NDP Leader Ryan Meili says he is focused on holding the government to account while also offering alternatives for Saskatchewan voters.

Saskatchewan NDP leader Ryan Meili heads into 2020 with a fall election campaign in his sights. It will be his first foray as a candidate and as party leader.

The NDP spent a great deal of 2019 highlighting issues facing emergency rooms and classrooms, and concerns about the level of support for mental health and addictions support.

CBC's Adam Hunter sat down with Meili for a year-end Q and A.

What has been your biggest accomplishment as a party this year?

What we've been able to do is shine a light on some of the real challenges in health care and education in particular. The crisis in our classrooms as well as the hallway medicine that has become the norm under the Sask. Party.

We've got so many people coming forward telling us what's really going on and hearing back, as we're travelling the province, a pretty high level of frustration. This is the most important piece. We're also putting forth some solutions that people are seeing as credible, valuable and worth engaging.

What did you not get accomplished?

I sometimes refer to opposition as the complaint buffet because there are so many things in so many departments that are worth pointing out. It's a tough balance between picking some things to concentrate on as well as making sure you're not leaving anything uncovered.

We've announced our new Saskatchewan plan to move us to renewable energy and in a way that will lower people's bills and put lots of people to work. We've announced a cap on class sizes to get the crisis in our classrooms under control.

What's your criticism of the Premier and the government's handling of relations with Ottawa?

There are things we can do in this province to improve the economy that are actually in our power and that's what's been frustrating is to see more and the Sask. Party, really Premier Moe and the Sask. Party,pointing fingers elsewhere and trying to distract from their own record and missing opportunities to make smart choices here.

Frankly, it seems like they don't really have a lot of ideas about what to do there. And so they're pointing fingers elsewhere or putting out lofty goals but not really having clear, credible plans to actually get them.

The Premier's rationale iswe build the economy and you attract people and create wealth.What do you say to that?

There's also the people side of it and that's what they forget. We need to put people as our first priority. Put that as our main focus. When you invest in people, when everybody's got a chance to have a decent place to live, a decent standard of living, a chance to have their educational personal success. It actually makes you more resilient when times get tough so you're better able to weather tougher times and you're way more ready to take full advantage when things go well.

We've seen under the Sask.Party when things were going fine and prices were high, people were satisfied. The spending went up. As soon as the economy struggled at all, big cuts, a big panic, shutting down STC, cutting health care, cutting social services. They made all these steps backwards because they had no plan for what happens if things don't continue to click along as they'd been lucky enough to see in the previous years.

What can people expect from youand the NDP for the next few months?

I think people have seen a lot of what our approach will be that emphasis on putting people first. Pointing out obviously the troubles under theSask. Party, the lack of ideas and missed opportunities but really coming up with some I think exciting opportunities for us to go forward and renew Saskatchewan.

My focus is to make sure we have a Saskatchewan where everybody's got a chance to do as well as they possibly can and where that shows up in good quality of life for people who are living here.

*Questions and answers were edited for length and clarity

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NDP leader Meili on balance between criticizing government and offering solutions - CBC.ca

In our lifetime, we have all met people with great financial wealth but who seemed to lack substance. And we have also met people who had very little money to their name but deeply felt the extent of our humanity.

As business leaders and entrepreneurs, many of us were trained to separate emotional success from financial success. But the days of "keep your feelings out of business" are long gone. More than ever, we are realizing that it is our moment-to-moment dominant feeling that determines the level of success we experience both emotionally and financially.

Before we go down the rabbit hole called financial emotional intelligence, let me ask you, "What does being financially emotionally intelligent mean to you?"

According to Investopedia, being financially emotionally intelligent has to do with the "need to live within your means. And to live within your means, you must spend less than you make." Do you agree with that definition?

If you do, know that you are not alone. There are many people who think that being financially emotionally intelligent has to do with being financially responsible. Think about it. If somebody borrowed over $100,000 against their line of credit to invest in their personal development, would you call that a financially emotionally intelligent decision? I received a resounding "No!" from those in my immediate environment when I made that decision a long time ago, but back then, I was onto something big. Let me share that something with you.

Financial emotional intelligence is understanding what we feel about money and why. It is really zeroing in on what money means to us emotionally, so we can feelingly welcome more money into our lives and enjoy it. Don't take my word for it. Let's do an exercise together.

Think about the last financial decision you made prior to reading this article. Perhaps you bought yourself a cup of cappuccino. Maybe you paid a supplier or hired a new employee. Whatever that money decision was, did you really stop and take stock of what you were feeling in that moment when the financial transaction took place?

