Sick

I'VE finally fallen sick after almost a year being healthy. I have such a low tendency to fall sick that it becomes a sensation to be sick. I do not detest being sick. Falling sick to me is a battle between me and an invisible enemy.

Survival of the fittest. Each time I contract a flu, I know that I'm going to get well and my immunity will become stronger. There are many strains of flu virus, but our immunity can handle some of them by default. Each time my body recovers from a flu, I gain immunity against that strain of virus. So the more I fall sick, the stronger I become.

Many people go to the doctor the moment they fall sick. The doctor gives them antibiotics and some medicine, but I believe in nature. I believe that nature has built us in such a way that we can fight minor illness(and maybe major ones like cancer) on our own. Each time you go to the doctor, your immune system is denied of the chance to get stronger. So you'll become weaker and weaker.

Ever since I was in primary school, I seldom took MC even if I fell sick. I'll just go to school and spread the germs to everyone for their own good. Each time I fall sick, I usually fully recover in 4 to 7 days. My longest period of being sick was 17 days. This was the result of ignoring advices like don't drink cold water or eat fried food.

Another thing about falling sick is that I become acutely aware of my weaknesses as a human being. I took a healthy body for granted and did not took the trouble to look after myself. So I suppose falling sick served as a warning to take care of my body. Miserable as it can be, falling sick makes me cherish a healthy body.

So, I wish that you will fall sick soon and build yourself a stronger immune system.

Save Money, Diversify, Invest for the long term, Get out of debt

IF YOU are an avid reader of newspaper's finance section or listener of any investing channels, these 4 advices would not be unfamiliar:

1. Save money

2. Diversify your investments

3. Invest for the long term

4. Don't get into debt

I'm sure some people will be saying, these are good advices, I should follow them.

Nothing against the widely accepted investing doctrine.

I just find them Bullshitish.

Robert T. Kiyosaki talked about these advice and why they are bad advice if you want to get rich.

I shall now give my interpretation of what he taught me.

Let's start off with the first "Golden" advice. Save Money.

I'm sure the term Inflation is not an uncommon word to many people, in my context, it means the depreciation of a currency's buying power.

Ever since I was financially literate, I've noticed that inflation rate in Singapore fluctuates between 4 to 7.5%.

Let's say you follow the "golden" advice of saving all your money. Putting it into a fixed deposit account which gives more interest then a saving account, for say 1.2% interest.

While your money sits in the bank gaining the wonderful 1.2% interest every month, the constantly rotating world has already eaten away your money's buying power by approximately 2.8 to 4.3%.

So when the inflation rate is at 5%, you are actually losing 3.8% of your money every month. Wonderful? You bet. Good advice? Tip top.

Next is the favourite advice any financial adviser loves to give. Diversify. In essence, it means to put your eggs in separate basket so that when one over turns, you still have the rest of the eggs. Good idea isn't it.

Congratulations, you've just made your broker a sum of good money for his retirement.

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This post is in complete, might update, might not.

The Invest Fair

THERE was an Invest Fair held at Suntec city from 16 to 17 August. I went to the 17th one today.

The mindset I told myself to have when I'm walking around the booth was: I'm a school student who doesn't know much about investing, so if someone were to stop me and talks more about what they had to offer, I'll stop to listen and absorb as much as I can.

This is the first Invest fair I attended. Unlike book fairs or tourism fairs, I realise that I'm very interested in what was on display.

There were several questions that passed through my mind when I was at the fair. One of them was, what has the indiviual companies have to gain by setting up a booth at this invest fair?

That question made me cautious whenever somebody approached me and preached what he or she had to offer at their booth. The most obvious question related to my worry would be, are they making money from the investments they sell or are they making more through the selling. The difference lies in that one has true wealth generation, one is just living off common hard working people who doesn't know about investing.

Most of them seems to believe in what they preach, except for 1 or 2 who seems amatuerish in talking to people. It made me question their true goals. I discovered an irony. If the investments offered to the public are so lucrative, why is there a need to share with the public and incur unneccessary costs. Those offering the investments could put in their money and get rich themselves.

Then I came to a conclusion. It might be a generalisation, but it would explain things. The reason those companies came to the fair could very well be for one of the ingredients rich people need to get rich. And that's "Other People's Money".

