Ryan Ho's Entrepreneurship Blog

Value is defined as the worth often associated with benefits to either oneself, a group or to the masses in terms of financial aspect.

But when it is viewed, rated and determined in terms of ethics, it is not something that can be justified by monetary sense. Yet something that not many would know how to weight the importance of value in terms of ethics without the ability to determine it’s real worth.

From the perspective of poor individual, value is not as important as having immediate access to money which is considered top priority for them for basic survival

Yet from the perspective of wealthy individual, majority if not all of the individuals would weigh value about money, as they can measure the returns on investments with a business based on the accounts.

That is what differentiates the rich and the poor, even the rich from and wealth who know their priority.

Poor have only benefit in their dictionary, not value. Rich and wealthy have both words benefits and value in their dictionary by definition is to understand what it brings to the table at the end of the day in a financial transaction.

Reasons for the poor get poorer over time is due to the following reasons:
1. They want only immediate money commonly defined as benefit
2. They want the benefits exclusively for themselves and their immediate family members only.
3. They don’t care about the interest of others and how much benefits others will gain | In short selfishness

Reasons for the rich getting richer with time are due to the following reasons:
1. They want both benefit (immediate) and value (long term)
2. They want to share the profits. Only by sharing with mutually benefit terms, than can everybody grow wealthier without sacrificing anyone. | In short, this what market expansion with profit sharing.
3. They care not only about themselves, their immediate family members, friends and even their colleagues, employees and business partners. By helping others, they are helping themselves too, but the results comes back in another form of financial returns of employee, business partners loyalty so the business is always growing. | In short: Long term investment, don’t be myopic/short-sighted.

If you like to know more details about expanding the market and growing your wealth on a long-term basis, head over to my other site, that talks about a ebook that I have written named Consumer Guide: 7 Secrets To Cost Efficient Shopping Analysis.

Inside this ebook that i’ve personally written, I talked about how an individual can get the maximal value out of a product/service with 7 secrets of cost efficient shopping analysis. How you can stretch every single dollar you spend on your next shopping trip.

Including flexible, customizable secrets that you can use on both products and services with examples on stand-a-lone basis. While it is titled Customer Guide, I have also included reasons, and explanations on how to make the customer want to buy your products, from both the clients and the sales professional’s perspective.

The key to getting from poor to riches (wealth) is to understand the in-depth value, plan long-term and don’t be myopic.

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Wealth is what everybody seeks. The abundance of resources, possessions, and assets.

While many seek wealth, they confuse it with money.

Money should be viewed as a tool rather than a measure of status.

While majority of the people globally all focus on earning money to make it rich, succeed in life, only the top of the corp, those who really understand the meaning of wealth, success can achieve it.

The reason why majority failed to get rich is properly due to a simple reason, they spend more than what they earn. Simple fact, but many choose to ignore this fact, and instead adopt another practice or belief, learn how to earn more money to cover up what you spend. That’s what most people are doing, digging multiple holes (traps) of financial difficulty only to refill one hole at a time while digging many holes simultaneously.

Real life case study is when people take up installments to buy property, furniture, vehicles, education loan, investment loan etc.. All involved loan while trying to get rich, having said that, that’s the worst situation that a wealthy person would do.

While many wonder what do we need to do to get wealthy. That most people wouldn’t even think about it, because those are the things that aren’t taught in school, nobody will teach others how to get rich, which in other words put oneself at more risk of competition for investments to grow own asset port-foilo, thus all schools globally only teach students how to be employees, even those teaching entrepreneurship modules, degrees are taught by professors who are knowledgeable only in theory with no physical actual experience. So at the end of the day, are degrees really that important if a person really want to succeed and make it wealthy?

Apparently not, the simplest and idiot proof method to be wealthy is first to understand what is the difference between money and wealth, what are the problems associated with money, greedy, discipline, management, investing, growing money and even finding sponsors. All of which are the important steps vital to understanding the real definition of wealth before even one can have the mental capability to sustain wealth in assets, cashflow, and managing it.

