Hello and welcome back.

I hope 2009 has started off on the right foot for you. 2008 proved to be a very challenging year. We saw the demise of large, far reaching banks and companies, the default of countless mortgages, the challenge of keeping the big three automakers afloat and much much more. All possibly summarized into what we could call the 'Big Bail Out'.

It turns out that the $8.5 trillion price tag of the bail out is more than the costs of every U.S. war — from the U.S. Civil War to Iraq — according to the Congressional Research Service and Cybercast News Services.

So what are we to make of all this? What does this mean to you and me, and what we do in our daily lives? Aside from the obvious stresses that we're all feeling in the economy and our jobs, what we can do to help ourselves is to refocus on what is important to our businesses and what will help us to remain competitive and strong as we push forward. And what better place to start but at the foundation of what we do.