Find out the Why before the How

Often when we about to do something, the first Question we ask:"How?". Yet, if even we find the hows, not very often we manage to get the thing done, especially come to the question of becoming rich.

There are many ways of becoming rich - the Hows. You can become rich by marrying a rich husband or wife. You can become rich by becoming a crook. You can become rich by becoming cheap. You even can become rich by wining lottery. There are so many how to the answers, but why there isn't many rich person around us? For me, it is the "why" that inspire, motivate, energize people. Most of people could not become rich regardless of knowing how, is because they do not have the strong "Why".

The why give you passion. Passion is the combination of hate and love. Knowing the why, is like knowing why you love what you want, and hate why you do not have what you want. It is like the old saying, "if there is a will, there is a way!" . The Why will lead you there.

Your Report Card after Leave School

In school, we had our own report card. We check on our report card on quarterly basis to monitor how is our academic performance. If we see there are some weaknesses on certain subjects, we be able to rectify it before it is too late.

However, when most of us are graduated from school, we do not have our report card to check on how well we are doing in the society, the quo real world. The academic report card is not useful anymore after you leave school, report cards such as your medical check up, health check up, marriage status, emotional condition and so on. One of the most important report card in our life is our personal financial statement. The financial statement is the report card for us in this modern civilization world to justify how well we are performing in our life. Ask any banker, they will not ask you for your academic report card on how many As you get. They would not say :"oh, you got good grade, let me lend you a million dollar!". Instead, they will ask for your up to dated, industrial standard financial statements. They will ask for the financial statement regardless who you are, where your from, poor or rich. Why is that? It is because the financial statement is your report card after you leave school. why? Because, it is the only way to track, monitor, and justify how well you are doing financially.

So, ask yourself, how you be able to know where are you now financially, without a up to date financial statement? The answer is obviously, you can't. It is the same concept of going for medical check up. The doctor will take a blood sample, check your blood pressure, your urine and so on. Then you only be able to come out with a report. And you be only able to know how is your health condition from the report. So, in order to get rich, wealthy, we need to have our on personal up to date financial statement. From that financial statement, only then we be able to track, monitor, rectify if necessary to archive our financial goal. It is the report card after leave school that is so important to everyone in order to success!

Think Like a Dog - Success in Business

Human has a complex structure of brain. Human brain is made of complex layer from cortex, to sophisticated limbic system and neuron system. It help human to be able to think beyond other living organism we known. It help human to think more complex. Yet, when it come to business investment, human way of thinking make human more incline to fear, disappointment and escape. Often, people are so fear of losing their money, and fall prey to their own emotional error system of over analysis - analysis paralysis, thus they never do something. Some people did it once, fail and make those negative experience hold them back to try again. "Fail" is a verb, not a noun, yet most people make it as a noun, and it they become failure.

Dogs, on the other hand, is a simple creature made of simple construction brain. their brain is much smaller. Thus, they become more focus, optimistic and resilience when come to failing. If you has or had a dog, you know dog never demotivated by failure. They are focus, and only focusing on achieving anything they tend to archive. When you throw a Frisbee or a tennis ball to dog to catch it, no matter how many times they fails, they will come back to you again, with the same energy asking you to do it again. They are focusing on wining. They do not trap in how many times they unable to catch the Frisbee or tennis ball, they only remember the pass experience of joys of success. They response simplicity in term of pain, pleasure, love and respect. They fell down, get hurt, pain and displeasure, seconds later, they come back with strong, enthusiastic, full blown energy in front of their master. They are in some way surpass the emotional strength of human. They are focusing on winning and how to win again and again. Losing is hardly inside their dictionary. The concept is applicable to business, sales and marketing. If we can think like a dogs, we able to handle the emotional fear of losing, failing rejection and objection. We will be able to more focusing on how to win. When we are focus on both emotional and rational mindset, winning is just a matter of time.

Sales

Sales is number one skill for every entrepreneur. Statistic shown 9 out of 10 businesses failed at the first 5 years mainly is due to the business owner could not sales. Sales isn't about the closing the deal, promotions, prices, numbers, services or product. Sales is basically about knowing how to overcome the fear of objections, rejections, and criticism. We all sales, regardless we like it or not. In everyday life, when we talk our friends, parents, colleges, bosses, and even strangest, if you are either pursuing, arguing, demanding, promoting, presenting, teasing, mocking, teaching, questioning or asking, you are in these context of doing sales. When you ask for your mum for pocket money for some reason, you are selling. When you asking your lecturer to give you "A", you are selling. When you demanding to your boss for promotion or increment, you are selling. We all are selling in everyday life, it is part of everyone life. But, only few of us able to take this gifted nature talent to make themselves rich. Sales is your right brain, your emotional strength. It is about the capacity of you to handle critics. The more you able to overcome your negative emotions, fear of critics, the fear of being different, the new world will appear to you. A world that few of us could see. The world of entrepreneur, the world of for everyone to win, the world of earning your freedom - the world of rich!

