There is a reason why I wrote this series in 3 different articles. The first one is that I wanted to make sure that you read each one of them (writing a 5 pages post is only good enough to put you at sleep… while you are reading it at work!). The second reason is because each financial talent is harder to gain then its predecessor. Today, we are looking at the ultimate gifts.

However, in order to fully control your budget and cash flows, you need to know what to do with your money in order to increase your net worth. This is probably where the challenge is. Financial class, books and obviously reading The Financial Blogger should help you out getting this great gift.

As for financial plans, you can see a financial planner who will be able to help you out with it. Marking the plan is only the first step of controlling your financial plan. Then, you need to be able to follow it and make scenarios to prevent any good or bad events.

Finally, controlling your investment returns is definitely the hardest talent to get. Most people give up and buy ETF’s or mutual funds and hope for the best. For those who trade their own stocks, most of them end-up with a small return near 4 to 5%. There is nothing to write your mother about!

How can you explain that there are people like the kid from Facebook making millions and millions in their early 20’s? The basic answer is that they know how to transform ideas into money. This is what I call matter alteration. Anyone that has an idea on how to learn this power is welcome to comment

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Try to capture their thoughts when they were saying that it was a great year for their company. Great year in term of sales? R&D? acquisitions? Remember that there is always a story behind each word.

Some people call it “reading between the lines”. We actually had a MBA class showing how to read more than numbers in financial statements. It is fascinating to discover the company’s story once you know the meaning of words and numbers.

If you want to improve you reading capacity, I suggest you take accounting class first. Once you know what you are talking about, it is much easier to see through financial reports.

On the other side, it would also be great to know people’s very thoughts. In order to do so, you need to stay quiet and listen. Ask open questions and then wait for the answer. People have the reflex of answering immediately when someone ask them something. They also love to talk about themselves. Give them this opportunity and you will be able to read their soul .

This is where it gets tricky when you have this ability. You must think twice before using it. As Ben Parker (Spiderman’s Uncle) used to say: “With great powers come great responsibilities”.

This is why I will write more about how to protect yourself against manipulators than to manipulate others. People will usually use your emotion to influence your actions. Pride, guilt, doubt or fear are very powerful tools of motivation.

The best way to gain mind control immunity is to take psychology class, read books about manipulators and, most important, think twice before doing something. When reassessing the reasons why you are doing or not doing something, you will become more rational and chances are that you will avoid manipulation from others.

Stay tuned for tomorrow as I will present the third article of this series on financial super powers.

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How can you do it? First of all you need to determine your priorities. My boss asked me during my interview the following question: “what would you do if you have 5 tasks taking 2 hours each and you only have 3 hours to do them?”. The answer is quite easy: you do the most important thing first. Use the Paretto law (20% of effort will give you 80% of the result).

By planning your week ahead, you will avoid a lot of delays between two tasks. If you need to write 2 papers, take 4 hours in a row to do it. There is a lot of time wasted by getting settled to work on something. Don’t try to do everything at the same time (unless you have a wireless phone along with a computer on the side ). Concentrate on what you are doing, you are going to do it faster.

Avoid any unnecessary travels. You need to optimize your time by always cutting on driving, metro and buses. And when you can’t, do something while your moving (if you use to drive, park your car in the garage, take the bus and buy yourself a laptop with the money saved on gas).

I was lucky enough to have key typing classes at high school. Today, I type almost as fast as a professional secretary (between 200 and 250 letters / minutes). Can you imagine how much time you can save on emails, papers and memos? Tons of minutes!!

If you combing a fast typing skill to a wireless handset, you just gain super speed at work! There are tons of small key typing tutors and software on the web. Just google “key typing tutors” or “key typing software” and take the time to do all the exercices. This is the way I learn!

Another way to look like flash in your daily life is to learn how to take notes. No words are necessary to write. Symbols and abbreviations can just do it find!

Finally, working virtually will optimize your way of managing your day. Print as less paper as possible. You will not only save trees but optimize your movement and computer windows flip way much faster than paper and “ctrl + F” is much more productive that looking with your eyes throughout a 20 pages report!

By developing those super abilities you will gain a lot of time to do a lot more things

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