“Where was I?”: Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt

Winter is indeed an incredible time of the year, but when it’s regularly accompanied with drizzle, slush and languid sunshine, I always tend to miss warm summer days. Even though Estonia is located pretty much in the north, global warming is seemingly winning the game. Many of you would probably argue that taking a plane to a whatever destination is undeniably influencing the climate even greater (and I have no reasons to disagree), but facing the summer in the middle of a sluggish winter has always had an intense effect on me. So, after having a quick peek at several offers from local travel agencies, me and my lady ended up with the perpetual residence of Pharaons and pyramids – the picturesque Arab Republic of Egypt, particularly the Sharm el-Sheikh resort. Unfortunately, we could only devote one single week to their majesty, from January 9th to 16th, but hopefully our spy camera managed to visualize certain vivid moments. Enjoy them inside… ;)

How to secure your employment within an economic downturn

Since ongoing worldwide economy crisis and growing unemployment rate keep their severe mission, I decided to share a simple idea on how to potentially secure your current employment by increasing the awareness of self-significance at your current workplace and perspectively gaining greater confidence from your employer and colleagues. This approach shall hopefully provide more value and ensure certain alibi to your persona within the company. In other words, let the problem become the part of you, rather than you unexpectedly become the part of the problem. The decisive question is: “Who gets rid faster of the other?”.

But before you continue reading, please download the following Excel sheet, which I specifically created for this particular post: “Expenditures vs income.doc“. Please rename the file type from doc to xls since WordPress doesn’t allow to upload Excel files. Alternatively, if you are facing difficulties to change the file type, try to open it from Excel directly. Normally it shall work even with the doc extension.

A paper boat for millionaires

Yesterday I received a short e-mail from a young lady, R. E. (preferred to keep anonymity), the author of the “Little paper boat for millionaires” blog. Her idea is to sell at eBay auction a hand-crafted miniature  paper boat with an initial bid of 3,000,000 USD. The author also mentions that it is possibly the smallest paper boat currently known on Earth. Quite mind blowing, isn’t it? But since I’m sincerely confused by the whole idea and marketing approach of the author, I decided to share certain thoughts that might probably help her to succeed. However, before I continue, I’d like to ask the author: “Would you pay 3,000,000 USD for a paper boat if you were a millionaire?”. This is the most critical type of question that anyone has to ask him/herself before diving into an “adventure”. The trust and pure intentions are the core factors for a confident step towards success, whereas any other hesitating answers are a safe bet for failure. What would be your answer, R. E.? ;) Since I have no doubts for an affirmative yes, let me share some thoughts on how to improve your ambitious project:

Broadcast yourself on a good day

Long story short. If you ever wanted to participate in a music video contest, now is your rare chance to do it. Sounds intriguing? Then go and get the details from my newly created participation page in YouTube: “OceanLab – On a good day“.

Please note that you need a YouTube account to participate in the contest and related discussions. You can also ask questions in the comments to this post.

Broadcast yourself and join me to win! ;)

How to eat healthy and make millions

To quickly share a couple of motivating materials I recently enjoyed on the web:

• “What’s wrong with what we it” by Mark Bittman. This video speech includes many cognitive facts about “American diet”, which basically became a norm in many countries worldwide. Hopefully it shall provide an impulse towards conscious food consumption.
• “Make millions and make change!” by Mike Mann. A valuable free e-book consisting of wise advices, steps and actions for successful entrepreneurial activities.

Enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday and stay easy on the turkey healthy! ;)

Losing 6 kg (13,2 lbs) in 3 months

No, I certainly don’t intend to write an handbook on the topic, rather to briefly share my own story on losing 6 kg (13,2 lbs) in 3 months. Probably the numbers are not inspiring you, but since I’m not facing critical overweight problems, I tend to regard my experience as a successfully achieved challenge. Considering my initial weight of 68 kg (149,6 lbs), the final result seems quite significant – 62 kg (136,4 lbs) or 8,8% drop. My normal weight before was around 61 kg (134,2 lbs), but I forgive 1 extra kilo that I possess today for gained muscles. So, not only I almost succeeded to restore my initial weight, there is no longer need to carry 6 kg “luggage” neither.

“Where was I?”: Nürnberg, Germany

To slightly dilute the blog with some visual stuff, I will be posting some selected pictures from my recent travels under “Where was I?” post series. The first destination is Nürnberg (Nuremberg), Germany, that I visited during October 14-16th, 2008. There are totally 26 pictures inside, weighting approximately 1,77 MB.

Key factors to achieve global business success

Recently I had a chance to attend a local seminar on a widely-spoken topic “How to achieve international recognition of your domestic business” based on real success stories presented by company founders, CEOs and key managers. Depending on your geographical location you might probably not feel the necessity to expand your local business onto neighbourhood markets, especially if you are residing somewhere in the USA, China, Brazil, India, Russia or any other large-scale country. But considering the fact that mentioned countries are only 5 of totally 195 currently in the world, similar topics always find their audience. Particularly my location is Tallinn, Estonia – a 45,227 sq m country with 1,34 M population, located in Northern-Eastern part of Eastern Europe, washed by the Baltic Sea from West and Finnish Gulf from North, comfortably neighbouring with Finland, Latvia and Russia. Wouldn’t you feel confused not to expand onto walking-distance markets in this case? The answer is too clear to be questioned, especially when export markets serve your company a helping hand within ongoing economy crisis.

Crisis investment

Probably better title for this post would be “Praying for a miracle” to accurately emphasize my recent dull investment into Apple shares (NASDAQ:AAPL). Admit it, we are all sometimes craving for an easy dime to hit our pocket, so was my particular case. Fundamental rule dictates, “Buy low, sell high” and I emotionally followed it, but unfortunately in a wrong moment. This is how short-term investment suddenly becomes a long-term one :)

To give you some background, I acquired 38 Apple shares at 111.03 USD on September 30th with a firm confidence they grow enough within upcoming days to skim the cream. Well, they slightly did, but only on the same trading day. Since then, they keep falling in full harmony with all key indices stimulated by intensifying worldwide economy crisis. Even Paulson’s bailout plan didn’t affect the fall as it was followed by the announcement of the dramatic unemployment growth in US. Nevertheless, there is always sun after the rain and on October 9th, Apple announced the press about upcoming conference at its Cupertino campus for an introduction of their, presumably, new laptops. This bull news surged Apple’s shares by 9.08% to 96.80 USD on October 10th and +0.35 USD in after-hours session. Even though I’m still in significant minus, I believe it profitable investment in a long-term perspective, but if I loose trust in Apple, I’ll get along with the losses. However, to avoid similar “investupidity”, here are three valuable basic advices that every stock trader must know:

• diversify your stock portfolio, preferably within different industries.
• always setup stop-loss alerts.
• learn to accept losses.

What are your investment strategy? Are you able to accept losses? What would you recommend to a novice stock trader?

Motivational brain nutrition

• “Stop rationalizing and make hard decisions: Learning from Dr. King” posted by Tim Ferriss (the author of “The 4-hour workweek“).
• “6 tips to generate outstanding ideas” – an all-time actual article by Luciano Passuello.
• “The art of raising venture capital” – a video speech delivered by venture capitalist guru Guy Kawasaki.

Please feedback if your brain requires more of the similar stuff, I’ll be happy to share.