The reason I am stressing the importance of noticing our dominant feeling when money crosses our hands in any form is because we make decisions emotionally before justifying them rationally. Allow me to explain.

Each one of us has a "little" thing called our ego-mind. In every moment, our ego-mind uses the dominant feeling we are experiencing to dip into the pool of beliefs and memories we have associated with that specific feeling. In other words, our ego-mind is constantly validating itself.

When your latest financial transaction took place, what were you feeling about money in that moment? Feel into that feeling and identify the belief/memory that specifically came up for you. Be honest with yourself. Do you now notice how your belief/memory validated your feeling?

It is important for you to be self-aware of this because that belief/memory you just referenced about money determined the next thought you had, which ultimately led to your next financial decision, whether that decision was successful or not.

This is why financial emotional intelligence is an ongoing feedback loop that leads us to experience exactly what we believe about money as we justify to ourselves every single belief and memory through our dominant feeling in the moment.

I get it. It can be daunting to realize that we are the powerful common denominator in every experience we have since we are the ultimate validator of our financial emotional intelligence expressed reality. When I realized that truth for myself, I massively invested in my personal development. I was done fooling myself.

Back then, despite being a finance economist, chartered financial analyst, and emotional intelligence coach, I could not, for the life of me, answer what money meant to me emotionally and why. I had a terrible relationship with money.

After much sweat and tears, I have become the financial emotional intelligence coach who assists business leaders and entrepreneurs in experiencing their ultimate level of success emotionally and financially. I am living debt-free and enjoying a thriving, compassionate relationship with money.

Since I only know what I am living, here are four great advantages of being financially emotionally intelligent:

Letting go of stereotyping:Now that you know there are financially wealthy people who deeply feel the extent of our humanity, keep looking for that evidence.

Owning our lives emotionally and financially: Beliefs are learned, which means they can be unlearned by consciously associating more positive feelings with money. Challenge every money belief you have.

Developing deep, meaningful relationships: When we understand that we are the common denominator in every experience we have, then we understand at a much deeper level how our feelings and money are always walking together and shaping both our business and personal lives. Make money fun again.

Creating the ultimate legacy of success: Financially emotionally intelligent people often ask themselves, "What will others say about me at my eulogy?" and they take inspired action accordingly. Lead by example.

Financial emotional intelligence is the predictor of ultimate success because it is our dominant feeling that constantly determines the kind of business leader and entrepreneur we are. Being financially emotionally intelligent is the most humane thing we can do.

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Why Financial Emotional Intelligence Is The Predictor Of Ultimate Success - Forbes

Purpose, passion and a design that pops are all central to success on the social-media platform.

December 30, 2019 5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Many would argue that understanding how to express a personal brand on social media is one of the most challenging things to do, and yet its necessary, and easier than you may think. A good rule of thumb? Think, What would I do if I were a business?

Although people and their personalities are fluid, adding consistency to what and how you post will equate your personal page with a brand to your followers. The important note here is to continue expressing the brand consistently, because it takes, on average,five-to-seven brand impressions for people to notice what youre doing. Compounded over time, your followers --even the ones who are strangers -- will start to feel like they know you, particularly if you follow these three guidelines.

Related: You Need a Personal Brand. Here's How You Build One.

While you may have many passions and interests, followers want to know what theyll get from you consistently. So, if your one big passion is sustainability, gear your captions and content towards that realm. If you suddenly add posts about digital marketing tactics, it gets a bit confusing for followers who come for your insights on sustainable initiatives.

Sometimes, a good starting place for this big question is considering what you most want to say. Youre the one who will be creating the content, so what is in your heart that you want toteach or share with others? I know that this can be a bit muddy at first, so I recommend writing a personal manifesto. New York Timestech writer Thorin Klosowski suggests that the manifesto should lay out your topics (what you most want to focus on) and your principles (your beliefs and intentions) and do so with strong, affirmative statements. Rather than, I want to be an authoritative voice for women in STEM, write, I AM an authoritative voice. Put this manifesto by your desk or make it your phone wallpaper.

Companies create visual brand books with their logos, colors, fontsand overall brand feel. This is an important step in the creative process of building a business, because it engendersa sense of familiarity for the consumer over time. NDash Marketing VPMatt Solar blogs for Marketothat the psychology of color can help [you] establish trust and familiarity by soliciting the right emotions and increase the brand recognition with the desired reactions that they may provoke.

