Life and Business Lessons

Jesus one day was out in the front of the synagogue watching people come in and with Him were his disciples – and the custom was before they came into the synagogue, they deposit a contribution in the treasury. The story said some came with large contribution and went in, and some came with small contribution and went in, and as the disciples and Jesus watch, a little lady came along and she put two pennies in the treasury and walked in.

Jesus said, “Looked at that!”
And His disciples said, “Two pennies?
What’s two pennies?”
Jesus said, “No you don’t understand, she gave more than everybody else.”
They said, “Two pennies is more than everybody else?”
Jesus said, “Yes, because I’m sure that two pennies represented almost all of what she had.”

She gave the most! What a classic philosophy.

Here is what did not occur in this little scene : When the little lady put her two pennies in the treasury, Jesus and his disciples did not ran after her and said, “Hey.. Hold it little lady, we’d observed what’s happened with putting the two pennies in the treasury and we’d decided that you’re so pitiful and you’re so poor that we’d decided to give you back your two pennies. "

I’m here to tell you that did not occur. So make this note from this little story. Jesus left her two pennies in the treasury, even though it was the most of what she had. Wow..! That’s such a classic lesson in philosophy, that’s such a classic lesson in what all of us are involved in making contribution. Shouldn’t everybody wish to pay?

The government has to decided to leave some people that they consider poor and pitiful off the tax role, see that’s unthinkable. Even the only pay a dollar, so they can able to say, “I pay! I make my contribution, no matter how poor I am, if all I’ve got pennies, I give some as contribution, whether it’s taxes, benevolence, or whatever it is. Isn’t that a good story? Read More...

So what would be the good philosophy to follow?

First my suggestion, don’t spend more than 70 percent. Of course 10 percent from your income for charity (church), supporting multi project. It is a good place to start, it’s easy to give $1 out of $10 (10 percent out of 100 percent). Little more difficult to give a hundred thousand out of a million. You’d say, “If I had a million dollars, I’ll give hundred thousand. Well, I’M NOT THAT SURE ! Haha. We’ve better start you early, right? So when the big money come, it’ll just be automatic, you don’t have to think about it.

The next 10 percent
: ACTIVE CAPITAL. Try to make a profit. It’s call BUY AND SELL, means you try to make the profit, keep saving up these active capital until you’ve got something to work with to buy and sell.

The next 10 percent : PASSIVE CAPITAL, which means let’s somebody else use these 10 percent, you put these to work and see if you could make a profit. This is to let someone else use it, you are the passive partner in providing the money they are the active partner and see if they can make a profit and pay you dividend and their stocks increase, interest, whatever.

And that little formula is a good place to start, now you might really able not to start there, maybe by the time you heard this, you are in such in bad shape that you have to go here : 97 ; 1 ; 1 ; 1. That ninety seven is for your living and that three percent for charity, active capital, and passive capital. THE KEY IS TO START WITH SOMETHING ; IT’S NOT THE AMOUNT THAT COUNT, IT’S THE PLAN THAT COUNT.

“If I had more money, I’ll had a better plan.” Well this is bad idea.
“If I had a better plan, you’ll have more money.”

So you’ll have to. These now will become an exciting game to play, about measuring progress. This is one of the great motivating factors in the world is TO START SOMETHING AND MAKE THE PROGESS. So the ideal is 70 ; 10 ; 10 ; 10. But I can’t start there, you say. I’ve got to start with 97 ; 1 ; 1; 1. And here’s which you got to understand, THIS IS OK !! And this is the whole game to play. Now, when you start getting into the big money, this number has to change again. So you have to you start here, to make the ideal one. Read More...