Most speakers, successful individuals only spoke and share about the importance of business ideas, but they didn’t share or mention much about the basics, thus majority are taught the advanced skills, knowledge without the basics. It’s like building castles in the air, without proper pillars as support, just a wind, flood, or fire (natural disaster) is enough to pluck out and demolish the whole building of its location into rumbles and trash.

That’s why the rich get richer, while the poor gets poorer. Only those who get it will be wealthy. Not even those smart-aleck are able to conceal or hide their tails for long, as financial crisis or global or region wide happens every 10-12 years, so it is like a circle. Only the real deal stays for the long term.

Having said that, the key to creating wealth is to bring value to the masses. Without value, there’s no room for growth.

So if you get what I’m saying, it is best for you to start working in different industry, get a clear idea of how money flows from one hand to another before switching to another industry to increase your learning growth, physically experience of business operation, running, and training employees beats education, theories taught in schools.

If you’re a parent, or soon-to-make, make it a point to throw your kids to get doing business, or at least let them earn their own money to buy the things they want themselves, and not you paying it for them. Vital to let them learn and understand how difficult it is to earn that money, so this is a life lesson that will help you in many years down to the road. Stopping your kids growing up dependent on you for their living, nor to suck your financial reserves dry. That’s long-term thinking, and at the same time, showing the kids how to take up responsibility and running a family.

When a person learns the importance of money, than only will they gradually see the light at the end of the tunnel in knowing real wealth before able to start creating wealth.

If you don’t believe it, read up or start observing how people get poorer. Especially those who struck lottery. Lucky individuals globally with no knowledge of managing money, assets will only see their money depleting day by day. After a few years, they are back to square one, in the same situation before they strike lottery.

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Charity is commonly known and associated to help the poor and the practice of benevolent giving to the needy.

But as I was approached by an representative from a local heart foundation, during the no-obligation discussion, i realized that there are so many areas that the charity foundation isn’t solving the root of the problem.

While they may seem to want to solve the problem, but they are just educating the wrong group of people. By educating the young, while it’s good to start from young, but from what I understand of the local market, it doesn’t work this way.

It is general knowledge that all kids are in their prime health and are growing, unless until the age of twenty than our lungs stop reproducing new cells, bones start to weaken at age thirty instead of the commonly known fifty years old. (Refer to today’s Mind Your Body article page 2 in The Straits Time).

So while kids are growing, their concern is only fun and education, they will not be bothered by what they learn from a talk as it will not be craved into their mind.

It is only through immediate experience of fellow family members/relatives (touch-wood) facing similar health complications than only will people learn and remember it for life.

Charity education seminar and talk is useless when shared with the wrong group of participants. As their patients are all working adults, and knows exactly the importance of having money, and how difficult it is to earn money, so it should be of a wiser, smarter choice if they target all working adults, newly graduated students walking into working society.

Only by speaking to people who have felt the pain of earning money, and the importance of having a healthy body, than will only people learn.

In short, people are cheap (majority > referring to smokers); They know it’s bad, but can’t quit smoking due to weak mental strength, but once they know that they will die the next day or in a few months time (touch-wood), they can immediately kick the habit out far into the ocean without any signs of draw-back. The same goes to wine/beer drinkers who frequently goes clubbing, pubs to relax, putting their own body at risk, liver cancer etc.

Than the other phrase commonly used is “Prevention is better than cure” makes me think about the essence of having a charity organization or foundation.

Why should we pay and contribute to some charity foundations like Heart foundation, Kidney foundation when they themselves (the patients) didn’t even bothered to take care of their own health in the first place. Only after things happen, than cry for help.

This reflects a negative side of the way charity foundations are created in the first place. To help really the needy. I think the future and the direction of most charity foundations should focus on those really poor, and did take care of their own health in the past, and not help all of the patients (whereby some of them deserved it, learn a lesson from their past actions which i think of it as consequence of their own action)

So more charity foundations should instead focus on kids born in poor families, no ability to even have basic meals everyday, or those born with chronic illness, food allergies, those are the real people whom our hard earned money should be donated to, and not those who didn’t learn to cherish what they had before a healthy body.

Having said that, there’s still so much that can be done to properly educate the masses. But i didn’t see any real person who can actually see the root of the problem, most charities are just filling out a hole on the surface, ignoring signs of leaking which leads to new holes being created.

