Choose to Be Rich "Learn It!" Review

Been awhile since my last blog. I was suppose to finish the choose to rich series by Sunday, 20th March 2005. Sadly I haven't. I have been trying very hard. Listen to the audio over and over again and also reading the "Learn It!" session workbook over and over again hoping to get more out of it. Today I've completed the learn it section and made a few new commitments.

In the previous section, it tunes my mind to be more focused now on to getting rich and what would be required of me to go there. To set my mind and commit myself into this area for now to eventually achieve my goal in life. From this section, I've learn the fiver pillars of financial literacy.

Pillar One: Economics.
One has to know how this works. At least in general. The ups and downs, the reason why and some history of why things happen. All of us plays a part in this economy and since the advancement of technology and communications, we become more globalized and hence each country's economy is closely related to one another affecting each other. This is important because it will give us the knowledge to understand the current economy situation and make the appropriate decisions.

Pillar Two: Accountings.
Everyone must know how to work out their OWN cashflow. Managing own finance. It's not so much about going into hard core accoutings, but knowing the fundamentals of it and be able to tell what these numbers are saying. To be able to know the how to read a balance sheet (asset and liabilities) and income statement (income and expenses).

Pillar Three: Taxes.
A better understanding of what is tax avoidance and tax evasion. It makes me better understand that laws are made by the rich. Infact, tax laws are written to force people to be on the B and I side of the cashflow quadrant no matter which country you are in! It forces the Bs and Is to have good accountings. I'd learn to be tax literate and will be looking for local advisers to furnish me on more details. Also included were types of coporations and their pros and cons under the tax laws in the states.

Pillar Four: The BI trangle.
On the outside, The mission, leadership and team is required. This shapes the general direction of the business. By shaping, it helps to find the right kind of team players in to share the common mission.
Next would be talking about INSIDE the BI triangle.
1. Cashflow management- that is the bottom line of anything business. That's why it is the base. This reflects how well the business is doing.
2. Next is communication management- Inernal and external! One must be able to sell the idea out for partnership, sponsors, investors! Sell it to the team to work towards the same direction and mission! No matter where, everyone is selling. Interivewees sell themselves, political sell their ideas and even over the phone conversation, both party are selling their idea...may it be going to somewhere to have lunch or even rejecting it. Selling is not about being able to talk, it's about listening. Knowing the need.
3. System management- a system that will make the business work even when you are not around. The system must be able to kick in and generate income even if you are not around.
4. Legal System- Taling about how important your intellectual property is! PATENT your ideas and have a legal adviser around. Legal fees may be expensive, but to loose your property is even more expensive especially when someone else takes it and make it into a very successful business! Know what kind of patent is available and patent your property well.
5. Product- It is at the top becasue it embodies the business's mission, and the success of it depends of all the factors below it. It is important, but not as important as the rest of the BI triangle because without the rest of the tiers below it, it has nil value.

This pillar magnifies the importance of having a team! No one can be an expert in ALL the BI triangle. Reason why S quad business stay smal is because they try to be the whole BI triangel themselves.

Pillar five: Investings
Investing is a plan! It is not a one off strike rich tips that everyone wants. This program introduces the different kind of investors:
1. Accredited Investor
2. Qualified Investor
3. Sophisticated Investor
4. Inside Investor
5. Ultimate investor
Everyone MUST learn how to invest. You may be from the E,S or B quad, but if you do not know how to invest. You will loose out. Many Bs who do not learn how to be an I, eventually due to their lack of knowledge in being the I, the usually loose everything there. So start learning how to invest now!

First, one have to choose what kind of plan you want. To be secure,comfortable or rich? Do have a protection portion! Should anything happens, at least the family is covered. In the program, it introduces different kind of investment vehicles around.
1. Paper Securities
-Bonds
-Stocks
-Mutual Funds
2. Retirement plans and accounts
3. Annuties
4. Real Estate
-Property
-REITs
-Real estate mutual funds
5. Business
- Franchising
- Network marketing
- Buying business
- Starting business

It states how the above investment vehicles come about, how it is done and also gives the pros and cons of it. One has to make use of all these vehicles to do out their investments plan. One can start on the Safe and secure plan and slowly work up to the plan to be rich. Some safe and secure plans should still be kept. Some basic things like certain savings stay the same. The more you have, the more you have to protect. It'd be good to have a financial adviser to help here.

Well, the "Learn It!" portion is HUGE! I believe I will need to refer it from time to time, have advisers to assist me here as well as reading up more books on the five pillars.