One of the classic sermon I have ever heard, here was the note on his sermon :
#1 IF YOU THINK IT’S IMPOSSIBLE, IT ISN’T
#2 IF YOU THINK YOU KNOW EVERYTHING, YOU DON’T
#2 IF YOU THINK YOU ARE ALONE, YOU’RE NOT

That’s the classic sermon! Your philosophy, whether it’s about economics, or marriage, or your guidance system about good health. It’s easy to get off track, and the sermon get us BACK ON TRACK, and hopefully we’re not too far of track so it doesn’t take too long to get back on track.

Now your philosophy about money, some of you mention the other day : "THE LOVE OF MONEY __ ?" What about money or success? It’s a good debate. IF YOU COULD DO BETTER SHOULD YOU?

You need to develop a financial statement. It is very simple. It’s a piece of paper on the line in the middle, and the left side and right side are your liability and asset. Key phrase : Take a picture of where you are : THE TRUTH. You don’t have to publish this in some local newspaper, this all private stuff. But you have you say “There is no use kidding myself, I got to take a picture where I am, I got to know how good it is, or how bad it is, how much I’m on the upside or how deep a hole I’m really in.”

I started this exercise program of coming up with my current net worth. See your liability and your asset. Your furniture? Or shoes maybe? It really soberly gave me a current picture of where I was, and guess I was unhappy.

But here is the important about the truth, IT SET YOU FREE.
#1 Free to correct old error in judgment. Now where do you go from here, in putting together a financial statement, realizing exactly where we are, NO NONSENSE, THIS IS THE REAL DEAL, we don’t have to share it to others.

Now here’s what we need, perhaps A NEW PHILOSOPHY :
#1 Let me give you sort of the simple of the rich and the poor.
Here is the philosophy usually of the poor :
POOR PEOPLE SPEND THEIR MONEY AND INVEST WHAT’S LEFT (not much left)
Here is the philosophy usually of the rich :
THE RICH INVEST THEIR MONEY AND SPEND WHAT’S LEFT.
It’s just the little turn of semantics, it’s like the turn of the set of the sail, that takes you in a whole different direction.

Now here’s the key : THINK LIKE THE RICH : invest your money first than spend what’s left, don’t spend your money and invest what’s left. Now the whole key is lifestyle. THE MONEY IS ALWAYS THERE ! Either to spend or invest. The different in what you do with it is based on the philosophy NOT ECONOMY. Here’s the illustration : The book on how to get rich cost Rp 100.000 ; somebody said what for that book? Well it just only a bunch of coca-cola, and you want to spend the money on a few of coca-cola, and you either spend it to teach you how to get rich.

EVERYBODY HAS THE MONEY, even the poorest of the poor, the key is how to spend it, what to spend it for, and how you spend it. First how you earn it is determined by your philosophy, second now you spend it is determined by your personal philosophy. Read More...

Here’s the one of the major goals to go for : FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE. Everyone has right privilege to become financially independence. So here’s my definition of financial independence : THE ABILITY TO LIVE FROM THE INCOME OF YOUR PERSONALLY INVESTED RESOURCES. That’s the simple definition. Here’s one of the advantages of financially independence, NOW YOU CAN WORK OR NOT WORK or you certainly choose the work to do, now you can work by choice not by necessity.

And here’s one of the best, TO BE ABLE TO WORK FOR JOY and not for necessity. At first of course we have to work for necessity, but if you can reach the point where you can work for joy not for necessity ; debt free, no one having a claim on your asset, finally being able to live from the income of your invested resources.

Key phrase to understand, we should teach this to your children. ECONOMICS IS MAJOR. Everyone has to major in economics, number one is the PERSONAL SURVIVAL, to produce enough to take care of your self. the first economics. The next good phrase on economics : IT’S NOT WHAT YOU EARN, IT’S WHAT YOU DO WHAT YOU’VE EARN that makes the great different in your financial future. All of these is determined by your own philosophy. It’s important for early, and kids have to have a personal philosophy working even they when go to school. Here’s a good definition of your philosophy : A GUIDANCE SYTEM.

