Money Talking

A move by Wall Street's top female executive for a job at Google could mean finance isn't the biggest game in town anymore. And Senator Ted Cruz is the first out of the gate to announce he's running for president. Does his entry into the race hint at the economic debates in the months ahead?

More than six years after the financial crisis, CEOs at Wall Street firms are reflecting on what happened. But only some of them. Money Talking learns who’s talking, and who’s not. Plus, how to get into the right state of mind when it comes to doing your best work.

Head to the self-help section in any bookstore and you’ll find no shortage of titles on the value of positive thinking. An entire industry exists to remind us that if we can just reorient our mindset, the possibilities are endless. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the workplace, says Alexander Caillet, an organizational psychologist on the faculty of Georgetown University’s Institute of Transformational Leadership and co-author of the Harvard Business Review article, “How Your State of Mind Affects Your Work Performance.”  “Ninety-four percent of the leaders surveyed report that the top three states of mind for effective performance and relationships are calm, happy and energized,” said Caillet to WNYC’s Charlie Herman, host of Money Talking. He’s referring to research he conducted with Jeremy Hirshberg and Stefano Petti on how the state of mind of those in leadership roles impacts the entire organization. Leaders admit that stress and anxiety can sometimes help in the short-term to motivate people into action. Over the long-term, however, it’s simply not a workable approach to achieving an organization’s objectives. And it’s especially bad for relationship building. Leaders with lower states of mind, defined as frustrated, disappointed and tired, are aware of these limitations, but get trapped into repeating patterns. Caillet recommends three practices leaders can adopt to shift to a higher state of mind, which he defines as happy, content and optimistic.  Biology. When we workout, eat well and feel good physically, we can take on more stress without being pushed to our limits. Physiology. “The ability to stop, the ability to take a pause or to take a break, or to engage in breathing are actually ways that we can immediately shift into a quieter and clearer state of mind,” said Caillet. Acknowledge / Reframe / Refocus. “Calling out an emotion has the effect of reducing its intensity,” explained Caillet.  Refocus your attention to another project. Reframe the situation by breaking it down into smaller parts that can be addressed independently. “Leadership is a public act,” says Caillet. If leaders are anxious and stressed, so is everyone else at work. States of mind are contagious. Caillet says that leaders report that under higher states of mind, “they get better results, decisions get made, the meetings are quicker and people tend to collaborate more and be less defensive and reactive.” We’re all going to be in a lower state from time to time, but acknowledging it and using these tools to break out of it are critical for organizational success.

As cyber attacks become ubiquitous, "cyber insurance" is becoming increasingly popular for companies big and small.

New Media experiments like Vox Media, BuzzFeed and Vice Media have investors all aflutter. Is this the future of media, or a bubble that might burst? 

Small slights at work – intended or perceived – can lead to resentment, distrust, and even a complete breakdown in office relationships. It may be your boss, a subordinate or just that guy who sits in the next cubicle, but when any of these relationships sour, they can drag down your own happiness and productivity. Brian Uzzi, a professor at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and author of the Harvard Business Review article, "Make Your Enemies Your Allies," has developed an approach to fixing work relationships that have gone bad. He calls it the 3Rs. 

Ron Lieber thinks it’s time for parents and kids to start having honest conversations about money. Lieber is the personal finance columnist for the New York Times and author of The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous and Smart about Money. He says kids are going to ask the uncomfortable questions – are we rich? how much do you make? – and it’s important to answer their questions. Doing so will not only prepare them better for a world of increasingly complicated financial decisions, but it will help parents too. “This isn’t easy and I don’t mean to imply that every parent walks into this with their head screwed on straight,” he said, “but often the process of having to teach it to kids, having to because we really do have to, helps the parents or parent figure it out for themselves.”

At the start of the New Year, you probably made some resolutions to improve your personal and work life. And if you are like most people, a few weeks into 2015, you’ve probably already let them drop. But don’t fret! With advice from the Harvard Business Review, it’s not too late to recommit and achieve your goals.

Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo, announced this week that the company will spin off the Chinese e-commerce website Alibaba into a separate corporation. It's an investment now worth nearly $40 billion. Without it, Yahoo will now be a much smaller company that by some calculations is worth less than $0. And that might be the best thing for the future of the company, which was once a leading player in Silicon Valley — and Mayer’s plan to turn it around. This week on Money Talking, Nicholas Carlson, author of Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo! discusses Mayer's plan, what challenges she faces and how being one of few female CEOs makes it more complicated.

