Get Rich Or Die Tryin'

10 Questions for Robert Kiyosaki on Time Magazine

2009-07-27T14:28:00.006+08:00

Monday, Jul. 13, 2009
Source: Time

1. The Rich Dad in your first book was based on your friend's father. What is that friend doing these days? - Syed Tabish Rehman CHITTAGONG, BANGLADESH

He's a rich man. He's managing the family estate. I published Rich Dad, Poor Dad in 1997, and both my real dad and my other dad were dead. If I had written the book while my real dad was still alive, he'd have killed me.

2. If you did not have your Rich Dad in your life, what would you be doing today? - Ajay Gupta, GRAYSLAKE, ILL.

That's hard to say. As a young kid, I really wanted to be rich. I think you naturally seek your role models and teachers. Today I still seek mentors and wise men and wise women because that's how you get wiser--by hanging out with smart people.

3. At one point, you were living out of your car. How did you remain confident that you would be able to retire rich? - Stephen San Roman LAREDO, TEXAS

Confidence comes from discipline and training. I spent six years in the Marine Corps. Military training teaches you that there are four strengths: mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. What happens for most people, since they lack that discipline, they crack under pressure. That discipline and training kept me going.

4. Is it possible for a person with no money and few resources to still make a fortune? How? - Muhammad Zafar ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN

Get off your butt. You have to look for teachers. If you want to be a mechanic, go hang out with mechanics. It's really simple, but it takes determination, discipline, drive. You can't quit.

5. Do you think anybody can be successful in business? - Rogelio Gonzales BRICK TOWNSHIP, N.J.

Absolutely. It takes discipline. Most people would like to have a great body like Charles Atlas, but they're at Burger King wolfing down a Whopper with fries. I don't know how you can expect to get anything you want without some degree of long-term commitment. Quitting is the easiest thing to do. That's why most people don't make it.

6. Does education have anything to do with how rich or poor you become? - Muhammad Umar Gulzar NEW YORK CITY

No. Education is what you learn after you leave school.

7. You've said that your dad forbade your family to talk about money at the dinner table. Are people allowed to talk about money at your dinner table? - Jay Siena, TOKYO

That's all I talk about is money. When somebody tells me, "We don't discuss money"--well, money is discussed every day. We may not discuss religion, we may not discuss politics, but my decision to live in a safer community or have better food--it's all based upon money.

8. Are there opportunities to create new companies in this turbulent economy? - Jefferson Camargo SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL

This is the best time. When times are bad is when the real entrepreneurs emerge. Entrepreneurs don't really care if the market's up or down. They're creating better products and better processes. So when somebody says, "Oh, there's less opportunity now," it's because they're losers.

9. I am in the middle of a business project, but I have doubts and fear of failing. How can I overcome this? - Javier Hernandez GUADALAJARA, MEXICO

Everybody has doubts and fear of failing. But look at Tiger Woods or any great athlete: when the going gets tough, that's when they turn into geniuses and most people turn into wimps.

10. You talk about the profits that can be made flipping real estate properties. Did you take losses in the market downturn of the past few years? - Kenny Smith, BOSTON

I never said that. I don't believe in flipping real estate properties. Flipping is gambling. That's not what I do. I am a pure investor. I look at properties for the cash flow. The people that are worried today are flippers. The people invested for cash flow are still doing fine.

Whatever...

2009-03-18T17:46:00.002+08:00

For those who work in the support/service field, I believe they definitely face the same issues as I'm facing almost everyday. People just tend to runaway from their responsibility and always push the blame to other people. Just like few moments ago, an IT guy of one of my client called me to ask for the reason on why the error occurred.

IT: "Can I speak to xxxx?"
Me: "Sorry, he is not in the office. You are?"
IT: "I'm blah blah blah from blah company. I have some issue with the payroll system."
Me: "Ok, may I know what is the error?"
IT: "The user cannot login. I have created a new userid with administrator access."
Me: "Could it be the permission prob...."
IT: "NO! I have given the administrator permission."
Me: "Err....well"
After I paused for a while...
IT: "Ok, nevermind. I will call back again tomorrow."

Few moments later...

IT: "Hello, I'm blah blah from blah company."
Me: *thinking* that moron again. "Yes, may I know what is the problem?"
IT: "Yeah I'm having blah blah problem...are you the one whom I spoke to just now?"
Me: "Yes"
IT: "Oh ok. Well I did try to login using the previous userid and it works."
Me: "That mean could be something to do with the user permission..."
IT: "No! It is exactly the same permission."
Me: *thinking* I'm going to kill this moron... "Ok, if like that case. I will need to use the remote access to check but not now." (main reason is it only left 15 minutes to off work time)
IT: "Ok, when will it be?"
Me: "Friday. Is it ok?"
IT: "Yeah sure."

Call ended.

Who is escaping the responsibility now? Me or him? You tell me? I'm trying to help him by giving suggestion and he kept on talk like the fault definitely on our software. How could it be? Oh man...whatever.

