By Peter Macfarlane for The Q Wealth Report

Need an offshore company with bank account fast? Then you’d better contact me this week, because next week I’m going on a month-long vacation to enjoy the European summer.

Are you surprised? Jealous? You may be. You might be thinking “Peter must be doing very nicely, thank you” or even “Peter doesn’t care about his clients.” But I am confident my holidays will pay for themselves many times over, and that the quality of my service to my clients will improve once I return, refreshed.

If you want to become wealthier and freer, you should seriously consider taking this kind of vacation too. Here’s why.

If you’re anything like me, you are addicted to the internet. I get hundreds of emails per day and process most of them myself. The daily influx grows all the time. This year, I’ve added RSS feeds from many news sources and blogs that I need to follow for my writing, which has generated hundreds if not thousands more headlines to read – every day!

Most of us now have mobile devices, that are not just phones but also give us email, news, and so on wherever we happen to be.

Here’s the secret. Once you realize that you can turn off the noise for a few weeks without the world coming to an end, you will find yourself liberated in a way that few people will ever know.

As a writer and businessman, having some time to get on with new projects undisturbed is of great value. But even if you’re not a writer, all of us need free time to contemplate without distractions. To spend time with family. To make plans for the future. To take a step back and see how far we have come, and set goals about where we really want to go. If we don’t know where we are going, we are surely not going to get there!

The danger of being in constant communication with the world is that you will fall into that classic trap of being “too busy earning a living to make any real money.”

Many people go on vacation, but don’t turn off the Blackberry. And as tempting as it is to “just check e-mail for one minute,” it really doesn’t work like that, does it? Any problem you find in your inbox will linger on your mind for hours or days after you shut down the computer, rendering “free time” useless with worry. It’s the worst of states – you experience neither relaxation nor productivity. Another important lesson I’ve learned is that time without attention is worthless, so you should value attention over time.

Will little problems happen? Yes. But put them in perespective. They can be solved. It’s also a great opportunity for team confidence-building: force your people to solve problems on their own, and you might be pleasantly surprised at how things work out. It will build their confidence and your confidence in them at the same time.

The important “big picture” thing is to move on with your life, know where you are going, and make things happen to achieve your goals. These things will more likely happen while you are sitting on the beach or by the pool relaxing, than they will while you are sitting in an office answering emails about trifling matters. And if you do make the time for the big picture goals but you puncture this time with distractions, you won’t have the attention to make effective use of it.

The challenge is to allow urgent things to “fail” – even for a few days – to get to the next level with your potential life-changing and wealth creating tasks.

That’s the challenge I’ll be taking when I leave for my vacations next week. You can do the same.

Editor’s note: This is adapted from an entry on Peter’s personal blog over at www.petermacfarlane.net where he writes about offshore banking, investing and financial privacy. If you would like to read more, considering subscribing to Peter’s RSS feed. You can use a simple web-based service like Google Reader to subscribe to news feeds. For further information click on the buttons to the right of the screen to add to Google, Yahoo etc.

Nobody is quite sure who is the Richest Man or Woman in the World. Smart rich people tend to downplay their wealth. But according to many estimates, the richest man in the world is Mexican telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim Helú.

Carlos was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1940, the son of an immigrant from Lebanon, who had arrived all alone and 14 years of age, with no capital, and speaking no Spanish. He was fleeing conscription into the army of the Ottoman Empire, which at the time drafted young men into its army at 15. Carlos Slim’s grandmother therefore sent her 14 year old son away, alone, to seek fortune in the new world.

Carlos Slim opened his first checking account and bought his first shares at the tender age of twelve.

Carlos Slim’s fortune has not been won without controversy. Many people accuse him of abusing government connections and monopoly power, especially in relation to his most important business, Telmex, which he acquired during a privatization in 1990.

Still, he must be doing something right, and it is worth reading through his 10 principles for success, published on his website:

1. Create an organizational structure with simple, minimal hierarchies; provide personal development and in-house training for executives; maintain flexibility and a rapid decision-making capability; leverage the advantages of a small company and use these to grow and excel.
2. Maintaining austerity in good times strengthens, profits and accelerates the development of the company, and averts the bitterly drastic adjustments in times of crisis.
3. Stay focused on modernization, growth, training, quality, simplification and the continuous improvement of production processes. Increase productivity and competitiveness, reduce costs and expenses by using global benchmarks.
4. Companies should never be limited by the size of the owner or manager. Do not be a big fish in a small pond. Minimize investment in non-productive assets.
5. There is no challenge that we cannot overcome by working together with clear objectives and knowing the tools we have at our disposal.
6. Money that leaves the company evaporates; this is why we reinvest profits.
7. Corporate creativity is not only applicable to business, but also to solving many of society’s problems. This is what we do through the Group’s Foundations.
8. Firm and patient optimism always yields its rewards.
9. All times are good time for those who know how to work and have the tools to do so.
10. Our premise is and has always been that we leave with nothing; that we can only do things while we are alive and that businessmen are creators of the wealth they temporarily manage.

by Dr Richard Cawte for The Q Wealth Report

Do you really need to fill your day with action and noise?