Funds made through such non-profit organizations should be better managed by professionals and not average joe who aren’t clear on how to solve the root of the problem. There’s more rooms for improvement definitely.

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Debt is a liability and a obligation to pay for something.

It is created by allowing an individual to use repayment with the intention of using future purchasing finances for a purchase.

It gives both individuals and businesses a alternative and convenience to get they want creating mutual beneficial situations.

The client gets his/her hand on items they want to owe with the use of financing of installment options, allowing clients to buy more with a single source of income spread over the number of months as per stated by the installment agreement.

The banks/businesses will be happy too as they have more sales and profits form the service charged billed to the business operators.

Should the client sign up more installments, the business will be happier, but if it exceeds the client’s threshold/financial capability of repaying, it will turn into debts. Banks will than set into the picture and charge clients an interest for debts incurred on compiling basis monthly.

Having the banks calling up the clients who are now debtors to the bank owing them money is not a pleasant experience nor would anybody want to be in that shoes.

To avoid such situations, it is best to avoid paying in installments, as accidents can happen (touch-wood). When it do happens, sudden lost of income will mean the lost of use of all un-paid items, in the event of inability to repay the banks, items will be auction to recover the repayments of debts.

Failure to repay all liabilities or debts will result in bankruptcy.

It is best to enjoy shopping paying using cash or using debit card or spending with monthly budget so to prevent any unwanted negative debts.

To properly manage debts, one has to know the difference between good and bad debts.

Good debts are mostly used and embraced by the rich individuals or business owners. It happens when they pay for items on installments similar like the majority of clients but with a twist. The only twist is that the rich has another stream of income to supplement, off-set this installment payment and even calculated to profit from the installment as a positive Return On Investment (ROI).

Bad debts are widely used and practiced by individuals and such problems always surface among the poor. They only pay and opt for installment options without additional external sources to offset the repayment scheme and yet keep on increasing their burden of repayment by buying more items on credit without working within their budget or considering if they can afford to pay off the bill thus problems are created in the process.

For better money management and free advice, doing it yourself is the best way possible. Simply using simple add, subtract, multiply and divide to calculate the working budget/income.

Identify all input of money (income, contributions from family/relatives); payments such as insurance, medical policies, monthly expenses for food, transportation and entertainment. Inclusive of amount of money meant for savings and investment and label them as expenses.

So that when you have a clear picture of how much money you have after deducting the necessary expenses and investments and savings which you will not touch, than you will have your working capital or the remaining as your budget to spend on. This way, you will not overspend your money and incur unnecessary debts for nothing.

Spend and plan your money wisely.

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Package is a bundle of something usually in small or medium size packed or wrapped in a parcel for delivery. It can also stands for a completed product or fully operational system that is ready to be sold to the clients from the manufacturers to the retail outlets before landing onto the end users.

There are numerous packages bundled up with various business products and services. Package is no longer the same old parcel sent among people via postage. It has now evolved into a whole new package for business, offering a full package by definition is to provide a head to toe one stop solution to the users with any related services that the end user or client will require in attempt to capture and gain the trust and loyalty of a valuable customer encouraging them to return back for their services.

Bundle of services, products of various mediums can be found anywhere and everywhere, big or small there are lots of examples.

Small businesses offer a package in the form of a convenience store also known as “mama shop” in the past which has since largely replaced by convenience stores such as Cheers and 7Eleven franchise outlets offering a one stop retail outlet for general products which we need on daily basis.

Big businesses will provide similar bundle packed services like in a hotel, there are housekeeping, business conference room, social hall, meeting, training room, restaurants, accommodation, swimming and other related facilities to ensure that the customer is satisfied with the range of products and services offered for maximal customer satisfaction.

However, it is not always this way, at times, there will be instances whereby due to some minor error or miscommunication which cause the break in delivering a complete package of services and products due to short of manpower or ill-trained service providers/employees thus resulting in a complaint or silent dissatisfaction causing the client to be a one time client only.