These colors and fonts can then be used on your Instagram story and any graphic-design posts within your feed. Again, the more consistent you are, the more quickly a follower will recognize that the post is from you when they see these branded markers.

As far as choosing the color goes, I personally went with a dark pink, simply because I like it. Studies find that colors like blue or red are the most popularly used for business brands, but this choice is all personal for you. If you choose a color you like, youre more likely to also have that color as your coffee tumbler or notebook color, so it keeps everything consistent. None of this should be calculated, necessarily. These are just ways to emphasizewhat you already love and express.

Finally, every strong personal brand has a product or concept that typifies its personality or is an extension of what the owner loves. For Spanx founder Sara Blakely, its Cheez-It crackers, and for her husband Jesse Itzler, its bananas. It doesnt necessarily have to be a food (although for many, it is),but the idea here is to ask yourself, What do I love so much that my friends think of me when they see it?

I accidentally discovered mine when I took to my Instagram story last year to discuss my baked-potato woes. As it is my favorite food, I had just ordered one singular baked potato from a steakhouse. For whatever reason, this really resonated with people. I started receiving pictures of baked potatoes with kind notes, and a school I spoke at even posted a picture of baked potatoes on their social-media feeds to announce I was cominng.

This is also something you cant overthink. Because it was a food I actually really liked, it was more probable that Id be eating it more often and that I could enhance this marker of my brand with a picture on my Instagram story every time I did. Its silly, but it works. A client of mine drinkstea every night while she plansher following day, so I told her to get in the habit of posting the quote attached to her teabag. I now call this tactic the baked-potato principle --accidentally establishing resonance with an audience because of a quirky thing youve always loved.

Ill reiterate once again: The secret here is consistency. The more you can create content in alignment with your passion, establish clearly visible brand expressions through color and font and find your own baked potato, the more the expression of your personal brand will become second nature. Andyour followers will feel they know you more than ever.

Link:
3 Stealth Ways to Express Your Personal Brand on Instagram - Entrepreneur

Napa, California | December 30, 2019:Success Strategies Inc.sLynda Paulson, CEO and Executive Coach, has added new sales training and public speaking classes for early January. The results-oriented Winery Hospitality Relationship Sales Training one-day workshopwill be held January 13that Cakebread Cellars in Rutherford, California. Andher two-dayimmersion training course, the Executive Speaking Experience, has been scheduled forJanuary 8th and 9th in Napa. This public speaking and presentation skills course provides hands-on, practical, video-recorded exercises, limited to six participants.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOPS

For the sales training workshop, participants will discover their communication strengths, build poise and confidence, and most importantly, develop relationship sales expertise. These skills will be learned through class demonstrations, discussion, role-playing, and team building exercises. Additional course takeaways include:

The workshop also offers optional pre-class mystery shopping of the winery tasting room, website or phone sales as well as a strategy session with the tasting room manager in order to more fully customize the course material for participants. Participants may also purchase Lynda Paulsons book,Romancing the Grape: Relationship Selling for Wine Professionals.

For the two-day public speaking training course, individual hands-on training sessions with personal coaching; 10 video recordings; written evaluations; practical feedback from peers; a manual with tips and techniques of presentation and communication skills; and a hardcover book, The Executive Persuader, by Lynda Paulson, will be offered.

Students learn how to manage their jitters, think on their feet, and develop poise and presence in front of an audience. Advanced skills such as handling confrontational issues are also taught along with learning to respond to audience Q&A with authority. Some past students have called it, Life changing!

Ive always been a bit intimidated about public speaking (my father was a highly respected speaker, you know what that can do to an offsprings confidence.). So when I mustered up the courage to go to Lynda Paulsons Executive Speakers Experience I wasnt sure what I was in for. I can tell you it was an exceptional professional adventure!

She works with a small group of only 6 people and does video!! The video quickly became a valued tool. Just like with skiing, it is incredibly helpful to see your mannerisms and bearing. I watched others grow and I literally was able to watch my own progress. We all walked away with more authentic style and confidence. I highly recommend her workshop. Were an industry of direct communication. Everyone can use some more confidence and polishI recommend taking advantage of this unique training opportunity, stated Colby Smith, Executive Director & Founder of CANVAS, Concierge Alliance of Napa Valley and Sonoma.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

TAKEAWAYS

ENROLLMENT

Learn more or reserve your seat at:https://winery-hospitality-sales-training-jan2020.eventbrite.com/?aff=WIAorhttps://executive-speaking-experience-jan2020.eventbrite.com/?aff=WIA.Additional classes will be offered later in 2020. Discounts are available for group ticket purchases. Class price includes lunch. Call 775.530.6119 or email[emailprotected]for more information.

