Author: Mr. Cheap

Categories
Frugal

Tricky “Deals”

I’ve been finding that it’s increasingly difficult to even understand, let alone benefit from, the “deals” that are being offered by stores.  It’s apparently a Canadian thing (according to a friend in the US), but we regularly get coupons for fast food.  It’ll be something like a free fry and drink, if you buy a meal deal, plus another sandwich, when the moon is gibbous and Stephen Harper has recently worn a red tie.  I’ve just started scanning them and sending them to Thicken My Wallet and Money Grubbing Lawyer and they explain to me what my legal exposure is if I try to make a purchase using these coupons.

There’s out-and-out scams, which I definitely wouldn’t consider a special offer stuffed full of conditions and exclusions to be, but to me stores issuing these are playing games with their customers.  Half the time I see people trying to use coupons or take advantage of a deal, I see an employee pushing back explaining to them why it doesn’t work the way they were led to believe.  At Pizza Pizza there is a current deal where they say “ANY Slice and a Pop for $2.99!”  A man was ready to pay for his, and the clerk asked for over $5.  The man hesitantly asked why he wasn’t getting the $3 deal, and got sneered at by the clerk.  In tiny print, it says that ANY slice refers to pepperoni or cheese.  So “ANY” in all caps, refers to 2 of the dozen options available.  Right…  The thing that really got me is the customer then apologized and paid the higher price.  Why do we let stores treat us this way?  I think this is what almost all customers do, apologise (“Sorry I let you trick me”) then pay full price.  I think we’re embarrassed to be discussing the deal that the store OFFERED!  What’s up with that?  Do people have so much cash they can just throw it around like a bored aristocrat instead of suffering the indignity of clarifying a transaction being offered to us?  And isn’t walking away from someone who just tried to deceive us the right reaction, not doing business with them!

My parents recently went to a sale at Zeller’s (think a smaller, dirtier version of Wal-Mart) and they couldn’t understand why customers were mobbing everything except the Pop (aka Soda, aka “Coke”).  They asked a woman working there, and she said most things had already gone on sale, but the pop sale starts the next day.  They were going to head to a grocery store immediately afterwards, but after checking the flier they had they saw that some of the sales didn’t start until the next day, while others didn’t start until the following Monday.

Bell and Rogers are famous for this bullshit.

I can’t understand how businesses could be unaware of the long term effects of this strategy.  Customers will get increasingly suspicious, and eventually just start ignoring deals, assuming “there’s got to be a catch”.  I’ve already got to that point.  Offering a deal to get a customer into your store, then revealing that you tricked them really doesn’t seem like a good way to build a business to me, but it seems to be so widespread that most people must accept it.

What’s the worst example of misleading advertising you’ve run into?  How do you react when you discover a deal you thought you were going to get was misrepresented to you?  Is there any solution to this?

Categories
Personal Finance

Post-Claims Underwriting

Maude: Neddy doesn’t believe in insurance. He considers it a form of gambling.

(on Ned Flanders from “The Simpsons”)

Ellen Roseman recently wrote a blog post “Don’t buy insurance from banks.”  In it (and in the accompanying column) she details a couple who approached her with a problem.  They had purchased critical illness and life insurance on their mortgage in 1999, and been upfront with the bank about their health at the time and during renewals.  When the man had developed cancer and they tried to collect on the policy, TD Canada Trust denied their claim, saying it was a mistake that the policy had ever been sold to them.  Getting the situation written up in the Toronto Star shamed TD into honouring the policy, but unfortunately I’ve long had the feeling this is a common occurrence with insurance companies.

When you’re deciding who to buy insurance from, they happily promise you the world.  Benefits are pointed out and you’re lead to believe that you’re fully protected.  Even when you try to get the full details of the policy, agents try to steer you away from that and just assure you “it’s full coverage”.  When something bad occurs, suddenly the situation becomes far less certain and there are a great deal of exceptions and special cases.  Often the insurance company needs to be forced to honour the policy, either in court or by going to the press.

Post-claims underwriting, where the validity of a policy isn’t confirmed until a claim is made, is an AWFUL idea, that clearly exists to collect payments from “customers”, while keeping an escape hatch to avoid payment of any actual claims.  I’ve written before about self insuring, and behaviour like this on the part of the insurance companies is a big part of the reason that I only carry insurance protecting against CATASTROPHIC lose.  Since I currently don’t have any dependants, this is mostly protection against  liability and extreme damage in my rental condo (with the highest deductible they would allow).