Examples such as in-complete service are as follows: Failure to fulfill services it promised as per advertised (Goldman in the fraud case), trying to cut corners by reducing business expenses with inferior quality product replacements (Toyota acceleration problem)  or in worse case situation, totally omitting a crucial section of the package only to have the client finding out when he/she opens the package up once it is delivered to the end-user (spa business sudden closure without refund/providing services as promised).

Whatever we do, in personal, among friends or with business, it is all about packaging, a package that you offer and sell yourself to your friends, and business partners which are tied up with your creditability, reputation or past track record, branding, efficiency and productivity along with other factors involved. It comes in a package..

Failure to provide a full package will result in loses of reputation and your own brand will be killed in a instant. It is hard to build a brand, but it is extremely simple to tarnish or ruin a brand over night.

Proceed with extreme caution. It determines your success or failure, rich or poor and it depends on what we do in business not only for ourselves but also for the business.

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Health is the general condition of a person in all aspects. It is the state of complete physical, mental and social well-being with the absence of disease or infirmity.

Staying in the pink of health is extremely important. Without health, a person cannot work, which leads to lost of income, thus food will be a problem at the end of the day should one day all the savings be used up.

Being ill is nothing positive and with lots of negativity. In fact when a business owner falls ill, depending on the scale of the business, if the business is a multi-national company, any small little details will affect the company reputation, risk of share prices dropping and showing signs of weakness for a competitor to attempt to take over the position.

When health is not good, one should take sufficient time to rest and recover so as not to let it spread or cause people around them to worry which will in turn affect their jobs and morale at work implicating healthy individuals to fall sick.

In the case of a disease or infirmity, when one face such a situation, the patient is having difficulty with his own health while his immediate family members will be suffering too thus when one fall sick, it is not a simple affair but is a family affair already and that is what bonds a family together.

Regardless of you being rich or poor, doing big or small business, health is the first and foremost important element you need to take into consideration to ensure profit in the business.

Money cannot buy health so take good care of your own health as well as your family members’ health.Health is wealth, with a healthy body, nothing can be done.

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Music is the expression of ideas and emotions using rhythm, melody, harmony, tones and the use of sounds. It is produced by either instruments or living creatures.

It is a form of communication especially useful when a person is lonely or calls for help. Music in different tempos and rhythms are only understood by people within the music industry for their secret communication channel.

It expresses not only the feelings and emotions of either an individual or a group of people, it also brings across the ideas which have fused together with music to another person who understood the language.

While portable music devices and music are downloaded every second and shared over the internet, did anybody question if they themselves the listeners or audience is just listening to music for the seek of keeping up with the trend or is it what they really like?

Looking back, from the age of just radio, to walkman, disc-man, FM receivers, MP3, iPod, mobile phones with storage capabilities for music to palm tops MP4s and subsequently 3G phones which replaced all of the previous products in the market, music has come a long way and transformed in the mediums of how it is being played.

Business evolved, money and profits are made in the process, business owners and clients get rich and poor in the process respectively as both sides are happy with the end results it produces.

Music was once what we listen for relaxation, but as I look around the people in public transport, people are more and more reliant on music as a getaway channel to de-stress. So much so that they are always dependable music, listening if not blasting music into their ears, some which can even, be heard at the end of a single MRT cabin on the other side.

It is a luxury, for relaxation, but over dependence on music will become addictive and trick audience to believe that they themselves are in a tricked believe world of their own. Music accordingly to their own preference, is a reflection of the freedom, and boundaries which each individual seek.

Night clubs, pubs are just a temporary getaway place to relax, but with the portability of audio devices, people over relax themselves to the extent they no longer think correctly, and is showing signs of health complications such as mild deafness, grumpy emotions, inability to control their anger, reluctance to speak and communicate except to smooth themselves in the retreat of blasting music to their ears, jamming up the mind, making themselves in a condition less desirable.

Night clubs is a great place to relax, as it is a once a week, a month kind of places for people to distress, but with the increase stress at work, and at home, patrons are visiting such night spots frequently.

Is it a testimonial of false deception, temporary de-stress and put yourself into danger with intoxication of drinks, drugs and sex; one-night-stands, flings or just for sweet revenge to get back at your partner who is a playboy?

