Ryan Ho's Entrepreneurship Blog

Change is the transformation from something to another thing. It is to become different, pass gradually into something else.

Since the time men started roam the earth, we underwent lots of changes to who we are today. With different nationalities language, tribes and religions we all still come from the same roots and origins, from the monkey family.

Fast forward to present, and staying local in Singapore, this nation has underwent so much changes that the kampong days are long gone, even the friendly neighbourhood atmosphere is already gone, no longer do neighbours know one another among the community. When I was young around 1980s to 1990s, the community bonding and unity was slowly fading away as I grow up while Singapore keeps changing and improving.

Lives 1990s was definitely way much better than 1950s that period, but looking at the present bonding of Singaporeans among different races, Singapore in fact has gone worse. Back than, even my grandma knows Malay and now those local Singaporean Chinese who knows Malay language is the minority with Malaysian Chinese taking away our advantage in language proficiency.

In the past, everybody knows a bit of other language here and there, even Indians know Chinese, but that’s is the super minority.

These days, with the housing development planning, the layout of the houses are pleasant taking into considerations for limited land, but gone are our privacy, with doors shut, the friendly neighbours atmosphere is long gone.

People who used to be able to work until fifty years old and retire for a blissful family, is already gone without a trace, the possibility of it is gone permanently. No longer can we grow up looking forward to retirement, in fact we will work till the date we die, that’s how the way we are growing, and this problem is not subjected to only Singapore but all over the world. Any capitalist country will face this issue.

Just that Singapore with limited resources is showing the negative effects of capitalism society faster than our neighbouring countries because they still have land, religion and culture to fall back on thus they will not face this problem so fast but gradually, they are feeling it.

Taiwan is also losing its tribe practice and people are going to cities for a living, like wise for India and other countries. But somehow thanks to its strong unity and government space for religion practice, they are still going strong with their Chinese culture and proud of it, unlike Singapore, even for our own four different religions, we also have the public holidays reduced, no longer greatly celebrating it but it has downsized so much that it becomes more like a yearly commercial event rather than festive celebrations doing only a yearly routine with no heart put into it. It’s a festival without the soul, bonding and unity in it. How I envy countries with such rich festival celebrations.

Singapore although has lost the festival bonding among people, but it has gain something else in return to compensate for its culture losses which is financial industry and is often said that Singapore is the window to China, nonetheless that comes with a great price of sacrifice.

Hard work, always increasing work load, only more and no less, work load increase is way much faster than the speed whereby our pay increases, thus we are getting poorer and poorer. Just look at the working age and ask yourself if you can even retire and enjoy a blissful family, never ever if you follow the majority. It’s just the facts.

Should we want to reverse the effects, we should pick up entrepreneurship, in particular allowing ourselves more time to spend with family, encouraging a family and work-life balance, so as to have more births per family, thus tax will not increase. Financial insiders or those who at least study bits of history will know why birth rates has links to tax.

What we deserve, we got to earn it, and to do it, we have to find our way. Singapore is growing and improving, but not the people, majority of the people are still staying in a poor mindset thus making Singapore government job of running the country increasing harder having to cope with the silver tsunami many years ahead which is slowly revealing the tip of the ice berg already. We are just another country one step slower than Japan only.

We earn what we keep, and we got to defend our homeland from foreigners, lower our demands for foreign talents, in order to do that, we have to increase our own competitive advantage so as to reduce our reliance on them.

The easiest way to do so is to do our own business, and offer employments to fellow Singaporeans by helping Singaporeans earn their own keep. Entrepreneurship is the only way to go about, don’t look at it as purely business, you can go into entertainment, science, invention, financial related or even sales and service, it is not restricted to only business. Explore different ideas and stomp the front. Be a leader, take charge of your own life.

BE in control and stay in control.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Eliminate is to get rid, omit or remove from further consideration or competition. It is to be void or expel and when it becomes serious such as to eradicate and kill the enemy.

Elimination is what keeps the Asian nations running and function perfectly like a well oiled engine with a system that never breaks down not even once.

