How do we rank countries?

Economic Growth and Happy Electorate

Economic growth did not necessarily translate into a happy electorate.  

• Political leaders around the world in the late 2010s were stunned to see that economic growth did not necessarily translate into a happy electorate.  Many political leaders were seeing public approval ratings reach record lows.
• On the other hand, many authoritarian leaders of countries with declining economies were reelected with record levels of support.

GDP and GNP

GDP is the traditional measure of the total output of goods and services per year.  Basically, GDP adds up the money we as consumers and companies and government entities spend over the course of the year.

GNP - gross national product - picks up where GDP leaves off and includes international expenditures in its summary of economic growth.  

• Money coming from foreign sales of products or services, make GNP a broader summary of a given economy.  
• Also included are payments and income from foreign stocks or interest payments on bonds that one country's government has sold to another.  This is an important consideration in the twenty-first century economy, where exporting nations like China and Saudi Arabia hold trillions of dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds.

GNP>GDP or  GDP>GNP

Sometimes GNP is bigger than GDP, and sometimes it is the other way around.  

• Countries like Ireland, which has a lot of foreign-owned companies, tend to give the country smaller GNP than GDP because the payments to foreign owners are deducted from the GDP figures.  
• On the other hand, since British, U.S. and Swiss residents tend to own a lot of companies abroad, their GNP is usually larger than their GDP because it includes income from foreign production that is not included in the domestic summary.

How do you compare GDP among countries with different currencies?  

It is difficult, because the value of economic activity in each country is denominated in currencies that are constantly changing in value.  

One method is simply take the value of each country's GDP at the end of the year and translate it into one common currency using official exchange rates.

• Unfortunately, using official currency exchange rates gives a skewed idea of many countries economic health.  
• Since the cost of similar goods and services isn't the same in every country, the total value of each countries' goods and services can vary widely.

Most economists and statisticians, try to adjust each country's GDP using a "real world" exchange rate.  

• This is commonly referred to as purchasing power parity or PPP.  
• It is an important calculation for anyone wanting to get a clear understanding of the real economic value of every country.  
• To determine which economy is the biggest in the world, for example, you have to adjust nominal GDP figures using PPP; otherwise the figures are of little value.

PPP is a simple calculation.  

One country's currency, such as the U.S. dollar, is chosen as the base currency.  

The dollar value of a selected basket of goods and services is then compared to the value of the same items in another country using traditional exchange rates.  In most cases, the two values won't be the same.

It is often difficult to come up with a perfectly reliable PPP.  The choice of items to be included in the basket used to determine PPP has to be made carefully.

The Big Mac Index

The Economist magazine, somewhat jokingly, came up with a PPP using the costs of Big Macs around the world.  

Since the Big Mac is identical in every country, and sold all over the world, the Big Mac Index has now become a reliable tool to see how prices vary around the world.

GDP per capita

It can also be useful to relate a country's total GDP to the number of inhabitants, giving us a more realistic view of how wealthy a country really is.  

GDP per capita, is often used to compare economic power among countries.  

By dividing each country's total economic output by the number of people living in the country, we get a more accurate idea of who is richer.  

Impossible to capture the complete picture

No measure of economic growth and economic power, however, is able to capture the complete picture.  

Quality of life

Quality of life, for example, isn't included in traditional measures of GDP.  

The GNP does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play.  

Neither GNP nor GDP gives us a truly complete picture of our economic health.  

UNHDI measures of Economic well-being (most popular)

The most popular accepted measure of economic well-being is the United Nations Human Development Index (UNHDI), which rates countries according to their levels of health, education, and income. 

The UNHDI measures such areas as 

• life expectancy, 
• access to education and adult literacy, 
• years of schooling, 
• equitable distribution of income, 
• GDP per person adjusted by PPP, 
• health care and 
• gender equality.  

Countries that pay a lot of attention to quality-of-life issues like education and health care - like Norway, Australia and Switzerland - appear high on the list.

Gross National Happiness Index

Some countries, such as Bhutan, have tried to look less at tangible measures and more at happiness, instituting a Gross National Happiness measure in 1972.  

Although happiness and well-being are notoriously difficult to measure, tracking opinion polls, search request data, and social media activity give us valuable information that can be used to determine which country can justifiably chant, "We're number one!"

