For a lot of people when they want to save money they often look to see if there is a partially used or opened product of the same kind to hopefully save some money. For myself, I have personally never been too big of a fan in purchasing an opened product as I guess I am one of those people who are a bit paranoid on how there has to be some kind of catch on why the product has say been returned to the store.

However, a lot of people actually try to hunt for these types of items as people like myself are reluctant to buy it even at a discount which forces the company to drop the price even more. In a lot of cases though, I have personally seen how a lot of returned/used items in stores are actually perfectly fine except the original purchaser did not know how to operate it. I have seen some very interesting, which are also one hundred percent true, examples of this.

One day I saw person who was returning a VCR to a store and it was just bought the day before. Apparently something was wrong with the item as he was pretty annoyed over it as well. The store employee then asked what the issue was and the person told her that the VCR was broken as it couldn’t play the DVD’s that he bought. The employee then tried to explain how that was normal and the guy just kept insisting that it was broken. In the end, they just ended up having to resell the item as a used/open product at a discounted price. Somebody actually did end up buying it afterwards which doesn’t seem like too bad of a deal if you think about it.

Another thing that I have seen is how people tend to abuse the return policy from various companies. As an example, I hear many stories of people who are say getting married and do not have a video camera. What they do is that a week or so before their wedding they go to the store to purchase the video camera. Once the wedding is over, they simply return it and just claim that they didn’t like the product and so they receive a full refund. As a result, again the store is forced to sell the item at a discount and really there is nothing wrong with the item.

There are times of course where there is a legitimate reason why an opened product is extremely marked down such as having a lot of cosmetic damages. At the same time, you have to be careful as sometimes you might not be buying what you think you are. For example, some people are devious where they would buy say a new keyboard from a store. What they then do is go home as they own the exact same product and simply swap it with the new one that they just bought. They then return their old keyboard as the new one to the store with success. Unfortunately in that scenario, you would oblivious that you are paying for something that is extremely old.

While it is not a sure fire thing, from what I have seen if you are buying a used or opened product then usually the person you are buying it from should be able to confidently tell you a consistent story on why the product is being sold in its current state as oppose to just “There is nothing wrong with it” type of deal. One of the best ways in general too when it comes to saving money in shopping for things is to bring a person who knows a lot about the product as they will have a better chance in knowing what to lookout for.

Buying used or opened products can definitely be a good way to save some extra money, but just try to be careful in making sure that what you are buying really is a good deal.

I was watching a video today that had a group of successful business people who were being ridiculed by a person who had a very accomplished educational background in business and as a result he thought that he could use that as a way to belittle everyone else. Now keep in mind that these business people literally own multi-million dollar businesses and to say that they are successful when it comes to business is an understatement.

I couldn’t believe that the person was so into himself and believing that his educational background somehow made his opinion the only valid one amongst those other people. As expected, the business owners kind of laughed over that notion and then mentioned how someone who is successful actually has proof that they have what it takes to succeed in the real business world.

While education is definitely important, I personally think too many times there are people who believe that having a piece of paper on how you completed a program somehow automatically puts you in the same league as someone with real world experience and is already successful at what they do. I often see this kind of conflict in normal working environment as well when it comes to say a person’s wage as some people argue that their 4 year University degree should entitle them to more pay as oppose to a person with say 4 years of experience in the industry.

In my opinion though, the bottom line is that a person needs to be smart in how they do business to be successful. To do that, you need a way to gather up knowledge, resources and contacts to aid you in doing so. For the most part in most scenarios, I personally see school as a safer way to help you achieve that where you would spend money to do so and trying to be a self-made person is the riskier and often more brutal route. Either way, I personally believe that whichever route you take it comes down to how smart the person is in being able to apply their skills and knowledge while being able to utilize their resources effectively.

I’ve fortunately had the opportunity to work with a lot of different types of people so far in my life with a lot of them playing some type of leadership role in whatever it is that they do. One challenge that they all had in common was the experience in working with people who always refuse to admit any wrong doings for fear of looking inferior or the thought of showing humiliation for something that is clearly a result of their own actions is not even an option.

Normally having a lot of pride should be a good thing as it helps to motivate you to continue doing what you believe in. However, in my opinion if it reaches to a point where you are constantly closed minded or preventing yourself from doing things that are necessary to achieving your goals that it is time to learn how to be humble as well when it comes to your professional life.

The reason I say this is that from what I have seen people who tend let their pride get in the way from doing what is right also tend to become obsessed in constantly lying to themselves and others which ultimately creates a negative situation for all. I’ve seen an example before where there was a person who was responsible in supervising a lot of people and one of his responsibilities was to select someone within his talent pool to train to become a supervisor like himself. People looked up to him as he had a good track record and so when he chose a candidate he was very confident that this was the ideal choice.

Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way as the person he chose constantly failed under pressure while also unsuccessfully being able to lead others. Regardless, he still stood by his decision. As time went on, the situation did not change and it reached to the point that other people began to lose respect for him. As unbelievable as it is, he still stood by his choice and then resorted to things such as trying to over embellish the person’s accomplishments while also undermining everyone else’s accomplishments as he did not want to look like a failure for choosing a person who was clearly unqualified and not ready for such responsibilities.

