(Image www.wtnphotos.com)

What an odd heading. What has your (and my) success got anything to do with women’s Tennis?

I’ll start by listing the top female players in the world using the WTP tour rankings . This was done at the time of writing so if it changes by the time you read it don’t worry… I’m strongly convinced that my point will still stay valid! Well for the next 5-10 yrs anyway.

Top 10 – Women

1. Dinara Safina (RUS)
2. Serena Williams (USA)
3. Elena Dementieva (RUS)
4. Jelena Jankovic (SRB)
5. Venus Williams (USA)
6. Vera Zvonareva (RUS)
7. Ana Ivanovic (SRB)
8. Victoria Azarenka (BLR)
9. Svetlana Kuznetsova (RSA)
10. Nadia Petrova (RUS)

I know your thinking, where am I going with this? Your looking at the similarities and considering whether your name should end in an “a” or that you need to be from Russia or the Balkans in order to become successful. You could try that but there’s a little more to it.

Let me give you a brief run down of the dominant nations here, namely those countries that form part of the former Republic of Yugoslavia as well as Russia. I can see you just sitting there thinking I’ve gone mad with nostalgic school history delirium. Maybe I have a bit but bare with me, just give me 3-4 minutes of your time, it will make sense shortly.

I’ll be going through a very brief time-line after WWII. I’m doing this because that will give us a bit of a background of the Baby Boomers, ie the generation that belongs to the parents’ of these top players. Please note I’m using the great resource of Wikipedia and Infoplease.com for the first example. I’m not that gifted to be able to remember these facts my own!! By no means have I covered everything but there is a chance, and probably have, the facts a little bit mixed up but that’s not my point here. I will get to this a bit later.

Courtesy www.yale.edu

Countries that form the former Republic of Yugoslavia:

• On January 31, 1946, the new constitution of Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia was formed
  
• The country distanced itself from the Soviets in 1948 and started to build its own way to socialism under the strong political leadership of Josip Broz Tito.
• After Tito’s death on 4 May 1980, ethnic tensions grew in Yugoslavia, especially in Kosovo between ethnic Albanians and Serbs.
• 1991 Slovenia and Croatia each declare independence. Because 12% of Croatia’s population is Serbian, Yugoslavia fights hard against its secession for the next four years. As Croatia moves towards independence, it evicts most of its Serbian population.
• 1992 Ethnic tensions strain to the breaking point, and Bosnia erupts into war. Thousands die and more than a million are displaced. By the time a tenuous peace is achieved in 1995, the country has been partitioned into three areas, with each region governed by one of the three ethnic groups.
• 1996 In the southern Yugoslavian province of Kosovo, the militant Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) begins attacking Serbian policeman.
• 1998 Milosevic sends troops to Kosovo to quash unrest in the province. A guerrilla war breaks out.
• 1999 After peace talks fail, NATO carries through on its threat to launch airstrikes on Serbian targets.
• 2000 A popular uprising begins. A general strike is called and one million people flood Belgrade. Mobs attack Parliament building, security forces join them or retreat. Milosevic support crumbles, he steps down. Kostunica takes office. U.S., European Union begin to lift economic sanctions
• 2001 Milosevic is arrested by Yugoslavian authorities and charged with corruption and abuse of power.

Let me guess I’ve gone mad now haven’t I? Once again just bare with me a little. Now lets briefly (very briefly) go over Russia. Again I’m looking at post WWII Russia for the same reasons mentioned earlier. Sources used here are Wikipedia and a great Yahoo answer I found which summed it up nicely.

Courtesy www.yvonnefoong.com

• Soviet Union emerged from World War II considerably stronger than it had been before the war. Despite huge losses to its Red Army it extended its control over most of Eastern Europe known as the ‘Iron Curtain’ which separated the ‘Free Peoples’ of Western Europe from the Communist East. (The curtain was made tangible by the ‘Berlin Wall’, which bisected that city after 1961.)
• Despite its power, life in the country continued to suffer. Industrial production was once again concentrated on heavy industry, agricultural failures produced widespread famine, political freedoms were restricted even further, and another huge wave of purges was carried out.
• The Russian leaders also killed an unprecedented number of political prisoners, mainly by shipping them to Siberia or the far north (the ‘gulags’), where they either worked themselves to death or froze.
• In 1989, Russian control of Eastern Europe collapsed, and the Berlin Wall was torn down.

Ok so hopefully you have stuck around to read what I have to say and why I bothered to write a brief history of these nations. What in the world its got to do with womens Tennis and business success?