ABOUT LYNDA PAULSON

Lynda Paulson has been a sales training coach for more than thirty years withSuccess Strategies, Inc., renowned for teaching sales training, public speaking and communication skills to professionals from over 600 wineries and businesses in the U.S. and Europe. Her coaching techniques have been crafted over decades working with local clients such as the Cakebreads, the Mondavis, the Trincheros, the Martinis, the Wentes and management teams at many local companies. She has also taught training courses at AT&T, American Express, Disney Corporation, Kodak, ING, IBM and many more throughout California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Canada and Europe.

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Success Strategies Offers Executive Speaking Experience Workshops in January 2020 - wineindustryadvisor.com

By Elizabeth Harris, grants manager, Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula

Jorge has been a member of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula (BGCP) since kindergarten and is typically shy and hesitant to take the spotlight. Last spring, when BGCP mentors encouraged him to present an eighth grade speech, Jorge worked with his mentors to improve his writing and public speaking, skills that Jorge knew would be vital to his future success in school.

At the 8th Grade Gala, Jorge gave a commanding speech in front of 100 peers, teachers, and community members about the need for computer science and other programs that prepare low-income youth of color to be competitive in the 21st century job market. His parents and community were proud, but, more importantly, he was proud of himself.

Jorge is one of 2,500 low-income K-post-secondary students benefiting from BGCP programs at three clubhouses and 10 school sites in East Palo Alto, eastern Menlo Park and Redwood City. Although our students live adjacent to some of the wealthiest communities in the world, BGCP students are primarily low-income students of color, and face tremendous odds. Nationwide, only 8% of Latino students graduate from college.

"For students at the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula, it's not a matter of lack of skill, talent or intelligence. The difference is the lack of opportunities that our students have access to," says Esmeralda Ortiz, senior director of high school and post-secondary success programs

BGCP, one of 10 beneficiaries of The Almanac's Holiday Fund this year, wants kids' futures to depend more upon their own actions than upon the circumstances into which they were born. We are not selective and welcome all K-12 students.

Our goal is to provide students with engaging learning experiences, exposure to opportunities that develop interests and passions, relationships with positive role models, and the academic and life skills required to graduate high school and pursue post-secondary education or training.

In addition to the academic support, enrichment, and social-emotional learning programs for all students, students who are at-risk of falling off-track for school success receive intensive second and third grade literacy interventions and sixth through ninth grade one-on-one advising, social-emotional coaching and goal-setting support.

BGCP students also have access to five full-time on-site therapists to address mental health challenges, which are a barrier to many students' success.

After participating in BGCP's summer high school transition program, Jorge is flourishing in ninth grade and demonstrating both personal and academic confidence. The next step in BGCP's K-12 continuum is our Future Grads program, which supports 10th grade through post-secondary students to become the first in their family to graduate from college.

BGCP staff will be proud to see Jorge and many BGCP peers join the over 200 Future Grad students who have graduated high school and the 89% that have enrolled in college.

To learn more about the nonprofit, visit bgcp.org.

Donations to The Almanac's Holiday Fund benefit the Ecumenical Hunger Program and nine other nonprofits serving the local community. To donate, go here.

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Holiday Fund: Nonprofit Boys & Girls Clubs addresses the opportunity gap - The Almanac Online

Young entrepreneur Callum Eckersley has set his business up for an excellent start at the turn of a new decade.

Former personal trainer Callum was one of four like-minded people to set up 4FITT, in Newcastle, in 2014 after identifying a gap in the market for a community-based workout space.

Now, thanks to its increasing popularity, 4FITT has opened a second facility in Victoria Road, Fenton, and has spent more than 50,000 to extend and refurbish its Water Street headquarters which now boasts showers and changing rooms.

Callum said: We found a niche in the market and developed a service that offers fitness enthusiasts a middle ground between big circuit-style training and CrossFit.

Weve taken the best of both and adapted the offering to give people a community style place to train, where members support one another with achieving their goals.

We are known for our highly adaptable, high intensity and creative class set-ups.

We have a genuine desire to help our clients achieve their fitness ambitions and do so through our challenges, from fat loss to strength challenges.

They can totally immerse themselves within a style of training theyve never experienced before.