Many adults become terrified at the idea that they might not have something to do! Those that are parents transfer the terror to the children. The lines: “Oh my god, what do I DO with the kids?” are spoken with a shudder, as though every second of the child’s day MUST be filled with some entertainment or other.

Some children literally cry if the world they face is not a full-on bombardment of video games or fast moving TV shows. Whatever our status or our age, we all seem to live in a world that regards “nothing to do” with horror.

We are afraid of silence. We are afraid of confronting (or meeting) our true selves!

Leave the television on and there are no awkward pauses in conversation (because there is no meaningful conversation!). There is no time to reflect, to create humour, to recount a story. But hey! If we were all to do “nothing” more often, we might find ourselves more relaxed, more in control of our thoughts and emotions, and more able to communicate effectively.

Down-time is vital. Being still and quiet in the midst of a moving, noisy world is in itself a good thing. It encourages thought. It encourages self-awareness. And the onus is on the mind to be creative, truly creative: to make something of nothing, rather than having everything plonked in front of it ready-made.

My advice is simple… make time to do absolutely nothing. Provide no distractions. Switch off the mobile phone, take the landline phone off the hook, have no TV, newspapers, radio, no loud music, no toys, games – in short, nothing! nada! zilch!

Otherwise your engine-speed gets accustomed to being highly-revved. Without down-time, you will find it harder to unwind as you grow older.

And if the idea of really, really having nothing to do is just too scary, then here’s another alternative: Take up a meditation or yoga technique that you can practice alone, and in silence.

By Dean Baker

Editor’s note: for some while I have been saying to attendees of our seminars that the market in the US would hit the skids, and to wait on further investing for a short while. As the US market now dips and wobbles, it may just be a great time to get involved. Remember, one of the golden rules of investing is to do what nobody else is doing – or at very least, to do what the majority of people are not doing!

Meantime, here is an interesting view on how to tackle the current collapse of the sub-prime mortgages in the USA.

There is a simple and direct way in which the federal government can help out millions of moderateincome families struggling to keep their homes: They can simply change the rules on foreclosure to allow moderate-income homeowners the option to remain in their homes indefinitely as renters, paying the fair market rent.

This proposal would immediately give moderate-income homeowners a guarantee they would not be thrown out of the street because they cannot meet the terms of a predatory mortgage. It accomplishes this goal without requiring any elaborate new bureaucracy and without requiring a single dollar from the taxpayers. And this plan does not bail out the bankers, hedge funds, and other financial industry types who were speculating in mortgage debt.

Here’s how the plan works: Currently, if a homeowner is not able to make their mortgage payments, the holder of the mortgage can go to court to place the house in foreclosure. This means, if the homeowner is not able to come up with back payments on the mortgage, or work out an acceptable arrangement with the mortgage holder, the bank or financial institution that holds the mortgage retakes ownership of the house and can have the homeowner evicted.

Under this security of housing proposal, the foreclosure process would be changed so the current homeowner would have the option to remain in their house as a renter paying the fair market rent. If a homeowner chose to go this route, the judge in the foreclosure proceeding would appoint an independent appraiser to determine the fair market rent for the house, in the same way a bank hires an appraiser to determine the value of the house before issuing a mortgage.

The former homeowner could then remain in their home as a renter for as long as they liked. The rent would be adjusted at regular intervals in step with the change of other rents in the area. There could even be an appeal process in which either party could request that the judge get a second appraisal, at the expense of the person complaining about the original appraisal. This should ensure the rent set for the house is fair. After the foreclosure, the mortgage holder would now own the house and be free to sell it to another person, but the former homeowner would still have the right to remain as a renter, regardless of who owned the house.

This program could be restricted to homes that cost less than the median house price for an area to ensure high income homeowners do not take advantage of it. The program would also only apply to people who lived in their homes, not investors. In short, it is a very simple and low-cost way to help moderate-income homebuyers. It does not give them any windfalls, but it can ensure they don’t end up being thrown out on the street.

In contrast, the politicians are lining up with plans that ostensibly protect homeowners, but would most immediately benefit the mortgage holders who speculated in predatory mortgage debt. For example, one popular proposal being circulated in Congress would vastly expand the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government created mortgage intermediaries, in the mortgage market. This proposal would allow them to buy up hundreds of billions of dollars of subprime and other mortgages that the private sector does not want.

Of course, the private sector doesn’t want these nonprime mortgages because the default rate is soaring. If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac suddenly got in the market for this debt, those who are currently speculating in these mortgages stand to make a fortune. It’s not clear the government’s largess will necessarily benefit moderate-income homeowners facing foreclosure, but there is certainly a possibility some of the windfall will trickle down.

The point here is simple: We can design a mechanism that will directly benefit millions of moderate-income homeowners who are struggling to hang on to their homes; or, we can come up with schemes that will benefit the banks and hedge funds that speculated in mortgage debt. Place your bets.

This article was prepared especially as an introduction to The Q Wealth Report.  This is one of the key themes that members will read about in every issue. If you want to establish yourself in this business and generate 24/7 online profits, we recommend you either learn more or sign up today to benefit from extra free reports on offshore banking and investing.