The Importance of Integrity

Warren Buffett looks at three character traits in people who surround him:  integrity, energy and intelligence.  He says, if you don't have the first, the last two will kill you.  In fact, if they don't have integrity, he would rather his managers be lazy and dumb.

"Integrity is like oxygen.  If you don't have it, nothing else matters."

"Be honest.  Never lie under any circumstances.  Just basically lay it out as you see it.  Simply speak openly and frankly."

Integrity is also about principles, full disclosure and openness.

Integrity is a choice, and the lack of it most often leads to self destruction.

The Value of a Good Reputation

"Conduct all business way inside the lines. and if it is near the line or on the line don't do it."  This advice would keep you out of trouble.

"Never do anything in business that you wouldn't want printed on the front page of your local newspaper written by an intelligent but critical reporter."

Always be on the lookout for managers and business with excellent reputations as possible acquisitions.

"It takes twenty years to build a reputation and only five minutes to ruin it.  If you'd think about that, you'll do things differently."

"He that is of the opinion that money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money." (Benjamin Franklin)

Respect Yourself and Others

Follow the rules of common courtesy and political politeness.  Answer all letters promptly with a lighthearted one-paragraph reply.

"Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them.  If they were jerks before they had money they are simply jerks with a billion dollars." (Warren Buffett)

Good Character, Strong Ethics

Business success and wealth creation can be achieved with the highest ethical standards and without shady, questionable practices.

Warren Buffett treats his shareholders like partners and has created wealth with them, not at their expense.  

Character is tested most in defeat or when you have great power or great wealth.  A powerful man in business has stood the test of time and power.

One of the most powerful messages Buffett delivers in his humorous style is this:  Make a list of all the traits you admire and respect in others.  Think of people close to you or even those who have passed away.  His point is that whatever character traits you put on your list, you can adopt those same qualities and be that person.  Warren Buffett also suggests to his student audiences to make another list of the character traits that they don't admire or respect in others.  If you think about it and put some effort to it, you too can avoid all of the negative characteristics of the person you don't want to be.

Character cannot be hidden or faked.  You can tell if someone is the type of person with whom you want to associate.

A German motto says this, "When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost."

Money Can't Buy Happiness

"No matter how rich you become, how famous or powerful, when you die, the size of your funeral will still pretty much depend on the weather."

Most people agree that if you have created wealth at the expense of your relationships, health or ethics, then you have nothing.   Life is more than money and more than wealth.

"Happiness is not the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort." (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

True happiness is doing what you were born to do, also known as self-actualization or following your bliss.  

Each person is born with a different genetic code.  The challenge for each of us, in order to find our happiness, is to figure out what our passion is, what our talents are and how best to express them.

Many people have found the attainment of wealth is without happiness if you fail to:

• Give credit to others
• Live with moderation
• Select the right heroes and mentors
• Give back and mentor others
• Look after your health.
• Earn the respect you deserve
• Stay well within the laws (including paying taxes)
• Be industrious
• Be socially connected and have friends 
• Have the love of those you want to love you

"Tell me who your heroes are and I'll tell you what kind of person you will become."

With the ability to buy most things, Warren chooses to enjoy few possessions and to keep the things he does have for a lifetime.  Warren finds happiness not in his vast fortune, but instead in delivering newspapers with his grandson and taking his family to the Dairy Queen on Sunday, talking with and mentoring college students, explaining that he lives no better than they do, he just travels better.

"Good managers never take credit for more than they do."

Warren carefully chooses those friends who, when they are around, bring out the best in him.  

Hang out with people who are bigger than you, bring out the best, and inspire you, and you will have a network of giants.

In the end, happiness does not come from Buffett's wealth, but rather from the number of people who love you. The most important thing is not how many or how large his assets are, but how his children feel about him.  Warren considers parenthood vital to happiness,  and unfortunately there is no rewind button on child development.

The more love you give, the more you get, and you can never give too much of it away.  It is inexhaustible.

Reference:  Warren Buffett's Lesson on Having a Rich Life

Money Has Much Less To Do With Happiness Than We Think

Max Nisen | Nov. 12, 2012,

in

How individuals motivate themselves and how happiness works is a huge question for researchers. Often, their focus is on people's internal mindset.

A recent NBER working paper from John Helliwell of the University Of British Columbia argues that focusing on the individual is wrong, and that the real source of happiness, ingrained by years of social evolution, is our interaction with other people. 