In the game of elimination, where it is embraced and practiced by Asian countries, it is a similar to the game show “Survivor” from the USA or “Ninja Warrior” from Japan. The strongest contender wins the game and is crowned the champion at least for that very moment and during the process.

Failure is not an option nor do we Asians encourage one another, it may look bad on the surface, but in fact this elimination culture in Asians is what keeps us going and striving for the better and to surpass the previous champions and winners previously.

Once you fail in any segment of the game show, you are eliminated instantly either by the rules or via votes. For you to come back again, you need to wait for the next show to win back your honor, something which the Japanese perfected in their quest for supremacy thus it climb back up from the fall of the WWII to be the leader in technology.

China is another highly and extremely competitive country, where the strongest and fittest survives. On the surface it may look cruel to abandon our peers and move forward, but this trait and style of practice is essential in the quest for supremacy. Why so, because in order to be the supreme leader in whatever you do, there is no room for weaklings, thus elimination is the way business is conducted thus the difference in business ethics between China and USA.

Singapore on the other hand is a cosmopolitan country with such a rich mixture of nationalities from all over the country that it is no longer works on neither encouragement nor elimination. Instead Singapore is purely and solely based on Black and White, everything has to be spelled out for on the paper in the law. With neither sides near us, the weak minded people will naturally open themselves to lots of problems like being over dependant on the country which is what most of the Asians are doing and is not restricted to only Singapore but also to our neighboring countries.

Being an island with no common share identities with other nations, we need to identify ourselves, like our forefathers in history which we learn, we should take up entrepreneurship, look at the Chinatown back than, it was buzzing with activities and businesses, so much so that it causing problems but that is a positive problem. Look at the current Singapore and ask yourself what is the difference, and if you bright enough with see what I see, you are somewhere there already.

I may not be somebody now, but with time, you will see what I am made off. Either you join me now and we work together and build trust, or in future I select candidates and partners to work with. You decide for yourselves. Look at Bill Gates and his investors, those who invested in them when they were back than a nobody is already benefiting lots from their first investment to date. Vision and foresight is what keeps an entrepreneur moving despite all odds moving against the tide emerging as the champion, the supreme leader.

Success is not a process, it is war, and in war, you need to eliminate your enemies and step on their corpses, with the killing intent and aura to scare off any potential competitors. Constantly improve and work with like minded people to succeed together. Refer to Chinese Three Kingdoms if you need more information.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Popularity: 1% [?]

Festival is an event staged by local community centers on the unique aspect of the community.

There are many types of festivals across the globe, from religious to arts, food, entertainment and seasonal festivals. The most talked about regardless of nationality will be the various religious festivals of respective countries.

Time and time again, religious festivals have being board cast on television shows numerous times and showing different types of religious cultures and festivals. Christianity and Buddhism are the most commonly featured on the media due to the yearly festival across the world.

Media telecast of religious festivals is to neither a good nor bad thing, it’s just another piece of news and allow people to get updates for people to follow up with.

Buddhism has quite a number of religious festivals that has being shown on television and in other media channels. With its deep roots and influence from all around South-East Asia, all the way from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Iran, Afghanistan, India, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and in Singapore. With different religious practice and worshiping of different gods, generally we are all from the same roots, Buddhism just that our way of celebrating festivals might deter from among ourselves.

The scale and magnitude of how a country practice their own religious goes to show how united they are actually. I’m not trying to promote any religion here, but just that I was watching a Chinese show this afternoon and it help me understand the importance of culture, generations, unity,

Celebrating festivals is good way to build bonding, unity and getting to know one another of the same belief. Example like what I watched in the show, the dragon boat festival also known as the 端午節(Duan Wu Jie) is a good way to let people among the community interact with one another.

Dragon boat festival is especially successful in this aspect. Due to the involvement of lots of people, competition among respective dragon boat teams (different communities pit against each other) thus getting to know and understand respective cultures thus encouraging mutual understanding.

With a common celebration, it is not limited to a small group but it is done a big scale. Making of the dumplings in the kitchen increase the family bonding when the cook, and the assistance on a small scale.