With that example, I can honestly say that the situation would have been better if his pride didn’t get in the way of his decision making process. On top of that, I personally think he was hindering his own growth by not learning that it is okay to fail and that how he comes back from failure is the real thing that he should have been focusing on at that point. Too much of anything is bad and the same goes for the amount of pride that you have in yourself I’d say. Like they say, you have to learn to swallow your pride at times. As mentioned, learning to be more humble can be the cure for that as we can’t forget that we are all constantly learning everyday in order to grow as a person.

I thought this was an interesting conversation that arose today. I was in the office building today and the person who owns the suite told me how his friends were telling him to never sell that space as according to Feng Shui guidelines that space location is suppose to provide a lot of good luck and fortune to its tenants.

This was interesting as I think for a lot of people many of their business practices and directions are based on one’s personal beliefs. I think there is nothing wrong with that as people essentially project their values and beliefs through their work or business everyday I’d say. Sometimes though I think it can go a little overboard for more superstitious things which can be harmful.

For example, I know many examples where some people strongly believe in things such as fortune tellers and of course they get fed all this information that they are going to be wealthy or that something negative is going to happen in a very general way. They then go through everyday without even challenging that notion in a constructive way. I guess this can be a tricky topic as you have to ask yourself “Where do you draw the line” between some kind of belief and the way you run a business? I’ve even seen people use say astrology where they refuse to partner people up in the workplace who have signs that are suppose to be incompatible even though technically it looks like a good fit.

When it comes to business I think it is important to maintain your values while at the same time having a decent amount of flexibility to adapt to the business needs as well. Unless the purpose of the business was to specifically promote or sell whatever ideology that it is you are trying to showcase, then that is completely different. On the flip side, I know a lot of people who say that in order to be successful you have to be able to throw any personal beliefs out the window that may conflict with you in making good decisions. Guess the answer varies depending on who you talk to as there are usually more ways than one to do something.

This episode kind of bothered me, in a light hearted way, and kind of felt unpolished compared to previous episodes. Early in beginning it was announced that this was the final task and that the candidates, who were in pairs consisting of James and Stefani with Nicole teaming up with Frank, would have to choose two other candidates who were previously fired to help them in this upcoming task. I thought that was kind of strange as in previous season the final task would be a one on one showdown between two people.

James and Stefani decided to choose Angela and Aaron. Frank and Nicole decided to go with Tim and Surya. I personally couldn’t believe they chose Surya of all people considering how much they conflicted with each other before. The task this time around was that the two teams had to write, produce and direct a 60 second mini movie that would be shown to a movie audience. The mini movie would basically be a commercial for an Air Freshener product called Renuzit. Now the interesting thing was that Trump mentioned that at the end of the task himself along with his colleagues and the Renuzit executives would “make a determination on who we like”. That was kind of odd as he usually says something along the lines of “someone will be fired”.

In a humorous way, most of the filming and production aspects that the two teams were conducting irritated me as I have a background in film which made me more critical on what was happening and the end result. Guess it is kind of like a chef going crazy by watching people overcooking their food. James and Stefani’s idea was to have a courtroom scenario where a guy was being accused by his wife that he stunk up the house after a poker game. However, the guy uses the Renuzit product which got rid of the odor and hence he covered his tracks.

Frank and Nicole’s concept was to show people using the product in various circumstances such as an office environment. They also had a portion where this kid was in a hospital bed and complaining about a “bum” that was next to him who really stank up the place. Of course, you then see them using the product to get rid of the smell. Both groups had their fair share of conflicts it seems.

There was this one part where James kept telling this actress to say the word “Interesting” over and over again as he wanted her to do it a specific way. She said that word so many times that I’m sure the word began to lose its meanings to her. When it comes to directing, I was told a quote before that went something along the lines of a good director never tells an actor how to act. Funny thing is, he spent so much time trying to get a perfect shot and in the end it got cut out as he didn’t really have enough good footage of the other parts of the story to make sense of it all.

Frank and Nicole seemed to have played more of an individual game I thought as during the shoot it was all Frank with Nicole taking it easy and during editing it was mostly Nicole. They had their spurt moments as well such as during the editing time where Frank kept giving inputs which broke Nicole’s concentration. This was the end footage result for both:

Kind of hard to say which one I preferred personally. If I had to choose one I’d say overall James and Stefani’s video seemed a bit more smooth and sensible overall. On top of that, at the end they had a product shot with the company’s website printed on it which is usually an effective way to entice someone to learn more about a product incase the commercial didn’t fully convince them of its greatness. In the end though, Trump and the Renuzit executives simply deliberated on the candidates performances. As it turns out, no one was fired. Trump instead told everyone to gather their belongings and head home as he will meet everyone next week in the boardroom in-front of a live audience.

Well, this is definitely different. Wonder if there will be a live task that they will have to do or if it is going to be like an hour long boardroom debate. Maybe multiple people will get hired too. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.