You have to tell money how you want them to go into your pocket - I

My frenz should know that I always want $$ could go into my pocket while I'm sleeping. From the morality perspective, I have been thinking hard whether its kinda 好逸惡勞 but it is absolutely not. I guess many of us has to change our mindset. On the contrary, it is a responsible act for your family.

You would hear from news that some people's wives and children feel very upset because their husbands / fathers passed away in accidents and they do not know how they could live afterwards. Probably these men have been very diligent and earn $$ for their family by working extremely hard. But all these have gone when they passed away. Esp. when people in grassroot.

Some other people do earn a lot of moeny but you could hardly find that them working very hard. Others would seldom praise them publicly (but the world has been changing, I admit) except the real typcoons. On the contrary, some one would even 'red eye' these people. Its obviously some kind of jealousy. If these people are given the chance of having $$ easily, I could hardly believe that they would refuse this offer.

Then it comes to the most important point here: who give these people these opportunities? To my understanding, there are only 2 possibilities: luck and diligence. I mentioned that some people work really hard to earn a living with minute wages and it seems that I tried to imply that it is of no use to work diligently. It is not right.

There is a difference between (merely) working hard and working hard after you have thoroughly thought about what you are doing.

Some people work really hard and earned handsome money because they have decided to put their effort in an efficient way and get what they want. Some people, also work diligently, for other initiatives, such as some strong desire and wish. It is still ok because to them the value is not inclined to money. Yet quite a number of us would simply work hard and ‘pray’or ‘wish’ for handsome return without thinking carefully whether it is a good way to spend their effort. It sounds pretty utilitarian but it is very true. Our time is limited. We could not do all the things we want and we have to choose carefully.

I always think that it is not something being taught in classrooms, and even not really grasped by school teachers. So when students were taught they have to work hard, they would work hard ONLY.

It really resembles the Rich Dad, Poor Dad story. The well-educated dad got debts with him even when his life ended but the other dad simply has his assets grow and grow intelligently.

Its just like when we work hard for our companies and got some salary and you felt satisfied for the pay cheques. That’s your instruction to the money outside and you are trying to prevent them to rush into your pocket because you felt satisfied.

Think: your boss earned $$ from the deals and gave you part of the margin and he got the rest. So that $$ must be larger than your pay cheques.

Why don’t we get that $$ but only the pay cheques? ‘cos we are satisfied with our current situation, although sometimes we still have the strong wish to become wealthy, you are doing nothing except having that strong wish. If you feel hungry, your stomach sounds but the food can’t listen unless you put them into your mouth. Its just like money. You have to do something which might not be difficult to get them into your pocket.

There are some little ways of which you could place your instruction and money could came in:

• Investment: stocks, funds, bonds


• Deposit in banks


• Buying an apartment and rent it out etc...
  

Some people simply are afraid of getting lost in investments. Then you’d just buy some secured funds (although after deducting the admin fee you might not have any return), or buying an apartment and rent it out. Or we could just learn how to invest and avoid mistakes. Some investments like buying HSBC stocks could have better return than putting your money in banks, although there are really some minute opportunities that the stock would drop dramatically.

Every day we are facing different challenges and we do not know what would happen tomorrow. Then why we are so worrying about getting lost in investment? It makes no sense to predict the future and its the challenge we are encountering every second. At least from buying stocks you could see some pattern and there are some data of which you could do some analysis. I’d better say, the fear of drop is the fear of taking responsibilities.

(To be continued)

視有若無，視盈若虛

I've been a (big?) TVB fans and P always laughed at me on that... haha. Lately I'm watching 《匯通天下》 of TVB and in one of its episodes 喬本業 (姜大偉飾), the owner of 鼎豐盛票號, a reputed 'bank' in Shanxi, taught 范子齊 (陳豪飾) this eight-word phrase: 視有若無，視盈若虛. I guess its the usual practice that Chinese would luv to use phrases like this to generalize something. They'd say this phrase out without detailed explanation and hope that the ones whom they taught would understand it bit by bit themselves.

I checked where 視有若無，視盈若虛 came from and its not something written from the plot writer. Its a famous quote from 常萬達, a famous Shanxi banker of the Qing Dynasty. The quote implies that if you are wealthy, you should live as if you are not. That means you should not have luxurious life even though you are wealthy and you have to keep assertive even if your business is already profitable.

The Shang (常) family, to my surprise, is doing a real big business during the Ming and Qing Dynasty. Their banks are opened not just within Shanxi and China, it also has branches from Mongolia to Moscow. In fact, it seems that it is not merely a bank, its a conglomerate. For further info please refer to http://www.windosi.com/bbs/Browers.aspx?FID=3157.

I know this principle for quite a while esp. when I moved into this new home. Wealthy people most of the time do not dress rich. They might be similar to those who stay in parks Yaumatei, wander around and join the Chinese chess with other men there. When you have nurtured the habit of thinking of different ways in earning money, it is the first step of success of being a wealthy man.

After you have that habit, you have to keep it and become assertive and diligent. Diligence is always regarded a very important characteristic of being wealthy and successful, although it does not mean that you would benefit if you are hardworking. It would only increase your chance of being successful. What's more important is that you have chosen the right direction where you could put your effort in.

I hope that we are all in the right direction and putting our efforts in farming the seed of success.