I'm Trying

2009-03-16T22:49:00.002+08:00

Today, I had a look back on my current life. I got to use the word I always use, MESS! Nothing to be impressed of. Overall rating: BELOW AVERAGE. LOL. Let me break them into three main categories: Career, Spiritual, Relationship.

a) Career
I'm working at my current post for almost a year and I like my job for the firs. t time ever. I'm enjoying what I'm doing now but financially I'm still sucks. I always stick to my dream to start my own business and my brain thinks nonstop 24/7. I couldn't or never had a proper sleep since I joined this society. And now recession strikes the world. You can see jobless people everywhere. Anyway, I'm thankful I still able to sustain my job. A lot of business ideas ran through my mind but none of them being brought to the reality. Hanging over there...because I have no guts to do? May be I think.

b) Spiritual
I'm happy because I found a cool church to serve to. I did my very best to please my heavenly Father and He did bless my life. Now, I put more responsibilities on my shoulders to spread His gospel. I try to do it on my favorite way which is through sports ministry. So far not much being done and I'm still not sure whether I'm able to accomplish the missions I promised to do for Him. All I can do is pray hard and do everything with my heart.

c) Relationship
As usual, rejection after rejection. As time goes by, it just never gets better. I'm so easily fall in love to a girl. I did my best to court her but in return, I took all the embarrassments. I always said to myself "I can take it" but the fact is I'm badly hurt inside. Nobody knows, only God knows. Hit after hit and it's getting harder after one another. Yet I'm standing still. I'm not sure how long I can stand it anymore. Perhaps one day I should just fall to the ground and take a good pause on it.

However, life still goes on.

What Happened?

2009-01-16T19:28:00.001+08:00

This will be my first post for this blog for the past three months. You might not realized this, actually time FLIES. For the past few months, I describe it as the periods to rebuild my relationship with God. After I moved to the new house, the challenges just came nonstop. I was given more responsibilities in doing God’s work. I learned so much on how to be a good servant for Him. However deeper in my heart, the eagerness to have my own business is never decreased.

The world is facing the economy crisis. Almost everyday, you can see or read from the news. All the big companies are doing everything necessary to cut off the costs, especially in production and manufacturing. That means more and more people will lost their jobs. In November last year itself, more than 500,000 Americans lost their jobs. Who will be next to being fired? God knows that. Same to me, I’m worry to lose my job as well. For those who have commitments, such as car loan, house loan, personal loan, and so forth, they have to worry if the bank will take their property away because they didn’t pay off the loan. Another famous killer would be Credit Card. More and more people became the slaves or victims of credit card. You don’t pay, bank will go after you.

Everyone is predicting what would happen in the new year of 2009. What do you think? Most of them said, year 2009 would be a tougher year compare to last year. All of us are preparing for the worst to come. The funny thing is, my mind never stop spinning and thinking. What business can be run at this kind of circumstances? Haha, perhaps God will give me some hints.

Anyway, I want to wish all the best to all of you out there. Do not give up and keep moving forward. “Where there is a will, there is a way”

Microsoft :The Black Screen

2008-11-11T22:20:00.008+08:00

I saw this advertisement in the newspaper this morning when I was on the way to work. I found it really creative and interesting. Actually I knew it few months ago regarding the control released by Microsoft in order to fight the software piracy, but I never pay any attention to it (I'm using Windows Vista now). Today this advertisement really attracted my attention.

In fact few months ago, not long after Microsoft launched the control, the "experts" all over the world straightaway responded to the threat by posting all kind of solutions to "clear" the black screen. Indirectly, they are showing Microsoft that no matter what they do, their software still can be pirated. Therefore, Microsoft responded to the challenge by came out with this advertisement. >>>Find out more here about the black screen.

The software piracy of Windows XP is really common all over the world. Consumer can just get the pirated copy everywhere, through the market or can be downloaded online. I just wonder, why only after so many years then only Microsoft decided to stop this? Funny right? Anyway, I wish all the best to Microsoft, as well as to all the users of the pirated Windows XP.

Love and Marriage

2008-10-16T13:18:00.009+08:00

Have you found your real soul mate? How did you know he or she is the Mr or Ms right for you? What aspects will you put into considerations before you make your choice? I believe a lot of people struggled to get an answer for this question. In fact, there is no right or wrong answer. All I can say, it is all depend on you. You choose how do you want to live your life. There is no life such as happy ever after. That only happens in fairytale.

Daddy
My dad, one of the guy in my life who impressed me so much in a lot of thing. His advice for me is "Get a job with stable pay. Then find a girl and get to know her better. Next, get married and form a family". I'm sure this is the perfect plan for most of the parents. But, try to stop and take a look at the circumstances around you. Financial crisis is everywhere. If you take the wrong step, you will drown in your own debts. Do you want to get your love one to suffer with you? I share with my dad about my thinking. He always disagreed with me and said that, one of the main purpose to get a soul mate is to share the burden with you. Both of the husband and wife must work hard together to overcome the difficulties. So what can I say? His explanation is make sense and reasonable. Do I have a better suggestion than him? The answer is NO.

Perfect soul mate?
I always want to stick to my own mindset which is having my own business before I engaged myself into a marriage. I used to discuss with my friend about getting the suitable soul mate for ourselves. Both of us agreed that having the similar mindset is one of the important aspect. If both of the husband and wife having similar mindset in working out something together, then the marriage will be blessed. Besides that, encouragement and support is significant in sustaining a marriage. If one party keep on complaining on what has being done by another party, endless arguments will happen and most of the time will be ended up with a divorce. Therefore, mutual agreement is needed.

So, Conclusion?
I don't really know how to conclude this article. Think twice before engaged yourself into a marriage. In Asia, divorce is not a common thing to do. So most of the time, we will think more and much longer. What I mean is in US, the divorce rate is much higher. No offend to anybody but you guys knew that right? I'm not bluffing. See below.

The divorce rate in America for first marriage, vs second or third marriage
50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce, according to Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri.”