At 4FITT, customers can benefit from gym classes, challenges, personal training, diet plans, nutrition advice and body fat assessments.

The gym has a variety of equipment and rooms set up to meet the taste of individuals preferred training style something which has been integral to its success.

Now Callum who set up 4FITT when he was aged just 24 has entered The Sentinel Business Awards in the Young Business Person of the Year category, sponsored by Myclevergroup.

He added: All of our capital goes into the quality of equipment for our customers and things that impact on their enjoyment in the classes, rather than the cosmetics of the building.

Wed rather spend money on things that matter to clients when theyre training to create a much better experience for customers.

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Business Awards: Personal trainer fit to burst at success of workout spaces - Stoke-on-Trent Live

An accomplished publisher and editor since his mid-20s, he succeeded the revered Robert Gottlieb in 1987 as just the third Knopf editor-in-chief in its 72-year history and over the following decades fashioned his own record of critical and commercial success. He continued to publish celebrated authors signed on by Gottlieb, including Morrison and Robert Caro, while adding newer talent such as Tommy Orange, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Karen Russell.

Knopf also was home to some of the best-selling works in recent times. In 2008, Mehta acquired U.S. rights to a trilogy of crime fiction by a dead Swedish journalist, Stieg Larsson's "Millennium series, which went on to sell tens of millions of copies. In 2012, the paperback imprint Vintage won a bidding war for an explicit erotic trilogy that at the time could only be read digitally, E L James' "Fifty Shades" novels. Other top sellers released during Mehta's reign included Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In," Bill Clinton's "My Life" and Cheryl Strayeds Wild. When the Center for Fiction honored Mehta in 2018 with a lifetime achievement award, tributes were written by Joan Didion, Haruki Murakami and Anne Tyler, who praised his precision and deft assurance and called him the Fred Astaire of editing.

Knopf's catalog often reflected Mehta's own broad curiosity. In a single season, the publisher might release new fiction by Morrison and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, crime novels by P.D. James and James Ellroy, poetry by Anne Carson and Philip Levine, history by John Keegan and Joseph Ellis, humor by Nora Ephron and memoirs by Bill Clinton or Katharine Hepburn or Andre Agassi. Knopf also appreciated the rewards of patience, allowing Caro to spend years between each installment of his Lyndon Johnson biographies, a decades-long project that sold hundreds of thousands of copies and brought Caro numerous awards.

Mehta was born Ajai Singh Mehta, the bookish son of Indian diplomat Amrik Singh Mehta. He lived everywhere from Geneva to Nepal as a child and graduated from Cambridge University with degrees in history and English literature. Choosing book publishing over his parents wishes he become a diplomat. Mehta needed little time to make an impact in London, helping to launch the literary career of his college friend Germaine Greer and introducing British readers to the profane Americana of Hunter S. Thompson. With Pan Books, he released works by rising authors such as Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie, while signing up Jackie Collins, Douglas Adams and other best-sellers. He was Gottliebs personal choice to take over at Knopf, but still faced initial wariness from the staff.

"People ... had the terrible fear that I was going to suddenly publish Jackie Collins over here and really sort of lower the tone of the place," Mehta told Publishers Weekly in 2015. "I think the difference was that I probably encouraged people to market a lot more than they were in the habit of doing. I encouraged them to look at a certain type of literary fiction and see it wasn't necessarily intended for some kind of ghetto, that there was a bigger market for it."

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Sonny Mehta, Visionary Head of Alfred A. Knopf, Dies at 77 - The New York Times

One of the best ways to learn vital lessons is the hard way -- by making mistakes that we don't forget. That's not the preferred way to learn, though. It's much better simply learning from others, who offer bits of wisdom, sometimes based on lessons they themselves learned the hard way.

Here are a dozen quotations that can make you far savvier about your money and how you manage it -- which, in turn, can help you grow wealthier and more financially secure. See how many you can take to heart -- or even commit to memory.

Image source: Getty Images.

You might not think you're basing your retirement plan on magic, but if you're simply taking some actions here and there without a plan, you're engaging in magical thinking, leaving a lot to chance and hoping for the best. Take some time to come up with a solid retirement plan that lays out how you'll invest over time to reach your financial goals and have a secure future.

It's common for many people to get their paychecks, pay for this and that, and then, with insufficient funds to pay for something important, to wonder where the money went. Well, if you create a budget for yourself, the process of creating it can help you see exactly where your money is going -- and it can help you spot areas where you can cut back in order to save more. Budgeting is a vital tool that can help you manage your money more effectively.

