Give and take key in business /&/ Personal  dealings OUTSWIMMING THE SHARKS HARVEY MACKAY ​ Abraham Lincoln was a man who believed in compromise. According to an old legend, when he was practicing law in Illinois, a farmer asked for Lincoln's help in getting a divorce from his wife.

​Lincoln asked, "What seems to be the trouble?"

"It's our house," said the farmer angrily. "I want to paint it brown, and she wants to paint it white. We got into a big argument about it."

After calming the man down, Lincoln suggested that he go back to his wife and try to work out a compromise. The farmer was very doubtful that any such solution was possible, but he agreed to try. Lincoln told him to come back in four weeks.

After four weeks, the farmer returned to Lincoln's office saying, "There is no need to start proceedings against my wife. We've made up. Compromise is how we did it."

A pleased Lincoln asked, "How did you manage it?"

"Well," said the farmer, "we decided to paint the house white."

Maybe this is why novelist Robert Louis Stevenson said, "Compromise is the best and cheapest lawyer."

I was recently asked how my wife, Carol Ann, and I have managed to stay together for 64 years. I replied that when we got married, we agreed that Carol Ann would make all the minor decisions, and I would make the major decisions.

Luckily, there have never been any major decisions.

All kidding aside, compromise is absolutely vital in both our personal and professional lives. It is the lubricant that keeps the gears of relationships and business dealings moving smoothly. 

Understanding what you want and why you want it is crucial to successful compromise.

It is about knowing your nonnegotiables and being clear about what you are willing to give up. This clarity allows for more effective negotiations and outcomes that are acceptable to all parties involved.

Compromise also facilitates progress and it maintains integrity. It is also important to recognize when not to compromise.

Compromise should never come at the cost of honesty or integrity.

I have found that the most successful compromises I have reached have resulted from face-to-face meetings, where both sides can read the situation clearly. Depending on the importance of the negotiation, it might be best to choose a neutral location, perhaps a restaurant or even a golf course where the atmosphere can be more casual.

Go into the meeting understanding that no one is going to get everything they want. And be prepared to come to a different outcome than you had originally considered.

Each side needs to respectfully listen to the other's concerns and requests. No interruptions, no protests, no questions until it's your turn.

Stay on topic and resist the temptation to bring in other demands that will only confuse the conversation. Review what you heard and put agreements in writing with deadlines or responsibilities as appropriate.

Finally, shake hands or otherwise leave your meeting (or meetings) on a positive note.

Chances are you will be doing business with them, or running in the same circles as them or even merging your companies at some point. Spit out the sour grapes and instead look forward to the fruits of your labor.

Mackay's Moral: Compromise is an attitude, not a pastime.

Harvey Mackay is a Minneapolis businessman. Contact him at 612-378- 6202 or email [email protected].

Loud budgeting’ makes it chic to be cheap By MICHELLE SINGLETARY Washington Post

Young adults are giving up "living large" for "loud budgeting."
In this latest viral TikTok moment, folks aren't staying silent about being on a budget.

They're candid about needing to reduce debt or shore up emergency savings when passing on dining out, concert tickets or travel they cannot afford.

It's frugality with a social media bullhorn.

"I pay a lot of money to stay at home, so that's where I'll be," one person commented on TikTok.

Another says in her video: "It's about being transparent about your money and what fits and what doesn't ... not folding to peer pressure."
In 2024, it's chic to be cheap.

It's box-dyeing your hair, a drink or dinner but not both, and staycations. Loud budgeting is a guilt-free decline to a budget-busting social invite.

I love this money movement.  It's a new phase, but, really, it's the old practice of pennypinching, which centers on not being ashamed to say "no" to yourself or others who pressure you to spend.

I've never been ashamed to proclaim my frugality. I've shared over the years that I'm so cheap that I continued to wear my maternity underwear long after my children could walk and talk. Are you chuckling now or criticizing why I would admit such a thing? If it's the latter (which is what loud budgeting is all about), don't judge. Appreciate.

Maternity underwear is expensive, and I wasn't going to throw it out because I wasn't pregnant anymore. Besides, this type of lingerie provides great support. I frequently joke that I breastfed all three of my children because the milk was free.  
​That's loud budgeting!

No more feeling like you can't be honest not wanting to splurge on a weekend bridal or bachelor party in Las Vegas. It's pushing back when someone says, "Come on, it's not that much money," implying that you're being cheap when what you're doing is sticking to your financial priorities, such as saving for retirement.

