Tapping Your Retirement Funds

Personal finance, like just about everything else, is mainly common sense. Advice like “don’t spend more than you make; start investing while you’re young; don’t loan money to friends with the expectation of getting it back,” have been around for generations, and most likely will survive the next few generations as well.

Personal finance, like just about everything else, is mainly common sense. Advice like “don’t spend more than you make; start investing while you’re young; don’t loan money to friends with the expectation of getting it back,” have been around for generations, and most likely will survive the next few generations as well.

As institutional portfolios are increasingly made up of more complex and diverse investments, the tools used to analyze and select strategies must offer increasingly sophisticated analyses.

Just as Genghis Khan understood the value of one man’s knowledge, you must understand that your people are your most valuable assets. It is the knowledge and skill between the ears of your key people that represents the most valuable part of your business. Your business walks out the door every day at five o’clock.

Whatever got you to where you are today is not enough to keep you there. Your products, services, processes, sales, advertising, and marketing strategies and tactics are all becoming obsolete at a rapid rate.

Because you are proactive, responsible, and result-oriented, you are continually analyzing your current situation based on the realities of the moment, rather than on the way it might have been yesterday or the way it may be tomorrow.

When General Dwight D. Eisenhower was sent by General George C. Marshall to take command of the allied forces in Lon- don in World War II, his orders and his objective were clear: “Proceed to London. Invade Europe. Defeat the Germans.”

Perhaps the most important demonstration of self-discipline is your level of persistence when the going gets tough. Persistence is self-discipline in action. Persistence is the true measure of individual human character. Your persistence is, in fact, your real measure of your belief in yourself and your ability to succeed.

In studying warfare and battles over the centuries, I have always been fascinated by the situations where a smaller force defeated a numerically superior force. In every case, what I discovered was that the numerically smaller force was far better organized, more methodical and more orderly in its plan of attack and execution than was the larger, more disorganized force.