The Online Investing AI Blog

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Conventional wisdom is usually not conventional and not really wise. It’s often an agreed-upon lie, at worst, or an excuse to keep trying to do the same things over and over again.

It’s a mass-thinking rut, often.

You can find examples of conventional wisdom everywhere–at work, at schools, and at the town hall. But, if you really want to see conventional wisdom at work, check out the world of investments and personal finance.

How can you tell when conventional wisdom is at work? When you hear the same debate or argument over and over again, chances are you’ve stumbled on a conventional truth.

Conventional wisdom doesn’t have to be a thought that is believed by all of  the population. Different groups have different conventional truths. Ironically, these bits of conventional wisdom can be exactly opposite of someone else’s conventional truth.

And the other problem with conventional wisdom is it leads to fatalism. You believe the conclusion of a certain “truth” is writ in stone, simply because it’s the conventional truth of so many people.

An open mind is the cure for conventional wisdom.

Here’s one way to exercise that open mind and break through the walls of conventional wisdom.

What you do is to define some challenges that are part of conventional thought–things you hear in the mainstream media, or talk about with your friends. Then, write down some options that will contradict their conclusions, or change the game entirely. Try to make them positive. Here are some of mine:

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Business Strategy, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI, Success, US Economy conventional wisdom, economy, personal finance, rich, truths, wealth, wisdom

Stafan Baudy @ Flickr

Personal finance is really about asking the right questions.

Should you buy and hold? Should you sell and walk away?

How much should you save?

How much should you spend?

What’s the best investment?

Unfortunately, I don’t have the answers to all those questions–but a lot of smart bloggers and columnists do. And I’ll let them do the talking in this week’s edition of Weekly Wisdom.

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Business Strategy, Internet, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI, Success Investing, Links, Money, personal finance, questions, roundup, saving, wealth

As a limited time promotion, we are giving away the first two chapters of The Wealth Singularity for free. What is the Wealth Singularity?

We believe that technology accelerating at an ever increasing pace. But that is not all that is changing. New technology is used throughout the world to make money, for both individuals and corporations.

How will Artificial Intelligence revolutionize the investing game? How are blogs, Twitter and Facebook revolutionizing the Internet? How can you achieve financial freedom without wasting a lifetime in a cubicle?

These are important questions that are answered in this eBook.

Why get left behind as other people and businesses are using new technology to cash in?

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Accelerating Technology, Automated Trading, Business Strategy, Dreams Come True, Great Books, Internet, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI, Success ebooks, finances, financial success, learning, Money, spending, Success, the wealth singularity

It’s been said that resourcefulness is the ultimate resource. I think that for companies, innovation is the ultimate resource. Especially after seeing this screencast from Gregg at Envy Labs on Dan Pink’s blog. It really got me thinking about how innovation creates success for companies.

How awesome is that! They created a cute and funny video that people see when they unsubscribe. I don’t know if it has really reduced the unsubscribe rate. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it has.

What else is awesome about the Punish Derrick video?

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Business Strategy, Internet, Success flow, fun, groupon, innovation, punish derrick, Success, unsubscribe, work

Flickr (Creative Commons)

You have to wonder sometimes: do you think the guy who tests rides at Disney World wakes up and says, “Crap… It’s Monday… I have to ride the friggin’ roller coaster.”?

Does the staff photographer at Playboy say, “Stupid 8 a.m. photo shoots,” when his alarm clock rings?

Wonder if the buyer for Macy’s gets up on Monday and thinks to herself, “I can’t believe I have to buy all those purses.”

It wouldn’t surprise me.

The bureaucracy and office politics of the workplace can suck the fun out of the most creative, most meaningful work, turning it into… a job. And jobs are full of micromanagers, non-existent managers, backstabbers, risk averters, and the ilk who seek to commoditize inspiration and who turn the thing you were born to do into the thing you are bored to do.

Fortunately, technology and new business models offer us radical options. The world can be your workplace. You can even keep your current job while you experiment with some of the following options, designed to refresh your inspiration and give you an opportunity to transform your job back into your passion.