In it does simply two things : (1) HELP YOU TO SEE THE OPPORTUNITIES : TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THOSE ; (2) HELP YOU TO SEE THE DANGERS : MINIMIZE THOSE. And as we learn a grow we learn hopefully early to spot the dangers so it doesn’t over come us. We hopefully we learn early to see the opportunities, and take advantage of those, maximize as we can. That guidance system is like a sail on a sailboat. The wind is always blowing, favorable wind on favorable winds, storming winds, political winds, THE WIND IS ALWAYS BLOWING
.
But to arrive a pre-determined destination, it’s not just the blowing of the wind, that we have to deal with, here is the major part : THE SET OF THE SAIL, of what you learn, gathering this information, talking to each other, guidance how to trim the sail, set the sail, the Sunday morning sermon, the lyrics of the song, the dialog of the movie, words put in to good structure, so that they delivered in enlightenment, information, knowledge, and we use that to set sail, and it isn’t that to set sail once, and that’s it and it’s over, but it is a continual setting of sail everyday, every months, every year, setting sail economically, trimming the sail ; for your good health, you have to set sail to work the destination you wish to reach having good health. Then it is easy to neglect, then it is easy to slide.

Here one of the better phrases : EVERYTHING BY LONG CAVITY TENDS TO GET OFF COURSE. When the early astronauts make those trips to the moon, on the way to the moon : here’s what they had to engage in ; MID COURSE CORRECTIONS. They look at all the gauges and some of sore winds that didn’t expect has push them of course, as they looks at the gauges. Now the must fire the rockets to get the spaceship back on course, and it specially if you’re headed for the moon.

If you’re in aero plane and you miss Jakarta or Los Angeles maybe, you know you’re OK. But you can’t miss the moon. And here’s why : If you miss the moon, you can’t get back. So put this little note now, it is a pretty serious note : SOME DESINATION ARE CRITICAL. Speaking of going to the moon, Neil Amstrong in his little talk : “Going to the moon was just a matter solving a couple of problems.” I thought “That is a simple way to put it.”

Problem #1 : HOW TO GET THERE? (and you just figure that out).
Problem #2 : HOW TO GET BACK? (and you just solve that)

Now we said that’s also critical NOT TO LEAVE UNTIL YOU SOLVE BOTH PROBLEMS. I thought that was classic, haha. Speeches and information give us so much to chew on, right? Read More...

Hi there. I'm back again in writing something handful here. I want to tell you that I have finished my master program in management in March 2008. I'm so grateful for that.

So with that in mind, let’s now engage in this little session, it maybe one of the most important for this day, designing the next 10 years. I want you to take a fresh piece of paper
or at least put a title of one page and call it GOAL WORKSHOP, and in this goal workshop I’m gonna ask you a series of questions and I want to write down the questions first and then do the exercise. Ok.

Here is #1 : I want you to list five things you’ve already accomplished that you’re proud of. Make a list of five things that you’ve already accomplished that you’re proud of. Cause all of us have set goals, even when we were kids we wish for something, work hard, and sure enough we got. List five achievement, five goals that you’ve reached in the past already that you’re proud of. If you won a gold medal at the Olympic, that would be a good one to put one there :-)

Whatever you have accomplished, just a list of the five things, this is just a little review, you know, we’re not sitting in a very bad place, we’ve accomplished something, some of us a lot of things. When you working with children, this is a good exercise to start with : WHAT YOU HAVE ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED THAT YOU’RE PROUD OF? I’m sure some of you would be impressed. Read More...

So these five things primary were affected by. Ohh, here’s the fifth one :
Let review :
1. Environment 2. Events 3. Results 4. Knowledge

And there is number #5 : WE ARE AFFECTED BY OUR DREAMS, OUR ABILITY TO SEE THE FUTURE AND GIVE IT DESIGNED.

Things, places, people, career, fortune. Whatever might become important to you for the balance of your life or specially
over the next of ten years. IT POSSIBLE TO REACH INTO THE FUTURE PERSONALLY.