Helliwell writes:

Income matters less than the chance to connect with others, thereby improving our own lives and especially the lives of others. There is even evolutionary evidence that bulging human brains, and especially their prefrontal cortexes, have been crucial in allowing humans to be the most social beings, living better lives through co-operation. 

Within workplaces, the importance of the social context dwarfs the impact of salary and bonuses. To work where trust in management is one point higher, on a 10-point scale, has the same relation to life satisfaction as a one-third higher income. 

Essentially, money matters, but we're evolutionarily conditioned to be happiest when we feel like we're part of a community, are in a positive social context, and take actions that we feel benefit other people. That significantly surpasses how much we care about money, despite the amount society focuses on it. 

It's a powerful effect, to the point where people that perform positive actions get more out of them than the people they're helping. 

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/money-is-less-important-than-social-context-2012-11#ixzz2CcMDxUWk

How To Spend Time In Ways That Make You Happy

By Joshua Berlinger

How you spend your time could be the key to unlocking happiness.

Research on the subject was analyzed in a paper in ScienceDirect by  Jennifer L. Aaker and Melanie Rudd of Stanford Business School and Cassie Mogilner of Wharton.

The psychologists identified five principles for good use of time:

1. Spend your time with the right people

People who spend time with other people tend to be happier, but equally important is with whom who they spend time.

"Interaction partners associated with the greatest happiness levels include friends, family, and significant others, whereas bosses and co-workers tend to be associated with the least happiness."

Still since people have to spend time at work, they can benefit from developing friendly relationships at the office.

2. Spend your time on the right activities

What you do with your time is crucial in determining happiness. Working and commuting seem to make people the most unhappy, while socializing is one of the best activities for increasing happiness levels.

Thinking of your time as an investment can be helpful. For example, asking yourself what are the chances that the value of that temporal expenditure will increase over time?" The study adds:

When deciding how to spend the next hour, simply asking yourself the question, “Will what I do right now become more valuable over time?” could increase your likelihood to behave in ways that more clearly map onto what will really make you happy. Note that this question is slightly different than asking, “What is better for me in the long run?” or, “What will lead to greater long-term happiness?” — two questions that often cause a tinge of guilt or moral dilemma. This particular question focuses less on perceived trade-offs between short and long-term happiness, and more on maximizing the value of the present moment.

3. Enjoy the experience without spending the time

Thinking about things you enjoy can be almost as effective as actually doing the activity which makes you happy: "the part of the brain responsible for feeling pleasure, the mesolimbic dopamine system, can be activated when merely thinking about something pleasurable, such as drinking one's favorite brand of beer or driving one's favorite type of sports car. In fact, the brain sometimes enjoys anticipating a reward more than receiving the reward."

4. Expand your time

Since time is fixed, it helps to focus on the "here and now."

Thinking about the present "slows down the perceived passage of time, allowing people to feel less rushed and hurried. Similar effects accrue when individuals simply breathe more deeply."

Having or perceiving that one has control over their time has been correlated to higher levels of happiness. "Having spare time and perceiving control over how to spend that time (i.e. discretionary time) has been shown to have a strong and consistent effect on life satisfaction and happiness, even controlling for the actual amount of free time one has."

5. Be aware that happiness changes over time

Happiness is affected by a myriad of intertwined factors: culture, time, and perhaps most importantly, age. Younger people, for example, "are more likely to associate happiness with excitement, whereas older individuals are more likely to experience happiness as feeling peaceful."

The amount of happiness one derives from social interactions changes as well. As people get older, " the value of spending time with interesting new acquaintances decreases, while the value of spending time with familiar friends and family increases."

Check out the full paper >

Don't miss: All You Have To Do Is Smile >

More From Business Insider 

• Money Has Much Less To Do With Happiness Than We Think
• All You Have To Do Is Smile
• You May Have To Choose Between A Happy Life And A Meaningful Life

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/spend-time-ways-happy-052343537.html

Happiness

Some old-age truths about happiness — Kua Ee Heok

September 12, 2012

SEPT 12 — Six months ago, I was referred a 67-year-old doctor who was profoundly depressed after suffering a heart attack. His cardiologist requested an urgent psychiatric consultation because he was suicidal.