It can be hard to not spend freely, especially when we have pockets full of credit cards. But tweak your thinking a bit, and restraint can come easier. For example, let Thoreau's words sink in, because they're true. If you work a 40-hour week and earn, say, $50,000 per year, you're collecting about $24 per hour. So if you're thinking about buying a $144 jacket, ask yourself not only whether you need it and will wear it, but if you're willing to allocate six hours of your life to it, because that's how long you'll have to work to earn the money for it. Thinking about a fancy $2,400 camera or bicycle? That's 100 hours -- close to two weeks' worth of work.

Debt is a pernicious thing. If you don't manage it well, you can end up paying much more in interest than you borrowed in the first place. That happens routinely and oftenunavoidably with mortgages, especially in high-interest-rate environments. But it shouldn't happen with credit card debt and other debts. Being locked into onerous repayments can hurt your ability to achieve financial goals such as saving for retirement, college, or a down payment. If, for example, you're carrying $25,000 on your credit cards from year to year and you're being charged 20% interest on it, you're forking over $5,000 per year! That money could be much better spent, no? Aim to get out of debt as soon as you can.

Whether you earn $19,000, $75,000, or $300,000 per year will make a difference in your life in plenty of ways, but a low income doesn't necessarily doom you to financial ruin. Many low-income people can find ways to save money and can learn to invest in stocks, thereby building wealth gradually. That's how more than a few secretaries, teachers, and janitors ended up with millions.

Image source: Getty Images.

Many people think of shares of stock as mere pieces of paper, or even as lottery tickets -- investments that could soar or plunge in value, almost at random. That's wrong, though. A share of stock in a public company is actually a stake in the company itself -- it makes you a co-owner of the company, entitled to share in its successes and failures. When you consider buying shares of a stock, be sure to think about the underlying company -- ask yourself how comfortable you'd be owning the entire enterprise, how confident you are in its ability to prosper long-term, and so on. Aim to be a long-term owner of companies you strongly believe in.

Super investor Warren Buffett has famously quipped that he'd be fine with the stock market if it was only open for business once a year. He's not interested in trading frequently and jumping in and out of stocks every day or week. When he buys companies, he tends to hold them forever: He boughtSee's Candy in 1972 and GEICO in 1976, and still owns them both -- among many other holdings. He boughtshares of American Expressin 1964 and shares of Coca-Colain 1988, and they remain major holdings in his portfolio today. He's worth tens of billions of dollars today in large part due to patience. Meanwhile, those who trade actively face headwinds such as commission costs and short-term capital gains tax rates, which are generally higher than rates for long-term gains. Day traders, the most active of all, are frequently simply wiped out entirely.

Few of us really have the time, interest, and skill to study the universe of stocks and carefully select the most promising individual stocks in which to invest. Doing so also means we would have to keep up with our holdings regularly and know when to sell. Thus, it's very handy that we have a simple alternative that actually performs very well -- low-fee, broad-market index funds. They're mutual funds that track a particular index of stocks (or other securities), holding roughly the same ones in roughly the same proportion. Due largely to their ultra-low fees, index funds outperform the vast majority of actively managed mutual funds. Indeed, asof the middle of 2019, fully 90% of large-cap stock funds underperformed the S&P 500 over the past 15 years.

The stock market is up around 30% so far this year, at the time of this writing, and over long periods it has averaged an annual rate of return close to 10%. That doesn't mean that your investments will earn 30% or even 10% this year, or over many years. You might average 8% or 12% or something else. It's great to hope for the best -- and to position yourself to take advantage of a great growth rate by investing sizable sums regularly -- but do brace yourself for poor performances and possibly worse things. Be sure you have insurance to cover any loss of health, life, or property, and that you have an emergency fund loaded with enough dollars to cover your living expenses (including taxes, utilities, transportation, and so on) for six to nine months in case you suffer a job loss or health setback.

Failure can hurt, but it's usually not the end of the story. The most successful people have usually got lots of failures behind them. There are often great lessons to be learned from failures. Don't view a market crash as a failure, either: If you're invested in stocks for the long run, you'll inevitably experience market crashes, and they're not times to panic and sell. Rather, they're generally excellent times to load up on more shares of stock, as those shares are on sale.

