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Thursday, January 30, 2014
Why Filipino's should be paid with their salary once a month

  • 1:03 PM
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I attended a talk by an Indian executive on 'Working with Indians'. The goal of the talk is for us Filipinos to understand the Indian culture in hope to minimize the cultural barrier between Filipinos and Indians. What stuck to my mind was his slide on Hofstede Cultural Dimension where he presented a study comparison between India and Philippines.




If you want to make a comparison to your country go here: http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html then select your country and then you should be able to add one or more countries to compare.

I highlighted Indulgence in the image above to show you that compare to Indians, Filipinos wants immediate gratification. Indian's tend to look and plan ahead.

Here's a comment that he said that really stuck to me, he said [paraphrased], "When I became the head of HR here (in Cebu) I was confused why you are paid twice a month. In all the countries that I've been to, it is only here in the Philippines where employees get paid twice a month. So I suggested, 'Why not pay them once at the end of each month? We can obviously save man power and effort when we do that.' Then I was surprised in the response from my direct reports, 'Sir, if you do that they will just spend everything in two weeks then they will die after.'" There was a lot of laugh in the room after he said that. Then he added, "Filipinos don't think too far down the road. They want immediate gratification. [paraphrase]."

This is very evident in everything that we do. Take a drive in the streets of Cebu. How many bumps will you see? A lot right? How long do you think the bumps has been there? It has been there for years yet there was no long term fix. We just patch it up and then patch it up again when the problem comes back.

We really don't look to far down the road. We don't practice foresight on a daily basis. Ask a regular employee today, "What's your plan for your life in 5 to 10 years?" What response will you get? Most likely they have no plan at all.

You might say, "But that is who we are Joseph. We cannot change who we are." I'd say, "we can choose to be different." We can make a choice. And maybe it will start with us being paid with our salaries once a month to help us practice managing our money well for the next 30 days. I don't know but we have to change. We have to look past beyond the immediate and try to see how we can better prepare for the future.

We cannot say, "It's up to God anymore." What if God is also saying, "No. It's up to you. I gave you the sun, the rain, the land, the crops, and the season. I gave you your brain, language and the ability to change. I let you decide." Have you ever thought about that?

The definition of being a Filipino has evolve throughtout the years. We've picked up a lot from the Americans. Whey not pick up the good values from the Americans and the Indians. Why not embrace looking at the long term than the near term?

This is just a thought. But I hope this challenge you somehow to impact change within yourself and to others.



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Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Why Keep Your Inbox Zero



Where I used to be

I used to keep all of my emails for "future reference". And I used to end up with thousands of emails and I don't have any idea what's in most of them. My inbox used to be a growing blob that gets bigger and bigger on a daily basis. What's more is that I have about 5 emails (four personal email and one work email) each of them growing in relatively fast rate. My emails comes from everywhere such as notifications, subscriptions, scams, and friends. But in fear that I might delete the wrong email I don't delete most of them. On my work email for example, I receive an average of 40 emails per day so I get 1200 emails in a month. I will tell you I could not read all of these emails. There are emails that I usually just keep in my inbox unread.


I felt a little uncomfortable knowing that there are emails sitting in my inbox that may need my attention. I tried to keep up and read them but with the rate that emails are going to my inbox and the time that I have it's really hard to do that consistently.

What I did was to delete (almost) everything in my inbox. I documented the task in this blog post WORKING ON EMPTYING MY INBOX. Then started working on proper inbox management.

But why do it?
I want to be able to leave the office knowing that everything in  my inbox has been addressed/acted upon. I want to be able to have time the next day to process new mails and do other work. You see processing email is just one of the work. If all I do is process emails then I do not get the work done.

Freeing your mental RAM
I also want to FREE my mental RAM so that I can allocate some of my thinking ability to creativity where I can give more value. By mental RAM, I mean the conscious part of my brain. Thinking about your email and feeling guilty about not being able to process consumes mental energy and saps your creativity. 

Feeling sense control and accomplishment
Working on an empty inbox will help you feel in control because that means that you are ready for the next thing. When you are able to process you email, you will feel a sense of accomplishment seeing your inbox zero.