Dairy Farmer and Cattle Rancher

In agriculture industry, you are either deal with plantation or cattle. When come to cattle, basically, we can think of 2 person, the Cattle rancher and the Dairy Farmer. Their both greatest assets are same - the cattle, but they treat their cattle very differently. The cattle rancher will feed their cattle, make them fat enough and send to the slaughter house. The dairy farmer will feed their cattle, nurture them, and send for milking. Instead of one time harvest, selling off the meat, and start over to raise a new cattle, the dairy farmer make their cattle provide them milk as long as the cattle live. The milk provide steady cashflow to the farmer, the meats provide capital gain to the farmer.

It is the same come to investing. People who invest for capital gain, such as stock, options, futures and derivatives are similar to the cattle rancher. They are like holding a bucket of water. Once the water is full, they consume it and there will be no more. If there is a hole under the bucket, their bucket will never fill with water. However, people who invest for cash flow, they are like the dairy farmer. Instead of holding a bucket of water, they are in building a pipe line. They built the pipe so that the cash can flow. They are also continuously expanding the diameter of the pipe line, so that the cash can flow even faster. If there is a leak on the pipe line, they got the time to plug the leak, while only the speed of the flow is affected. Once the pipeline is constructed, there will be no strap of cash or no cash!

It is very important for investor to know what they are investing for. It is for capital gain or cashflow? If i would investing in cashflow, i do not really care about the price, I will pay the price and show me the cash now!

Become a Big Fish in an Aquarium or Become a Small Fish in the Ocean

Fish that live in the sea, river, lake and your home aquarium are different. Fish live in the aquarium behave differently from fish that live in the lake, the river and the ocean. The fishes that live in aquarium are more passive, weaker and less survival capability compare those which live in the river or sea, even the fish itself come from same family, species and physical aspects. For example, for certain same species of fish, they eat their own eggs for those live in the river, but never happen to those live in the ocean. For physical aspects, fishes in which live in the ocean has stronger defensive system compare for the same size, same species of those live in the river. Fishes that live in the river could not survive in the ocean but this theory does not apply to the all counter part of fishes living in the ocean. Ocean fish has stronger adaptability as because of the ocean environment itself are more competitive, more dangerous compare to its counterpart of river, lake or your home aquarium. Yet, the ocean is much wider and bigger. It is an environment of abundance. It can provide more than enough to every living creatures. But, the river, the lake and the aquarium in your house, the resources for the fish to survive is limited. The lake depends on the rains. The 4 seasons river dry when drought is hit. The aquarium need to be rely on the owners. This mean, the ocean is abundance and independence. The river, lake and aquarium is dependence and limited in resources. Fishes living in the river, lake and aquarium is basically living in the mercy of external factors rather than own survival skills. That's why, fishes living other than ocean, sometimes so desperate to survive, they need to be cannibalism.

The concept apply to businesses and investments world. Some investor would like to stay big in small town, and some investor like to start small in big cities. The small town businesses owner or investors will live in the environment of resources limited. They need to adopt the concept of killing other in order to win as the resources are limited. They so afraid of some day some bigger player will come and wipe them out. They though they in control but basically they out of control. These "big fishes in the aquarium" so afraid of strangest or new players to come to the town. We can see these economy pattern in the small towns, whereby, often the lands, the shops, the farms is belongs to one family business.

On the counter part, some investors (like me^^) would like to start as small fish in the big wild ocean. The ocean itself is abundances. It is create for everyone to win. Businesses owners and investors from big ocean, regardless big or small behave so differently. They welcome new comers as long it is a good deal. The mindset of to be independence-dependence. They know they just need to be more skills, more educated, well-equipped in order to win. It does not take to be a killers or take a loser to make a winner. It just need to be more financially educated. And by knowing "how-to", even start as a small fish, in big ocean, everyone has the chances to win, and win big. Once you able to win in the ocean, you able to win in any kind of situation, circumstances and environment. The true investor will rather be a small fish in the big ocean rather than a big old fish in a small aquarium. Still, the bottom line, the choice is up to you!

*Thanks to my friend again, Mr. Zaidi Abdul Karim for his insight about Fishes.

What is Money?

Money is just an idea. Anything you think of money is true for you. If you think to get money, you need to find a high paid secure job, then that idea will be true to you. If you think, to be rich, it take to be an entrepreneur, that will be also true. So, to be rich, all you need to do is by changing your idea, your thought and your opinion about money.