The movie “Sicko”, by Michael Moore, details the failings of the American medical system.  It’s obviously a very “structured” perspective on this issue (I love Michael Moore and his movies, but you can’t take this style of work at face value).  My feeling was that the worst failings presented weren’t the fault of the government, but insurance companies being allowed to violate agreements with their customers in disgustingly immoral ways (such as the woman who was denied treatment for ovarian cancer because the insurance company claimed she was “too young” to have developed it).

In investments there is the legal principle that sophisticated parties can not make ridiculously one-side (or overly-complex) agreements  to take advantage of unsophisticated people.  Unfortunately I think this is rampant in insurance sales, where the contracts being sold are VERY complex (and intentionally so), that are being misrepresented to buyers.  Until insurance companies begin to behave (or are forced to behave) with more integrity, I’ll avoid purchasing insurance except when there’s absolutely no other choice.

Have you ever had to make a large claim on an insurance policy?  Was it easy or hard?  Did you have to fight to have the claim honoured, and if so, how?

Categories
Opinion

South Park: Margaritaville

Sorry to our readers who got a VERY early edition of this post in their RSS feed.  Mr. Cheap accidentally hit “Publish” when he meant to hit “Save”.

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“Margaritaville” (originally airing March 25, 2009) was the 3rd episode of the 13th season of South Park and it provided an amusing perspective on the current financial crisis.   After various prophets each try to explain the reason for the current crisis (one blames low interest rates, another blames corporate greedy, while Cartman, of course, blames “the jews”), Randy (Stan’s dad) wins approval by explaining that the citizens of South Park have angered “the economy” by mocking it (and it has, in turn, cast its vengeance upon them all).  Channeling Mr. Cheap, he advises:

Yea, it is an angry and unforgiving Economy. To repent we must stop frivolous spending! Instead of paying for cable let us watch clouds! Instead of buying clothes, wear but sheets from thine beds! Cut spending to only the bare essentials! Water and bread and margaritas, yea.

Meanwhile Stan decides to try to return his father’s margarita maker, which stands as a proxy for mortgages-backed securities, and traces it through the retailer, lender, stock broker, and ultimately to the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington (where he discovers how political decisions are REALLY made).

You can watch the episode on-line (legally) at www.southparkstudios.com/clips/222639 (in the US) or watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/south-park/season-13/south-park-1303-margaritaville/ (in Canada).  Viewers outside the US and Canada may try to watch it here, and if you’d rather read it then watch it, check out the script.  WARNING: South Park’s humour can be fairly edgey (Mr. Hankey makes me feel a little nauseous whenever he’s on the screen), and it might not be to everyone’s taste.

Categories
Business Ideas

Wacky Business Idea #19: (Non-Massive) Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games

I’ve been reluctant to post many game or book ideas in the Wacky Business Idea series, just because every gamer or reader has TONS of ideas (which are usually pretty lame).  This is one of my best (although probably still lame) video game ideas.

In the distant past, computer role-playing games (RPGs) were quite popular.  Games like Bard’s Tale, Wizardry, Ultima or heck, even The Legend of Zelda would involve fighting your way through an adventure, where your character(s) would become more powerful as you went.  I wrote about paper role-playing games, and their connection with personal finance, extensively in a previous post.  One of the elements of computer RPGs was that at the end of the game there would be a massive reward for your characters.  They would become the saviours of the world, kings and queens, gods or some such thing.

When massive multiplayer role-playing games (MMORPGs), like World of Warcraft, became popular, they had the added dimension of being able to play in a world inhabited by thousands of other real people.  You could join with them on quests, fight with them or trade with them, all of which lead to a vibrant, dynamic world (which is why they’ve become very popular and there are fewer single player RPGs being made).

One thing that players complain about is that they aren’t important in MMORPGs.  They’ll complete a quest to save a princess from a dragon, and 10 minutes later she’ll be back in her tower captured by the dragon again (and waiting for the NEXT player to save her).  There *ISN’T* an end to the game, and players only have as much renown as their accomplishments warrant.  Given that everyone is running around doing the same thing, its pretty hard to be noticed at all, let alone be the most famous character in the world… of Warcraft.  Probably the most famous World of Warcraft character is Leeroy Jenkins, who is famous for being stupid.