One of the best investments you can make is not in stocks or bonds or real estate, but in yourself. If you keep reading and learning about investing, your portfolio will likely perform better for you. If you learn more about your field of work -- perhaps adding a new degree or certification -- you may advance faster and earn more. If you learn about a different field of work that seems more appealing, you may be able to switch into a more satisfying career for many years. Simply reading broadly, about subjects such as history, psychology, and science, can make you a more interesting and effective person in many facets of your life.

Finally, while money is important, and most of us do need to accumulate a lot of it for our retirement, it's not everything. And it certainly shouldn't be taken as any kind of measure of your worth. Even Warren Buffettwould agree, as he has said: "Basically, when you get to my age, you'll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you."

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12 Quotes That Will Make You Rethink Your Personal Finances - The Motley Fool

An environmental campaigner in Glasgow. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Archive/PA Images

John Murton, now in his late 50s, has had a distinguished foreign office career, which includes ambassadorial posts to several countries in Africa. He lists his passions as renewable energy and Welsh rugby and he tweets in a cheerfully upbeat tone: his response, for example, to an election result that might have daunted the most resilient foreign office heart, was an enthusiastic tweet that pointed out that all parties were committed to net zerothe UKs ambition to bring emissions and carbon removal into balance (by 2050 under current plans).

He will need all that optimism in the coming months, along with consistent application of persuasive charm, another of his personal assets. As the UKs envoy to COP26, shorthand for the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, he faces the diplomatic equivalent of rowing single handed across the Pacific.

Getting a result at COP26 that meets the planetary need would be a challenge, even had the UK not been intent on tearing up its current relationship with its nearest neighbours. As host, the UK will be remembered for its successor failurein Glasgow in November 2020.

These conferences happen every year, so COP26 reminds us that it is more than a quarter of century since 196 countries and the EU agreed that climate change was dangerous to humanity.

Every year since then, they have met to try to agreesome more convincingly than otherson how to avoid the catastrophe that we now confront. Critics complain that the annual circus contributes to carbon emissions and has achieved little: thousands of peoplepolitical leaders, activists, negotiators, journalistsfly around the globe each year to participate, and it is tempting after less successful conferenceslike COP25, which concluded in Madrid with some big issues unresolvedto see the whole lumbering process as costly and ineffective.

But there is no better forum in which to negotiate who does what and who paysthe two basic questions at the heart of this global enterpriseand, despite its flaws, without the UNFCCC and the action that it has stimulated, including the crucial scientific assessments that inform it, we might be looking at a possible 8C degrees of warming instead of the three that remain embedded under the current plans. This has been achieved despite the momentous two decades of growth in China, with its associated coal-fired energy boom, and the ambivalence of the United States, which could generously be described as intermittently helpful.

So while it is true that humanity is nowhere near the level of emissions cuts that is needed, we are substantially closer than we would have been without the UNFCCC. Meanwhile,the impacts of the one degree of warming we have already racked up are becoming inescapable, except perhaps to the Australian prime minister, who dismisses reckless calls to curb coal mining; the rising chorus of scientific assessment is overwhelming; a mass youth movement has taken to the streets around the world to demand action; and even financial institutions are beginning to understand that the global economy rests, as does all human activity and planetary life, on a natural world that we have brought to the brink of collapse. Murtons task is to coax the players into committing to the radical and urgent action that is now needed to save our cities, our people and our livelihoods.

On the upside, there is a much wider understanding of the dangers than 25 years ago and a much more highly developed set of technologies that, properly applied, will be the foundation of decarbonising of the global economy. It is not hard to see that human security depends on making that transition, and that such a transition could deliver a cleaner, healthier and more equitable life.

There is also a basic frameworkthe Paris Agreement of 2015 that, until the withdrawal of Donald Trumps US, includes every nation on earth. Trump denounced it, bizarrely, as unfair to the United States, despite the fact that the US pledges were determined by none other than the US itself.

But the lessons of the Paris Agreement are that to achieve a successful outcome in Glasgow will demand extraordinary reserves of political will and effort. Since that moment in December 2015 when the gavel came down on the Paris Agreement, almost every positive diplomatic factor that contributed to success has either been reversed or slowed down. The result in Paris had come after two years of intense French diplomatic effort: they drew lessons from the bruising failure of the Copenhagen meeting in 2009, identified every possible roadblock, and worked out how they might be circumvented or removed.

During the two weeks of the conference itself, they operated as skilled firefighters, ensuring that hitches did not break out into crises. It was an impressive operation, but it would not have succeeded without a number of supporting elements, among them the bilateral agreement on climate cooperation struck between Barack Obama and Xi Jinping in 2013. That had helped to remove one of the major roadblocks and transformed a confrontation between the worlds two biggest emitters into cooperation.