According to enrichment journal on the divorce rate in America:
The divorce rate in America for first marriage is 41%
The divorce rate in America for second marriage is 60%
The divorce rate in America for third marriage is 73%

Or see this: http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-by-highest-divorce-rate.html

So think wise~

Project 10 to the 100th

2008-10-14T08:34:00.006+08:00

It's time to change the world!!! In the famous US TV Series "Heroes", one of my favorite character Hiro Nakamura always say "change the world" and he used his time-bending ability to change the world. Now, you don't need the super ability to do that. Google is going to help you to make your dream comes true. Project 10¹⁰⁰ I'm going to participate in it. Do you want to be part of it?

LET ME ASK YOU AGAIN, DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD?
YES, I WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD!

Save Money

2008-10-06T20:26:00.001+08:00

Save money is the most popular or common financial knowledge being used by most of us. And this is what being taught by our parents at home and teachers in the school. "Save money for your future" my dad always tell me. I totally agree with this when I was kids. When we save some pocket money, we can buy the foods, toys or the comics we want. But how long was that? Twenty? Thirty years ago? What situation are we facing now? Nothing much, "just" some inflation which caused the closure or employees cut off of the large companies or organizations all over the world.

I never say saving is not good idea but obviously NOT GOOD ENOUGH. A lot of people try to find the advices or way to save money but unfortunately what they get are all the same. All are same old belt-tightening advices. Some experts say that? In fact, when come to getting some saving money advices, all the people around you can be the experts. I can be one of those experts too but I'm not a good experts because I'm facing financial difficulty...always.

As what Robert Kiyosaki said, you can always improve your financial knowledge by solving the financial difficulties you are having. I always keep myself motivated by thinking that way. The process can be very stressful by figuring hard to settle the debts. So far I still haven't come out with any brilliant ways to solve this. I'm still doing the traditional way by settling the debts using my own savings. I knew this can't go on forever. My saving is depleting....

Sigh, WWJD? What Would Jesus Do?

Vacation Club? Travel Agency?

2008-10-05T12:01:00.004+08:00

25th September: Today I learned about another existing business in this world. I believe most of you heard about travel agency. Have you heard about vacation club? Well, I never heard of it so it's quite new for me. One day, I received a sms from an unknown mobile number saying that I won a free ticket/voucher after I filled up the registration form during the past career fair and wanted me to get it from a place which is quite far from my living place. I thought it is a spam sms so I just ignored it. Few days later, I received a phone call from the company asking me whether I'm going to get the free gift from them or not and I agreed to meet them.

Once I reached that company, I knew it will be not that easy to get my so called free gift. A well-dressed girl came out and shake my hand. "Okay, here it comes." I said in my heart. The girl invited me to sit down and started to do the talking. I asked her directly, "what should I do to get my free gift?". She smiled and said that I just need to complete the 45 minutes section. Well, I started to do the counting. Then she began to explain the budget different between travel alone, rely on travel agency and vacation club.

Frankly, I enjoyed the presentation and conversation because I was learning new information. Basically the main difference between these three are the travel budget and flexibility of travel time(vacation club is the best plan overall). And the main point of the presentation is the girl have to do her best to persuade me to join the membership of her company (which is the vacation club).

The funniest part was when she called her manager to come out and explain to me the joining and the membership fee. For me, the most important thing as a manager is the good impression you give to the client, mostly this related to the wearing. That so called manager wore a plain t-shirt with a short pant and it's SHE, around 40 years old. I almost laughed but I was still in control. She explained to me for five minutes and then asked me to decide. I rejected the offer in a good way. "It's not the right time" I answered which means "I don't need it and I just want my free gifts". "Okay, I go get your free gifts" the manager answered. Then, they started another tactics. The girl who presented to me approached me again after the manager went in the room. She did her last attempt to persuade me by brought out the "parents" as bait.

"Last time I was poor and now I'm capable of giving them the opportunity to go travel", "What do you think your parents wish to do" and so on. Oh man, give me a break! She made a fatal error here and I was quite angry. She thought she know my parents better than I does?! I was still in control and rejected her in a good way. And the so called manager took another 30 minutes to get the free gift! In total, I spent approximately 3 precious hours for the free gift!

What a day.....

Crack My Head

2008-10-04T16:42:00.003+08:00

The first time I started this blog was for the intention of learning something about the online marketing. I really want to know how the strategy works. Therefore, I started by created a blog and wrote articles while promoting for the affiliate program I signed up to, such as google adsense, shareresults, advaliant and so on. I putted all the banners at the side of the blog by hoping people click into the advertisements so that I can earn few extra bucks from it.

The blog had been running well for more than four months. So far the affiliate program still going on but the return is not that good. However, that is fine for me because it is part of the learning process. I have to remind myself always that earning extra money through online is not a dream but it will be time consuming. I just have to be patience. Unfortunately, recently I'm running out of ideas of writing any articles for this blog. I tried really hard and do more reading and research but still can't come out with any good articles.

Hmmm...I think I really need to try harder. Rest for a while first.

Good Customer Service or Good Product?

2008-09-15T15:45:00.004+08:00

Which one do you think is more important? A better customer service or a better product? Customer service is one of the business strategy to enhance the level of customer satisfaction on the products or services provided by the company. Actually all the businesses in this world including the customer service, formal or informal. Formal means like there will be a receptionist or operator standby there to pick up your call and ready to assist you. Informal is when you are buying some items, the staff will approach you and serve you. Meanwhile, product can be the items or services you sell or provided to the customers.

