Archive for January, 2008

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Sixty Eight Percent of All Statistics are Made Up on the Spot

Conventional thinking:  I should live in one of the cities mentioned in Money magazine as one of the 10 best places to live in America. I should go to one of the top 10 schools mentioned in Business Week.  I should invest in the top 10 stocks listed on Kiplinger.  I should not eat fish […]

Popularity: 37% [?]

11Jan2008 | goldfish | 1 comment | Continued
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SMART Goals are Stupid

Common Sense: Goals should be SMART.  The acronym stands for specific, measureable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.  This seems to make perfect sense to most people.  Unless, of course, you are a contrarian goldfish!
Contrarian Thought on Specific Goals 
The idea that you should have specific goals is very nice, except that you cannot predict the future […]

Popularity: 75% [?]

7Jan2008 | goldfish | 2 comments | Continued
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Why Buying a Luxury Car is Smarter than Buying a Luxury Home

Common sense: A home is an asset that appreciates in value and that can be purchased with tax deductable borrowed money.  A car on the other hand depreciates quickly.  Therefore you should buy the biggest and most expensive house that you can possibly get away with and avoid buying expensive cars.  This seems to make […]

Popularity: 100% [?]

4Jan2008 | goldfish | 9 comments | Continued
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Multitasking – The Worst Productivity Killer

Common Sense:  If I do a lot of things in parallel I can get a lot more done in a day.  While talking on the phone, I can answer email, do text messaging, and even work on that important presentation at the same time, right?  Not if you are a contrarian goldfish!
Contrarian thought:  Dividing your […]

Popularity: 65% [?]

1Jan2008 | goldfish | 1 comment | Continued
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