Money is basically a promise underwritten by banks, where everyone agrees that it has a value and we all go along with it. Ones and zeros in cyberspace, conjured up and manipulated by banking wizards. Money, it seems, is a fictional popularity contest.

Banks vouch for your financial standing, offer convenience in trading with customers and suppliers and stop you from getting robbed of paper money hidden in your floorboards.

Through over-lending and over-extension of ‘money’ in their coffers, banks tend to get a little too clever at everyone else’s expense. When issuing you a loan, they’re not at risk. They stand as gatekeepers to money, but will take your assets if you don’t pay. Imagine a casino with massive amounts of punters pouring in money, then the casino betting the money themselves. Either way, the house always wins. Access to your money gets monopolised, with the average Joe and Josephine paying to keep these institutions profitable. (Please don’t freeze my accounts, I’m just thinking out loud.)

The majority of money in the modern economy is created by commercial banks making loans. They’re said to loan out more money than they have in reserve at a 10:1 ratio – great odds. In many ways, banks can be seen as pyramid schemes that create debt, set to explode over time as bubbles develop and burst. This is followed by bailouts and no repercussion for crashing the world economy.

Which is why the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto (possibly an Australian programmer) unleashed his invented cryptocurrency called Bitcoin a month after the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008.

http://coolfidence.com/questions-about-the-future-of-money-by-someone-who-is-not-a-banker-solution-20080

If Donald Trump taught us anything, it’s that being yourself can get you elected president of the United States. Although being himself involved no thought filtering, no diplomacy and being guided by ego. This might not work for you, unless you have tremendously thick skin, a bouffant hairdo elevated by hot air and (supposedly) billions in assets.

What we can take from The Donald’s political marketing masterclass is the importance of being authentic to achieve.

Like him or not, he also touched on living with passion and having purpose in a world of automated bots and online fakery.

Audi represents ‘Vorsprung Durch Technik’ and De Beers believes that ‘A Diamond is Forever.’ (Or perhaps ‘A Diamond payment is Forever’.)

You need clear branding to signal what you stand for. We all know that Apple ‘Think Different’. Sure, it’s grammatically incorrect, but it stands for something tangible.

Unfortunately the slogan for Apple’s new iPhone 7 (‘This is 7’) translates into ‘This is penis’ in Hong Kong. But it can only be good for sales, Apple don’t cock about.

What does your personal brand mean to people? And what’s your unique selling point (USP)?

A USP isn’t a meaningless slogan, it’s a compelling summary of what you or your business embodies. It’s your eloquent elevator pitch, it’s what differentiates you from others. It leaves people with a clear feeling and understanding of your personal brand offering.

Michael Jackson was ‘The King of Pop’. Barnum and Bailey circuses were ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’. Donald Trump is a real-life Bond villain.

Could you be The Queen of Confectionary? How about The Count of Accounting?

This unique offering might take time to learn and figure out – and is often a lifelong process.

Having said this, you’re not a product, so stay human. Be the brand, but not in a forced way.

http://coolfidence.com/people-dont-buy-what-you-do-they-buy-why-you-do-it-solution-20078

I have been referring to the progress paradox and the purpose-money continuum and the quality-quality struggle for quite some time now. Simply put, the paradox of our time is that we live in an age of incredible prosperity and convenience – life has never been easier – we have all kinds of machines and devices to help us; yet, our ability to cope with life seems to be deteriorating with each technological advancement.

http://coolfidence.com/the-progress-paradox-solution-20077

Perhaps there’s a call of the wild for an unexpected bathroom break, perhaps you’ve just had enough of the meeting you’re in. Maybe you’ve been cornered by a bore at a networking event, but don’t want to offend them. How do you excuse yourself without creating a stir? What’s your exit strategy?

Watch your body language. You may already have left the room with your mind, staring out the door or window, plotting your escape route while someone is still engaging with you. Give them your full attention until the time is right to make your move.

http://coolfidence.com/how-to-politely-get-out-of-meetings-that-you-dont-want-to-be-in-solution-20076

Why do we go to school? Or university? What is all about? Does anyone remember? Is it just about getting a piece of paper? Is it just about becoming an authority on a subject? Or is there more to it? Isn’t it also about developing leadership abilities? And isn’t it also about tapping into your creative energy? And what about learning how to manage processes? And what about learning to listen and absorb knowledge? And what about the opportunity to network, meet people and build relationships?

I read an article in a business journal a while back that was very intriguing. This short and well-written piece did make me a little nervous though. It hinted at the end of the academic system, as we know it. University professors are earning commissions for identifying talent. Perhaps I misunderstood this but it sounds like students are being encouraged to launch start-ups long before they graduate. Young people are dropping out of top universities at faster and faster rates to get into the IT start-up phenomena that the Internet has helped spark off. My question is: is it healthy? And when does this end? Is a boy in a school, say, going to drop out at age 14 to start a company? And what next? Is a teenager going to become a billionaire? Is this clever?

