Investment Advisor, Consultant, Professional Speaker on the Economy and Markets
Jim Zitek is a well regarded speaker on the topics of Critical Thinking Skills and applying those skills to the economy and markets. This web site covers his current speaking topics.
Jim Zitek is also an investment advisor with Feltl & Company, a Minneapolis based securities and investment-banking firm where he manages individual investment portfolios using a top-down approach. He starts with the economy and works down to individual securities.
He also writes and publishes two, e-mail publications: Economic Update and Market Update; and a blog: Paradigm Adjustment. You can also e-mail him for more information at:jim@zitek.net
Critical Thinking Skills Will Help You Make Better Decisions
Good decision makers, those who make correct decisions in a timely manner, are more successful and sought after employees. The problem of course is that making good decisions is very difficult to do. One reason is that the information and data points used to make decisions are often flawed.
Unless you do your own primary research, much of your information comes from and is filtered by the media. Media information is often over-dramatized, misinterpreted, over-simplified or simply incorrect. Headlines and sound bites do not provide adequate information or analysis. Consequently, media stories can lead you down the wrong path.
I have learned that you simply can't read more or watch more TV and expect to be better informed. To be better informed and make better decisions, you need to use a Critical Thinking Process that will give you more accurate, reasoned information.
The critical thinking process I use has seven basic steps. I simply tear an article or story into its parts; analyze the parts and then reassemble the article, but in a more informed way. Following are the seven steps.
1. Identify the argument (issue, conclusion and reasons used)
2. Define the ambiguous concepts and words
3. Uncover the author's assumptions
4. Examine the evidence (fallacies, evidence, statistics)
5. Identify missing information
6. Determine causes and effects
7. Draw conclusions
Using this process results in the kind of information and data points you need to make better decisions.
Chose from three different presentations
1. Economic Conflict: Are We On The Road To Recovery In 2010?
Everyday, I hear from businessmen, executives and other well informed people that they often feel confused about the direction and health of our economy. Worse yet, this confusion soon becomes frustration because no sooner does one “expert” tell us where the economy is headed, then another “expert” says the exact opposite.
You can eliminate both confusion and your frustration when you understand the three major approaches economists use to analyze the economy—the demand-side approach, the supply-side approach and the classical liberal approach. Just how do these approaches differ and how do they handle different issues. For example, what do the different approaches think causes inflation or how would the three approaches handle a stimulus program or the healthcare program?
Once you know these approaches, the “experts” and their conflicting analyses will actually make sense. You will know which policies they will propose and which pieces of data they consider critical. More importantly, you can immediately apply the skills learned in this presentation to gain a better understanding of where the economy really stands and where it’s headed. You will not only know the direction of the economy but which critical issues down the road could change that direction.
This presentation, as with all my presentations, are customizable in length and complexity to meet the specific needs of the audience.
2. Help. The News Is Driving Me Crazy
Stop talking back to the TV and throwing the newspaper against the wall. This presentation explains why the information from the media is often unreliable and what to look out for when you are reading or listening. It discusses
1. A practical, seven-step, Critical Thinking Process anyone can use to get at the real story behind the news,
2. How to build the breadth and depth of information you need, one story at a time,
3. Then, how to focus on the critical pieces of information you need to make better, more timely decisions.
Each participant will walk away with relavent information that can be implimented immediately. This presentation is also interactive and allows the audience to participate in the presentation/discussion.
3. This Is Not Your Nightly News
This presentation covers the "news" in a way you will not see or read about in your daily paper because it covers the different sides of each story; not just the story the media wants to present.
This presentation exposes the audience to some of the problems of media information and briefly discusses the Critical Thinking Process; but, it's focus is on applying critical thinking skills to some of the major issues of the day.
Prior to the presentation, ten current issues will be selected. At the presentation, the audience will vote, using my audience response system, on the issues they want to discuss.
Each participant will walk away with:
1. A better sense of how the media presents the news,
2. The essentials of an easy-to-use, critical thinking process,
3. How this process is applied to current issues, and
4. A more in-depth understanding of the key, critical issues they selected.
More information about each presentation is available on the Presentations Page.
Presentations give your audience the opportunity for active participation.
In addition to interesting and informative content, the presentations use a special, audience-response system that gives audiences an opportunity for active participation. From a question presented on the screen, the audience responds using a hand-held keypad. A computer then gathers all responses and displays the results in table or graph form on the screen and in seconds. This gives the audience the opportunity for active participation. You get presentations that live up to your audiences' expectations.
Call for date availability
If you are looking for a speaker that will give your audience something to talk about for a long time, please give me a call at 612-978-7222 or e-mail me at jim@zitek.net for more information or to book a specific date.
