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£1.2tn given to old from young
Comments
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Looks good, fc, I've added it to my list of books to read. Thanks :-)0
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Looks good, fc, I've added it to my list of books to read. Thanks :-)
The essence is that humans are wired to want more and more of whatever 'just in case' so we are wired to never be totally satisfied.
The first chapter is about 'Too much information' and how it can gridlock you in the end as you feel you just can't get enough 'answers'.
Other chapters cover food, money, posessions, the perfect relationship and so on.0 -
The Hotel Rescue Baby Boomers didn't acknowledge their core skills as one tends to value things one has to struggle at and have angst about them.
Jazz music producer had made a fat wedge out of producing Jazz. He had a natural flair for it and cleaned up.....then he thought he could replicate that knack with buying a big FO Georgian house and running it as a wedding venue.
Running a wedding venue is a whole different ball game to producing jazz.
His wife was an art-historian. At the end of the show she seemed to long for her old life back, with a fat bank balance of savings, and writing on the fly as a job when it suits you.....but now has a hotel to run (in her 50s?) and huge debts to service.
I've since watch the North-East brothers and their Blackpool hotel. Ruth was bang-on about getting rid of the canopies (I've forgotten what those things are called over the windows) to let more light in to the dining area... and to attract passerbys in for meals. Not just for hotel guests. The hotel looked to be in the main shopping area for Blackpool, next to Debenhams or similar. Her suggestion to call it 'The Blackpool' was a decent idea. Despite their delusions about the Spa, instead of focusing on more immediate income generating ... they might stand a fighting chance to scrape a living from their hotel.
Then watched the Luton one. Again.. wifey is already a barrister - presumably earning good money - and probably that alone quite a demanding job. Husband has had great HPI success from house developments over the years. At that point they should have been all set for a comfortable life... but decided to reach for something so risky, gambling with all they have, with no experience of running a hotel.
Massive project with those former office blocks. Taking on so much debt... into the £millions. Over-budget by something like £1.6 million. Panic attacks.. major stress. Seems he did open in November... not the July date he really was banking on.... with his £10Kpm debt repayments starting in July. I just took a look at his blog.We have Ruth Watson here tomorrow filming for the final part of our programme in her new Channel 4 series. Just 1 week before the series started, Channel 4 told me to my horror that they were renaming the series ‘Hotel Rescue'. For nearly a year during filming (and when I signed up to it) we were told the series was to be called ‘Hotel Confidential'. What a bloody cheek, we're not being rescued here! Don't get me wrong I really loved Ruth, she's very direct and I took to her right away.0 -
This is starting to remind me of the Kipling poem - "If" :If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
I do admire people that are like that. But I'm most definately not. And because I know my limitations I do fine.
I guess the problems start when you want to be like that but just aren't. So when you take the big risks and loose everything it breaks you.0 -
I have just read the second and he deff didn't say 'sit tight, be MSE and be cautious''...the opposite in fact.
Mega read for someone like me and I am about to drag my family (well, the cats and OH mainly as the kids are big now and are cut loose) into a high risk strategy (after a period of 'build up' an and paying down mortage to zero over the next 2 years) so 2012..watch out.
There are different levels of risk. Interest rates on savings are at such historic low levels, because of the all the deflationary fall-out risks out there. Capital preservation is the only focus for me. You might think I'm risk adverse fc, but I'm just waiting for the right moment to feed. Like a raptor upon a flock.
At the same time I'll accept there are always some good opportunities around - and you're a survivor and a battler and are also commercially aware fc. You've probably made some mistakes along the way in business - (I'm thinking that lease) we all have - but experience to draw upon, as well as your having had a run of significant successes throughout your business years.
By the sounds of it, your approach to risk is not as extreme as those involved in Hotel Rescue, due to you paying down your home before the next move of risk. They all seemed to gamble with their main homes. By your 2012 we might know more of where we stand with markets not being supported to the extent they are now. Current conditions can lure people into making some foolish risks imo.0 -
There are different levels of risk. Interest rates on savings are at such historic low levels, because of the all the deflationary fall-out risks out there. Capital preservation is the only focus for me. You might think I'm risk adverse fc, but I'm just waiting for the right moment to feed. Like a raptor upon a flock.