If you are lost at this point, I apologise. I didn't include any article to highlight the list of ingredients rich people use to get rich.

I'll put it simply, in order to reap the maximum benefit of a particular investment project offered by the source of investment i.e; big oil companies, plantation corporations or major banks, large initial investment capital has to be put in before an individual is allowed to invest. But that large sum of money is really hard to come by and really painful to lose.

So... these cunning companies took the investment offer, sliced it down to fit the mass market. If an investment offered by the source have a maximum gains of 60 to 110% return, these companies will subdivide the minimum initial investment as pre-required by the source into bite-size. Then, calculate the amount of profits they can slice off and still make the remaining returns look good to common people. Then, they package it such that its their investment and they are now offering to common people and give them the opportunity to get rich with them.

If their plan goes well, the company would be able to raise a large sum of money from individual hard working common people who are putting money and taking up the risks, without having to put in a single cent or take up a single drop of risk. Get what I mean? They keep some of the money raised as procedural fees and sends the rest to the source to invest. IF the investment goes well for the source, these company takes their calculated profits and throws the leftover to the common hard working people. Everyone happy. IF the investment turned sour, the source folds the project, all investment evapourates, the company tells their common hard working people that there are risks and that this time round they were unlucky. These common hard working loses all their money. What happened to the company? They find another big investment project and continue doing their packaging without feeling a single pinch of pain.

That's part of what it meant by using other people's money. If you are going into debt, make sure someone else is paying for you.

In conclusion, it was still an eye-opener, I didn't understood the need for seeking public investors until today. I'll definitely be more careful with my money whenever I see these kinds of investments. And so should you.

People Around You

ONE factor that would determine your success in any field of expertise is the people you mix with.

If your friends detest the idea of being rich, you will be influenced by them. If your friends think that working is the only way to live in this world, you will think like them. If your friends thinks that investing is risky, you will find it risky too.

This is a wisdom passed on by many successful people. Mix with people who are already at where you wanna go or are going towards that direction. Birds of a feather should flock together.

Today, I discovered a flaw in my personality. I knew it long ago but it didn't dawn on me that its that serious. That flaw is, I tend to prejudge people.

I have a female friend in secondary school, there was one time during a shifting of sitting positions, we got arranged to sit together. During that time when we were sitting together, I wasn't "enlightened" yet. So studying was still one of my past times. We never really talked about our future or that sort of stuff. Afterwards, we got separated and sort of drifted apart. When I gained my entrepreneur flair, I prejudged that she will be like many people who will be focusing only on her studies and career.

That's where I was wrong. In the period that we did not keep in touch, she has out done me in many many ways. She did stuff like forming her own band and cutting her own album . What triggered my attention was actually her move to start her own business. You must understand what is going through me at the moment I realise someone I know and at my age has already went ahead of me and started her own business. This is her business website. http://blakloopsnrings.livejournal.com/

It made me felt uneasy. Its time to take bigger actions. I've been postponing my plans to start business due to studies and all. Now I have a motivation to start them. No more excuses.

The important lesson learnt was not to prejudge people. Who knows, maybe if I didnt classify her as the working class people, we might have started a business together or shared similiar sentiments towards money?

Anyway, if you are reading this, congratulation on taking the big step towards achieving your dreams.

What Is The Reason For Being Rich?

EVERYBODY wants to be rich. The choice to live your life without worrying about your next meal, do anything you want to do, go anywhere you want to go. But that's just what everybody dream of at the back of their head. It is saddening to see so many people not striving hard enough to accomplish this dream.

Why is it that most people are not rich?

Is it the process that they fear?

Is it because it is wrong to attain wealth while others suffer?

Is it because you don't want to become obsessed with money?


If you fear the process of becoming rich, I can sympathise with you. Did your fear come from your ignorance of how to obtain wealth? Or did it come from not being able to accomplish what needs to be done? All of us have fears, but true courage does not mean that you need to be fearless. Many wisdom tells us that true courage is the ability to overcome fears. If you truly wants to become rich but do not know how, many people like me out there are striving towards our goals of becoming wealthy, join us and soon you'll find your own path.