This business idea is to try to tie single player and massively multi-player RPGs together and get the best of both.  Customers would purchase a RPG which would include both the game and a server (a computer program that lets other computers connect to your’s).  Like a MMORPG the game world would run all the time, and you could invite friends to come and play in it.  Like the single player RPG, there would be a central “world threatening” danger that the players would have to band together to fight.  At any time, one, some or all of you and your friends could be playing, and when you’re playing together you don’t have to stay in the same area (perhaps at points in the game you would be required to split up to deal with different issues).

The game could be sold in “modules” where the same characters continue playing in the same world, but the purchased content adds new areas, character types and new over-arching mission(s).  The world would change as the characters accomplished things, and these changes would remain when new content was added (so if a character was the head of the thieves guild in Skara Brae they would remain the head of the guild, and no one else could be the head of it).

Optional extensions could be things like offering to run the game on the company’s servers (so that you wouldn’t have to leave your computer on for your friends to play), or even helping people to run their own public servers (as smaller, more intimate alternatives to MMORPGs) – even for a small monthly fee if it was good enough for people to pay for.

Some games, such as Neverwinter Nights or Diablo do something SOMEWHAT similar to this.  The major differences between this would be the focus on adding content extensions, and the game being built to be played multi-player (rather than it being an “add on” to the single-player game).  MUDs (basically non-graphical, text-only, MMORPGs) were an old school idea along these lines but what I’m describing would be something a lot closer to a single-player RPG than a MUD is.

Categories
Personal Finance

Book Review: How to Write, Publish, & Sell Your Own How-To Book

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I was happy to get a copy from a friend of John T. Reed’s “How to Write, Publish, & Sell Your Own How-To Book” which I’ve been wanting to read for a while.  In articles, and in other books, Mr. Reed has discussed that he got started on writing “How-To” books when a friend suggested them to him, he was surprised at how profitable they were, and he’s been doing them ever since.

John Reed takes titles seriously, and typically they tell you EXACTLY what the book is about (writing, publishing and selling a how-to book in this case).  He goes through the process in depth, for example explaining what type of paper or cover design he recommends and why.

I’ve had a goal to write a book at some point, and was surprised at his approach to the actual writing.  He recommends writing about something you know, writing the way you speak, makes some suggestions about length and that’s about it.  He suggests that past English teachers, and their negative feedback, can safely be ignored (like Stephen King, he never got any encouragement from his teachers to write professionally), but that if you have writing talent, your friends will probably have noticed and complimented you on it.  Failing that, he suggests to just barrel through and, in the worst case, dictate what you want to say to a recording device then transcribe it.

To a degree this reassured me that there’s no “black art” to it, or “literary police” I need to get permission from before I start writing.  He basically suggests typesetting as you go (work on it in the form you’ll eventually publish it in) and just get going.

A large part of the book is a diatribe against the publishing industry (and why you should avoid them).  He’s used to being looked down on as a self-publisher, and strongly feels that being published by a typical publisher is such a bad deal that people only do it for the vanity of seeing themselves in a book store (and convincing their friends that they’re a “real” writer).   I’m not sure if I feel as strongly about it (and would love to be offered a publishing deal like Squawkfox – yes, I *AM* green with envy).  But, I also like to make more money, so I’d be tempted to get into self publishing if it was more lucrative.  He has done both and is a strong advocate for self-publishing (and distributing).

He recommends printing the book and binding it yourself at home to start, and once you’ve gotten enough orders to justify it, do a print run with a publisher for a year or two’s supply of books (and print more as needed) to sell through your own website.  I was surprised that he didn’t mention “on demand” Internet publishers (like Lulu.com), either to recommend or criticize them.  I’ve read on-line reviews of some of his “early edition bound-at-home” books, and customers seem pretty under-whelmed by them.  I think on-line, on-demand publishing might be the way to start, then switch to larger-scale when and if the volume supports it.

That’s probably the one big criticism that can be made of John T. Reed, he’s very forceful and direct about what he believes and why, and its great 99% of the time, but occasionally he has blind spots (and refuses to acknowledge them), or gets misinformed and can’t shake the incorrect information (I’ve read repeatedly some funny ideas he has about XML).