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Business Strategy, Dreams Come True, Internet, Money, Online Investing AI, Success, US Economy boss, consult, freelance, fun, job, mission, nine to five, occupation, Success, work, writing

Pic courtesy of redjar @ Flickr Creative Commons

When you were young, did you ever dream of some day, one day–one blessed day–waking up and finding yourself a member of a cross-functional team?

Or, a sub-brand analyst?

Be honest. Most of us wanted to join a professional football team, or be rock stars and astronauts. I don’t recall anyone ever telling me that their dream was to manage cross-functional teams.

Somewhere along the way, we passed on our dreams to earn a paycheck. We became busy. And actually, those dreams were vivisected into discrete little occupational niches and awarded excruciatingly long, and utterly useless titles.

All in the name of being busy.

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Accelerating Technology, Business Strategy, Internet, Money, Online Investing AI, Success business, busy, entrepreneur, lazy, productivity, startup

Pic courtesy DavidDennis @ Flickr

There’s a killer on the road. His brain is squirming like a toad.
–Jim Morrison

Remember Jim Morrison? He was the Lizard King.

Seth Godin says that being king of your lizard brain is a good thing. For Seth, the lizard brain is that deep, dark shadow of the evolutionary past. It’s the part of the brain that squirms with the fear, fight,  flight, and fornicate responses.

Even though the lizard brain hasn’t been called on to lead us out of sticky situations involving bears and mastodons in thousands of years, our lizard brain still pumps out signals of imminent doom and demise in the form of resistance.

Resistance, according to Godin, leads to compromise and failure. (Steven Pressfield talks about it here, too.) Resistance and compromise have implications in personal finance.

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Accelerating Technology, Business Strategy, Great Books, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI, US Economy book, linchpin, lizard brain, panic, personal finance, resistance, seth godin, stock market

Mondays stink.

Unless, of course, you develop residual streams of income. Then, Monday is just another day to earn money.

Residual income is derived from products and services that you work on once and they continue to generate income–perpetually. The internet has opened up more residual income streams than ever. Before, rent and royalties were about the only types of residual income stream available to the common person.

New residual income products and services include:

• eBooks
• Affiliate sales
• Blogs
• Web advertising
• Contextual ads
• Invention royalties
• Video and podcasting seminars

And there are a lot more. To learn more, you can check out the following sites, all of which specialize–in one form or another–in the creation of residual income.

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Business Strategy, Internet, Money, Online Investing AI, Success blogs, ebooks, freedom, job, monday, Money, personal finance, personal financial freedom, residual income, royalties, wealth singularity, work

Not to get into any big political debates before a nice harmless list of links to smart thoughts and ideas, but let’s just say the jury’s out on the notion of wealth redistribution.

But one thing that’s certain: redistributing wisdom, especially personal finance wisdom is a good thing for society.

We now have the most effective way to distribute wisdom ever–the internet. In this week’s Weekly Wisdom, we pull together the best links we could find on personal finance and personal growth.

Enjoy, comrades!

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Business Strategy, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI, Success, US Economy best of, Investing, Links, Money, productivity, roundup, wealth, weekly wisdom

Carol Gonzolez @ Flickr

The future demands more of us than our institutions have prepared us for.

Our learning institutions are designed to make us productive members of society. Heavy emphasis on “productive.” In fact, schools are built around the idea that we will be wage earners.

Teaching rote memory and learning to color within the lines and think inside the box are more valued in a factory setting where the guy or gal on top is the Queen bee wealth creator; everyone else is just a worker bee.

But, now, the hive has changed. You have more computing and communication power in your iPhone than US Steel did in its entire corporate structure. There’s no reason you should stay a wage-earning drone when you can become a wealth-creating owner.

Here are some new ways you can create wealth.

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Accelerating Technology, Automated Trading, Business Strategy, Internet, Money, Online Investing AI, US Economy alchemy, future, information, information economy, Money, new wealth, value, wealth, wealth creation, wealth singularity