If your reason for not being rich is because many people are suffering and you feel that you don't deserve to enjoy, try to see it from my point of view. Being rich does not rob another person's chance of being wealthy. There are 2 ways of obtaining wealth, one is to cheat, scam and steal from others; the other way is to show love, care and concern for others. Why not be rich so that you can help other people who are suffering? Is it frustrating to see people suffering and at the same time unable to do anything to help them due to your own deficiencies?

If you say that you don't want to be rich because you don't want to be obsessed with money, try to see it from this point of view. Money is nothing but a means of exchange for wealth. Being rich does not really mean that you need to become obsessed with money. Wealth comes in many forms. Having a truckload of cash doesn't really mean that you are rich. In fact, in some cases, that truck is worth more that the load of money it is carrying. Fret not, obsession is, but one of the many ways you can follow to become rich. You are welcomed to join me to find out other ways of obtaining wealth.

All reasons aside, I think, the true reason people are avoiding the rich path is because they have a misconception about getting rich. They feel that getting rich is only possible among the ruthless, tenacious and sly people. That is not really accurate. The concept of becoming rich is simple, but it is not easy. It takes hard work and persistence to be your own master. Sacrifices is always necessary for a greater good. But ultimately, it is a personal choice.

Passive Income

I'M GETTING the impression that normal people are afraid of passive income.

By definition, passive income means income that is generated without your active effort.

Isn't it a wonderful thing?

My hypothesis is that, many culture and upbringing says that anything that is obtained without effort is undesirable. Like stealing or cheating. Most people just cannot see the idea that passive income is actually the way to solve their money problems.

With the mentality that you need to work so that you are entitled a payment, many people just spend their whole life working to get a payment.

Probably the reason why this idea is so common is because its the fairest and easiest way to earn money, any other "easier" methods would be deemed impossible or even suspicious right?

What most people are doing is actually trading their time for money. They sell their time and skill in order to be paid a payment. Depending on their skill and the perception of the person paying them, the value of their time varies. Is it a fair description?

In their world, time is their only asset. Ironically, these people use the payment they received after selling their time to buy liabilities that eat their payment, forcing them to work harder.

The funny thing is, they think they are buying assets.

How many of you actually wants to buy a car the moment you can afford it? I'll say quite a handful.

There's nothing wrong with buying a car. In fact, it has become a necessity in our society. Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't want to put my money into something that drops in value the moment I drive it out of the garage.

The idea that most people are avoiding passive income led me to another speculation.

Throughout history, there are great men who accomplishes great things. All great men did not accomplish their feat on their own. They will have a group of people who does his bidding in order for him to accomplish his success. Then, I wonder if its the great man who encouraged those people to be normal or did those people exist so that one man can become great.

Did our civilisation evolve base on such symbiotic relationship? The leader and the herd.

The moment I saw the light, I tried to enlighten others around me. Only a few saw it too. Some were enlightened by others but we understood what each of us are talking about. Most people were just too afraid of the idea.

I often hear the excuse, I just want to be happy. You can still be happy when you are rich. What has being rich gotta do with happiness. Rich people and poor people both have happy and sad moments. But I would rather suffer a rich man's sadness than a poor man's sadness.

Passive income is not scary. Poverty is.

Business Vs Politics

I WAS being asked this question by one of my friends: "Would you be interested in politics one day?"

Before I answer, I would like to literate something I observed. Take Singapore for instance. For the past few generations of prime ministers that I happen to be aware of, I realise that all of them are sophisticated investors themselves. They have extremely sharp sense of finance. I can't bring up any evidence to support my view. But if I could, I would have listed a few.

Therefore, it led me to deduce one thing. Running a country is like running a big company.

Or to put it in another way, running a company is like running a country.

For a public company(a company that allows the public to invest in) they "print" their own currencies via shares. The value of the share depends upon the performance of the company as well as the market pressure.

A company that is well run, generates profit and in turn causes its shares to worth more. A country that is prospering, has strong currencies that the finance world have faith in, which in turn causes it to rise in value against other currencies.

If I'm not mistaken, one of the rules Warren Buffet (world's richest man) had mentioned about picking stock is to look at who is leading the company. A leader with good financial sense could usually turn a lemon into lemonade.

Back to the question, will I go into politics.

After giving it much thought, this is my refined answer.

First of all, I have to say that my education is insufficient to become a minister (I do not intend to further my studies unless I deem it beneficial to my personal growth as well as for my chosen path).