Next, it's time to move on with the DO IT portion. I'm ready!!!!!

26th March 2005, 0409H signing off to DO IT! Cheerios!

Next lesson: Building a business!

The very next thing I'm learning will be to build a business. Already now, a group of friends and I have already started up a non-profit environmental organisation aiming to integrate environmental issues into everyone's daily lifestyle! It's great to build something and see it running. We are learning alot from this organisation. Managing people, learning how to go around to get funding for events and also event management. Wow! It's wonderful!

And just a few days back, my gf (future wife) and I had this great idea. We have seen pictures or even articles of ways the PCs and their peripherals being disposed at third world countries and causing so much damage to the world. Pollution, diseases and such. We want to start a company to help properly dispose of these computers, also providing service to ordinary home users to maintain their home PCs and to make it last longer so they do not need to dispose them so soon. This will help to reduce such waste as well as save the consumer end some $$$ to buy new PCs, depending on their need.

Based on the B-I triangle; On the outside, we have our Mission. Not sure if we have the leadership but I'll try to lead this business. As for Team, we are looking for people like computer experts as well as companies or people who can fund this. Inside the triangle, Product- we have it. Now what we need to learn is how to build the system management, communication management ,legal management and to generate cashflow. We do not really know how to, but we'll try. My gf is in marketing so I belief she will do well there for this new service. We want to build it so successful that other countires will want the franchies of it so all of us can own this business and at the same time make this world a better place to live in.

I've already told my gf that this will be the business to learn. Expect ourselves not to get any paycheck for at least 2 years and also be prepared to fail. But don't loose the lessons learnt. Should this business succeed, we will use it to fund the environmental organisation we already have so that more beneficial activities can be organised to make people more aware and play a part to protect the environment we live in!

We will succeed! Should any of you have any advices to give us, do feel free to drop your valuable comments. And in case you want to know more about our environmental organisation. It is at http://www.eco-singapore.org

It's 0949Hrs, 19 March 2005 (Sat) here in Singapore. Siging off~

MLM...and learning Real Estate!

It was the thursday that just passed. 10th March 2005. Have made arrangements to meet a friend who is in the local multi level marketing company. His name is Edwin and he really is a great person. He keeps meeting me up to share the system in this company and how I can build my business with them. They deal in health products. They have training courses for the members. I am really keen to join them. I want to know more about their training program and I want learn from it. I want to learn how to sell.

There are 3 ways of joining the company, firstly as an AP. This is free but one is only entitles to buy their products. Next is TP. This costs about SGD$500. Here, one can start to recruit members and form teams to work towards a sales quota to get bonuses (Which comes from a a part of the company's overall profit). Lastly, it is to join as a WP. This costs SGD$5,500! This allows you to be the whole seller for the company, which means a WP can buy the products at a much lower rate...wholesale! One can also recruit people to work as a team. And upon hitting the team quota, they will get more share compared to the TP.

I'd really want to join as a WP so I can start to do more! But am currently short of cash especially when only not long ago I just signed up for a stock options course for this coming July which caused me SGD$5,100. However, one can climb up to WP from AP. 8AP = 1 TP, 4TP = 1WP. But it will takes a longer time. And of course, I want to do it in a shorter time. I told him my prob, so he just adviced me to join as an AP first as his team and when I have more cash on hands, then I go for the WP. Which means meanwhile, I can go for the courses conducted by this MLM company!

All the above membership in the MLM company does not include the course fees. So if I'd want to attend one of the course, it will cost a certain fee. But the course is made as such that one has to be at a certain level before being able to attend the course so that one can get the RIGHT kind of training for his/her level. The very first course, SCS, will cost SGD$288. A 3 days course. I will be attending the one in April.

Oh yes, before I went to meet up Edwin, I had made an appointment to a school to find out more about the real estate course they are conducting. I was really impressed by the coverage of the topics. And upon completing the course, one will be an OFFICIAL real estate agent in SINGAPORE! This means other than learning more about real estate, I can earn by being an agent too! I really love the course and it only costs SGD$750. I will be signing up for this course! Cheers!

Wow, Thursday was really a very rewarding day! I was given so much opportunities! And I'm glad I had made decisions onthese opportunities to learn more in order to move towards my financial freedom!

I have been reading and listening "Choose to be rich" and I will be finishing it by this weekend. There, I'll give my reviews.Meanwhile, I'll still keep on playing both 101 and 202 ONLINE!

Till my next blog,
Cheerios!