At the same time I'll accept there are always some good opportunities around - and you're a survivor and a battler and are also commercially aware fc. You've probably made some mistakes along the way in business - (I'm thinking that lease) we all have - but experience to draw upon, as well as your having had a run of significant successes throughout your business years.
By the sounds of it, your approach to risk is not as extreme as those involved in Hotel Rescue, due to you paying down your home before the next move of risk. They all seemed to gamble with their main homes. By your 2012 we might know more of where we stand with markets not being supported to the extent they are now. Current conditions can lure people into making some foolish risks imo.
Absolutely....now I am going to have to watch some more Hotel Rescues as I have only done 3 so far. Clacton, Margate and Georgian Mansion.
The risks I need to take are different and don't require lot's of borrowing/gearing up..the opposite. More risk of my time and which path to choose next. We could chose the wrong one afterall.
Also, risks on who to associate with as the associations we make now could become expensive legal problems a few years down the line.
Been there, done that.
It would be nice for the obsession with property as the cornerstone of business start ups (that is, the HPI is the main lure and then how to service it seems secondary) to mellow down over the next decade.
Certainly in Brighton, many have bought B+B's and the running of them was just to tick over until the property could be flogged a few years later for a big gain. I met one of these at a tourist type advice session.
BN2 has loads for sale at the mo.0 -
O M G (It's going to be my most oft used phrase/acronym now) Blackpool one.
Just got to the bit about The Parmesan?? Who would eat that? I mean, would you?
Also, I forgot to respond to you Brighton Q about what about the town could support the high prices. I had a think and have formulated a list.
Also, I just remebered about the pasty thread too.
I am going to update it this week when I get a bit of headspace. It wasn't the actual pasty concept that was the problem, but the excessive overheads that came from running a franchise. Afterall, 2 businesses had to earn a crust from the one premises rather than just one.
Now i am going back to watch my catch up.0 -
No time for writing thoughts down.. ..I am now addicted to watching Hotel Rescue episodes.
The Luton one made me panic and feel stressed out too...and I am just sitting here watching it.
The problem with these 'guru/makeover type programmes is they give the ventures a massive amount of publicity which will really help them succeed.
Momma Cherri was featured a few years back on Gordon Ramseys Kitchen Nightmares and was remembered as the rare one who made food that he thought was good. I am ashamed to admit, she was around the corner and I had never noticed it. The prog went out and it went mad for her. Evry other customer who wandered in would ask where 'Soul in a Bowl' was.
To cut a long story short (and a lot of gossip locally that I couldn't write on a public forum) she expanded, did telly, a book, was hailed as a local business guru herself (she wasn't) and then went into administration.
Set up again and it went down a second time. Story here.
She set up something else last autumn which has now folded also.
I could list several local businesses that have been televised and have now closed after the initial buzz.
One I know well had a stonking year after a TV makeover, then the return trip slagged them off (a bit unfairly IMO) and they now tick over OK having survived the experience. Popped in there the other day with visiting cousin and the place looked OK, they are still smiling and trading and I admire them for keeping true to themselves as it could have gone really bad for them.0 -
Momma Cherri was featured a few years back on Gordon Ramseys Kitchen Nightmares and was remembered as the rare one who made food that he thought was good. I am ashamed to admit, she was around the corner and I had never noticed it. The prog went out and it went mad for her. Evry other customer who wandered in would ask where 'Soul in a Bowl' was.
To cut a long story short (and a lot of gossip locally that I couldn't write on a public forum) she expanded, did telly, a book, was hailed as a local business guru herself (she wasn't) and then went into administration.
Set up again and it went down a second time. Story here.
She set up something else last autumn which has now folded also.
Oh, didn't realise she had closed down, we were always planning to go (but never quite making it)0
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