Secondly, to me, politicians are there to serve the people, I can do the same with my business, I need not join politics.

Thirdly, I love raw power. As long as I can stretch to the boundaries without overshooting it, I will. Being a politician, I will be under scrutiny of the public, this greatly affects me in terms of my privacy. I can't do as I please and get away with it like I could as a civilian.

Fourthly, I believe that everyone has a role to play in this society and my role is someone who brings in wealth. I believe that in order for politicians to carry out their policies, they need the monetary support. I will have the choice to support those policies that I liked and not needing to do much of the work myself.

I'm power hungry, but I know my limits first. Power without control is nothing. Both ways give me power, but I can control the power from business much better.

Heaven, Earth and Hell

MOST people live in hell. They are suffering their whole life and not doing anything to get out of it.

Some people made it to Earth, but they don't know how to proceed from there. Their life is bearable but they are not enjoying it.

Only a handful made it to heaven. They reach there not by doing charity, though its part of their routine. These people are different from the rest. They are those who are willing to make the change and find out how they can get to heaven.

Lol. Fatigue must have gotten me. There is absolutely no reference to any religion here. I wonder what am I talking about... Need to rest...

Who Am I?

WHO am I to say that my views about money are correct? And can I gurantee that following what I said will land you with great wealth?

I'm just 19 years old and I don't even own anything yet. How can I brag so much about my knowledge of money?

Truth is, the more people disagreeing with my views, the happier I will be. It will just prove that I'm one of the 2 sheep who left the crowd(see Sheepish Analogy for reference).

However, my thoughts are not unbased, they did not just pop out of thin air.

I have to credit my enlightenment to a successful multi-millionaire, business owner, real estate investor and mentor: Mr Robert Kiyosaki.

The first book that I picked up which was written by him was Rich Dad Poor Dad. Its a best seller that can be found practically in every book store. The book taught me what I wanted to learn. The book taught me the mindset I need to have in order to acquire great wealth.

Money is not something you should be chasing after. It's something that should be working 24/7 under you.

I seriously do not care if you sneered or yawned at what I wrote. It wasn't meant for criticism anyway.

What I wrote is my interpretation of knowledge I have gathered over the past 4 years.

I would rather discover that what I know is wrong (which is highly unlikely) through several stumbles in life, than to have people coming to me telling me that I'm being naive and stupid (actually I was hoping someone will come and do that to me, then I'll have someone to laugh back at when I made it).

What if I fail? I'm sure people will be asking me this question if they have a chance. In fact, I heard that question before. My answer? So what if I fail?

Didn't we learn how to walk by falling a few times?

Did we learn to swim without swallowing a few gulps of water a few times?

Did we learn to ride a bike without bruising the knees and bleed several times.

I'm prepared to fail. Be it 2 or 3 times, I have nothing to lose. Failing to me is truly a feed back telling me that the method I used is not the right one, try again with another method.

Eventually, with my intelligence, I will figure it out.

Though I grew up being told to do everything right (its in the education system, you get punished for doing things wrongly), the defiant side of me would always do things just to discover the consequence.

What's life without finding out about the after effects of our actions?

Mistakes are meant to be made if we want grow and learn.

Are you afraid of making mistakes?

The Rise And Fall Of Economy

SINGAPORE is considered a relatively safe country for investment and has a robust portfolio of growth since its independence in 1965. She virtually transformed from a fishing village to a Multi-national and cultural hub in a short spam of 43 years.

Such growth is remarkable for a country with only an estimated population of 4million people and total land mass of 699.4 sq km.

One would often wonder how all these came about. Of course, many locals who went through the education system and studied the subject Social Studies will cover the topic on how Singapore developed.

While it will be laborious and boring to bring those factors up and explaining them, it is often important to keep in mind the rough road we took to be at where we are.

Besides a good government via good leaders, Singapore’s growth also has to be attributed to the entrepreneurial spirit of our forefathers. They landed on the shores of a strange land with the keen desire to create.

Creation is the beginning of all things.

There is no growth without creation. Our forefathers create something out of nothingness and built us a beautiful country.

But as this creation grows, the spirit of creation is eroded. Comfort and complacency blinded our eyes, giving us the illusion that our utopia is here to stay.