A general practitioner, he had always wanted to own an elegant house in Queen Astrid Park. In his pursuit of happiness, he worked assiduously, took a large bank loan and was planning the renovation of the bungalow when he collapsed in his clinic after experiencing an acute chest pain. While recuperating, he wondered whether he could work again and worried about the financial burden.

During our psychological therapy session, he confided about having been preoccupied for many years with the “dream house” since visiting a patient living in that prestigious part of Singapore.

He writhed in mental anguish — his happiness had been shattered.

Happiness and depression are on the two ends of the emotion spectrum. Recently, there has been a surge in research into this bipolarity of emotion, with the advent of new brain scanning techniques.

As neuroscientists ponder the convoluted brain neurotransmitter systems of dopamine and serotonin regulating our emotions, we know that happiness is personal and intrapsychic — a psychological term referring to the internal psychological processes of the individual.

People externalise their happiness by sharing with friends, giving to the less fortunate or helping neighbours.

Happiness is a topical issue not only in the heartland kopitiam but, also, the hallowed halls of the United Nations in New York. Many countries, including Bhutan and Britain, have constructed their own Happiness Index. In the homes of many elderly Chinese are three deities — Fu, Lu and Shou — who personify their aspirations of wealth, happiness and longevity.

As you listen to the Singapore national conversation over the next few months, a central theme I suspect will be “happiness”, or the lack of it, and it will pervade the issues of jobs, housing, public transport and foreigners.

Factors associated with happiness and satisfaction in late life have also intrigued many researchers in the field of gerontology. A few years ago, the Department of Psychological Medicine of the National University Health System conducted a study of elderly people living in the Chinatown and Toa Payoh districts.

About 72 per cent of the Chinatown elderly and 69 per cent of the Toa Payoh elderly indicated that they were happy and satisfied with life. However, their reasons for life satisfaction were quite different.

The Chinatown elderly lived in smaller HDB flats and preferred to meet friends in community centres or the void decks; their main reasons for life satisfaction were family or social relationships and good health.

The Toa Payoh elderly were living in bigger flats and their main reasons for life satisfaction were the comfortable homes and good health. When we assessed the rate of depression in both groups, the prevalence was 5 per cent in the Chinatown elderly and 9 per cent in the Toa Payoh elderly.

There was more social interaction among the Chinatown elderly who tended to congregate at public places to chat, watch television, read the papers or play mahjong. The Toa Payoh elderly did not interact as much with neighbours and seemed more isolated and lonely. In short, the Chinatown elderly, although poorer, were happier with lower prevalence of depressive disorder.

You may wonder how many of the Chinatown elderly will participate or are even cognisant of the imminent national conversation. With their long years and wisdom, they can tell us something about happiness, if we have time to listen and understand their dialects.

Because of the change in family structure, more Singapore elderly will be living alone in future and cannot expect much support from close relatives. Living alone and loneliness were issues explored in a recent study in the Jurong district by our research team. We found that a sense of loneliness, and not living alone, was a risk factor for depression which could lead to suicidal ideation.

Many people lament the passing of the kampong or village socio-ecological community of interdependence. In the past, living in a village allowed people to interact and cooperate in caring for their neighbours. With modernity, the ethos of the kampung spirit is lost.

It may be possible to resurrect the same community spirit within blocks of flats by identifying, within each block, the frail and the able-bodied elderly. If the latter can become informal carers of the former, a future tradition could grow within the precinct. And this is the challenge — to build not just a cohesive and inclusive but also caring community, which is the soul of the nation.

As for the doctor, I reviewed him last month and he had improved after four months of psychological therapy. No longer depressed or suicidal, he had begun to recalibrate his priorities in life and felt the “dream house” was no longer at the top of the list.

He decided to work part-time and looked forward to thrice-a-week morning walks at the Botanic Gardens, Labrador Park and MacRitchie Reservoir with his friends from church. His joie de vivre now was admiring the beauty of nature, and spending more time with family and friends.

In fact, his wife persuaded him to stay in their present apartment and sell the bungalow, which should fetch a princely sum today. He is a case study to repudiate the myth that suicide is not preventable.

Before he left my clinic, he reflected on the dark days when he wanted to take his life and, with a wry smile, quipped: “Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody … nobody really wants to die.”

I agreed. — Today

* Dr Kua Ee Heok is a professor in the Department of Psychological Medicine, National University of Singapore, and senior consultant psychiatrist in the National University Health System.