What's next?
Processing each mail in your inbox will tell you what work needs to be done outside of email. It will help you prioritize your work items. So emptying your inbox is step 1 but the next step is how you go from there. There are different strategies on how to empty your inbox but you have to decide what will work for you. What works for me is my laptop and my notebook. That will help me become effective on a daily basis. If I get work done it is because I have these two things on my desk.

I will share my technique in my future articles but for now think the possibility of emptying your inbox. Tip DELETE, ARCHIVE, and SEARCH are your friends. :)

Thanks
Joseph
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Cashflow 101 Game 2


I hosted another game with friends last night (Jan 28, 2014). The photo above is one of the player's experience during the game. He said, " 1st time to play this, I was not able to get out in the rat race but I learn a lot."

What I promised is that they will learn something about personal finance and themselves. I believe I have one satisfied customer again. :) We played the game in less than 2 hours and spend the last 15 minutes to process what they learned. Hosting games like this is like doing a seminar/workshop on personal finance done in a very interactive and fun way. It's quite fulfilling to be part of the learning process.

My friend is organizing a game on Feb 15 and frankly I am ecstatic thinking about it because:
#1. I will meet new friends.
#2. I will be able to help them in their path to financial freedom.

Here's one post about our first game which I want to share.

Full content of that post is worth the read. It did endorses Truly Rich Club and I am not a member of this club but if it help you become more effective in stock investing then I suggest that you go for it.

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I Played Cashflow 101 and Had a Blast!
Last January 21, 2014 I played Cashflow 101 for the first time. It was facilitated by Joseph Librero.
The game was invented by Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the very popular book ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’. It was designed to provide financial literacy in a fun way by simulating real life financial situations.
The objective of the game was very simple, to get out of the rat race. How? By earning passive income that can pay off a player’s total expense. For example, if my total expense is $2000 then I have to earn ‘somehow’ >$2000 of passive income in order to win.

Before our game started, it was decided to stop it after 2 hours to make it more challenging. There were three of us who played the game – one played the part of a doctor, another an engineer while I played as a janitor; Naturally, I had the lowest monthly income <$1000. I had no choice since the professions were drawn by cards.

Then the game began. We threw the dice during our turn and move a toy rat around a circle. We had lots of laughs. I was downsized once, which almost wiped out my dangerously low savings. The doctor who had more buying power accumulated a stack of businesses under his name. So was the engineer while I had none. After an hour and a half, I got out of the rat race while my fellow players were still sweating it out.

How come? There were several reasons. One of the key reasons was that I liked purchasing stocks because in real life I am a stock market investor.

If Cashflow 101 is a true simulation of real life financial situations, then I definitely recommend that buying stocks should be part of your portfolio.

Let me guess what you're probably thinking by now, “I not familiar with the stock market – I’m afraid – it’s a gamble – let me study it first.”

Honestly, your concerns are valid. In fact, it’s wise to get more information first before jumping into any business decision.

However, in my case, with a big family and a full time job, I didn’t really have the luxury of spare time and energy to study technical stuffs. So I looked for other ways to get into the stock market. Then God led me to TRC by Bo Sanchez. With their guidance, buying stocks became an investment rather than a gamble. Plus I learned along the way.

I’ve been a member now for almost three years and I wished I started earlier. I can sincerely say that the money that I saved and earned in two years since I began investing in the stock market makes my membership to TRC worth it. If you want to invest in the stock, but afraid to do it (like I was) then I recommend TRC to guide you in your baby steps. Click the affiliate link below to check them out.

http://pretty_ruvey.trulyrichclub.com/
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There is more than one way to get out of the rat race on this game and my friend found stock market investing. Again, I am not part of Truly Rich but if you think this will help you then go for it.

The important thing is keep your eyes on the price - financial freedom.

If you need me to facilitate your game please send me a message so we can arrange something.


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Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Cashflow 101 Game Cebu

  • 2:40 PM
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I hosted a Cashflow 101 Game with my friends in Cebu. I've been dreaming of playing this game and hosting something like this. I finally got together with 3 of my interested friends who are first timers to Cashflow 101 and we played the game for 2 hours. Only one of them was able to get out of the Rat Race but all of them went home learning something new about themselves and about personal finance.