14th March 2005, 1101Hrs... signing off~

Reviews

Gosh...today was a hectic day. Went out yesterday afternoon for a meeting with my non-profit,non-government environmental group to discuss about an upcoming new e-newsletter. Thereafter, I went to work at about 1900Hrs local time and got off work this morning 0830Hrs. Straight away went to the zoo to do up some recruitment stuffs for the new batch of volunteers and there after went to give tuition to my colleague's daughter. And in the evening, came back home to help my friend to do some video editing. Overall, a very very very EXHAUSTING day! Whew! Glad it ended with me writing this blog.


Next, since I've finished reading Ken's book, The ABCs to Real Estate Investing, I'd like to make a personal reviews on it:
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This book is great! It shows you what he as done and what to look for in any deals. Also in every chapter, there are exercises for the readers to follow up and what they have read. It started by clarifying all the myths and believes that people have. Things/issues that people have set in their mind that prevents them from taking that very first step.It also followed by the a chapter which I feel is the most important one before proceding on to the rest of the book. It is setting GOALS. And the goals set are really SPECIFIC. So much so that one will not loose track of what they are heading for.

It then went to talk about how to go around doing IT. Building a team (knowing who to look for to be in your team), Research, understanding what is a real deal and a swampland. Basically, the preparation phase. A really in dept step by step guide in SEARCHING for that deal.

After locating the deal, next is to analyse it. Calculating the Net operating costs and such. After getting bank loans and what to look for when calculating. From there, one will be able to derive a offering price for the deal. And the book also explains the neccesary stuffs to note when purchasing over a deal. Doing due diligence to make sure the deal is in the expected condition before fully taking it over from the seller. Also, what to do AFTER aquiring it.

He is a believer of buying the right property to hold on to it to generate cashflow. Nonetheless, this book he includes what one should do to sell the property at the best possible price.

Now, talking about the negative points on this book;
IF you are looking for a slow start, you will only find the first few chapters on the preparation part useful. He base his examples on big deals. Like plexes and such. Pretty hard to apprehend especially for newbies like me who wants to start small. But after taking a step back and looking over the book again, I think it can work. Just take his advices and use it on what you are looking for. 2BR1BA or something like that. I definately will give it a shot! No point reading a book and not put it into actions.

I must say, I will follow the advice of this book and work with it. And for all out there who wants to start, it's really a good book to keep as reference. Especially chapter 7: "Is it really a Diamon". This teaches you HOW to caluclate the intigrinty stuffs and puting up offer price.
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Since I've bought the 6 steps in buying a property, I will make a comparison again when I finish that. Which would most probably come after I finish the "Choose to be rich".

While working on shift last night, i ran into the book "7 Habits of Highly effective people". A book which I was quite skeptical about. However, I gave it a shot and read the first chapter. It caught my attention. It made me wanted to go on to finish up the book. But I stopped. I didn't want to deviate from my priority. So now, I'm thinking if i should read up the book "7 habits of highly effective people" or "6 steps in buying a property". Will made a decision again on a later date when I finish what I have now.

Last thing to add, I've listen the first 4 CDs of "Choose to be rich". The first 4 CDs is the THINK IT portion. After going thru them, I've realized how important it is to have a DESIRE for something. Setting a goal is really not enough. There should be a strong enough reason to cause a desire to make one want to achieve the goal set. If not, a goal is just only a goal. A mere target that will eventually be forgotten with time. DESIRE is everything, it will push you through even in the worst situation. Without it, even the simplest tasks would be a chore seem to hard. With it, anything is possible. One's biggest enemy is one's self. You can do what ever you want to. All you need to do is dare to dream, and put your desire in it. Nothing is impossible! Same goes for achieveing financial freedom. The person must find the reason WHY, and hence this DESIRE will push him/her through anything!

I have my DESIRE to be financially free. And I have more of it coming. As said before in my first blog, I want to be financially free so that I can dedicate my life to serving the community without worries! Also, such that my family can concentrate on whatever they want without worrying financially.

0154Hrs, 7th March 2005 Singapore time...signing off~

Stock and shares!

Woah! Yes, my next step of financial education is heading there! I have signed up to attend a preview seminar last night. It was from http://www.wealth-mentor.com.The coach is Mirriam MacWilliams and she is teaching how to trade in the US market. She has been trading for awhile now, 4-5 years. She made her first million in the US stock within 18 motnhs and turned it into her second million by the 24th month!!!

