Motivating Your Team In These Challenging Times

Surprise, surprise: According to a research study from the Ceridian Corporation in 2008, employees are most productive when they enjoy their work. But as you may know, even the most engaged employees can start to lose their drive if they feel overwhelmed, under-appreciated or panicking about job layoffs. So how can you as a manager keep your team members motivated when the workplace becomes stressful?

According to Ceridian, if everyone is working harder than usual because of layoffs and other cutbacks, talk openly with your team members about the situation. Acknowledge that times are difficult and let them know that you notice and appreciate their efforts. Here are some ways to keep up your team’s commitment and morale during difficult times.

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The Benefits of an Annuity

Annuities have always been a desirable retirement vehicle. Because of the ever-present fear of outliving their money, retirees have turned to annuities because of their promise to provide “an income that you cannot outlive.” However, annuities have many other benefits than just providing an income for life. Let’s review some of these benefits.

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Differences Between Annuities and Life Insurance

Simply put, life insurance protects against dying too soon, while annuities provide against living too long.

[Preface: As insurance and financial planning professionals, we are required and mandated by Hawaii state law to go through 20 hours of continuing education every two years. The following information comes directly from my study materials provided by WebCE and TestSmart. May it give you a better understanding of the key differences between annuities and life insurance.]

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Customers Appreciate SuccessHawaii’s Quick Turnaround!

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Here’s just one example of how our customers appreciate our quick turnaround at SuccessHawaii:

Yesterday, I received a call from one of our loyal, longtime Successories of Hawaii customers, Derrick Wong. After catching-up with this successful pharmaceutical sales professional, I explained how we now have transitioned to delivering our high-quality island motivational merchandise strictly through our online store, SuccessHawaii.

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High Expenses Involved in Mutual Fund Investing

Every mutual fund has expenses and can have a negative effect on your returns. If you’re like me, and the rest of the stock market investors who have lost (on paper at least) vast sums due to the market’s downturn, you need to be invested in mutual, or better yet, index funds with low expense ratios. Check out the following pdf that we share with clientele.

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Priority #1: Managing Yourself and Your Time

This month marks the seven-year point of my stint working with military personnel based here in Hawaii. I consider myself fortunate to play a small role in helping our fighting men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces achieve their financial goals.

By doing what I do, they are given the peace of mind and the assurance that they can provide for their families on a long-term basis. For me this is why I do the thing I do.

There are great parallels between what we have created at SuccessHawaii and what I do at The Wheeler Group LLC through our association with the military. Like SuccessHawaii, our goal is simple–“to help our clients reach theirs.”

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Be Like the Babe!

From 1924 to 1930, Harry Heilmann worked in the off-baseball season as a licensed insurance agent. He was a star baseball player with the Detroit Tigers and was the Batting champion four times with them. As a result he became very good friends with Babe Ruth, and in fact sold one or more annuity policies to the Babe (and his girlfriend then wife Clara Mae Merritt Hodgson). The Babe had Heilmann come to New York and complete these annuity purchases in 1924 to 1930.  the Babe and Mrs. Ruth subsequently started taking $1000 a month withdrawals from these accounts right after the Great Depression to maintain their lifestyle.

Purportedly there may have been more than one annuity contract and more than one annuity (life insurance) company used. These accounts were started with approx. $35,000; and $50,000. each beginning as early as 1924 and the last one in early 1929.

In retrospect, the “Babe” must have seemed like a financial mastermind back when it was all crashing around. His decision to transfer money from more “risky” investments into safer ones was sheer genius.

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Emerging Equity Markets are Not the Emerging Economy

With regard to international, *emerging markets I believe and I’m betting real dollars (Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund Investor Shares) that the current happenings in the equity markets does not reflect the true economy. We may have overshot on the high side, but while the fact remains that international, emerging markets are extremely volatile, the sector represents true global growth in the future. My indicator: Cash flow. Companies exist on earnings and profits. Look to their balance sheets and numbers don’t lie (well, let me retract that notion; let’s agree, it’s dependent on who is reporting the numbers…Enron, Lehman, etc.)

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What It Takes To Be Number One

What It Takes To Be Number One
by Vince Lombardi


Winning is not a sometimes thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.

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