Here's one comment from one of the players:


Here are photos I took during the event.





What I like about this game is that it simulates personal finance, decision-making, risk-taking, and goal-orientation. Though the simulation is limited, there are still a lot of lesson to learn.

Personally, I have benefited greatly by playing the game. After playing the game three or four times I finally felt comfortable writing me and my wife's Income Statement. Because of that we were able to manage our finances better. We updated our financial system and improve our investment portfolio.

Even when I am just hosting a game, I learn a lot by just watching others play the game. I was asked to host another game next week. :) I will keep you posted.


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Friday, January 17, 2014
Getting to 4000 points daily.



I've been struggling to hit the 4000 point-goal that I've set for myself on a daily basis without having to workout. You might be thinking, "DUH!" But yes I've been trying to figure out if I can reach it with few small walks\ but the results just won't show. In December I only hit it once. I've captured the data on January as well:


I hit it 3 times on Jan 9-11 and those are the times when I did a lot of walking in the streets of Macau and  Hong Kong. The rest of the days are pretty normal. Back to the drawing board for me.
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Wednesday, January 15, 2014
George is a LIAR!


I took a quick vacation last week. Lesson learned here is to not book a tour guide for HK and Shenzhen. The tour that we had was horrible. They take you around places so you can buy from the 'factories'. In reality, they are just trying to take your money.


In Shenzen, our guide by the name of George Chew asked for 280 RMB for Window of The World but the original charging was 160 RMB. Good thing that my wife said, "We checked online and it says we only need to pay for 160 RMB". He was surprised. Then he said, "that's probably for the locals". What we can do is that I will give you tickets for locals for 160 RMB. When we checked in the ticket booth visitors (local or foreign) is asked to pay only 160 RMB. George lied to us.

He also kept our VISA so we could not leave because we want to leave early and not join the tour. When we told him that we don't won't give him a tip of 150 HKD he threatened us saying, "If we can't settle this you will never return to Hong Kong!"

The tour company that we used called SL TRAVEL Company LTD changed our itinerary without informing us. Their service really sucks.

If you are reading this post and you are planning to book for a city tour, it would be best to use Google and you should be able to find your way.
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Tuesday, January 07, 2014
Financial Goals for 2014


I used to write goals and end up not tracking them. My journey to goal setting has been rough. Last year, me and my wife set 5 goals for the year. We barely made one goal and it was not because our goals were unrealistic. It was because me and my wife had different priorities. What happened was not a lesson on personal finance but a lesson on marriage.


Financial Goals:
1. Create an Income Statement. [Status: DONE]
After playing Cashflow 101 for the third time, I decided to create one Income Statement for both me and Joyce. What we found out was both liberating and somewhat heart-breaking. It was liberating because finally I know where we stand financially. This helped me understand what time of investment can I go for without risk of being bankrupt. It was heart-breaking because I realized I should have done it sooner. My decision-making could have been better.

Nevertheless, I was glad we made that leap. Having an Income Statement gave me a better picture of our financial landscape.

2. Create a budget allocation for funds. - [Status: DONE]
After creating our Income Statement, I decided to create a budget allocation for Expenses and Investment (including Insurance contribution). I think me and Joyce did a great job in making it as realistic as possible. 

The next step is to create a system of how can we achieve our allocation. For example, me and Joyce receives our salary two times a month. We have to plan where each salary goes.

3. Monthly investment to Mutual Funds  - [Status: on-track]
Last year, I learned that investing should be consistent. When I read Wealth 1 and Wealth 2 by Francisco Colayco he explained why this makes sense. So I decided to split our investment such that 50% will got to Mutual Funds while the other 50% goes to Stock Investing.

4. Monthly investment to Stock Market - [Status: on-track]
Fifty percent of our Investment money will be invested in Stock Market. I am a beginner in terms of Stock Market Investing. So I am trekking in muddy waters here so I am making study for myself how to invest in the stock market. I subscribed to an investor and talked to those who have invested. It is scary considering that I am exposing 50% of our cash to risky investment.

5. Wash, Rinse, Repeat [Status: under construction]
I think we will still continue to re-do our Income Statement and Budget Plan. One of the learning we had last year was we did not have a system to check if we are on track or off-track. Part of our system should be to review monthly and quarterly.

