he had never had time before: he bought a luxurious round-the-world ticket, booked a few tours and hotels in advance and saw what happened.
For the money or what would happen after his return, he did not worry - because he had always had so far. In addition, in the first two months of his five-month trip around the world, he received daily job offers for banks in Frankfurt, Zurich, London or Amsterdam. One of these he would accept after his return.
The goal: self-discovery!
His goal was a different one: To find oneself: First of all, I wanted to 're-discover'myself through self-reflection. What makes me happy? What makes me happy? What am I passionate about? These were some of thequestions I pondered over the course of the next five months.
The career end
And then came the Lehman crash in autumn 2008. Keith was on a yacht in the Great Barrier Reef when he heard of it. Practically immediately the job offers stopped. And Keith began to worry about his future. But first he wanted to enjoy his journey: It slowly began to sink into that of mycareer in banking what probably over. I could not do that. It was a new challenge but one I wasdetermined to postpone until after my trip.
Experiences and inspiration
In the following months, Keith had a lot of experience: he learned to meditate and fight his fears of heights and sharks by faced directly with his fears. He met inspiring people. And he learned to travel alone, which required him special abilities: New things were learned every day. Travelling alone, I became very self-sufficient. I organized my transportation, accommodation, and tours; plannedmy budget; learned to keep an eye on my expenditures and cut down when Ineeded to; and became better at management. I started to appreciate andapply. When I feel like I'm going to have a good time, I've got a good time. Every day what a priceless lesson.
The right attitude is not enough
After all the positive experiences, Keith returned to Amsterdam in the middle of winter. He was happy, self-confident and full of confidence, to be able to work again successfully.
But optimism and the right attitude were not enough: Keith found no new job. He had no idea what to do instead. And gradually he became depressed. The world had changed.
What do I really want?
But Keith had also changed. A new trip to his family to Malaysia helped him to his feet again. And he wondered what I really want? Where are my passions and my abilities? What are my passions? What career experience did Ihave? What am I good at? How much money would I need to earn? Did I want to go out on my own or work at a company?
New career as a blogger
His answer was the Velvet Escape travel blog, which started soon after and which allowed him to combine his two passions, travel and writing. But, he tells me in Canada, Keith has also worked out a business plan from the start, such as how he could make money with it, for example through advertising or sponsorship.
From now on, he wrote full-time about his travel experiences. He noted that improvisational skills are one of the most important skills in blogging. But he also appreciates very much the opportunity to be with the full dedication and whole heart with the thing, which he likes.
And it is precisely this energy, in my opinion, that makes it so successful. Good luck!
The financial crisis as a tsunami: from the real estate bubble to the wave
// By Martin Theyer
Although the media and politicians are very busy telling us something different, the financial crises do not come as a surprise. And we can arm ourselves against them.
Financial crisis: why it is emerging
The crisis of 2008 did not start with the real estate bubble in the USA, as is widely believed. Its origin is much, much further back, its destructive power is much greater than imaginable and previously assumed. Hardly anyone talks about that. I do it. On the occasion of my seven years of research on my book “Lost Trust - The Tsunami Model of the Financial Crisis”, I dealt intensively with a question that has never left me since: What really triggered this crisis?
My tsunami model is based on the fact that there must be a trigger that started this wave. A tsunami. Tsunami means “wave in the port. The term was coined by Japanese fishermen who returned from fishing and found everything in their port completely destroyed. Even though they hadn't seen or felt for a while on the open sea.
A small event causes the entire economy to collapse
Similar to a sea or earthquake, which can set a wave under the sea surface for the time being unseen, a small, locally limited event in a globally networked financial world can trigger far-reaching consequences up to breakdowns of whole economic systems.
And that's exactly what happened. Now I had understood how a financial crisis arises in principle. However, the trigger was not one step closer. I only knew one thing: Somewhere, something had happened that had caused this wave.
From the Fall of the Wall to the Financial Crisis
The wave had then spread underground for a long time, at first small, then expanding. Until, yes, until we could no longer overlook her because she was already overrunning us and causing a mess in the financial markets.
So I had grabbed and did not let go. After long and intensive research in the USA, London and Switzerland I came close to the core The same force that brought the Berlin Wall down, triggered the most severe financial crisis of our century!
Reaganomics
It is called Reagonomics. To be more precise, the neo-liberal economic course of the Reagan era and the belief in the market's self-sufficient market forces, The Reagan era forced the Soviet Union to its knees by the tremendous contest.
The communist system of planned economy was ultimately subject to the capitalist system of the free market economy and had to be defeated by 1989. This was the way to the reunification of Germany and thus to the fall of the Berlin Wall!
Ronald Reagan is guilty!
Recalculated on the financial market, this means that the officials of the Reagan era and their successors, led by Alan Greenspan, were firmly convinced that the dismantling of controls and barriers would not only stimulate the economy.
They also believed much more that this would lead to a fair distribution of capital and resources in a society. Ronald Reagan was a supporter of Neo-market liberalism, mentally supported by Nobel laureate Milton Friedman with his laissez-fair principle.
Lack of regulation of the capital markets
How horrendously wrong this assumption was and to what catastrophic consequences it led, turned out much later. Unknowingly, the Reagan era triggered so long ago a seaquake whose waves today threaten to tip the existing financial world off its hinges and which still keeps us breathless with its full destructive power.
Alan Greenspan, incidentally, admitted at a hearing in the Committee of the Parliament 2010 that it was a mistake not to regulate the capital markets more strongly! A late insight from which hopefully for the future was learned.
Because my tsunami model says that a possibly unnoticed event can often only cause a financial crisis over several countries or even continents years later, similar to how a tsunami is triggered by an earthquake in the sea. And how does it continue?
How