Heavy hitters from the worlds of business, politics, philanthropy and even entertainment converged on the small Swiss town of Davos-Klosters this week for the World Economic Forum. The annual conference brings together billionaires, bankers and sometimes even rock stars (is that Bono?) to discuss and debate the world's most protracted problems. This year, the theme is "The Next Global Context." Not sure what exactly that means? Well, it gives you a lot of opportunities for discussions about practically any topic. And this year, there've been a lot of the conversations about the mixed global economic picture. In the U.S., the economy is growing. But for much of the rest of the world, it's slowing down, even struggling. The European Central Bank announced plans to inject $1.3 trillion into Europe's economy over fears it's facing deflation. And in 2014, China's economy grew at its slowest pace in over two decades. Then there are the oil states are bleeding money as oil prices plummet.  Money Talking regular contributor, Rana Foroohar of Time magazine is in Davos and spent time with many of the event's biggest names. She explains what attendees are talking about, what concerns them and whether global income inequality is getting its due (spoiler alert, no). And later in the show, Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (who's also in Davos this week!) talks to Charlie Herman, host of Money Talking about how to scale down our commitments to make space for the things that really matter. 

The world is awash in overworked, stressed-out workers who stretch themselves wafer thin trying to do it all and have it all. They rely on a litany of to-do lists and productivity apps on their phones just to keep it all straight. Without a full schedule, they feel unaccomplished and unloved. What they might want to feel is deceived. "We've been conned with the idea that if we can fit it all into our schedules, we can have it all in our lives," said Greg McKeown, Harvard Business Review contributor and author of one of 2014's best business books, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Over committing, McKeown says, can lead to anxiety and lost productivity. "If you don't prioritize your life, then someone else will," he told Charlie Herman, host of WNYC’s Money Talking. His answer is what he calls “essentialism” or an approach that forces hard choices when it comes to selecting the things we ultimately do. "It's about being so selective that you have the space to do the things that are absolutely fabulous, that are amazing, that are break-through experiences." And McKeown advises that changing the question we ask ourselves before embarking on a new project or assignment may help us get there.  "If you're not 90 percent sure of doing something, just don't bother. Don't worry about it." Heidi Moore, the U.S. Finance and Economics Editor at The Guardian, asks herself a similar question. "What do I want to want to spend my time on to show what I actually value in life?" It's a question that forces attention on only those things that have the potential to help us achieve our objectives. "Your time has to be spent according to what your real priorities are." Overcommitting usually stems from our fear of missing out, or FOMO, and it is a powerful motivator. It pushes us toward browser windows with 14 open tabs and inboxes filled loads of unread emails. But while that fear is a powerful hedge against complacency, it robs us of the head space we need for bigger thoughts about long-term projects. As McKeown put it, "what we have to learn is the joy of missing out." And if we end up a little bored as a result, that's okay too because "at the edge of boredom is all creativity," said McKeown.  It’s something that Manoush Zomorodi, host of WNYC’s New Tech City believes. In the first week of February, she’s challenging people who sign up for their Bored and Brilliant campaign to rethink their relationship with their smartphones, to push themselves to space out and be bored. As she put it, that’s “where scientists, neuroscientists, say some of our most original thinking, our problem solving, our novel ideas come from.” Will you dare to embrace being bored?

Jon Oringer's last company failed. In the early days of the Internet, Oringer built a pop-up blocker for web browsers. We take for granted now that only rarely do unwanted web pages launch themselves on our screens. That's because all the major browsers now include a pop-up blocker. And that's why Oringer went out of business. The software he built and sold became irrelevant overnight when Microsoft added the feature directly into Internet Explorer, the dominant browser at the time. But Oringer didn't shut down empty-handed. His marketing efforts had depended on stock images that he either had to license or create himself. It was a time consuming process not made easy by the existing photography agencies.  "I knew that their was some sort of problem here with getting these images to creatives," said Oringer. In response, he created Shutterstock, a stock photo company. "I went out and over the course of year shot over 30,000 images, put them up on a website and created a subscription." He thought, if he was having this problem, then others must be too. "Everything around me became some image that someone could use in a business to sell something else," he said. Eleven years and 400 million sold photos later, Shutterstock is a public company worth more than $2.5 billion dollars and one of the most successful on New York's technology scene.  Charlie Herman, host of WNYC's Money Talking sat down with Oringer to discuss how to foster start-up worthy creativity in a company with more than 500 employees, why venture capital is the wrong way to measure success and whether activity on Shutterstock can be used to predict the next big news story.   