There is one restaurant nearby my working place. The place always full with customers. The first time I went there, I was quite annoyed by the shouting and screaming among the waitresses. That's how they communicate with each others. Everything was fine until the "debtor" came and request for the payment. I can tell you, that woman could be the lousiest waitress in the world. Her face and her tone of asking was like, "Hey you owe me XXX bucks, faster give me!". My goodness, she did that to all of the customers. Can you believe that?

"The food is super nice?" I don't think so. "The restaurant location is strategic?" Not really. There are a lot of restaurants nearby there. "The food is cheap?" Not that cheap since inflation everywhere. Then why? Such as lousy customer service still able to attract so many customers? I really don't understand. Could it because of the cultural here? Malaysian DON'T really CARE? That's what I'm thinking. For my own opinion, customer service and product are equally important aspects in a business.

Negotiation

2008-09-08T22:44:00.008+08:00

When talk about negotiation, the first great entrepreneur I will think of would be Donald Trump, the billionaire real estate tycoon of New York city. You will remember him better when I say "You're fired!". Yes, he's the host of the famous reality series, The Apprentice. In the late 1990s, he suffered an extreme huge amount of debt (9 BILLION) but he overcame it with his superb negotiation skills. He negotiated with the bankers and determined to pay everything back. $9,000,000,000.00! Can you see how many zeros are there? I never able to imagine how can a person came out with such an amount of debt. Now, Donald Trump is doing much better than ever.

I read one of his books which is Trump Style Negotiation. It was really a nice motivation book and will give some ideas for those who want to pursue in the negotiation career. According to the book, actually we started to negotiate when we were babies! So, what is negotiation? Lets wiki wiki!

Negotiation is a dialogue intended to resolve disputes, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, or to craft outcomes to satisfy various interests. It is the primary method of alternative dispute resolution. - wikipedia

I agreed with the statement that we are actually negotiating all the time. Human just can't stop negotiating with each others. May be I can say that's how the life works. I'm learning all the negotiation skills once I joined the society and it doesn't look as easy as I thought. People mindset are complicated. There's one Chinese proverb "If you get to know yourself and your enemy very well, you will achieve great victory in all the battles". In real life is doing all the research before you get involved into negotiations. However, not all the negotiation is giving you a chance to prepare yourself. Sometimes you are forced to give a quick solution and answer to the deals or problems thrown to you. For my opinion, equip yourself with as many knowledge as you can to avoid all the mistakes you made in the negotiations which will cause to the failure of making a deal with the clients or customers.

No matter what type of business or job field you are in, there will be a knowledge database for you because you are definitely not the first one who face that kind of circumstances. That's what we called learn from the past or learn from the mistakes. Sometime the mistake doesn't mean those committed by you, it can be other people. Nowadays, you can get those information easily from the Internet. WWW, also known as World Wide Web. It consists of any information you can imagine. Just making use of it. Good luck in your negotiation!

MONEY NOT ENOUGH

2008-09-05T23:50:00.009+08:00

Nowadays, most of the fresh graduates are facing the same issue which is lack of financial education. When they got their first pay, they will be very excited and spend it freely. Eventually, they will realize a common problem which is NOT ENOUGH MONEY. I was struggling for quite sometime before I noticed where was the problem came from and then slowly figured out the way to rectify it.

1) Debt
This could be biggest enemy faced by the fresh graduates. Whether you like it or not, sooner or later you will still be caught into debt problems, such as credit cards, personal bank loans, etc. As we all know, there are good debt and bad debt. Good debt could be defined as investment debt that will create some value. Examples of good debt are real estate loans, mortgage loans or business loans. Just a reminder before you commit to any debt, try to pay attention into the details. There are few ways of doing this, not necessarily spending too much time on reading it. For instance, you can do some researches on which point of the details you should look into. At the same time, you can increase your financial IQ. Sometimes by missed some of the points, good debt can turned into bad debt as well.

The concept of bad debt comes in when discussing the purchase of disposable items or durable goods using high-interest credit cards and not paying the balance in full. - MSN Money Central

Evaluate your financial affordability before you commit to the bad debt, especially credit cards. If you're not able to pay the monthly installments, think twice before you commit to it. If not, you're just digging your own grave. I saw a lot of examples around me. They are all eaten alive by the banks.

2) Lifestyle
It's your choice to decide what kind of lifestyle you want to live on. I divided the lifestyle into two categories: above or below your means. For fresh graduates, my advice is to live below your means first to get used to the society. I do encourage the lifestyle as living above your means. Some of us might feel the financial pressure of living above our means. I saw the good thing by doing this which is we will be forced to use our brain to think more alternative ways to earn money. The common complaints I heard from the friends around me who just joined the society are "life as employee so dull", "everyday doing the same thing", "meaningless life" and so forth. Life is not just about spending money on various kind of entertainments such as clubbing or shopping. Life of learning and practicing financial knowledge can be very interesting.
Therefore, choosing the right lifestyle not only provide great help in financial management but it also will keep you moving forward in your life.