To understand about money, we need to look back to the history of money. In the early time, money is commodities, i.e. cartels, eggs, seeds. It is called the system barter. People trade to each other by commodities. Farmer will trade a kilo of vegetable to 10 eggs. However, the system does not has a guide line on the exchange to ensure fair trade. And it will be difficult to carry or keep the commodities as such form. Then, shell, gold and silver come into replacement. People started to use precious metals as medium of exchange. People will start carry gold and silver for trading. However, as the these trader started to travel far let said, from Egypt to Italy or France to trade, they are so afraid the gold from being rope.So, these people will store their gold and silver in the safer place let said Egypt and carry piece of paper that represent the gold and silver in storage. People then can carry these piece of paper (receipt of gold & silver in storage) from Egypt to Italy or France to buy goods they want. People who carry these of paper then can go to Egypt to claim the golds and silver.

The paper money continue to be backed the hard assets - golds. Until 1971, new currency system is introduced - fiat currency. In fiat currency, the paper money is not longer backed by hard assets such as gold. In fiat currency, the paper money is back by the government, the IOU . the debt. The fiat currency is a debt back the tax payer from a government. If the government is strong in term of politic, social and economy, the currency is strong. In fiat currency system, the government can print as much money as they want. People need to get themselves into debt to sustain the economy. If people do not get into debt, economy cannot growth. If the people cannot take anymore debt, the economy will contract.

The problem raise when the economy is contract. The Government will do something. The government will give cheap credit by lowering the interest rate and pouring money into the market by simply minting more.This will deplete the value of the currency, or shall we call the inflation. The consequences, the more you save, the more you lose. In today economy, trillion of paper money is printed to support the downsizing of economy. Think about the long term effect of that, will your paper money really worth what you had perceived yesterday? I leave that answer to you.

An Unfair Advantages from Robert Kiyosaki

Assets Protection: Don't Put all the Eggs in the Same Basket

Would you drive a car without insurance? Would you buy a home without insurance? Then why would you buy insurance for your investment? Well, most of us never know that, we can buy insurance for investment. It is one of the key point that distinguish professional investor and average investor. In technical term, insurance for investment is called "covered". Often when we heard investor saying that their position is covered mean they have insurance of their investment against the up and down of the market.

There are basically 2 types of insurance: the one we can buy like for a house, and the one that we need to learn. The insurance that we need to learn can be best explained by the old saying of "do not put all your eggs in the same basket", metaphorically means, assets segregation is essential in our current litigious world.

Entities such as limited liability company (LLC), limited partnership (LP), C-Corporation, S-Corporation are good to be used for assets protection. By owning your assets, let's said your 4-plex, under these entity, you are in this context segregating your asset. To best illustrate the concept, let's us take a look at the following example:

1. If you owned all your assets under your own name, when come to the case of one of your rental property stair case broke down and your tenant had injured, he or she will sue you. In the event of he or she succeed the court case, he or she can claims not just the rental property but your other personal belongings. It is like you are holding all your egg in the same basket, in the event of the basket drop down or has a hole on the bottom, all your eggs are gone!
2. If you owned your assets under different entities, you are making a firewall against any predatory law suit to your personal belongings. The entity will limit your liability to the extend of assets under the entity when come to any court case. The plaintiff does not has the claims access to your other assets at other entities considering the case 1. It means, worst to worst case, you only lose what is under the entity which is being sued. It is like each egg is putting different basket, if one basket is lemon, other egg and basket is not affected.

The bottom line is, that owned nothing under your name, but by legal entity. It is what the riches do, owned nothing but control everything!

Different Class of Investment

There are several type of investment available to investor at the market. Every investor has their own unique niches when come to investment. Some like to play stocks, options and futures. Some like invest in property. Some like invest in business. Different class of investment, require different set of knowledge. Basically there are 3 main categories of investment class: Paper assets, Real Estate and Businesses. To best illustrate the differences of each investment class, I would like to suggest as follow:

1. Paper assets (stocks, mutual fund, unit trust, options and futures): Investing in paper stocks is like go out and dating a girl. If you 2 won't get along, you two will shake hand, good night and never meet again.
2. Real Estate: Investing in Real Estate is like getting married. First, probably you be looking for as much "girls" to date for. And come to the final choice, you be sitting down to have a big signing ceremony of engagement. Well, if the marriage don't get well, getting divorce will be a tedious job to do.
3. Businesses: If investing in Real Estate is like getting married, then investing in business is like getting married with a kid. Your kid can be your biggest liability or assets depend on how you raise and teach. It is the most rewarding among the 3 classes yet the most difficult to deal with.

So choose the asset(s) class that suit you. Well, be fore warn, before getting into any investment, we should invest in ourself first - to be financially literate and smart!