Do you start to get stressed out when watching your stock prices yo-yo up and down?
I do. I’m willing to bet that this has consumed your mind a number of days before. Especially when you’re losing money.

When your stocks are down, it’s common for people to stare at the tickers and look at every piece of news about the market. The technology that we have today allows us to completely entrench ourselves into the market’s world.

We’ve got CNBC running news, stock prices, and evaluations at us with Yahoo Finance streaming our quotes and bringing in tons of RSS feeds chalked full of info on the market conditions. Meanwhile you’ve got a copy of business week on your desk that you can’t even begin to think about until you completely devour your copy of The Wall Street Journal.

Now if that doesn’t cause you stress, I don’t know what will.

The most well known and successful investor lives a thousand miles away from Wall Street simply for this reason. Of course with technology one could still easily become entangled and paralyzed with the random fluxuations of the market. Warren Buffet chooses not to.

What does Omaha, Nebraska have that’s so appealing to him?

Peace and Quiet. You don’t have to make thousands of trades a year. You can do fine with only making a couple good ones.

So the next time you’re pulling out your hair because your Euro-Disney Stock is flailing, tighten your belt, turn off your computer, and go spend the day with your kids.

You never know when a good idea might hit you.

If someone were to invite you to go skiing this weekend, though you’ve never skied in your life, what would you say?

Probably: “Oh, I can’t ski.”

What if you were invited to shoot some pool?

:Oh, I can’t play pool.”

When else have people been inviting you, even daring you, to try something new, only to find you turning them down? You don’t know how to shoot pool. You’d rather stay home and watch TV than try to ski.

I think that saying you can’t do something means that you don’t want to try to do it. In fact, I would bet that if you played pool every day, not only would you be able to play the game, but you might also become the best player there is.

Now what about all of those ideas that pop into your head that you shoot down before you even consider your new thoughts? How many million dollar ideas might be passing through your head, simply to be met with, “Oh, I can’t”?

Before other people can believe in you, you have to believe in yourself. Some day, no one is going to ask you to ski. No one is going to invite you to shoot some pool. And you’ll be looking back. Maybe you really could have done it.

What would you do if somebody slipped and fell at your business? I’m hoping that you would simply be able to send a letter to your insurance agent and they would take care of it. That’s what liability insurance does, pays damages to people without regard to fault.

The problem is that law is vague, and justice is expensive. The solution right now is liability insurance. It’s pretty crazy to run a business without a CGL policy. (Commercial General Liability)

It will provide you with three lines of defense in case of an accident.

1. Medical Payments Coverage – Pays injured customer’s medical bills without regard to fault
2. Supplementary Payment – If you go to court, the insurance company chooses and pays the defense team.
3. Damages Payment – The insurance agent will pay damages to the injured party. This includes both judgments and cases that are settled out of court.

One good thing about your insurance company is that they are going to find and hire a really good legal team, because they are also responsible for the damages. Being as they are the ones who are paying the bills on it, it’s also there decision if they want to settle out of court.

When people have to cut a few bucks on their construction budget, the number one answer is always the same: spend less on the exterior.

I’m not only talking about crappy landscaping jobs. I’m talking about the money invested into the building itself. Cheaper bricks, stucco spaces as shortcuts, fake brick and stones, vinyl siding… the list goes on, and the appearance shows.

Curb appeal has huge influence. If two accounting firms build side-by-side, my guess is that more potential clients will walk into the more attractive building. It’s human nature; we like nice stuff!

Have you ever seen a real estate advertisement that only shows the picture of a lobby? There’s a reason the image is the storefront.

Drive through new commercial areas, and you can see what I mean. Sure some business types don’t need an elaborate exterior. But would you go to a homebuilder who works from a shack and ask him to build your dream home?

The companies that invest an additional $5,000 to the exterior of their buildings will increase their mortgage around $14.00/month in a 30 year loan. If you’re the more attractive accounting firm, I wonder how much extra business your exterior attracts. More than $14.00/month?

Either way, the resale value is much higher.

Now think in terms of your own home. Click here for a potentially useful site that really shows how much a bit of fresh paint and other outdoor details can spice your place up. Don’t forget landscaping. This summer, Money magazine reported that attractive landscaping can allow you to recover 100 to 200 percent of your investment when you sell.