3) Career
This would be another problem faced by the fresh graduates nowadays. The job they selected can be very different from what they study in the university. So, how the career you chose can be related with your money management? I will relate it back to the motivation in working life. If you choose a career just for the sake of the income, then you won't stay long with that job. That is because you'll get bored very fast and might quit the job in order to look for another more "challenging" job. In contrast, if you choose a job which you can learn something from it and at the same time improving yourself. Then you will advance to the next level quicker than you can imagine. As we all know in the world of employee, we get paid by the skills and knowledge we learned from the past working experiences. The more you know, the bigger the amount of numbers you will see in your paycheck. Be PATIENCE, be HUMBLE, and LEARN. Your job can't guarantee the financial security but it allows you to create the financial opportunities, such as doing investments or having your own business.

Not enough money is not the end of the world. It can be solved by proper financial managing. "Impossible is nothing" and "Just do it!"

Chain Store

2008-09-03T22:50:00.003+08:00

When talk about chain store, I will think about the great Wal-Mart. In the year 2008, about 2.1 million people work in Wal-Mart and they are generating yearly revenue of US$ 387.69 Billion in the year 2007. Besides that, Wal-Mart ranked number one in the Fortune 500. There are other well-known chain stores such as Carrefour, Tesco, McDonald, KFC, Burger King, etc. So, what does it mean by chain store? Let me wiki wiki a bit, go wikipedia.

"Chain stores are retail outlets that share a brand and central management, and usually have standardized business methods and practices." - source: wikipedia

I thought a lot about having a chain store but before that I need to have a business idea first. As a big company or organization, financial won't be an issue for them. But for a smaller company or organization who needs financial support from the bank, they have to prepare business proposal. I did some research on the business proposal. I realized that the main store must earned certain amount of profits before you can open the branch or the chain store. On the proposal, the most important section will be the financial report of the company or organization. Bank need to check into the financial affordability of the company for the branch store. Well, bank plays safe too.

In Malaysia, as I observed around the places. The most common chain stores existed here are the restaurant chain stores, especially the "Mamak" (Indian Muslim) restaurant. Another famous chain restaurant is "The Chicken Rice Shop". There are a lot of restaurants imitating the chain store business strategy but not all of them are earning profits. The common reasons are poor business management and improper financial planning.

As we can see, nowadays there are various kind of chain store business all over the world. So how to get your chain store survive in the market? My opinion is, BE THE FIRST who started that business idea and have a STRATEGIC long term business planning.

Hmmm, I'm working my brain on it now.

World of Jealousy

2008-09-01T19:51:00.007+08:00

Do you realize this? When you became famous, somehow some of the people around you will "try their best" to do whatever thing to take you down. What I'm trying to discuss in this post is about the insulting on Robert T.Kiyosaki, the author who wrote the bestseller book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". His book has made a lot of people in this world to utilize their brain in the real life. His book has inspired a lot of entrepreneurs to start their own business. For me, his book is definitely different from other financial books. He do not teach you how to do but he teach you what you should think before you can do something to improve your financial situation. Believe the fact, your brain basically controls everything.

There is one jerk out there named John T.Reed. You can check out his stupid website from HERE. It's just a long bunch of craps insulting Robert T.Kiyosaki. I won't do the same thing like what other people did by writing a long and never-ending comments on what he wrote. Get the cool books "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and read it yourself. Do not read the books just for the sake of reading it. Try to understand what he is trying to say.

As I tell all of my friends, not everyone understand the books wrote by Robert T.Kiyosaki because he's not spoon feeding the readers. He makes us think. Hey John T.Reed, come on! If you don't get what he wrote in the books, then just leave it. I'm very sure that Mr Donald J. Trump is not as dumb as you. He read Robert's books and he agreed with him. That's why he decided to cooperate with Robert to write the book "Why We Want You to be Rich" on the year 2006.

The three awesome books wrote by Robert T.Kiyosaki which is Rich Dad Poor Dad, Rich Dad's CASHFLOW Quadrant, and Rich Dad's Guide to Investing, have been on the top 10 best-seller lists simultaneously on The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the New York Times. His partner, Donald J.Trump the successful real estate billionaire who wrote numerous books by his own. Do you think he is not smart enough to judge whether the person he is going to cooperate with, can write a good book or not? Don't you think it's funny?

John T.Reed, you're making fun of yourself. Do you know that?

The Richest Man

2008-08-29T12:30:00.024+08:00

When talk about the richest billionaires in this world, somehow I'm quite excited about it. Wealthy life of the billionaires is the kind of life most of us dreamed for (that's why the word day-dreaming existed) but not many people able to achieve it. There are quite numbers of billionaires in this world but I only admire some of them. Why? Because some of them are just lucky by inherited a large fortune from their parents or ancestors. The first three great men who conquered the billionaires board are Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Carlos Slim Helu. The competition of wealth between them became an interesting topic in order to decide who is the richest man in this world. Let me do a bit short introduction to these three outstanding people.

Bill Gates
- Born on October 28, 1955 (52 years old)
- Former CEO and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft
- Topped the Billionaire's board as the richest man in the world for 13 years
- Stepped down officially as the boss of Microsoft on 27th June 2008
- Still remains in Microsoft as part-time, non-executive chairman

Warren Buffet
-Born on August 30, 1930 (78 years old)
-Investor, Businessman, Philanthropist
-Largest shareholder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
-Ranked by forbes as the richest man in the world on 11th February 2008
-Famous Quotes: "Put all the eggs in one basket and focus on them"

Carlos_Slim_Helú
-Born January 28, 1940 (68 years old)
-Mexican businessman, largely focused on the telecommunications industry
-He controls Teléfonos de México (Telmex), Telcel and América Móvil companies
-vice-president of the Mexican Stock Exchange and president of the Mexican Association of Brokerage Houses
-Ranked by forbes as the second richest man in the world on 5th March 2008

Does it really matter?