Years ago, I had a "Penny Pincher of the Year" contest.  The first winner saved money by solar-cooking her food on her rooftop. All it took was a sunny day, water-resistant and aluminum-laminated cardboard, a clear plastic oven roasting bag to create a minigreenhouse effect, and a dark pot with a tightfitting lid for maximum heat absorption.

I was amused and amazed by the money-saving strategies described in the entries.

I'll never forget the letter from one woman about her grandmother's determination to make her own potholders from shoulder pads.
This penny-pinching strategy wasn't successful, though, because the homemade holders were prone to catching fire.

One past winner took a cutoff plastic 1-gallon milk jug into the shower. According to this frugal fellow, it took a few minutes for the hot water to reach his shower. So, he captured the potentially wasted cold water in the jug and filled the toilet tank.

If young adults want to repackage parsimony, that's great, because the struggle to save while managing monthly expenses is real.

Last year, credit card debt hit an all-time high of $1 trillion.
Inflation is still haunting consumers.

A Bankrate survey found only 44% of Americans had enough savings to handle a $1,000 emergency expense.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a report that found auto and credit card debt began rising for low-income borrowers in 2022 through the third quarter of last year.

"While delinquency rates were unusually low during the pandemic, financial stress appears to have risen," the report's authors wrote.
The big expenses in people's budgets — housing and transportation — make saving difficult.

The average monthly payment on a new vehicle hit a record-high $739 in the last quarter of 2023, according to data from Edmunds, a carshopping website. It was $717 a year earlier.

The share of borrowers paying $1,000 or more a month swelled to 17.9%, also a record, during that period. That compares with 15.7% for the same three months of 2022.

Rents are extraordinarily high for many in the country.  In 2022, half of renter households — a record 22.4 million — spent more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities, according to a just released report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Within this group, 12.1 million were in the precarious position of using more than half of their income to cover their rent. That figure was also an all-time high.

"Though rent growth has recently slowed substantially, the extended period of rising rents during the pandemic propelled cost burdens to new heights," according to the report.

Encouraging yourself to be honest about your budget constraints can be liberating. It's also the answer to FOMO, or the fear of missing out.

I can get behind a trend that preaches penny-pinching without awkwardness or embarrassment.

Embrace loud budgeting, because it's OK to boldly own your financial truth.

In 2024, it's chic to be cheap. It's box-dyeing your hair, a drink or dinner but not both, and staycations.

Building trust by being true to yourself OUTSWIMMING THE SHARKS HARVEY MACKAY HARVEY MACKAY

One of the most famous lines in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" consists of Polonius' advice to  his son, Laertes. He says:

"This above all: To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."

You've doubtless heard that quote many times, but what does it mean? In today's language, it's all about authenticity. Authenticity is acting in accordance with one's true self. Being authentic means behaving in congruence with your values, beliefs, motives and personality.

Everyone has a personality. It is a blending of traits, thought patterns and behaviors, all taken together. An authentic person is true, reliable, dependable, faithful, trustworthy, accurate, genuine and realistic.

Authenticity is more than just a popular buzzword these days — it is a way of living that many strive for in their personal and professional lives. The problem is that we live in a society that tries to get us to conform to the dominant culture, taking away our authenticity.

As American poet e.e. cummings wrote many years ago: "To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle any human can fight, and never stop fighting."

Authenticity is a cornerstone of any successful relationship, both personal and professional. In the sales world, it is about being genuine in your interactions with clients and colleagues.

For me, authenticity in sales comes down to trust, long-term relationships and consistency. Authenticity fosters trust, the bedrock of any business transaction. If your clients believe in you, they are more likely to believe in what you are selling.

Authentic interactions lead to stronger, more resilient business relationships. People want to do business with those they feel are real and relatable. Clients and colleagues know what to expect from you, which builds confidence in your consistency.

So how do you demonstrate authenticity? Transparency, listening and personal touch. Be open about what you can and cannot do for your customers. Don't overpromise and underdeliver. Active listening can go a long way in showing that you care. Share appropriate personal stories or insights when they can add value to the conversation. This can humanize interactions and create deeper connections. People remember how you made them feel.

There is a personal satisfaction that comes from knowing you've been true to yourself and others. It is not just about making a sale; it is about how you make the sale.