Whatever music you’re listening to right now, ask yourself if it is doing you good or putting you within an arms length from danger itself?

Is music helping you get rich or poor? Why not consider profiting from music instead of listening to music meant for the masses?

The secrets to get rich is to know what you want and need, and not to follow other people’s direction and help business owners fulfill their needs and desire for profit at the expense of your putting yourself in danger at arms length.

Music is be meant to be enjoyed and appreciated but not as a hideout or temporary getaway.

It should not be used as a mean of escaping from reality by blasting music to our ears to trick ourselves that we are happy as long as there is music. It is deceiving and will only do more harm than good.

It is not to be used as a escape from problems, instead, it should be used to help us face the reality as the phrase said: “Be prepared to face the music”.

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Restrain is to hold back, suppress, keep back, limit or to keep something in control. It is this restrain in the form of protection which parents provide to children which greatly suppress and limits the creativity entrepreneurship of children while they are still in the growing.

Children are creativity and can be either a dreamer or visionary depending on the kind of protection restrain which parents provide to their kids.

Poor parents trying their best to meet ends needs will suppress their kids’ dreams, advice and persuade their children to be practical and avoid falling in their mistakes so as to converse and save money for a rainy day thus kids bought up in such a protected environment will naturally be poor.

Poor children were never encouraged to do something on their own, and instead encouraged to follow orders, advices and value experiences from their elders and seniors, living in people’s shadow through out their lives. It is like putting a collar on the neck of their children, while they might think it is for their own good, but in fact it is doing their children and themselves a de-service instead and adding on to their problems and worries as their children grows up.

The poor are getting poorer because children are asking their parents for money, dependent on their parents like a unlimited cash machine thus they are poor.

Rich parents on the other hand will encourage and push their children into the open, let their children make as much mistakes as possible during their childhood and growing years so as to let them learn how to be independent and depend on their own.

Only when mistakes are made by individuals, than will it be appreciated when a senior or elder shares the similar experiences which value adds onto the mistakes, enabling children to grow up smarter, wiser and being street-smart instead of just purely academically smart.

Compare and identify the differences in how the rich and the poor protect their children.

The rich only share their experiences and advices when they meet problems which enrich their learning curves, while the poor teach everything and restrict their self learning, and that is a fatal mistake made by parents globally.

It is easier to control a loose child than to control a loose adult who has the same intelligence and physical strength with parents who are on the losing end. Instead of letting their learn only in adulthood where the mistakes could cost thousands to millions in terms of failed or wrong investment decisions, why not let their growing children learn from mistakes, at least the learning cost is cheap and within parents ability such as form few dollars to just hundreds of dollars for toys, food etc.

If you want the best for your children as they are growing up, than let them learn to stand on their on without assistance, like how babies learn to stand and walk on two legs in just months.

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Secrets are meant to be private and confidential, information, communication not mean to be known by competitors or by anybody outside the selected circle.

In “Water Colours Part 3 of 3” it showcased the last series of the wonders of marine life. It started with a new twist of colour introduction, fluorescent colour in the dark.

Under the elusive depths, where light is not within reach, creatures living in those depths also share the same language which marine animals in the shallow coral reef area uses, fluorescent light glowing from their skin, bones eyes etc.

Even more surprisingly was a shark card on record to be follow glowing with fluorescent light in the deep ocean with half a kilometer in depth.

To be able to glow in the dark is a colour language which being used in the marine life and are not limited to marine animals but also corals.

In different setting under different brightness and darkness, marine animals use colours to communicate. Other than colours, they also use touch and sounds for communication.

Beyond the fluorescent abilities, there are the UV rays of vision which only selected species of fishes and in particular smaller size of fishes and rays will have to be able to communicate. UV rays colour filters were used when recording the small coral reef fishes duck dive into the corals at the same time.

At that moment, all species of fishes recorded on camera were spotted to unanimously spot to have UV light flashing for a second before diving into the corals. That was a sign of danger when predators are approaching.

While I learn not as much knowledge from the previous two series, this last series tells me something about secrets, it is exclusive and only known to insiders within the circle sharing the common language, outsiders will never learn the secrets.