Within a community, the village will work towards preparation for the dragon boat festival, all the festive practice; beliefs will be passed down to the next generations with participation and involvements thus strengthening the bonding among them.

Beyond community level, they cheer each of their own community to spur each other community to fight for the dragon boat championship thus increasing the tolerance for other communities with a common goal united as one.

Organizing a festival is hard-work but the rewards far exceed the cost of the festival strengthening themselves with their own country’s identity, culture and unity.

That is something which we all can learn from, to understand each other’s religion and practice instead of condemning and trying to stir up conflicts which results in only more signs of trouble etc.

Tolerance and mutual understanding is the way which we all should work towards together as a whole. Like wise in business, instead of trying to cut each other’s throat with reducing profits, getting into a price war competition, why not work together, spilt profits, and have win-win situation?

At times, when I read and watch news and getting to know businesses trying to fight for a bigger slice, it just amuse me to know how much they lack in terms of mutual respect and cooperation.

Most businesses outside are just dumb in my personal perspective, why can’t they learn a simple thing like cooperation like the politicians, government, helping one another? Although it’s true that businesses are making much more money than politicians, but they are killing each other instead of helping one another.

Businessmen should instead learn from entrepreneurs who are successful than businessmen themselves.

Festival is the way to go, respect, tolerance, and understanding is needed to build a relationship and a mutual beneficial business for profits and not losses seeing red figures.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Bonding is a relationship between a parent and the offspring since the beginning inside the womb, sharing telepathy only possible between the baby and the mother connected by blood vessels physically for nine to ten months.

With birth, the baby than has new bonds with the father, grandparents, grandparents-in-laws and relatives as second line of bonding. Each and everyone get to bond with the baby via touch such as hugging, playing, and kissing of the baby.

Bonds are created and made possible with time from fostering children and establishing the friendship even among parents and their children to have even closer bonding tied by both blood and trust.

Family bonding is the first line of social defense followed by friends bonding, than the bonding and connection with the country and followed closely behind by physiological defense.

Social defense is to strengthen the bonding and connection which we all have among our own people who grow up on this small piece of land as compared to the world. We need to work together to help one another to deter and reduce the impact and influence foreigners have on us.

China sets a very good example in this aspect, social and psychological defense. China will do whatever it takes to greatly reduce the influence USA has on it’s internet presence which will corrupt the mind of the communists who practice to watch their personal behavior and not to be as open minded as USA, thus the huge extent of censoring Twitter, Facebook and strongly encouraging Baidu their home grown China internet search engine to flourish. Like the Chinese always say: 肥水不流外人田 “fei shui bu liu wai ren tian” which means better to benefit and help our own people than to help outsiders.

China has done an excellent job in that social defense, which should be encourage to minimize the influence on the mental on the weak minded people who get influenced easily, thus causing culture change, from wearing decent covered clothes to revealing boobs, butt cleavage clothes which is degrading when done wrongly and sends a wrong message.

Singapore being a multi-racial country has its fair share of difficulty trying to guard and maintain the social interest in local culture. Ghost festival, temple god celebration by the Chinese is becoming lesser popular as opposed to foreign culture. Religion will not be mention here to prevent the spark of racism.

But it’s obvious that which religion is fast becoming embraced by our locally born Singaporeans embracing the religion of foreign cultures and their practice. Look at China, while the world is in chaotic situation, they the global economy needs China to save the world despite Yuan being a low valued currency and is not as updated as Singapore. Unity is what China has done the Chinese proud; not forgetting one’s roots is what I strongly and firmly believe in.

The bonding that China nationals have versus Singapore nationals is a far cry and should be taking noticed of. Look at Taiwan, Singapore should follow and learn from Taiwan, not follow USA practice that’s killing our own culture practices and bowing USA as our fathers when our actual forefathers are from China and Malaysia.

Taiwan although being influenced like Singapore with foreigner’s presence by occupation due to war treaty, but the Chinese culture there is still as strong if not stronger than Singapore by leaps and bonds. Singapore has let the culture evolution slide and made way for foreign influence corrupting majority of the people’s minds.

