and your pension power.

few clients desire working on one project until death. taking into account humanity, clarity, and courage, we can embark as leaderless leaders and create a new destiny on our planet.

encourage a discussion with your tax and investment advisory team about some of these ideas. talk to you all soon and enjoy a meaningful day!

your role as an individual within the broader community

2012-04-18T20:32:00.001-07:00

hello clients, prospective clients, and business alliance members. your role as an individual within our broader community remains sacrosanct but adherent to the next 200 generations. we must respect human free will and facilitate real wealth opportunities for all.

...free from plutocratic goons and enforcers, fabricated wars, engineered financial panics, and rapacious tax and property thievery...

we must unify our positive efforts, adapt our social-psychological consciousness, and create a more equitable economic reality. creating equity does not require military force or building obtuse bureaucratic black-holes; rather, creating leaderless leaders with unforced social cohesion adjusts our economic reality.

you may rightfully ask, how do you create leaderless leaders without forcing social cohesion and fighting collective mindsets? you should carefully follow the anonymous social-psychological movement. its wise critics would even venture that even the most tenacious, totalitarian secret police enforcers cannot find its leaderless leaders.

why cannot secret policeman or its plutocratic backers knife the leaderless leaders or subdue its ideology? based on 10,000 years ago of human civilization, many empires have come and gone through that time. those empires have always over-relied on totalitarian policy and secret police enforcers, leading to their ultimate demise.

many times, empires have become entangled with leaderless leaders, such as the romans trying to crush the christians and its jesus ideology. christianity continues a long shelf-life and remains relevant far beyond the roman empire. global plutocrats should heed the analogy!

look at the current crusade between the christians and their muslim brothers with its leading leaders. both sides have remained locked in vicious combat over the last millennium with many engineered martyrs. ironically, futilely, and yes, mind numbingly tragic, both brothers kill over shared paternal unconditional love and affection.

in that vein, the military- and prison-industrial complex must stop feeding death through religion and politics, veiling its greedy blood lust. imperial warfare has always caused inflation and economic collapse, just ask the early kings shaving gold coins after roman gaul's collapse; moreover, it cruelly and continually murders our innocent children, our seeds.

you will always create a martyr when you silence someone over their belief system or desire conquest. leaderless leaders do not need bloodshed on an altar. reason and civility work fine, right?

although the club of rome appears associated with eugenics, a deplorable practice, it created an extremely thoughtful idea. it states, "...economic planning for the future must take into account the carrying capacity of the planet." social entrepreneurship affects consumption by focusing on people and planet rather than exclusively on profit.

why forward your 3.5% of net-profit, 10% of revenue, or even your taxes to fund reigns of terror and a politician's favorite military contractor? we can stop fear through ethical commerce.

focusing your mind on people, planet, and profit, in that order, demands restraint and judicious actions. you must know not only how to reap but also how to sow.

remember the camel passing through a needle. you have to stop seeking out profit since you cannot take it with you beyond this consciousness.

creating elective healthcare and education cooperatives will satisfy our health and emotional well-being. we must teach our children to think and feel empathy. an antiquated industrial revolution mindset does not create an equitable economic reality!

meditation and tapping into the collective unconsciousness will create vision carriers, ultimately true servant leaderless leaders. how can our children navigate treachery without learning how to think and feel empathy? we must teach them emotional intelligence, sustaining the role of your individual within a broader community.

our collective demand involves improving human capital through releasing paternalistic control, adopting unfettered and transparent communication, and pouring salt over bureaucracy. we must expand our networks and commercial connections beyond pure profit motive.

both enlightened western and eastern thought converge towards "live and let live" and "your rights end where mine begin..." a person cannot truly connect with more advanced thinking when focused purely on a profit, something that demands unquestioning obedience. unquestioning obedience that may demand actions beyond ethical reasoning...just ask the toddlers murdered by syrian troops and our collective soviet cold war legacy.

you must define and recreate your own reality not through some other person's dream but through your own dream. remove an entitlement mentality, not within a narrow political sense, but across socioeconomic boundaries; most importantly, stop socializing risk and privatizing ill-gained profit.

we must create a production focus, not just taking and not based on uncivil consumption. stop the fear and free our children!