I made the chart at the right side to trace the competition of wealth between the three billionaires. As we can see from the chart, Bill Gates led the race all the way until the year 2008. Warren Buffet kept up with the pace and sticked to Bill Gates closely. The incredible Mexican, Carlos Slim Helú started weak in the year 2001 ($10.8 Bil). Starting from the year 2005, his wealth increased rapidly from $13.9 Bil to $23.8 Bil. Following years, his wealth soared from $23.8 Bil to $49.0 Bil and ended up $60.0 Bil in the year 2008. What an impressive catch up!

Sometimes I think, these people are so rich. They afford to get whatever thing they desire in their life. Do they really care about the ranking stuff? I don't think so. The ranking of the richest man on the world is just like a milestone for them. For most of them, the process of obtaining the great achievement colored up their life and became a motivation to make them moving forward. Some people will become demotivated and stopped there after they achieve a little success in their life. After I wrote this article, eventually I understand why I always felt excited when talk about the success stories of these amazing billionaires. The main reason is what I learned from them, such as passion in whatever you do, be more initiative and BE HUMBLE.

Rent A House

2008-08-27T23:16:00.000+08:00

For the past one month, I was quite frustrated and annoyed in the process of looking for house to rent. I visited few houses and I rejected few offers. At the same time, being rejected by owner. At the moment, I'm still hunting for the best choice. So what are the common factors taken into consideration when come to rent a house? I believe most of us know about this. I'm just repeating the same old stuff again.

My Prioritize Ranking
1) Close to my church? (I fall in love with Jesus Christ)
2) Far from my working place? (Not so far of course)
3) Car park? (I'm getting my new car)
4) Public transportation convenient or not? (Train would be my main concern)
5) Is it close to the market, banks or restaurants? (Groceries)

Talking about the reason I being rejected from the offer, I was quite disappointed by the landlord. What I (most of us) dislike the most in doing business is dishonesty. That day, I was meeting the landlord of a condo house nearby the church (very near). The house was fully furnished (almost, lack of washing machine) but some of the furniture are redundant. However, the offered price was far too high than my budget(RM1,100). I tried to bargain with the landlord and requested her to lower a bit the rental to RM1,000. She refused and told me that previously they rented the house out for RM900. I started to think "then, what's the reason you raised the rental so high up? Increment of RM200 is a lot of money." but I never say it out. She started to create her own stories to persuade me. I agreed with the price at RM1,100 but I decided to talk again with the real estate agent so that he can help me to bargain with the landlord again. You must be wondering, why I decided to do that since I already agreed with the price offered? Before that, I talked to the landlord's husband through the phone. Because of his one sentence, I made decision to bargain with him again. "Oh well, I couldn't believe you agreed to take the house at that price" he said. I felt quite angry because I felt they were lying to me. Few days later, the real estate agent informed me that the landlord refused to lower down the price because previously he rented the house out for RM1,100. I was like "huh? RM1,100? But the landlord's wife said...". From that moment, I refused to bargain again and rejected the offer on the spot. For me, everything involving the money is doing business. Same to renting a house, I don't want to do any business with dishonest person.

The main difference between renting a whole house and a room definitely would be the amount of money you have to spend for the deposits, utilities fees and the agreement fee. The common contract length is one year. The pros of become the person who in-charge the house is you have full control on the adjustment of the rental allocation for each rooms. The cons is if you can't find anybody to rent the room, you have to pay for the whole house.

So, think twice before you decide to rent the whole house.

A Surprise Call

2008-08-25T00:42:00.001+08:00

On August 5 2008, I was very excited because I received an unexpected call. I was doing something online, probably writing articles for my blog. I can't recall. Suddenly, my phone rang and I looked at it. The screen was showing a long phone numbers. "A long phone numbers?" Well, you should be understand what I'm talking about. I just picked up the call. It was a girl speaking in a fluent American English, saying "I'm Katie calling from Advaliant". I was like "Huh? Sorry?" Then she repeated again. I still can't get what she said. She repeated herself again. I'm the kind of person who is very slow on picking up the conversation, especially on those who can speak English fluently. "What? You're calling from Advaliant?", I replied. "Yes, I'm" she said.

I was like stunned for few seconds and couldn't believe I'm talking to the person in-charge from one of the affiliate program I applied. I started to recall back when I applied to that program. They did send me an email but I didn't reply because I thought they already rejected my application. That happened to me few times. I'm kind of upset about it. However, Advaliant is a bit different from others. Different how? Let me continue the conversation. "Well, I never expect you will call me" I said to her. "No, actually we have to contact all the applicants who applied to our program" she said. After I checked with her, she has the responsibility to call all the applicants to their program in order to check on the background details such as what is my way to do the affiliate marketing, what is my blog all about, am I doing it full time or part time and so forth. The most important questions among all is, "Are you giving out any gift or reward if the customer sign up your product or service?". The main reason is that is illegal because normally the customer is more interested on the free gift instead of the product or service they signed up to. By doing this, Google might ban you from using certain affiliate program.

Throughout the conversation, I was very excited. For those who are staying in US, definitely this phone call won't be a surprise for you guys. But for those who live outside US (especially Asia) won't have many chances to receive this kind of call. I really expressed my gratitute to Katie because of her kindness on telling me some of the important information which I do not know. After the call, she emailed me the details which I need to know before I get involved into their affiliate program.