Look at how Taiwan celebrate their Chinese temper culture, they have keep up with times, and to ensure that the local Taiwanese stay and stick to their own culture, they allow the temple related culture to evolve and have electric dance from the god representative, giving it a new feel and look, keeping up with the rock techno music industry while retaining their own values and cultures. With frequent festive celebrations monthly, it is deeply craved in their minds of the true origins so Singapore who has bowed down so much to foreign cultures, should take some time to relook at how to maintain our own heritage and look at how China, Taiwan are able to hold their heads up high and not bowing down to the pressure of global influence. It should be we the dominant race in global presence thanks to China, lead and not the white skin who looked down on the yellow and brown skin.

Just look at USA, there are still underlying issues with the white black issue, due to the value the black skin population bring to the white skin, they have no choice but to accept them reluctantly. Don’t believe look back at the latest presidential election which states “The first black US president” which is the white black difference and it’s still around but they greatly reduce it to prevent riots for security reasons.

Bonds will never fail us; equality seekers will fail us eventually in times of needs especially war times.

China is able to withstand the technology revolution because they moral values emphasis heavy weight age on family, relatives gathering, whatever the public dislike or don’t agree, the internet technology guys don’t even dare to do anything with what’s not welcomed in China. Taiwan celebrity Rainee Yang is a typical example, being blocked from China due to the population dissatisfaction and thus hindering her entertainment growth into the China music arena. She was blocked from China market for years due to speaking the wrong words which angered Chinese in China and was recently being emphasis again on a similar event.

Whatever we do, we need to remember our roots, and speak our own native language to maintain and ensure our own traditional culture never dies off. That is needed to be a homeland of respective nation by not allowing other culture to step into our home turf.

It is the bonding that we have that will stick to us and nothing can change that fact.

So which side are you really on? Ask and search your inner self for answers. What is it that you desire?

Popularity: 6% [?]

Money is the common language regardless of boundaries as long as we all live in modern civilizations than we have a simple way to go shopping even if we don’t know how to speak their native language.

Armed with just a calculator, all you need is to press the buttons, show to the vendor and point to the item you want, than the vendor will take the calculator, clear the screen and key in the price he/she can accede to, sometimes leaving tactics are used to make the vendor sell it off at a cheaper price if the business show signs of not doing so well.

Everything we do, we earn money, buy food, study, survival, happiness, all requires money. There was once when money isn’t a need or a want, because back than, being self sufficient was still able to meet ends needs so it was more on relationship and helping one another. That particular era, had left and evolved thanks to the hindsight of the leaders of nations, but it may look like they are helping the country to progress, but it has a selfish agenda behind it also. Taking away the rights to be self-sufficient, by having their own land, set up their own stalls, don’t need to pay tax, earning their own keep, that was before and after WWII era, when I wasn’t born.

That time was the period whereby entrepreneurship flourishes and lots of successes all around. That time, money although was important, but it isn’t as important as the bonding people have in the older generation. In today’s world, to get wealthy and successful, we need to take back what we own from our nation leaders if not buy over the rights permanently, our country Singapore isn’t fully theirs yet, as there are still plots of lands belonging to a few individuals who didn’t think nor is intelligent enough to have foresight and hindsight to profit from their assets which are billions if not trillions dollars worth.

Less than a handful of individuals still own their own assets, land, plots of land which was passed down from generations, some siblings may have agreed to government ‘kind intentions’ that’s filled with hidden agenda, but it’s a willing party, so who to blame except for their ignorance and greed for instant gratification, not taking into consideration of what happens to their next few generations which are the difference between poor and wealthy mindset of people that makes them who they are.

When you show that you can depend on yourself, your assets to survive, you will be the natural king leader attracting followers, as the others must depend if not learn from you how to be self-sufficient, but no matter how they learn, they can learn everything, but they can’t take away the ownership of the land that’s exclusively to the land owner, not the government unless they surrender the rights to it.