We indulge ourselves in empty promises given by unscrupulous speculators, hoping to reap something out of nothing instead of creating it.

Ever since the beginning of commerce, there has always been a rise and fall in the economy, be it on a small local scale or global. Man had been trying to prevent a crash whenever a market is at its peak. But if we look at the cause of the peak in the market, we can easily understand why market crashes is the inevitable. Such is the ways of nature. It is a cycle that man will always fight to get out of, but fail.

Every time a market crashes, it is those with the true wisdom of creation who picks up the pieces and rebuilds the economy.

As the rebuilding process accelerates base on creation, “freeloaders” hop onto the “meat” wagon hoping to get a share of “meat”.

These freeloaders sold credits in promise of “meat” that was never theirs. Their speculation of the value of “meat” pushed the price to sky high. All these, done on empty credits with no backing of any sort.

With increased values of credits, they gave out more credits in promise of “meat” to unwary common people.

When the market reaches another peak, these common people wanting to get out of the market either because of retirement or in need of solid assets, they started claiming their “meat”.

As there was little creation since the speculators hopped on, there was not enough “meat” to go around, thus, the common people could not receive what they paid for.

Resulting in the fall of speculators and thus the whole economy as it had become.

No matter what industry is concerned, it has always been this way. We cease to create once we took things for granted. We dig a hole and bury our heads in it, thinking that everything will keep going up.

But the sad truth is that the moment the gap between solid assets and credits widen, it is the beginning of the end. The irony is that even when man realizes the mistakes and the cause of the mistake, things will always happen again, just that it will wear another disguise.

Thus the saying: History repeats itself.

Therefore, the one thing one can do is to be prepared for when things come crashing down, so that one can be those who are picking up the pieces and rebuilt the true “meat” wagon for personal prosperity.

I wrote this after reading a book which I can't remember what title it was. Will update if I come across the book again. The book was about the story of John Law, father of finance(for more info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Law_(economist). This draft is subjected to further refinement as my journey to understand money gets more in depth.

A Different Life, My Greatest Regret.

MY LIFE would have been so much different if I had not attended a motivational course conducted by a local millionaire Adam Khoo.

I imagined the life I would have lived if I had not discovered my entrepreneur flair. I shall try and recount it.

When I was in secondary 3(when I was 15 years old), I fell in love with a girl. After getting to know each other and spending some time on an overseas trip together, we decided to go steady. It was my first relationship and I confess that it was very exciting.

Here is the part where the story would split. If I had not attended Adam Khoo's course, I probably wouldn't have gained the radical thinking I had now, my personality wouldn't have changed.

I would most likely hold fast to the study hard, get good grades, go to a good school and get a high paying job with lots of benefits rule.

I would have gone to the same Junior College my ex-girlfriend went to. We got the same result for our O'lvls. ( I broke up with her after our O'levels as we were going seperate ways. Thinking that she would find a better guy in a new environment and I don't want to spoil her chances.)

We would have spent our 2 years studying together, still living happily ever after, we would probably planned our wedding and all sorts of romantic stuff. We never quarreled before I changed personality.

Some times, I question myself whether the path I took was the right one. This would probably be the greatest regret in my short 19 years of life.

If I hadn't been so business-minded, I would have been obsessed with getting good grades in school. When my ex-gf asked me if I cared for her A'lvls, I wouldn't have said something like: "I don't care about your results as they are not important".

We would have studied hard together like we did when we sat for our O'lvls. I guess she probably hated me for saying those things.

What I truly meant at that time was: studying is not really everything, I know a better way that can gurantee our happiness and its definitely not landing yourself in a job.

She must have been like Red(see my 3rd post). I truly believed that the feeling we had for each other was real. But the difference of how we want to live our life is just too great to co-exist.

When I told her that I can take care of her after I made it and I know how to make it, she didn't place her confidence on me.

Maybe in her mind, money is not important as long as we have one another. Somehow, I know that I can never go back to the old, standard way of thinking and she will never understand what's on my mind.

Deep down inside me, I was hoping that she would read my blog and understand what's going through my mind. Though we both know that we are impossible, I wouldn't want to live with someone hating me.

I broke too many promises I made to her, believing that I could uphold them. But I will always remember the last promise I made to her on the last day we were together.

I will give her a white piano on the day I become financially free.