Last year, we did a great job in setting the goal but this year we are focused on execution. We need to execute them properly so we will be able to meet our goal.
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Monday, January 06, 2014
NikePlus Challenge




Last October 2013,  I took the NikePlus Challenge. I wanted to monitor my activity as well as monitor how much calories I burned as I do my usually almost sedentary lifestyle. It is said that you cannot improve what you cannot measure. Therefore, I will be using this device to track my activities and measure any improvements.

In the beginning, my ratings were 'abnormal' because I was out of the country and prefers doing long daily walks. When I returned to my country and came back to work, I notice a dramatic decline of my NikePlus points.

On December, I decided even though I have not been hitting my goal that the real goal is not the hit the average which is 2,500 points but to get to a level where I am burning real calories and that level is burning 4,000 points daily. I think this is where I can perform 10,000 steps per day.




This diagram illustrates my performance after I increased my goal from 2,500 to 4,000 points. I only achieved it once and that was when I was up early like 4AM. Nevertheless, I believe that this is a real representation of my daily activities. What I will do is to put in little disciplines that will improve my NikePlus Score. I am planning to do some walking on January 14 onwards as I will be out of the country by January 8 for a vacation.

One of my goals this year is to make 4,000 a daily score.
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Friday, January 03, 2014
Cashflow 101 Boardgame


I've been thinking about organizing a Cashflow 101 Game where people can get together and learn about personal finance from the game and other players. I played the software version many years ago and played the actual board game 3 years ago and I can say that both games have a different feel to it. Playing with other players helped me understand different their approaches with how to get out of the Rat Race which is the goal of the game.

The Rat Race is not a representation of employment but the "paycheck to paycheck lifestyle" that most people are in.

What I learned in the game was how to create my own income statement and look at how much is my monthly cashflow. After playing the game, me and my wife actually sat down and created our income statement and for the first time learned our actual monthly cashflow. We also made some decisions on where and how much to put our investments.

We even played with our friends and taught them what we learned. We also learned from their insights from the game.



Now, back to organizing the game. I reached out to a friend who was very excited to play this game that we talked about having a Cashflow 101 Club. Let's see how this work in the future.

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Thursday, January 02, 2014
What's up 2014!



It's been a long long time since I blogged. I already lost my viewership but what the heck I am writing for myself and not for others. Since 2005, I've created about 4 blogs. I decided to delete them last month but when I did a last look at my posts I feel that I should save them instead. There are posts there that really means a lot to me. When I read my earliest posts for example, I feel like I was reading from a stranger's post. This is one of the best things that a blog can do - to give us a glimpse of who we were before. 

 Now, I don't want to have 4 blogs out there so I decided to painstakingly consolidate all of them. I removed the ads and other posts that was created to generate revenue for adsense. I guess I don't care anymore if I will get adsense profit or not. I included the immature posts so when I read it, it will think like, "Is this me??"

 I hope blogspot will not close down and I hope that when they do I can still save/print my blog. :) I never realize until last month that I am actually saving some parts of me in these four blogs. I am now down to 2 blogs and I should be able to consolidate all of them to one blog (which is this one) today or tomorrow.

 I also want to use this as a personal reflection blog and not as a 'teaching' blog. Thus I don't care if someone reads it or not. I will, from time to time, share some of these posts in my facebook.

 The Grace Blog - www.restfulincrease.org will still be there since I feel like it has a totally distinct audience on itself but I cannot separate myself so some of those Grace messages will flow on this blog in the future.

 There's a lot of things in my mind that I want to put down on this blog for this year.


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Life Lessons Learned in 2013 (@ 30)


I've been doing some form of retrospective since 2008. I found great value on it every time I re-read my old posts. It's like listening to a younger version of you and how he understands the world. 
Here are the posts that I've gathered since I have 4 blogs since 2005 (consolidation is on-going):

Here's what I learned from 2013:

1. Everyone is on a journey. This simple lesson came to me when I started listening to other people's pain. I used to just listen to people's success story but I learned that if you listen to pain you will learn that like you, other people, are also trying to figure this thing called life. Everyone is on a journey to understand life and how to navigate through it. This lesson teaches you to be more patient to others because they have not seen what you've seen and they have not discovered what you've discovered. So you help them see what you see so that they too will learn to navigate that facet in their lives. On the other hand, this lesson keeps you humble and in check since you also recognize that you have blind sides and you need others to point that out. You listen to others who first understands your pain and is willing to help you out. 