While how much money you make depends entirely on how popular the book is, Reed’s experience has been that his books do well over a long time (they keep selling year after year).  He suggests that they’ll be the type of coveted “passive income” vehicles that take a large amount of upfront labour, then pay out year-after-year into the far future.

I don’t like linking to books we review.  Since we never set up an affiliate system, it doesn’t make any money for “the Mike” (watch out Trump!), and some readers will think we’re getting a commission which will bias the review.  Since you can ONLY buy this book at John T. Reed’s website (he discusses the rationale for this in the book), I’ll include the link here (but we don’t make a dime if you click on it and / or purchase the book).

I finish course work this term, and am thinking about a few possible side-projects once I switch into full-time research mode.  Writing a book is definitely one of the contenders.  Ideas I might write about include:

  • A romance novel about a frugal man (and the women who love him)
  • A super-basic, introductory personal-finance book
  • An introduction (and how-to guide) for Canadian dividend reinvestment plans (DRiPs)
  • A travel-log about my cheap backpacking trip across Europe (there’d be a bit of romance in this one too, although sadly no where near as much as I’d hoped there would be when I started the trip).
  • A travel-log about my experiences living in Taiwan (and teaching English there)
  • A layman’s guide to the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act, written for landlords and tenants, translating the legalese into English (with examples). I’ve been meaning to fully digest the act at some point, and doing so to write a book might be a good way to combine two projects.
  • A guide to graduate school, suggestions how to: get in, decide where (and whether) to go, outline the differences from being an undergrad, how to get up to speed in your research area, basic research and teaching skills, how to relate to your supervisor and fellow grad students, etc, etc.
  • A introduction to computer programming, using building a simple game (think Tetris or Space Invaders) with a real programming language as the core “project” and explaining proper software development techniques (and their rationale) throughout.

Which of my books would you buy or do you think would be the most popular?  What would you write a book about?

Categories
Opinion

Ethics in Business (and Life)

I was surprised that the part of my post about negotiation on Tuesday that drew the greatest number of comments was “It’s a really scummy thing when people do this to you, and it’s just as scummy if you do it to them” in relation to dirty tricks pulled by car dealers (and my advocating that you shouldn’t try to pull dirty tricks back on them).  It was especially surprising, as I’d put a teaser in the post that I expected to get SOMEONE to ask for details about:  “There are ethical ways that you can get a fair deal from a car dealership which are far more likely to work.”  Commenters seemed to be more interested in pulling a dirty trick on a car dealer than on getting a better deal!

Rather than turning the comment section into a back and forth where people repeatedly assert what they feel is “right”, in this post I’m hoping to outline the reasons why I made that statement, and the limitations of the other perspectives offered. I’ll be using this definition of values, morals and ethics in this post.

In “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” Robert Pirsig makes the assertion that ethical codes are used to judge and attack OTHER people, and aren’t used to guide the behaviours of the group itself (as it’s a codification of things all members of the group already understand).  Whether it’s hippies (calling other people “squares”) or Victorians the code’s purpose is to attack.  Hopefully I’ll avoid doing that here.

I find the golden rule (“Do onto others as you would have them do onto you“) to be a fairly good guiding principle that fits well with my values.  I’m a fairly empathic person, and can usually see things from other people’s perspective, such that if I treat someone badly it really makes ME feel like crap.

I’ve jokingly suggested to friends a modification to this rule: “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you.  And assume other people follow the same rule.”  What this twist lets us do is assume that how people treat us is how they WANT to be treated, and allows us to take revenge as long as it’s poetic justice:  we wrong them in the same way they wrong us, but with the deliberate misunderstanding that they desire for this to happen.

A number of comments seemed to base their perspective on similar ideas.  “Car dealers try to pull dirty tricks on customers, so its OK for us to do the same thing to them.”  I think this is the wrong way to approach the situation for a number of reasons.

