The New Zealand Connection

September Newsletter

Hello Everyone,

There is now an archive of previous newsletters here.

This month's Xing hint:

Guestbooks: Because the "guestbook" is on a tab, like the "About Me" page it's neglected in two ways. One, when visiting a members page you seldom if ever fill in the guestbook. Two, how often do you check your own guestbook for entries. Why not do that now?

The Useful Common:

Catherine Austin Fitts identified the corruption and the misguided thinking that has caused the present financial crisis in the USA, over 12 years ago. If this is "news" to you, it's been openly discussed on many online forums during the last four years. My experience is that people prefer not to know. Here is a useful video. If you need more detail I have lots of sources.

On Xing the group "Entrepreneurs Playground" is quietly useful. There is a monthly newsletter.

My Team Downunder group on Ryze is discussing "Whats the biggest issue facing people in NZ today ?"

The Importance of Volunteers:

What people do or don't do as volunteers is highly significant. You are choosing to read this newsletter. I expect you will go away encouraged and better informed. There is a likelyhood that unemployment will rise in the next year, and that some of our investments in superannuation will be negatively affected by the present situation. Coming off the back of the change will be significant opportunities in restructured markets.

Inform yourself. It's election year. The outmoded industrial and economic policies of political parties (all of them) lag 20 years behind reality. Reality is NEVER what we think it is, and that's why we make decision errors. New choices, new economic thinking, new production concepts, new ways to produce and conserve energy, new recognition of environmental constraints, new forms of business management all represent opportunity for those who are already ready when opportunity knocks. To become "already ready" you have to FIRST invest yourself in some voluntary effort that makes you better skilled and better informed in a useful way.

Invitations

With the inevitable downturn in the economy (maybe a depression) some of us are going to be under-employed or out of work. Build your network NOW, and if unemployment comes KEEP ON building. If you don't have a job, work for yourself, whatever you do keep learning, keep trying, experiment, do something practical. Find a way to help someone else. Inviting people to join Xing, or the NZ Connection, is one way you can help them.

The Value of Knowledge

You can't get "knowledge" from a place like Google. Even if you are clever enough to ask the right questions, the knowledge you really need isn't available. The only knowledge that is any use to you is that which you have honestly earned and have made your own, by personal EFFORT. I've recommended reading to you before. Keep your own notes on topics that are important to you, keep a journal, or a workshop book, or a farm diary, or just "notes to myself". This simple process reinforces some things, chosen by you, in your own mind. Those things grow and develop and become more important as your real knowledge of them expands.

Regards
John