Now most of the time we don’t do it. Here’s why we don’t really reach in the future : WE’RE TRAPPED EITHER BY REGRET OF THE PAST OR THE ROUTINE OF THE PRESENT. So busy with the routine of the present we don’t give much thought to design the future, or trapped by the past with regret of past losses or past failures or past mistakes and we really remember it over and over again, not to the benefit of changing it to the future but just because we feel that our life have been less than favorable simply because of all the things that happen to us in past.

But here’s the real key IS TO SPEND SOME TIME, and usually we don’t do it until someone comes by and offers the suggestion. That’s why meeting the right person at the right time, attending the right class, listening to the right sermon, having a conversation with the right person or reading my blog here, sometimes can totally change the direction of your life, and you never the same after that personal contact, or sitting in the class, or reading the book, or coming face to face with someone who says, “Hey, you know, our life are not that good, what could we do to change?”

And that very conversation start this whole process. Wow, I am arrive at a very poor place, how could I change all of that for the future and all of that possible. And this point of contact maybe today will help to change all of that, and give some of you a new of glimpse of some of the possibility (I have wrote at this topic in possibility and believing that the possibilities are possible for you then going to work and make them happen).

But let’s me write about SETTING GOALS and see if we can make this really meaningful.

Here’s the next key : MAKE SURE THAT THE GREATEST PULL ON YOU IS THE PULL OF THE FUTURE. Not the pull of the past and keep taking you back, not the pull of gravity like the present that just keep you sort of stuck where you are, but we will make sure that the greatest influence on pull on us is the pull of the future.

If you have POWERFUL GOALS well designed and plenty of them to assure your imagination, here’s what they will do : GOALS BECOME LIKE A MAGNET. And the bigger they are, and the stronger they are, and the longer the list, and the more things you’d like to acquire during the course of your lifetime, THE STRONGER THEY PULL !

And here’s the other advantage of setting goals so that these goals begin to pull you in that forward future direction, they pull you through, all kinds of down time, all kinds of night time experiences, all kinds of winters. You can much more easily survive the next crisis, the next winter of your life, if you have well set goals, finally tuned, places you want go, things you want to do, people you want to meet, skills you want to develop, fortune you want to make, benevolence you want to engage in.

If all of that becomes powerful and clear, and you on your way, I PROMISE YOU, no matter what happens, those GOALS WILL PULL YOU THROUGH. You won’t be loss in the middle because you will be able to see beyond. Read More...

Next we’re affected by events, dramatic events, worldwide event, or home events, personal events. Some events affect us all. I’ve read a book remember the missile crisis. Nikita Khrushchev and John Kennedy?

Khrushchev has his missile on away to Cuba, John Kennedy finds out about it and called him :

Kennedy : "Mr. Chairman (of the communism party, Russia), you cannot put your missiles in Cuba. "
Khrushchev : "Young Mr. President, you don’t understand, this is Nikita Khrushchev, we are the soviet union, and we will put our missiles wherever we please."

AND THAT STARTED AN INCREDIBLE CRISIS, KNOWN AS THE MISSILES CRISIS.

Kennedy : "Mr. Khrushchev, listen carefully, you can put your missiles 90 miles from Florida."
Khrushchev : "I hate to inform you, but the missiles are already on the way."
Kennedy : "Mr. Khrushchev, we will not let those missiles arrive. "
Khrushchev : "Mr. President, you don’t understand, if you touch those missiles that are on the way, it means war ! "
Kennedy : "Mr. Khrushchev, I must inform you sir, in all seriousness, if it is war, Russia will seize to exist !"

THAT A HECK OF A CONVERSATION.. isn’t it ? HaHaHa ^_^

Photo : U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy June 3, 1961: U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk at background, left, looks on as Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev walks with U.S. President John F. Kennedy in a garden at the residence of the U.S. ambassador in Vienna, Austria.