Earl Nightingale (Happiness)

Happiness is a by-product of learning who you are, living from that insight, and striving for a goal with which you resonate. And that's how you become wealthy. Go out to acquire wealth and you may do so. However, the price may be more than the money is worth. Conversely, know who you are and find something you love to do and the money, like happiness, will come as by-product of a fulfilling and successful life

Can money buy happiness?

Can money buy happiness?
Yes, if you re poor.

Money is better than poverty, Woody Allen quipped, if only for financial reasons. If we re starving or homeless, money can bring a better life.

But beyond a certain point ” a surprisingly low point ” more money doesn t deliver more happiness.

A study of tens of thousands of people in 29 countries compared average life satisfaction in each country with average purchasing power (see Figure 9).^[1]It showed that in poor countries, purchasing power and life satisfaction are clearlyrelated. Yet once countries are half as rich as America, there is absolutely no relationship between money and happiness.

Figure 9: Life satisfaction and purchasing power in 29 countries

Looking within individual countries bears this out. Very poor Americans are less happy, but otherwise money does not affect happiness. Being one of the 100 richest Americans adds only a smidgeon to happiness.

Or consider a study of 22 lottery jackpot winners, who showed initial euphoria. It didn t last. Within a year, the winners were no happier than before.

More evidence: real purchasing power in three rich countries doubled between 1950 and 2000, yet happiness levels didn t rise at all. As countries become wealthier, depression soars, with victims also suffering at a much younger age.

The evidence is overwhelming. Being moderately well off means that you are happier than if you were very poor. But once you are well fed, clothed, and housed, getting wealthier probably won t make you happier.

In the nineteenth century, John Stuart Mill gave one excellent reason for this being true ” we don t want to be rich, we just want to be richer than other people. When our living standard improves but everyone else s does too, we don t feel better off. We forget that our cars and houses are better than before, because our friends all drive similar cars and have just as pleasant homes.

Right now, I m living in South Africa. Here, I feel rich. In Europe or America, I don t. My feeling has nothing to do with how well off I am and everything to do with how well off other people are. Living standards are much lower in South Africa, so I feel wealthy.

There s also the pain and hassle of making money. On April 8, 1991, Time magazine s cover story highlighted the price paid for successful careers:

• 61 percent of 500 professionals said that earning a living today requires so much effort that it s difficult to find time to enjoy life.
• 38 percent said that they were cutting back on sleep to earn more money.
• 69 percent said they d like to slow down and live a more relaxed life ; only 19 percent wanted a more exciting, faster paced life.
• 56 percent wanted to find more time for personal interests and hobbies, and 89 percent said it was important to them to spend more time with their families, something that their careers made difficult.

How are we doing now? Have many of us fled the rat race? Nah. We re still chasing more money for more time. The average working American now works 2,000 hours a year. That s two weeks more than in 1980! And the average middle-income couple with children now work 3,918 hours between them ” seven weeks more than just 10 years ago.

More money can be a trap, leading to more spending, more commitments, more worry, more complexity, more time on administering money, more desires, more time at work, less choice about how we spend our time, and degradation of our independence and life energy. Our lifestyle locks us into our workstyle.

How many houses or cars do we need to compensate for heart attacks or depression?

^[1]See Martin E P Seligman (2003) Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Deep Fulfillment, London: Nicholas Brealey.

http://flylib.com/books/en/1.522.1.36/1/

Happiness the key to success

October 25, 2010

Being happy doesn't just make you feel good, it can also make you more successful, according to a Harvard University lecturer.

Shawn Achor, whose book The Happiness Advantage will be published in Australia next month, says, positive thinkers have a biological advantage over people who are are neutral or negative.

The good news is that being happy is a skill we can all learn, Achor says.

Here are some tips from his book on how to retrain your brain to capitalise on positivity and improve your productivity and performance.

- Meditate - research shows that regular meditation can permanently rewire the brain to raise levels of happiness, lower stress and even improve immune function.

- Find something to look forward to - often the most enjoyable part of an activity is the anticipation. If you can't take time out for a holiday now or a night out with friends, put something on the calendar. Anticipating future rewards can actually light up the pleasure centres in your brain.

- Be kind: research has found that giving to friends and strangers decreases stress and contributes to enhanced mental health.

- Infuse positivity in your surroundings - people who put pictures of their loved ones on their desk at work aren't just decorating; they are ensuring a positive hit of emotion each time they glance at them.