Yes, I have a lot of questions on my mind this spring day. Not only are people experiencing extreme pressure and stress at younger and younger ages but soon there is going to be pressure to drop out of university. I mean, if everyone else is doing it then what is wrong with you hanging around campus when there is a revolution going on out there. Furthermore, you continually hear the term “exit strategy” which appears to go hand-in-hand with the majority of these new start-ups. What exactly is an “exit strategy”? Let’s see. 10 years ago we never had so many business oriented publications. We never had students dropping out of universities to launch start-ups. And we never heard of the term “exit strategy”. Do you know that it is actually a military term that first surfaced in the Vietnam war – do the job and get out. Yes, guerrilla tactics have come to business.

If everyone has an exit strategy, and I mean everyone, then who will actually do any work? I mean, who will be left to do the work if everyone exits? Yes, war has exit strategies because then you take no prisoners. Is this what business has become? A war? Who is the enemy in this new war? And who are the champions? I think I am getting carried away, but I’m sure you get the point though. The enemy is quantity again. And quality, our poor understated hero, is really getting pushed aside.

http://coolfidence.com/does-an-education-slow-you-down-solution-20075

With services like Skype, GoToMeeting, WebEx, Google Hangouts and Join.Me, we’re almost at the level of a Star Wars Jedi High Council meeting, where our holograms sit in a room together with actual people.

Gone are the days of holding a phone receiver to multiple ears to hear what the other person is saying. On smartphones, we’re getting patched into conference calls to all four corners of the planet while standing in line at grocery stores (unless you order food online or via UberEATS).

Video conference calls are used to save time, but we still need to be prepared to ensure that time is saved efficiently.

http://coolfidence.com/12-tips-to-avoid-looking-like-a-rookie-on-a-video-conference-call-solution-20074

Not so many years ago farming was about producing the best harvest. These days it is more about producing the most harvest. What has happened to the quality there used to be in the world. Everything is about quantity these days. Everything is about numbers. It is all about the bottom line. What about the purpose of what we do? What has happened to the quality of life? Is it really all about money? I don’t really have the answer but I do have more and more evidence these days that money is the only thing on people’s agendas.

http://coolfidence.com/quality-vs-quantity-solution-20073

Staring at a screen conditions us to not listen properly and aids in forgetting details due to lack of concentration.

It also seems to add to shorter attention spans. How many more full-length books got read before smartphones started delivering us bite-size articles, just long enough to read between meetings?

There are studies that propose that people who make more eye contact derive benefits such as becoming more compassionate and less selfish.

It also makes us look more trustworthy and more engaged.

Who do you hire, someone who engages you eye to eye, or the person shiftily staring at their shoes or glancing at their phone on the boardroom table?

If someone ignores you for their phone, you know they’re not mentally engaged and it can damage trust. Put yourself in the other seat: How would you feel if someone kept missing parts of your conversation because their phone was far more fascinating?

Eye contact enables us to gauge other people’s emotions, vulnerability and feelings while they’re in front of you. Which is essential for developing emotional intelligence.

http://coolfidence.com/are-you-in-a-staring-contest-with-your-smartphone-solution-20072

Do any of you remember the movie Jerry Maguire? Now this was a show! Talk about pulling it all together. This was an amazingly spiritual journey. Watch it again. The main characters are Jerry Maguire played by Tom Cruise and Rod Tidwell played by Cuba Gooding Jr. An amazing transference takes place as we witness two heroes who go on a journey (a transformation, or “character arc”), one learning how to love a woman, and the other learning how to love the work he does. By the end of the film Jerry accepts his responsibilities as a man, and as a husband, and Rod comes to terms with his purpose – he learns to work, in this case play football, from the heart, not from the head.

Jerry undergoes a struggle right at the start of Cameron Crowe’s masterpiece of a screenplay where he realizes that work is the transference of love made visible. You see, Jerry loves what he does, sports management, that is, but he does not like the fact that everything is becoming about money. He cannot reconcile trading quality for quantity. He can’t sleep one night and he gets up and says, “I had lost the ability to bullshit.” He sits by his laptop and writes his turning-point memo – the mission statement his company needed: Less customers, less profits, better relationships. He got fired that week. Jerry was right. This is the problem in the world today.

Rod Tidwell is a man who understands the importance of personal relationships. He loved his wife, brother, and family more than anything in this world. Hence, he was looking for the personal touch in his career – he was a people’s person. After being fired from his “sports factory” Jerry becomes a sports agent with one client and the pay-off line was “In Rod we Trust.” Leaving the movie aside for now, let us look at what has happened here. Two people struggle to find balance in their lives. They are deeply spiritual but they each have only half the equation. Life is about relationships, in the home and in the workplace.

http://coolfidence.com/no-we-dont-want-your-business-solution-20071