No one can read through these histories lightly. Many of the incidents that occured are shocking and disturbing. Citizens were subject to the most terrifying conditions where their main goal was to survive until the next day. People who have been subjected to these times of war and hardship have witnessed things people like me, living in the comfort of Australia, don’t dare imagine. These are people of a different mindset and a completely different level of drive and determination. Their drive is one motivated by survival.

As we can see, eight out of the top 10 women tennis players in the world are from these regions. That’s 80%. These are people who’s family history is of an extremely overwhelming background. Their parents were most likely subject to unimaginable hardships and the drive to be successful is paramount. For many of these families, the mentality was that being successful, meant survival. Their drive to succeed was fueled by the prospect of a better life.

You often hear stories of these tennis players starting at an extremely young age, being sent off to Florida alone at the age of 12 in order to make it in professional Tennis. These stories are fueled with over zealous and demanding parents expecting nothing less that success from their children. Why? Because to them, after what they have endured, that success is a matter of survival. Sure, currently the situation in the nations at hand are not what they once were, but the survival mentality and the drive to succeed does not subside.

So to me its not surprising to see a burst of talented Russians, Serbians and Croatians making headlines in the world of professional tennis. The age they enter the sport is rather fitting if you look at what their family and most likely their parents endured.

What I’m trying to get at here is that we can look towards these players for inspiration. Inspiration when it comes to drive and motivation. For us, if we fail we pick ourselves up and try something new. Not all of us have this type of drive and our privileged and cushy lifestyles make it difficult to possess such a level of determination. This is not a bad thing as we take comfort for granted which should not be frowned upon, but understood. If we do fail, its actually not that bad as you can simply pick yourself up and move on or try again.

But I’m going finish this here. I’m not going to conclude my argument or my thoughts, I’ll let you do that. However I will pose this question: how different would your approach to life and success be if failure was truly not an option?

People fear failure and that’s perfectly understandable. What stops people going into business for themselves? Most commonly, it’s the risk of not having a steady income which to them is a bi-product of failing. So it’s safe to assume that there is always an element of fear of failure which turns people off chasing their dream.

I like failure and I get excited about big flops. I love set backs and obstacles that present themselves and really enjoy losing a lot of money.

Well the previous sentence may not be entirely true but there is an element of truth to it. Every entrepreneur tackles a certain business or project with the aim of succeeding and inevitably if you don’t succeed you may get a bit bummed out. However what you also must (try to) remember is that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction (Newton’s law). Even better, when applied to the business world it should read “for every action there is an equal or greater reaction”. If you take one step backwards it will usually be superseded by 1, possibly 2 or 3 steps forward. The key is to embrace this powerful concept. When something goes wrong sit back and think about what this failure is trying to tell you. Remember that with your failure there will come a greater benefit in the future.

This brings me to my next question: why would you want small failures? What’s the point of thinking small and losing small? The key is to think BIG. Put yourself out there and if your going to fail, make sure it is BIG. With BIG (preferably Public!) failures will come even BIGGER rewards. The best businessmen understand how to think big and many along the way have also lost big. During these tough times they have been able to bounce back, not just breaking even but launching themselves into their next level of business success.

The problem with small successes and small failures is that they keep you complacent. Limiting yourself to making small gains is the catalyst to settling with what you have. You have not lost much so who cares? Big failures force you to learn, understand and analyse to ensuring your next move is wiser, better and more effective. If your stuck with insignificant small gains and small losses then that will define your business life and it will be just that, insignificant. No one will really notice your losses and no one is going to notice your gains. I know your not this type of person, why else would you be reading this?

The aim here is not to get you to go out and try to fail or lose a lot of money but rather to help you understand that failing is something that should be embraced rather than frowned upon. It makes you stronger and wiser. Take sport as a great example. If you play a sport the only way you’ll improve is to play people better than you and who will beat you. Your failures and losses will point out the areas where you need to improve so you can come back better and stronger until you eventually can win. The you go up another level and start the process again. Playing people far lesser skilled than you does nothing for your skills and you will miss out on the chance to improve your abilities. This is no different in your business life. Set yourself up to play with the big boys and play tough but fair. You will lose and fail along the way, but it will make you stronger and the rewards will be greater.