There is another funny questions asked by me which is "Where are you calling from actually?". "From the office in New York", she replied. I shouted and screamed in my heart "What? New York? Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! I'm so happy!!!".

New York, a city full with all kind of business ideas and opportunities. I'm going there and visit someday.

Part-Time Real Estate Agent

2008-08-18T21:55:00.006+08:00

Today, I got appointment with a real estate agent to see the condo because I'm planning to rent a house nearby my church. Well, that's not the point. The main point is I have a short chat with the agent. I found out that she just started to work as real estate agent for few months only. Previously she was doing administration job. I expressed to her my interest in real estate and she suggested to me to work as part time real estate agent.

"Part-Time Real Estate Agent?" How come I never thought of this before? Currently I'm working as a full time payroll system support executive. On work 9am, off work 6pm. Somemore now Malaysia is having inflation, everybody is looking for second job. I was quite resisted to get second job because for my opinion, if I'm really forced to get second job. I will find a job which I can learn something from it.

Part time real estate agent? Not bad. Hmmm, will try to get one.

How about the payment?

2008-08-06T21:33:00.004+08:00

I work in a medium-sized software company. I want to share something interesting about my company. One of the most common question asked to the clients by my colleague who is the sales personnel is "how about the payment?". At first, I thought this just happen to some of the small company. After I found out more from my account or the administration department, she told me this happened to most of the clients. Most of the companies are not willing to settle the payment after we solved their issues on the system. Just for your information, some of the clients are quite big and famous one. Who are they? After I quit the job then I will tell you.

Why is this so? Owing people money? They able to pay but they just refuse to do so. Some of them will give some silly excuses such as "We didn't receive your invoice", "No worries, we already prepare the check, just not yet post or bank it to your company account"(nothing happen after few weeks), "We paid already"(partly) and so on. I felt so puzzled and then I shared a wise suggestion to the account department which is setting a payment deadline. If the client failed to make payment within the period, they will be penalized. Can you imagine what kind of response or answer I got for my suggestion? "They will bother your boss if we do that" which means if they implement that policy, my boss will get annoyed and ended up the account department just creating more troubles for themselves. I was so disappointed with the answer given to me. "How come my manager so incapable of handling such situation?", "Why they never sit down and talk with them?", "How are they going to maintain the sale in such kind of financial management?". These questions just kept on popping out of my mind, unanswered.

Well, hmm, uh...May God Bless Them.

Answer to My Previous Call

2008-08-04T01:10:00.004+08:00

When I was writing the post on 30/7, I was seriously annoying, indecisive and frustrated of the choices I have to make which is against my will. However after the last weekend, I know much better what I should and should not do. In other words, my spiritual life as a Christian is more contained. I used to hear people say, "I don't have any religion", "I trust only myself", "I'm a free religion" and so on.

Do you realize something? It's just I, I and I. The journey of life is very long and I believe along the journey most of us will feel alone and helpless sometimes. That's when the religion come into the play. I don't care you're a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, etc. Religion is just like a guidance for us or something to hold to when we are lost. There's no such thing as perfect planning in your life! You wouldn't know what will happen later, next, or tomorrow. You can prepare a perfect planning now but later something will just happen and mess everything up.

I have a gone through a wonderful weekend. I joined three Christian conferences in a row, especially the third one which is the biggest one called Passion Conference. I was touched by the songs sang by Chris Tomlin and the band. All the songs seems like connected together and reflected on my life. Sometimes we just have too many burdens on our shoulder. We need to learn how to put down it slowly and lighten up our shoulder a bit so that we can walk further. As I always heard, "We rest is because we want to walk further in our life". I calmed down myself, do a flashback of my life in the past, and I started to pray. I prayed for everything. And unbelievable thing happen, my tears just went off. Was that tear of joy? I'm not sure but it was definitely something good. Something to remind me to live a happy and meaningful life, praise HIM and seek for HIM when I need help. The most important thing is I'm not alone because I always have the support from my beloved brothers and sisters.

How about you?

Property Maintenance

2008-08-01T00:59:00.006+08:00

Monthly Maintenance Fee

After you bought a property such as apartment or condominium, every month you have to pay maintenance fee to the management of the property. Basically this maintenance fee is paid for the management to take care of all the facilities of the property, such as lift, swimming pool, gymnasium, children playground, basketball, squash or tennis court, etc.

Vandalism

However, by paying the maintenance fee doesn't mean the management will perform their duties. This happened to the condos and apartments I lived before. It was really hard for me to believe, homeowners are being charged every months for the maintenance fees but what they got is different kind of property vandalism. The common vandalism I met:

The lift

Sticked with various kind of advertisements, such as satellite TV installation, hair saloon, laundry shop, including some "dirty" business(you know that).

Mail boxes

Flyer (a.k.a fliers or handbill) is the most common stuff appeared in the mailbox. somehow those people able to sneak into the compound and deliver those fliers. Should thanks to those security guard.

Gymnasium

Broken and rusty gym facilities. I almost break my arms when I used one of the body building machine. Again, thanks to the management.

Corridor

Rubbish anywhere. Well, not much but the place just looks dirty. And sometimes the rubbish bin just empty or still left plenty of spaces to throw rubbish in. What are they thinking when they did that? And the cleaner? God knows.

Dumping Area

Since the places not suppose to have rubbish already full. What will happen to the area which is for dumping rubbish? No need further explanation. Again, the cleaner? God knows.