The course has a 4 day full hands on trading and there after, it gives a 6 months locally! The local advisers will teach and guide you if you are stuck. This is very important to me as I feel that having a support group is very important. Not only that, we have half a year of teleconference support, phone call support, weekly reports from herself direct from the states. It will state what she is investing in and why, so this lady here is actually walking her talk! But this course is hell expensive! It costs SGD$5100!!! Argh! But i really really want to attend it. I have a very strong gut feel about this seminar, just like when i heard about RK's seminar in Singapore. I feel it will benefit me alot.

Since the next course starts in July. I made a down payment of $425. Thereafter, negotiated with the event organiser to do the rest of the 11 months deductions from July onwards as I am pretty short of cash and time now to attend the upcoming course over this weekend.

Well, i guess for the next few months my "investment" piggy banks will be channeling into this new course. I actually signed up for a diving course this coming good friday but I guess I have to cancel it. I have to set my priorities. I can always take my diving classes when I earn more. I want to take it by age 25! But for now, it's investing on my head! Increase my FQ and be financially free by 35 so I can dedicate my life to volunteer work!

Oh, as stated in my first post, a group of friends and I started this non profit environmental organisation (http://www.eco-singapore.org) and jut to update everyone, it's doing swell! Anyone who likes to write for an environmental cause do feel free to email me as our team is coming up with a new e-newsletter to educate the public and get them to be more environmental concious.

That's all for now. I have to go work. It's 0700H, 3rd March 2005 here. Will write again. Cheerios!

~ZoOoOooming Off to worK~

A good rest..i'm back on 101 online again.

Well, wanted to play 101 once everyday but when i got my 202...i spend time learning how to play with it every night offline trying to figure out what's options, how it works as well as short. Still trying to get the hang of it so playing offline. And gosh...the expenses in 202 comes up so fast...faster than i can aquire enough assests and captial gain...attractive. But i gues i should concentrate on my cashflow firsst and try to leverage the left over with capital gains so it will help me to be able to buy more cashflow. MOre flexibilty in play and definately more interesting!

SO now I'm back ontrack to play CF 101 online again. Just some ammendments/updates to my personal monthly CF from the last blog. Here it is:

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Income:
Earned- $2100
Passive- $0

Expenses:
Transport- $300
Food- $300
Parents- $500
Laptop loan- $192
CC loan- $138
Handphone bills- $150

Assets:
Frd 1 (Arm) owes- $304
Frd 2 (Reg) owes- $88
Frd 3 (Pris) owes- $20
Frd 4 (Kev) owes- $20
Frd 5 (Z X ) owes- $50
Frd 6 (L P) owes- $500
Frd 7 (Reg) owes- $88
Frd 8 (Typ) owes- $140
Work Transport claim - $22

Liabilities:
Laptop loan- $3840 (20 more months to go)
CC loan- $2760 (20 more months to go)

Cashflow:
$520

COH:
$577
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And out of my $520 of cashflow, i've decided to do these:

"Savings" piggy bank:
15 years saving plans with bank 1- $200
Accident plan- $65

"Investments" piggy bank:
$200

"Charity" piggy bank:
$55

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Wow...bad management...realise i shld do more to reduce my transport,food and handphone bill expenses. So that it will help me have more cashflow to put into my "Investment" piggy banks. I will do that from next month on!

So many things I'd like to do like going for diving, takin up stock and share courses as well as real estate courses. Basically invest in courses that will up my financial intelligence.

Oh yes, i also wanna acknowleadge the few friends that I got to know when i play 101 online. I have learned lessons from them and I will try to schedule time to have everyone to play together. They are (sequenced in order of when I know them):

Sharon Y. from Taiwan. Same time as me.
Cameleon from Ireland. Behind me by 9hours.
Netsmurf from Australia. Ahead of me by 3hours.
Jodaveowen from Toronto. Behind me by 13hours.
Cr8ton from Atlanta. Behind me by 13 hours.

I will look forward to know more guys out there and will arrange matches/games to be played. OK, I'm playing 101 with Sharon and cr8ton while writing this blog. Oh, sharon left..now I'm only playing with cr8ton.

Gosh..i wonder why sharon can score 990 for 101, didn't get a chance to ask her before she went offline. I've never gotten that high. My max is only 920. If anyone is reading this, can you please advise what constitutes to the scores and how should i play to get such high scores.

Will be meeting up my financial adviser on thursday to get another savings plan and another this friday to analyse how I've done so far. Will give an update of my analysis on friday if it is out then.

Alrite..that's all for now. After playing this game with cr8ton, i will go to bed...it's 12.58AM,2nd March now. Have to wake up later at 5.00AM later..gee~

~PoOf~