Looking back at my own experiences I am always been able to find a positive to come out of every negative. Each of these positives have far outweighed any losses initially incurred. In my mobile business I initially paid upwards of $10,000 per mobile application and this left me and my company financially debilitated. Now I manage to get it done for under $1000 which is a massive saving. It enables me to create 10 applications for the cost it used to cost me to make just 1. This was mainly due to being forced back and challenged to find opportunities which provided greater value. This was done without me even acknowledging it and it was only in hindsight that I realised that I overcome that obstacle, ten-fold. I learnt from my negative experiences in outsourcing which cost me many thousands of dollars in programming as well as cost in time. What I learned from these failures has enabled me to increase efficiency far beyond any monetary loss that I once thought was wasted.

What to take note in these examples is that if I didn’t lose I’d still be in the same situation.If I had won a little then why would I change? What would tell me there was a much better way to do things? Nothing. Use your failures to your advantage and remind yourself that big failures manifest into even bigger returns, you only just need to embrace it.

A standard macro economic stabiliser is through the governments ability to adjust its monetary policy. This is one method the Australian government has been able to use in its attempts to boost the local economy. The general thinking behind it is quit simple: The biggest money sucker for most households is that of mortgage payments. Changes to the monetary policy allows the government, the Reserve Bank rather,  to cut interest rates in order to, among other things, reduce the payment burden for households (assuming the cut is passed on by the banks). Households then have more money, hopefully now they go out and spend more and therefore improve lead to a boost in the economy. Simple really and full credit to the Aussie government being able to have enough elasticity and leeway to be able to use this policy in tough times (take note US!)

Reading the opening paragraph you may be forgiven to believe that I am fully supportive of the rate cuts. I am supportive in a purely objective way but personally it has me frustrated to no end and I’m sure many people have the same sentiment. I was the poor sap who decided to fix the their mortgage when the interest rate was at its highest, concerned about the rate continuing to grow. Now after rate cut followed by more rate cuts the interest rates are the lowest since the 60’s! Since the 60’s!

Well before you all jump for joy remember those misguided and unfortunate souls, like me, who locked in one of the highest rates in history during a time when they are at the lowest in almost half a century. Then jump a little more… I would!

From December 8, 2008 the Australian Rudd Government put forth a $10.4 billion dollar Economic Security Strategy.

According to www.pm.gov.au the spending was broken down as follows:

• $4.8 billion for an immediate down payment on long term pension reform.
• $3.9 billion in support payments for low and middle income families.
• $1.5 billion investment to help first home buyers purchase a home.
• $187 million to create 56,000 new training places in 2008-09.

The overall chief aim was to strengthen the national economy and support Australian households.

I agree with the latter portion of this statement referring to the supporting of Australian households. Considering that the funding was distributed to groups most needy, notably pensioners, lower and middle income families as well as first home buyers.

However it’s the ’strengthen the national economy’ bit that I largely disagree with. If the Rudd Government had intended on boosting consumer spending by pumping 10.4 billion into this market then I’d like to know the logic behind it. In the aftermath of the distribution many retailers were left stumped as to how little effect this had on sales. Most vocal was that of Gerry Harvey, chairman and founder of the Harvey Norman franchise who claimed that this stimulus did very little to boost sales.

I’m not surprised this stimulus didn’t have the desired effect, albeit only a minimal one. Such a stimulus, directed to the debt riddled population would do very little to get these guys spending to give the economy it’s much needed boost. Instead of the funds being spent on a new TV or a wardrobe upgrade, the cash was undoubtedly used to relieve some debilitating debt, paying off bills, the mortgage or the credit card.

It’s an unfortunate case of catch 22 where the people who need the money are the one’s who will spend it in ways which will not benefit the economy. Yet those that are privileged and deemed not needy by the government, are the exact people who would spend any stimulus back into the economy.

It’s easy to see why this path wasn’t taken… give to the rich? That won’t look good, it might work, but definitely won’t look good!

In light of the current $42b package, another thought that’s circulating through my brain is whether the stimulus packages are a result of the governments ‘knee-jerk-response’, something that has cost the country heavily in the past. The need “to do something” seems the main reason for the actions rather than a planned and structured spending process to achieve maximum effect. After all how can anyone ascertain the best way to spend 42 billion in the space of a month? Kevin Rudd himself stated “The most irresponsible thing to do today, with the worst global economic recession since the 1930s staring us in the face, would be to do nothing,”. Is it possibly a sign to show the Australian people that the government is quick to act and really cares in times of crisis. Im not the only one in doubt, with various publications showing little support for the package. For a brief editorial rundown visit OpenPolitik

I’m sceptical but I sincerly hope the next round of stimulus funding addresses the issues at hand, or at least takes note that cashing up the needy may not be the way to go if economic stimulation is the resounding aim.