The surprising and funny thing is, swimming pool is the one and only facility being well taken care by the management. Everyday, they will clean the pool early in the morning and close the swimming pool at night after 10pm to avoid unexpected accident. Other than that, the management team might be just swinging their leg in the air-conditioned room.

Therefore before purchase a property, remember to do some research on the background of the management team of your property. A good management team will provide a better secure to the value of your property.

Commitment

2008-07-30T00:12:00.004+08:00

I feel really bad now, I just dunno why... As usual, back from work, packed some food, did some exercise, watched some news on the tv, and sit in front of my laptop doing whatever thing I can do. Hey guys, I'm going to buy my first ever car in my life. Fuel price is increasing and I'm going to buy a car now??? Don't ask me why, cause GOD asked me to do so. I'm going to have commitment! Yes, my first ever commitment! Tell you what, I have nothing in my life. No asset, no nothing!!! Then why and how I wrote those articles about real estates? Because I want to learn! Read, write and learn. That's what I'm doing. I can't sleep now. Now almost 1am. Tomorrow is going to be another day...of work...AS USUAL. I'm in the RAT RACE now. My dear brain, please work something out for me. Think what else I can do besides these...and those...AS USUAL...

Hmmm...feeling much better now. Thank GOD.

Former Google Team "Fights" Google

2008-07-29T01:02:00.009+08:00

My line is extremely slow now. I felt like want to kill somebody now... Well, I just read an article about the post title up there...sounds weird right? Sorry, I'm still improving my English writing. Forgive me if my grammar annoyed you. I just don't want to be sue by anybody for stealing their words or articles. Basically it's about Google.com vs Cuil.com. Google? Everybody know about Google. Even you type gogle.com, your browser will still appear Google. You knows better than me, so no need to do any introduction.

What about Cuil? Pronounced "Cool"? Founded by a group of ex-Googlers. Anna Patterson and her husband Tom Costello, and two other former Google engineers Russell Power and Louis Monier.

Cuil is an old irish word for knowledge. For knowledge, ask Cuil.(sentence taken from "about us" of Cuil website)

May be Google should put something like, Google is some place where you can found something lucky? For good luck, ask Google by pressing "I'm feeling lucky" button.

I tried Cuil search engine. It have a cool interface with a black color background, blue color button and hyperlinks. When you typed in some words to search, it will display some image right beside the search results. Ok, not too bad. The page design do match the name of the search engine, COOL. But what's so special about Cuil? May be the policy?

Cuil's privacy policy actually promises privacy: "When you search with Cuil, we do not collect any personally identifiable information, period. We have no idea who sends queries: not by name, not by IP address, and not by cookies. Your search history is your business, not ours."

- quoted from InformationWeek.com

I'm quite curious. Why Cuil.com being released now? Is it because of the Microsoft is trying hard to purchase Yahoo.com in order to compete with Google? Cuil is planning to cooperate with Microsoft too?

Well, I wonder how much will Microsoft offer on Cuil search engine. As what I always told my friends, just sit back, relax, have a popcorn and enjoy the show.

I Have Something to Say....

2008-07-26T21:09:00.006+08:00

What would you like to be?

I believe this happen to a lot of people out there, especially those youngsters like me. We dare to think about lot of creative business plans or ideas which is never being done by anyone before. For most of the parents, they will call this as "day-dreaming". For me, we were being taught by teacher since we were kids. Teacher like or love to ask us "What's your ambition when you grown up?" When we were kids, we normally will answer "I want to own a big company, I want to be the boss, I want to...etc" and the teacher will smile at us. But when we grew older, teacher or lecturer won't accept that kind of answers because it's not logic or "healthy" to think that way. The "normal" answer they expect to hear from us is "After graduate from university, I will work with XXX company. I will do my best to climb the career ladder and earn a lot of money". Well, I never say this is not a good thinking or planning but this kind of thinking will limit our imagination to become potential entrepreneurs. This world need more entrepreneurs in order to create or provide more job opportunities to our society.

Your First Step

As you can see from my blog, the sport I like the most is basketball. One day when I was in the bus, the sentence below appeared in my mind.

"You've to take the FIRST STEP in order to score the BASKET"

In the game of basketball, if you have a fast and explosive "first step", normally the defender won't be able to stop you from scoring the basket. Same to the world we are living in nowadays, those who dare to be different and took their first step to pursue their dream will obtain great achievements in their life. But never forget,

"Failure Breeds Success & Failure is part of Success"

Never ever let the failure hit you down. Just get up if you fall and give another shot. That's life. Life will never be interesting without any challenges. We just have to face it bravely and stand our ground firmly.

Visualize and Materialize

We, as a new generation youngsters have all sort of business thinking and ideas in our mind, which is part of visualize process. How many of us will materialize it and make our dream comes true? Not many. One of the reason will be the limitations applied by some of the teachers or lecturers on our mind so that we can become the kind of people they want us to be (which is not much different from them).

"If you do things well, do them better. Be daring, be first, be different, be just." - Anita Roddick ~ English businesswoman (Body Shop)

Me, myself have a lot of business ideas gone through my mind over and over again. I wrote it down, kept a record. I will visualize those ideas and try to materialize (implement) it. However, a lot of obstacles blocking on my way. Main concerns, financially and future vision and planning. How long these ideas will be able to sustain? All depends on how you plan it. But when I go too deep into the planning, not long after that the ideas will faded.

Why not just go and do it? Have faith and be confident in your decision. I am going to be next successful entrepreneur!