Author and motivational speaker Simon Sinek offers this food for thought: "To be authentic is to be at peace with your imperfections. The great leaders are not the strongest; they are the ones who are honest about their weaknesses. The great leaders are not the smartest; they are the ones who admit how much they don't know.

Sinek is telling us we don't have to be perfect, but we need to be the best we can be. We can acknowledge our weaknesses, but we work with others who can help fill in our blanks.

So whether or not you are a fan of Shakespeare, keep his words at the front of your brain. If you wouldn't want to be your own friend or your own customer, it's time to check your authenticity — truthfully.

Mackay's Moral: Who you are is judged by what you are.

Harvey Mackay is a Minneapolis businessman. Contact him at 612-378- 6202 or email [email protected].

Cicadas Two broods will hatch at the same time, an event that won’t happen again in our lifetimes Story by AIMEE ORTIZ • Photo by SUZANNE DECHILLO • New York Times Cicadas are clumsy flyers, making them easy pray for birds. After a brief live the 1 trillion cicadas in the roughly 16-state area will die, becoming "basically free fertilizer for the plants.

The cicadas are coming — and if you're in the Midwest or the Southeast, they will be more plentiful than ever. Or at least since the Louisiana Purchase.

This spring, for the first time since 1803, two cicada groups known as Brood XIX, or the Great Southern Brood, and Brood XIII, or the Northern Illinois Brood, are set to appear at the same time, in what is known as a dual emergence.

​The last time the Northern Illinois Brood's 17-year cycle aligned with the Great Southern Brood's 13-year period, Thomas Jefferson was president. After this spring, it'll be another 221 years before the broods, which are geographically adjacent, appear together again.

"Nobody alive today will see it happen again," said Floyd Shockley, an entomologist and collections manager at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

"That's really rather humbling."

These insects will begin to appear in late April. They'll use their forelegs to tunnel out from the earth, their beady red eyes looking for a spot where they can peacefully finish maturing. A few days after they emerge and molt, the males will start buzzing in an effort to find a mate, a slow-building crescendo of noise that in a chorus can be louder than a plane.

Shockley said the dual emergence would most likely result in more than 1 trillion cicadas appearing in the roughly 16-state area where the two broods are generally seen. Forested areas, including urban green spaces, will have higher numbers than will agricultural regions. To put that into perspective, 1 trillion cicadas, each of which are just over an inch long, would cover 15,782,828 miles if they were laid end to end. "That cicada train would reach to the moon and back 33 times," he said.

One of the more exciting aspects of this dual emergence, Shockley said, lies in the possibility of interbreeding along the narrow band in northern Illinois where the two broods will overlap.

In most cases, Shockley said, the cicadas, which live about a month, will die not far from where they emerged. But since they're not great at flying and even worse at landing, cicadas often end up on sidewalks and city streets, where they can be squished by people or cars and "could conceivably make things slick."

" But rather than throwing in the trash or cleaning up with street sweepers, people should consider them basically free fertilizer for the plants in their gardens and natural areas," he said A ll told, these areas will be buzzing for about six weeks as the insects fly around looking to mate and deposit their eggs into slits they cut into tree branches.

Then they'll die, bringing with them a smell described by Shockley as similar to rotting nuts, as their bodies decay.

The insects are clumsy flyers, making them easy prey for predators like birds. They don't bite, sting or carry any diseases, and they serve as natural gardeners.

The holes they leave behind help aerate the soil and allow for rainwater to get underground and nourish tree roots in hot summer months. The slits they make in trees can cause some branches to break, and the leaves then turn brown in a process known as "flagging." But it's like a natural pruning, and when the tree grows the branch again, the fruit will be larger. The cicadas' rotting bodies provide nutrients that trees need.

John Cooley, a biology professor at the University of Connecticut, said his best advice for people living in the regions of the dual emergence is to let the bugs be.

"The forest is where they live," he said. "They are a part of the forest. Don't try to kill them.

Don't try to spray insecticide, all that kind of thing. That's just going to end badly because there are more than you could possibly kill with insecticide; you'd end up killing everything."

While the prospect of the 1 trillion cicadas might sound horrifying, Shockley emphasized the awe of this rare natural event.
​
"Don't be scared of it. Embrace it for the wondrous event that it is and embrace the fact that it's very temporary," he said.