And Dean Rusk , the state department at that time I think put it will, said, Kennedy and Khrushchev were staring each other down, and fortunately for all us, Khrushchev blinked, and finally agree to turn around and take his missiles back home. And the world breathe easier. (see picture).

These whole thing about atomic war finally become a reality, and we’re saying WOW, surely NOT but the sake of our children and our children, and I’m sure the Russian officials and Soviet Union Officials and Nikita Khrushchev finally decided for the sake of their children and their grand children, there is no need to have the confrontation with United States.

BUT IT WAS SO CLOSE. So some events affect us all.

Here is the next one : WE ARE AFFECTED BY OUR RESULTS, whatever they been, the result of our errors, or our disciplines. Now here is what’s so staggering about being a human being, IT IS POSSIBLE IMMEDIATELY UPON DECISION TO START A NEW PROGRAM OF CHANGING RESULTS.

If you had in a certain direction and looks like in five years and you will wind up here, and you take a look of that in five years, and you say, “Yes, it’s looks like what I’m doing right now if I continued doing what I’m doing now, looks like I will wind up here.” Let’s say that suddenly on careful consideration you decide : THAT’S NOT A VERY GOOD PLACE, THAT’S NOT A VERY EXCITING PLACE TO ARRIVE. Is it possible as human being to change your destination point five years from now? And the answer is YES. See that’s so extraordinary !

Pick a different destination in five years, and started making plan, learning the skills, and accept the disciplines, and the teaching and the training, and the consistency of effort and just start going into a new direction and in five years from now, wind up in a totally different places than where it was assume you will gonna arrive with the old plans.

Only human being have the extraordinary ability to change the outcome to pick a new direction and go that way, to pick a more certain place to go and read the books, and attend the classes and develop the discipline and find the people and do the business, whatever, that takes you to the new destination.

Next, WE ARE AFFECTED BY KNOWLWDGE, whatever you know has brought you to where you are, what’s you’ve missed in the past, at particular moment, you might could vary to a much better place, if you hadn’t missed what you missed in the past. But now knowledge can turn it all around. Knowledge can start us in a new track, can help us not only to review the past, but the peering of the future, and say, WOULD IT POSSIBLE? Be possible to have a more unique design for the future than what I’ve had in the past, and the answer of all that is YES ! Read More...

We are affected by the political environment and social environment. We’re affected by the economy environment. All of us are persuaded in one way another to live like we live. Here is a good word to note down : ASSOCIATION.

Be very careful of your association. I’ll gonna write later about financial independence (from the book I’ve read), you know, carry for your resources. Here’s that I’ve discovered : PEOPLE ARE AROUND PEOPLE THAT SPEND ALL THEY MAKE, CHANCE ARE EXCELLENT, THEY SPEND ALL THE MAKE. That’s just the part their part of that association. One your sort to in it, you sort to do whatever one else does.

So here the key to association :

1. LIMITED ASSOCIATION. Some people can spend a few hours with, but not a few days. Some you can spend a few days but not a life time. Some you can spend a little time but not a lot of time. Limit your associations, because of the influence, all of us has to be around people, you know that have a variety of their own beliefs, or what they do that influence us or you know .. is there, it’s in our present wherever we go. But here’s the key, some of us limited association.


2. Here is the next one, this one is a kind of severe that is DISCONTINUE ASSOCIATION. Sometimes you have to say in association, “Is it causing me more harm than good ?” And sometimes the time finally comes where you have part ways, just because the association is not to your benefit, you know for the rest of your life.

3. And here’s the one that we’ve engaged that you read my blog here : EXPANDED ASSOCIATION. Get around people who have good ideas to share, or who have a good stories to share. One of the great benefits of writing in this blog is chance for all of you to meet each other, share testimonials, share ideas, share your reactions, than what has been written, some common experiences, anything, it’s so valuable.

Ready for good ideas, never to successful to learn some more, this is a good environment, expanded association. Read More...