When I think and cross reference it to the super rich, its absolutely true, as the language they use at the top of the social class, is simple conversation language which poor people may already know, but it just gets more complex while super rich really uses simple communication tools. One of which I read from a book was casual chat in just one to two sentence that will seal the deal.

Another language which the super rich uses, I believe is network with cooperation for mutual benefit short, mid and long term in a single action which justifies why they are super rich, one single action reaping dual results as compared to the poor who benefit only once from that action.

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Developed is the status given to countries with high gross domestic product GPD per capita which refers to nations with high development according to some criteria.

A developed country has other means of measurement industrialization has a part contributing the economy boosting the financial status and capability of individual countries. The other measure associated with developed nation will be the human development index which combines the economic, nation, life expectancy and other measures factored in.

Being a developed country has got its pros and cons. Pros is more beneficial towards the nation, politicians, businesses and government, and  cons is more towards the poor, majority of employees who cannot benefit in any way regardless of the country being under developed, developing or developed nation.

Poor is not a good thing, and it certainly isn’t good to be poor in a developing if not developed nation. In such a developed country, there will be intense competition for business and profits. The most inflated assets becomes overpriced will be a home.

Home is the shelter which everybody needs and thus either you are rich or poor, you cannot avoid not buying it. The only difference is that the rich can afford with the inflated pricing but not the poor.

The more competition the country has, the higher the inflation is. Just look at Hong Kong, Russia, ask them how small is their home is, sixty to seventy meters are the size which average income earners can afford to buy.

Singapore is heading towards a near developed national but we are still holding onto the developing nation status. Just look at the way the homes are built in the past versus currently and the trend of the homes versus the price.

There is not doubt, homes are highly inflated, while they remains the same price, the square meters are dropping by at least thirty percent and more. Just couple of years back, the norm of purchasing a home, the standard size should be at least a thousand square meters, but over the past two to three years, kitchens, living room, rooms, and even washroom get downsized, but the price still remains the same giving a false impression that there is not any inflation.

All these are just decoys, sales gimmicks which all businesses employ to trick those gullible people.

There was a news article which I read some time back which made me laughed. That article was about a block of apartments of six to seven hundred square meters of size being sold at a much higher price tag for the same amount with a home for at least a thousand square meters of size in the same area. The irony is those small homes get snap up much faster than homes which a bigger size despite it being more expensive!!

An example will be in the past comparison of an old three room apartment built in the 1980s versus the ones which has the same size of a current four room apartment built in the after the millennium. Just look at the newly built versus the older generation apartments, compare the windows, put your thumb against the windows from your vehicle or when you happen to pass by in public transport.

Older apartment’s windows can cover around the size of our thumb while the newer generation of apartments, their windows are smaller than our thumb, to me, newly built apartments are like pigeon holes for birds to live, not us, but funny thing is, we have no choice but to move in since there isn’t any other choice left, neither was I in control of wanting to move or not.

When I read that article, I was wondering if adults are smart or are the developers smarter but since I’m already as of a adult age, I know I am definitely not going to be among those intelligent adults buying a expensive apartment with lesser space just because of the sales hyped up buzz of thanks to the media which created a sales frenzy.

If you understand what I mean, spread news of this blog post to your beloved family and friends, help them save money and prevent those developers from ripping our money off our wallets just because they don’t know that they are suffering a loss on each purchase of flat yet they are smiling and thank you the property agents who are in fact making their clients poorer.

I don’t know how smart we ourselves are, but if you want to help yourself, your friends and family save money, than tell them about the trend of property size are descending while price is ascending thus price inflation on all apartments.

Spread the word to save money. Don’t rush into buying homes if they are just building smaller homes and jetting up the prices. Practice delay-gratification, it will help you save hell lots of money. Trust me on this.

There was once when a blocks of flats in a are of Singapore that was not popular in the launch couple of years back, with only less than ten occupants which made that area looked like a ghost town, which made developers to relook at their layout, design before new apartments were built soon after with numerous other strategies to push for the sales of the unsold apartments which was featured in the newspapers.

The moral of the story and lesson learnt, do not rush into buying homes, if you don’t like it, don’t buy it that will force developers to rethink and relook at their product (apartments) which they are selling.

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