The Paris Agreement establishes a framework in which each country pledges to take action. Countries were asked to update their commitments by 2020, by which time a common rule book would have been agreed and a mechanism for richer countries to support emerging economies to choose a low-carbon development model. The target was to limit warming to less than 2C, which many argued was a safe level. It is now clear that 1.5C is the maximum that we could consider safe. The commitments on the table in Paris would not stop us exceeding 3C of warming before the end of the century, and global emissions today are 4 per cent above the levels of 2015. To meet a 1.5 degree target the world must reverse that growth next year and cut emissions by more than 7 per cent a year for the next decade.

The problem that Murton and his team now confront is that collective action is undermined by growing instability. Not only has the US administration gone climate-rogue, it is encouraging others to sabotage the talks. States with high dependency on fossil fuelsSaudi Arabia, Australia, even Polandshelter in the US shadow and work their own mischief. US-China climate cooperation has been replaced by the US-China trade war, and although China remains a party to the agreement, it is now prioritising support for its slowing economy.

The behaviour of the two biggest emitters stands in contrast to that of small- and medium-sized countries at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit in New York. Some 68 nations have promised to raise their ambition for Glasgow. And despite the US presidents abdication, nearly 70 per cent of US GDP in the shape of states, cities and business remains committed to the process. One key development Murtons team will be watching is how much leadership the EU will offer. In December, the EU proposed to halve emissions in the next ten years and pledged to reach net zero by 2050, which, if it is achievable despite the opposition of coal enthusiasts in Poland and Hungary, will be an important bright spot in a darkening landscape. No doubt the irony of the UK position has not escaped Murton: just as the UK seems intent on destroying its 45-year relationships in Europe, the EU is the steadiest and most promising friend of the Glasgow COP.

Excerpt from:
The UK will be remembered for success or failure at the Glasgow climate summit - Prospect

Dana with cat, Beetlejuice.

I really thought I was going to go be a doctor, Dana Schwartz says about her time as a pre-med student in college. Then I had this panicked moment of realizing I was so fundamentally unhappy. My dream was always to be a writer, but I never thought I could make a living that way. But now after three books in the last three years and more projects in the works, that dream has been fully realized for Schwartz.

The 26-year-old author has written the YA novel titled And We're Off and a memoir, Choose Your Own Disaster. Last month she released a humor book, The White Man's Guide to White Male Writers of the Western Canon, with cartoonist Jason Adam Katzenstein. She is the host of the iHeartRadio podcast, Noble Blood, which is executive produced by Lores Aaron Mahnke. She is also working as a writer on Marvels upcoming She-Hulk TV show on Disney+.

While Schwartz was always a voracious reader and liked to write short stories, her writing career began on Twitter. In college, she started the popular twitter account, GuyInYourMFA. It made was making fun of basically my own insecurities when it came to the literary world, making fun of the lit-bros who intimidated me, she says. It got me traction and attention on the internet, which gave me the boost of confidence to think, maybe I could do this.

Her newfound confidence led her to freelancing which led her to a job at Entertainment Weekly. While her online writing portfolio grew, it was still her GuyInYourMFA account that created an opening for her to write books. I had a few publishers reach out to me after the success of the parody Twitter account, she says. Every good thing that has happened to me has been because I made something and put it out in the world. Work begets more work. Its less about having social media to check a box, its more about using social media as a tool to show your sense of humor and your sensibility.

Schwartz has chosen to work in a new genre for every book. I have been all over the place in terms of my work. Some people have said that I would have done better professionally if I had stuck to a more consistent personal brand, she says. The through-line is its always something Im genuinely interested in and excited about. I have never done anything because I thought it would be good for my career, its all things I love.

While Schwartz has bounced between genres and mediums, her newest book returns to her roots making fun of white male writers and the men who worship them. Its a full circle because its loosely based on the guy in your MFA character, she says. Each of my books has been an entirely different experience, she explains. With the humor book, it was just so much fun. I had to do a lot of research into the writers I was making fun of. I was so lucky to have Jason do illustrations which made everything funnier.

Schwartz maintains a busy schedule. Even with the book published, she still has to juggle her podcast, TV job, and new projects, but Schwartz takes it in stride. She says, Success is getting up every day and writing for a living.

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26-Year-Old Dana Schwartz Doesnt Need To Stick To A Genre - Forbes