What if you only had one month to impress everyone, make friends, and influence people, do you think you could do it?

As you might know, I have traveled to Buffalo New York for the summer, and now that it’s drawing to an end, it is time for me to go home. This time I am taking a different route that the way over. I’m going to drive through Ontario to Michigan and then drive across the country on the I-90. (but that’s a little off topic!)

Our main business idea didn’t quite work out so I picked up a summer job here. As a seasonal worker I only had a finite amount of time to leave an impression.

The game was on, first order of business… training. I wanted to become competent with the operations and lexicon there.

My next priority was to improve/master the working skills. After training was complete I worked to become as efficient as possible with the customers.

The third task on my agenda was to offer help to other employees. While this was more of a courtesy most of the time, being useful and productive is a great habit. When you help people out, they are more likely to help you out down the road.

The last portion of my strategy was basically just talking to people. I tried to be friendly to customers, employees, delivery people, and management. Once again if people like you, they are more likely to help you later on.

I’m not going to be arrogant and say that this plan of attack impressed everyone, made friends, and influenced people. But what I am going to say is that I believe it certainly paid off.

After the first two weeks I was on friendly terms with the managers and supervisors. As I’m sure you know, this holds all kinds of perks and benefits. If you are on their bad side work can be a terrible time. It really is the difference between night and day. Of course you never want to compromise your own character to appease someone else.

Finally on the day of my last shift, the district manager came by and thanked me. He mentioned that everything he heard about me was good, and mentioned that if I ever come back to Buffalo that I would have a job.

My strategy of hard work and communication worked out well in this situation. You never know who is going to talk to who, so it’s a good idea to display the same great work ethic around everyone you encounter.

That’s how I tried to get ahead in the game. So now I ask, if you only had one month to define your image and mold how people think of you, how would you go about it?

These days, it is very hot and humid in Tokyo. Investing is getting hot, too. Thanks to evolution of internet, investing is becoming a lot easier for everyone, especially in Japan. Not so many people were buying and selling stocks about 10 years ago. Playing the stock was not for the general public here. Nowadays, however, even college students are making money on the stock market because people can buy and sell stocks through internet. For those of who do not want to take much risk, banks and stock brokerage firms are offering investment trusts.

Not only the general public but also Japanese companies are changing. Japanese companies used to grow their assets for retirement allowance. Companies were responsible for granting retirement allowance for their employees. Now, more and more company let employees manage their own retirement allowances, which are just like a 401K.

I just graduated from the university and began working in the real world. I realized that it is not easy to make money for anyone. The Japanese economy is getting better, and I’m earning some money to play with. Maybe, it’s time to consider playing the stock.

Today we’re thrilled to feature the reflections of Yuka, a recent college graduate working in Tokyo. She says that she’s still not sure what her job title is. In Japan, you are hired based on your fit in a company’s atmosphere. They take you through training and decide where you’ll best fit their needs. When Yuka isn’t working, she loves travel, friends, and challenges… maybe even investing a bit??

If you are interested in investing beyond national boarders into hot places like Japan to diversify your portfolio, you run some additional risks:
1. currency exchange rate
2. political or economic instability and crisis
3. different rules and regulations like taxes

If you are interested in being our next Saturday Strategist, contact us.

One year ago, my husband and I established a budget for ourselves. We were going to pinch every penny so that we could walk out ahead in a year. Our only source of income would be his 9 to 5 job as I finished school.

I found our old calculations last night, and you know what? Our plan equaled a negative net worth. Between student loans, wedding expenses, and other elements of past life, one year of penny pinching would have equaled a net worth of about negative $4,000. How could that be? So much hard work…

Our problem was that we lacked multiple streams of income. If you want to make money, you have to increase your earning power outside of 9 to 5. We chose to use our weekends. Our efforts make our net worth something exciting to look at. In fact, our weekend work has been the equivalent to nearly TWICE my husband’s salary. Plus our hard work this year will continue to pay us in the future with small effort on our part.

When you work for someone else, the rewards are instantaneous. Of course, it took months before our efforts were rewarded. We juggle with little spare time, large credit card loads, and a whole lot of loans. But we have something bigger and more valuable to back each of those expenses today.

So this weekend, I challenge you to find something outside of 9 to 5 that can increase your wealth in the future. The sense of accomplishment will, I guarantee, far exceed any thrill that your paycheck might provide.

For about the last year and a half I have had an idea for a web application that I think would be absolutely great. Everyone who I have talked to about the idea has told me that it is a great idea.

It wouldn’t really make a great business, as there is no obvious revenue source that can be taken that would allow for the objectivity and credibility that I want for this idea. Of course this doesn’t mean that the site couldn’t make money, but that’s one of the things that would have to be addressed.

The second thing holding me back is my lack of programming skills. I could probably fumble along and put something together that would roughly do what I’m looking for; however the loss of features and functionality would be substantial.

If I were to pay a programmer that would most likely cost me a couple thousand dollars at least for a bare-bones version of the application. And that’s not really something that I can do for something that has no way of making money. It’s hard to gain investors when you say, “I’ve got an idea that will probably make the world a better place, but won’t return any money for a long time, if ever.”

I think that people on the internet would really embrace this project, and I would really like it to go through. What will the atmosphere be like on the internet in two years? What if I don’t get to it for five years and the internet is a completely different place? I know that just two years ago the internet was a different place. I think the application would be a little harder to launch today than it would have been two years ago; however defiantly not impossible.

So that’s where I start wondering, would it be better to spend all of my spare time to work on my project or to just let the dream die?