- Exercise: it is not just a powerful mood lifter but also a long lasting one. Run, walk, ride, play, stretch, skip or jump around on a pogo stick, it doesn't matter so long as you get moving.

- Spend money, but not on stuff. Spend it on experiences like concerts or a night out with friends. This produces more long lasting positive emotion than buying things. Spending money on other people, such as family and friends, also makes us happy.

- Exercise your strengths; to learn what your top strengths are (you can do this for free at www.viasurvey.org) pick one of your signature strengths and use it in a different way each day. Studies have shown that the more you use your signature strengths in daily life, the happier you become.

The Happiness Advantage (Virgin Books) by Shawn Achor is out in November, $35.

AAP

http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/management/happiness-the-key-to-success-20101025-170mp.html

Wealth and happiness from the power of 10

Wealth and happiness from the power of 10

Marcus Padley
June 19, 2010 - 3:00AM

You don't have to be a genius to work out that if only we could avoid the losses, we would all be winners. The first rule of making it is not losing it. So here are my top 10 tips on not losing money.

1 Inside information. A colleague has professionally traded all his life. It's what he does. He says: ''If I had never been given any inside information … I would be a million pounds better off than I am today.''

2 IPOs. The golden rule of IPOs is that if it's any good, it won't be offered to you. If you get offered it … then you don't want it.

3 Pretending to be Warren Buffett. The concept that Buffett can be emulated has cost investors more than it has ever made them. No one has ever managed to replicate his performance. The idea that you can is the biggest drawcard the equity market has and it is a lie. We all keep buying the dream.

4 Gurus. Go to any rainforest, discover any tribe and you will find them huddling under some concept of god and creed. It is a human need to be able to answer the unanswerable questions and we do it by deifying someone or something. In our search for answers to the stockmarket's unanswerable questions, we credit our commentators with vastly more powers than they could possibly deserve or possess. And dangerously, he who guesses the boldest guesses the longest.

5 Greed. The biggest killer of them all. Approaching the stockmarket with greed is like running onto a battlefield in bright orange. We'll get you.

6 Leverage. The mechanism of greed. Leverage is marketed one way, but it works both ways. You lose much faster as well. That means it only works for some of the time and not all of the time.

It only works when you are right. And with average equity returns after interest, transaction costs, inflation and tax of less than zero, man, you had better be right, and right at the right time. You cannot habitually use leverage to ''invest''. Only trade and trade at the right time, not all the time. That's a big ask for someone with a day job.

7 Confidence. What's the core skill of the finance industry?

I'll tell you: it's marketing. And oh, do we have some material to work with. The finance industry is never short of a success story to free your wallet from your pocket. But we cannot all be successful, and of course we aren't. But the concept of success from mere participation in the financial markets is sold and endures because of one convenient fact of life. Crappy cars and small houses don't attract attention. The winners stay, and we raise them up. The losers, conveniently, go away. Thank goodness for that. Imagine how much product we'd sell if we raised them up.

8 Expectations. The root of all happiness. The root of all unhappiness. Expect the unexpectable and expect the inevitable. Best you expect the expectable.

9 Laziness. The nucleus of many of the stockmarket's very large and public losses. There has been more money lost through laziness than through effort - in particular, from putting your future in the hands of financial products you haven't taken the time to understand (Opes Prime, Storm Financial), from ''investing'' without investigating (otherwise known as gambling), from relying on someone else's grand declaration rather than taking responsibility yourself. Let's get this straight. There is no easy route to riches in the stockmarket and there is no free lunch, so participation without effort is not enough.

10 Life. My mum used to say there are three foundations for spiritual and financial happiness and success: your relationship, your job and where you live. Get one of those wrong, and all three will go wrong. Note there's no mention of the stockmarket in there. The stockmarket is not life. It is a side issue. The biggest financial decisions you will make in your life have nothing to do with the stockmarket - such as getting married, getting divorced, having kids, investing in your home, committing to your career or your business. These are the biggest financial decisions you'll ever make. Focus on them. The stockmarket is not a priority.

Marcus Padley is a stockbroker with Patersons Securities and the author of the daily stockmarket newsletter Marcus Today.



This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/business/wealth-and-happiness-from-the-power-of-10-20100618-ymsd.html

Happiness of the Wise

The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others; the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control; but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts. - Marcus Aurelius