Year: 2013

Life is wonderful

I ran away from cold Sweden to warm and sunny Spain and find myself on one of the Canary Islands for Christmas. I took a friend with me and now everyday is characterized by sleeping, eating, laying on the beach and reading, reading, and more reading. Massage, detox, fresh sea air, meditations and yoga in the mornings at the beach, power walking in the evening… Diving with beautiful fish. I left my computer at home on purpose and took paper books, audio books and beautiful bikinis instead 😉 This picture, full of inspiration, is a special gift for Life as an Investment readers. Merry Christmas! Love,  Norda.

Christmas is coming…. and again about spending habits

 A special for you today with some tips on how to avoid debt hole after Christmas celebration, how to manage your fears, think wisely and make good presents without great expenses.   All cultures have different traditions of celebrating Christmas. Even the days differ: Swedes celebrate the 24th of December, USA and UK on 25 th, Russia and Greece go nuts as usual and celebrate on 6th and 7th of January. The traditions of giving the presents on Christmas also vary.  While Swedes are very overly generous when distributing Christmas presents compared to other countries, Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) recently published an article about the dangerous situations that arise as a result of giving gifts in the Christmas spirit.  The following quote stuck out to me especially:  “20% of people, according SvD, are ready to take a credit in the bank to buy Christmas presents.” Idiots! (It makes me angry! I simply cannot tolerate stupidity). I have nothing against generosity, but I have a lot of against the stupidity of people that allows them to  put themselves into debt hole.  All because of certain …

Embracing failure at TEDx Stockholm

This Thusday  TEDx Stockholm was holding an event “Embracing failure” in the heart of Östermalm at Grev Turegatan 30. Life as an Investment visited this event in order to get some new viewpoints on the “failure” from very inspiring speakers: Johan Ernst Nilson –  “environmental explorer”, Tor Rauden Källstigen -CEO & Founder of Loopcam and Mona Sahlin a former Minister of Labor and Deputy Prime Minister in Sweden. All the speakers had something to say and share but the most memorable, logical and clearly formulated points were by Johan Ernst Nilson. Here are some notes that were taken during his speech: 1. Always define your goals. There is very thin line between your dreams and your goals. By giving your dreams a definition, they became goals, and therefore they become achievable. 2. Learn from other people’s mistakes. It is cheaper, easier and less painful. 3. Postpone the success for the later time. If you did not achieve the goal today as you planned, tell yourself, “I have not lost; I just postponed the result I want till the later …

Spending habits….. part two

It seemed to be much easier to describe bad spending habits than to write an article about how to change them. And it is quite clear why: many people have these bad spending habits, but the correct way to change them varies individually. 1. Parents’ example. If you spend the way you spend because of your parents and their example and you are 19 at that time – it is okay. But if you are 30 and you are still blaming your parents for your bad habits – it is your choice to do so!  You can choose to blame them until the end of your life, instead of sitting down and writing a list about what they did with their assets, what you think they did wrong and why.  Put that list on the door so it will be the last thing you see  before leaving your home on the way to work every day.  Promise to yourself to never return to your old spending habits.  You might also need to go to psychotherapist and talk with …

I want this N O W !!!

To be able to invest and multiply our assets, we need to understand ourselves first and, in particularly, our spending habits. I will never forget a situation happened almost a year ago with my friends. We were sitting in a very nice and cozy Italian restaurant with 7 friends of mine after the ski day in mountains. All  my friends work at good positions in big international companies for quite a long time. It was Sunday night, 24 th of February. When the desserts were served my friends began talking about staying a little bit longer and waiting before midnight. I asked if it was any after ski tradition or so. They replied that there was no specific tradition; they just needed to wait for a midnight, because it was a salary day and exactly at 12 a.m. in the morning their bank account would receive thier monthly wage so they could pay for a dinner…. Continuing the discussion started a week ago about how we are influenced by the society we live in (Friday …

Friday people vs. Monday people

Officially, Friday arrives in the morning when I open Facebook—and that’s when the majority of my friends are posting pictures and status updates for one single purpose: to share with the world that Friday has finally Rolled Up! Why is Friday so worthy? For many folks Friday is rightfully the end of a week worth of prison time—popularly known as “the job.” So, Monday’s are always the first day of going to prison. Most of us tend to dash out of the office at exactly 5 p.m. every Friday (yep, happens here in Sweden too), or even earlier if the opportunity arises. So, for the most part when the office door is closed and the badge comes off—thankfully, life begins again. Friday symbolizes a chance: To rest with the family. To get drunk because we have Saturday and Sunday to recover. To fly away on a mini vacation. To hit the clubs, meet up with friends, etc. To do something we really like. Does this mean that some of us don’t really like what we …

We are all made of stars

We are all made of stars.

Hello all! How are you? How was your day? Fine, I hope. You know, my literature teacher in high school used to love making us write incredibly long essays. When we complained about trouble getting started, mainly due to the broad subject matter, she used to say, “Just start writing about something and it doesn’t matter what you write about, then leisurely go back to the subject’s main theme.” Surprisingly, it really helped. Today it’s difficult for me to start this blog. I can’t really put my finger on it. At any rate, my dear readers, I’m not going tell you who I am, what I do, my sex or nationality, my education, or the color of my skin and the color of my hair. I’m not going to reveal any pictures or tags of me in a coffee shop around the corner. My aim for the moment is for you to maintain a clear mind free from prejudices and clichés. Nevertheless, you should have some sort of certainty. Hmm… let’s say I am a …