2. H.U. G. S. - Helps Us Grow Spiritually. This lesson is about how HUGS can bring us together. I saw this video about a social experiment about a black woman discriminating a white woman around black people. The experiment wants to see if anyone from the those that witnessed the situation would defend the white woman. Some people stepped up but one of them stands out because not only she defended the white woman but she also made the black woman understand why the right path is to move past the feelings "together". She then HUGGED the lady and said, "HUGS - Helps Us Grow Spiritually". This means that side-by-side we can move forward. 

Personally, I experience this with my Tuesday Bible Study Group. When Kat and Sheila joined our group they changed the culture of that group. We did not became a Bible Study group, we became much more - close friends. How did they do it? They taught us HUGS - Helps Us Grow Spiritually. HUGS essentially is saying, "I am not above you nor below you. We are equal and I embrace you and  accept you without judgement. Now let's move forward."

3. Find a point of agreement (not disagreement) and go from there.  If you know me personally, you know that I used to be a close-minded religious person. My journey out from it started in 2010 as the beauty and radiance of God's Grace was revealed to me. In 2013, Grace taught me to find a point of agreement. Yes. Now, I can talk to people who believes differently from me without being threatened or without feeling that they are wrong. This goes together with Lesson #1. Everyone is on a journey. Since everyone is on a journey, my goal is to help them to see what I am seeing. And at the same time, I tried to see it from where they are.

When I talk to Catholics, for example, they usually ask me, "Why don't you believe in Mary?" This is a point of disagreement. This means that if I entertain this question, I will not make any progress in building relationship which is my goal in the first place. I usually answer this way, "I believe in Mary and I know that you know that this is a point of difference but I don't like to start our conversation here. I would like to talk about a point of 'sameness'." Then I would add, "I think you agree that your God and my God is the same." And then I start from there. What is important is I keep the friendship. What is the use of winning in your theology and losing the friendship? Again, we are all in a journey and the more we stay together the more I can share to you what I am seeing.

Pope Francis said, "I believe in God, not in a Catholic God. There is no Catholic God, there is God and I believe in Jesus Christ, his incarnation, Jesus is my teacher and my pastor, but God, the Father, Abba, is the light and the Creator. This is my Being. Do you think we are very far apart?"

What is the Pope saying? We are not very far apart thus we are not very different from each other. Why focus on the difference and use that as the foundation of relationship? Focus on point of agreement and go from there.

4. Continuously Renew Your Mind. Apostle Paul urged for us to have  metanoia (renew of mind) and not be conformed to the patterns of this world. This should be a continuous and on-going reality. To renew your mind is simply to think of another thought. If one thing does not work, change your mind and see change manifest. The changing of your mind  is key personal transformation. For this year, I changed my mind many times. If there are problems I simply ask myself how should my thinking change so I can fix this problem?

I experienced a major change of mind when Grace was revealed to me. I came from a heavy performance-based religion and I have to see God differently so I can see Him in His Grace and Mercy. I have to see Him not as a Judge but as a Father. I have to see Jesus not as temporary patch to humanity's problem but as The Solution that worked for all humanity.

5. I am one with Christ. This is perhaps the message that encapsulates everything for this year. I am one with Christ. Therefore He is in me and I am in Him and He will never leave me nor forsake me. This is an on-going reality in me. I have to renew my mind regarding this. Grace taught me who I am in Christ and in Him. This is not to say that I am now the "New Savior" of the world and I am task to create a "New Israel". No. 

This means that I have an intimate and close relationship with my Father. This means that He hears me when I speak and He speaks to me on a daily basis. This means that ALL the promises of God are Yes and Amen in Christ. This means that I am a son and not a servant. This means that I am forever blessed and cannot be cursed. This means that ALL things are possible for me and much more.


There are many more lessons that I learned this year but I think these five lessons are major. Thank you for reading this post.
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