  1. This is how feuds start.  You retaliate against them, car dealers (and their salesmen) justify their actions as saying “see, the customers are doing the same thing to us!” and they start using even dirtier, more unethical approaches.  Eventually the entire marketplace becomes so disreputable that it collapses.  As has been written about before, I think this change is happening for real estate agents, and I suspect car dealerships will increasingly adopt a “no haggle” policy (as Saturn has done) as the Internet allows sale prices to become increasingly easy to determine.
  2. This can bleed over into other negotiations you enter where the other person *IS* behaving honourably.  Once you’ve seen that you can use the dirty trick to get a good deal, the temptation will be there to use it more often.  As my friend got used to doing it in real estate deals, and eventually attacked me with the same trick.  “Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will…“
  3. It harms YOU when you behave badly.  There’s a group of Internet videos which are of people torturing Tickle Me Elmos (such as dowsing him in gasoline and burning him while he dances and sings).  This doesn’t hurt the doll in any way (it’s not alive), however it DOES harm the torturer.  “The point isn’t whether it’s an issue for the creature. It’s what does it do to us.”  Serial killers usually get started torturing animals, in situations like this I think the toy is clearly a proxy for an animal or something that COULD experience pain.  Whether torturing animals contributes to eventual criminal behaviour or is an early sign of underlying issues is a debatable point, but I think it’s fair to say bad behaviour often leads to more bad behaviour.

jesse made the comment “So what is negotiation but extracting more money from the naive?” which I HOPE implies a misunderstanding on one of our parts.  My view of negotiation is it’s a “dialogue to resolve disputes“.  We’re negotiating with our partner when we argue about who should wash the dishes or change the baby’s diaper, and we’re negotiating with a car dealer when we disagree about the price.  To view negotiation as a method for preying on the “naive” and making their (probably already pretty bad) lives worse to benefit ourselves is a remarkably callous approach to life.  This attitude could result from someone who has been forced into a job that requires them to prey on unsophisticated buyers (and they adopt this attitude so they can live with themselves).  In such a case I think they should immediately quit and find a new way to earn a living as their current profession is causing them significant harm.  If they’ve come to this belief on their own, sadly I think they’re defective as human beings, and I can just about guarantee that there will be unhappiness that results from this in their future.

Categories
Personal Finance

Another “Kick at the Can” in Negotiations

There are a number of behaviours which are universally despised, yet often creep up as a scummy way to get a good deal out of someone.  When an offer is made and accepted, to then take back your offer and try to get a better deal is a very low move.  If you’re haggling in a developing country and you make an offer which is accepted by a merchant, try withdrawing it and offering a lower amount.  You’ll see someone go, rightfully, from cheerful and happy to near violently angry.

This creeps up as a scam when people negotiate with you and while you’re negotiating in good faith (and assume they’re doing the same), they are in reality (and without your knowledge) only the first line of negotiation.  Once you’ve reached an agreement with them, they’ll then say they need to get someone’s final permission for the deal.  This permission will be withheld, then negotiation will reopen and the new person will try to get an even better deal out of you.

This often happens with car dealerships, where you think the salesman has the power to negotiate, but all of a sudden at the end the sales manager won’t go for it and the deal you thought had been accepted disappears and you have to pay more.  A similar situation happened to a friend of mine recently where she’d negotiated a trade-in value and told the dealership that she didn’t want them saying the trade-in was in “worse shape then they expected” and try to reopen the negotiation.  She invited them to inspect the car before it was brought in, or stand by the valuation they offered.  Of course, they tried to do exactly this (expecting once she’d had her car towed in she’d take the lower offer) and, good for her, she walked.

A car BUYER could do this in reverse by one spouse going in and pretending they were going to buy the car, get to the final stage of making the purchase, and then say they needed to get the final ok from their husband / wife.  Of course, the spouse would refuse, then show up and use the previously agreed purchase price as the starting point for the new negotiation.  I would recommend AGAINST doing this for three reasons.  1)  It’s a really scummy thing when people do this to you, and it’s just as scummy if you do it to then.  2)  The dealership is going to recognize this trick and not fall for it (they’re happy to play games with you all day – you’ll probably get frustrated and give in before they do).  3) There are ethical ways that you can get a fair deal from a car dealership which are far more likely to work.

Another friend used this as his favourite trick when negotiating real estate deals.  He’d hash out a deal, haggle away and pretend he was ready to do it.  Once an agreement was reached, he’d suddenly reveal something that stopped the deal in its tracks (which he’d known about all along and avoided mentioning in the negotiation), then he’d use this to reopened negotiating, trying to get a better deal than previously agreed to (with him having the new information that he knew a price they WOULD agree to).  With some people he was able to get away with this repeatedly (improving the deal each time).  I was somewhat impressed at the deals he negotiated, but was unimpressed with his tactics (and unwilling to do this personally).  He even tried it with me and it almost killed our deal (and unfortunately would have involved lawyers if he hadn’t honoured what we’d agreed to).