These have been good times for technology companies like Uber, AirBnb, Lyft and Instacart: they've found plenty of willing investors anxious to fill their coffers with capital. And each funding round has raised their valuations to the point where some wonder where we're headed. This week on Money Talking, why today's companies aren't like their dot com predecessors.

New York State plans to issue new rules in the first quarter of 2015 for the buying and selling of bitcoins, the digital currency made up of bits and bytes, instead of dollars and cents. Bitcoin entrepreneurs have been operating with little to no regulation since the currency first proliferated online in 2009. Money has been made (and lost), but for many, bitcoin and digital currency is confusing, and has a reputation for disappearing money or illicit activity. Pioneers of the digital age have been predicting a turn toward digital currencies for at least two decades. Say goodbye to change rattling in pockets and thick billfolds. In fact, maybe no more wallets at all. If you're scratching your head wondering what this is all about, it's because there is still a long list of unanswered questions about how bitcoin will work when the real world collides with the digital one.   That's where Ben Lawsky comes in. He's the Superintendent of New York's Department of Financial Services, the agency that regulates banks and other organizations involved in money transfers. After his office proposed draft rules for virtual currencies and received over 3,000 public comments, Lawsky thinks he's found a balance that puts in place consumer protections without stifling innovation. This week, Charlie Herman, host of Money Talking, sits down with Lawsky to discuss his optimism about the future of e-currencies like bitcoin, including money transfers with low fees and and encryption systems that prevent sharing personal information during transactions. But he also has concerns about a currency that's traded outside the purview of governing authorities, a valid fear given that many of bitcoin's early users were illegal actors. And then later, as the new year gets underway, some advice on how to be less distracted in 2015 by Ned Hallowell, author of the new book from the Harvard Business Review , Driven to Distraction at Work. 

The New Year always ushers in another opportunity to take a stab at a few things that seem to be dragging us down. But which things should we focus on? Maybe the answer is in the question. The modern world has given us infinite choices: Everything is on demand all the time; everyone can reach us in fractions of seconds. Our technology buzzes, rings, pings, vibrates and blinks all day, every day. And that doesn't say anything about the human disruptions: The co-workers who barge in on us; the family members who drop by unannounced. We live in a world riddled with distractions and many of us lack the tools to deal with it.  And screens. Everywhere, the screens. Even in those moments when we're waiting for something or somebody, we don't take a minute for a deep thought; we practically seek out distraction. "We’re conditioned to bring out our iPhone, open up a laptop, look up at the television screen," said Ned Hallowell, a psychologist and author of the new book from from the Harvard Business Review Press, Driven to Distraction at Work. "I’m not saying let’s go back to a world without screens. I’m just saying what we have to do is put ourselves in charge of them and not let them be in charge of us." Hallowel says we need to recognize that we have more control over our lives that we tend to think. "We haven't learned how to recreate boundaries," he said. "You do have demands from other forces. But no one forces you to check your email at 3:00 a.m." Don't pick up the phone every time it rings. Try not to get anxious from those blinking message lights. And realized, the brain is incapable of what we typically think of as multitasking. According to Hallowell, once you take back control, the rest can be handled by taking care of your brain:  Sleep. "People say 'I'm too busy. I've got to stay up late.' Most of the time they're staying up late screen-sucking." Eat. "Eating right doesn't take time. It just takes selection." Exercise. "People say, 'I don't have time to exercise.' My answer is 'you don't have time not to.'"  Meditation. "It only takes a few minutes, a couple of times a day. It's a way of cleaning up your brain. At the office, he suggests a quick burst of exercise will do the trick. Take a walk. Do some pushups even. And find some people along the way. Positive human contact is the universal antidote for clearing the mind, resetting your focus and slowing the world down for just a little while.   It may sound like easy advice, but committing to it could make a difference.