If you’re negotiating with someone, and you reach an agreement, DO NOT accept it if they try to reopen the negotiation by adding someone new to the conversation or by bringing up some previously undiscussed issue and trying to reopen the negotiation as a whole.  In some circumstances, such as if a buyer discovered damage to a property they had agreed to buy, you should negotiate about the new issue (the damage in this case and who should pay to get it repaired), but don’t let them use it to reopen the deal as a whole.

If the deal is very important to you, keep reiterating to them that you’ve made an agreement and an offer has been accepted.  If the deal isn’t very important to you (or you have another option for a comparable deal), refuse to do business with someone who tries to pull this on you.

Categories
Opinion

Public Speaking

My favourite Jerry Seinfeld joke is:

“According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”

Like most people, I always *HATED* having to speak in public.  I come by it honestly:  my mother tells a story where she had to give a class presentation in high school and she was so nervous she went to her family doctor and tried to get tranquilizers.

In large part BECAUSE so many people are uncomfortable speaking to a group, it can be a valuable skill in just about any occupation (it’s rare and therefore valued).  My father was middle management at a factory and, within the union and within management, people who could stand in front of a group and yack for a few minutes would often be promoted far beyond their intelligence or ability should have allowed.  A neighbour of ours was always willing to get up in front of a group to give an impromptu speech and despite being lazy he moved up the ranks at the post office (he went from being a letter carrier to travelling around doing training at various regional offices).

If you’re looking for a skill to develop that could help you with your career advancement, without knowing anything more about your situation I’d bet that public speaking would be a good choice (it’d be hard to go wrong with writing or sales either).

I’m not a gifted orator (by any means), but I’ve gone from being petrified at the idea of speaking to a small group to being able to give technical talks to over 100 people.

Step 1:  Realize most people feel the same way you do

I think the first step in developing public speaking skills is to realize that almost everyone is very nervous speaking in public.  It’s not something that you either have or you don’t, it’s a skill that most people who give talks have developed over time.

I’ve given up on learning a second language or a musical instrument.  I’ve tried (and failed) repeatedly at both and I just don’t have the aptitude (or enough interest / dedication).  Conversely I’ve known a large number of people who have dramatically improved in their speaking skills while I’ve known them, despite initial reservations.  I’ve never known anyone who kept working at speaking in public and DIDN’T improve.

Step 2:  Find a place to practice

Unfortunately this is a hands on skill.  You can’t master it by reading about it.  Talk in public every chance you get.  Create chances to speak in public by signing up for drama (if you’re still in school) or auditioning for a play.  If there’s a group in your area, join Toastmasters or the Dale Carnegie public speaking course.

By nature I’m a raging introvert.  In high school I realized that being shy and unwilling to talk to groups would severely hold me back in life, so I acted in the school play one year (2 whole lines baby!) and started a school newspaper (and assembled and managed the staff).  After a year of doing both of these I was more than willing to throw myself in front of a group and say something.

Step 3:  Get feedback

I’m a big believer that to improve at any skill you need feedback (or the ability to accurately evaluate your own performance).  Toastmasters and the Dale Carnegie course both have this feedback built in (and a good director of a play may give some useful feedback).

Step 4:  Accept the nervousness

Realize that for many people (such as myself) speaking in public will always be a fairly nerve-wracking experience.  When I’m presenting to a graduate course (about a dozen people) I get butterflies and have to go to the bathroom every 15 minutes beforehand.  I have been complimented repeatedly on my presentations, so in spite of nervousness, it’s possible to do a good job.  I get SOME satisfaction from giving a decent presentation or talk, but the nervousness doesn’t disappear.  I think it’s good for us to push ourselves outside our comfort zone at times, so this doesn’t prevent me from accepting opportunities to talk in front of a group.

Step 5:  Continually improve

There are always ways to improve at anything you do.  If you’re the best in the world at something, you can still keep getting better at it.  Sometimes you’ll be satisfied to just use the skills you’ve developed (it takes time and effort to improve), but for the things that are really important to you, it’s possible to keep getting better.  The way to do this is to be reflective about your performance, consider ideas for improvement from others or generate ideas for improvement yourself and TEST them.

Are you comfortable speaking in public?  How did you develop this skill if you are?  What is holding you back (besides fear, you chicken 😉 ) if you aren’t?