Once you surrender your rights to the ownership, they may make it look like it’s a win-win situation, but look, you benefit only one miserable time, whereas government benefit forever having 25years leasehold, 99years leasehold, freehold properties, selling lands to big MNCs for hundred year period, than take it back. Look, if you know how to profit, wealth will find you once your brain is tune and adjusted correctly and money will follow if not haunt you, that is why the wealthy successful businessmen always fail in one thing, to spend away all their wealth which just keeps growing on its own after the ball has started rolling. That’s the one and only failure I notice that the wealthy and successful businessmen all have in common, but hey at least it’s a positive failure.

So if you still want to be wealthy go buy over lands from other countries while you still can, make sure you know how to manage your land for maximal profitability and in accordance with the owner decision and plans with the plot of land so as to have win-win situation.

When I have the money, I will also move to the place I want to live, a place where government cannot do anything there, since government don’t own the land there yet, I hope I can generate enough money to support myself and be a resident there in Singapore, earning my own keep while my wealth generation system is still running and spreading the essential tools for wealth and success provided the person is still alive and have yet to surrender the rights on death.

Money is not everything, but without money, you can’t buy anything.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Choice is an option of careful selection between different options offered, excellent, good average or bad products, merchandise and services. Different buyer decision leads to different customer experience and satisfaction, thus creating different classes of customers and businesses targeting a specific group of customers.

Choice is an opportunity for each of us to decide what we want, how we want it, and the expected results is already clear when we make a decision, knowing that the decision we make will have direct effects affecting our desired results.

It is a very fine and thin line between making a wise choice and a negligent choice. Whatever you do, do the right thing, make the right choice, but most importantly ask the right people.

Getting wealthy is not a want, it’s a need, a necessity for Singapore given that Singapore’s high-end property is snapping up fast by foreign investors, as fellow Singaporeans, are we so useless to submit and raise the white flag and allow their to take over and run our property, assets, earning money from us? Is this a repeat of history when the British took over Singapore only to run away giving Singapore to suffer at the mercy of Japanese during WWII?

Are we throwing away our choice to the foreigners? Getting wealthy is no longer a want, it’s a need that we need to protect Singapore, and be able to lift our heads up high, able to show the world what a little red dot can do in the globe, whoever that looks down on the little red dot will regret for making that choice and for even saying it and think about it. The Singapore founding leaders have done an excellent job in this aspect, but what are the majorities of the people doing to this? Nothing, so getting wealthy is no longer a want, but a need and a must do it. The world is your oyster, will you allow others to take the credit from you, taking away your fruits of labour only paying you a miserable small sum of money?

We the Chinese holding the huge population percentage should work together instead of cutting each other fighting among one another and giving the opportunity to the on-lookers who took advantage of it. Look at China; they made a very wrong choice, to be a fake dominant country producing products, food, merchandise that’s not real, giving foreigners a chance to grab a slice of the pie. All can be avoided, but it’s the thinking of the leaders running the country that needs a good washing to plan long term and not short term.

Singapore has done a great job in this aspect, and now not many countries dare to even mention the “little” again. It’s a fact that we’re small like a dot, but together we make a difference, and are the envy of a lot of other neighbouring countries wanting our help to grow their economy.

We should and must learn how to uphold, fortify our fortress, promote the Singapore brand, increase our advantage in the region, and work together to be a wealthy and successful.

Just like Jay Chou who wants to help his fellow singers in the music industry in his country, and China also being proud of themselves without the need to neither depend on foreigners nor even bother about what the world wants. So work towards being self-sufficient and depend on ourselves for our living instead of dependent on others.

Are you going to be a loser or do you want to grow together with Singapore and shine, even if we are the little red dot, but we are in fact multiplying our little red dots in other countries with their nations’ approval, so do you want to have your imprints all over the world helping Singapore multiply the red dots in other countries or are you happy to have others taking away our hard earn labour?

As we pursue our dreams, ambitions, we can throw away our pride, ego, face, reputation, and even work like a slave, but we can never ever throw away our dignity which is the core of ourselves, something which we need to be proud of despite how little and small our efforts may be but it makes a huge difference.

Even a beggar have dignity to stay at a place, work hard at begging for food, rather than a stray dog making pitiful sounds and a sad eyes tears rolling begging for food.

Dignity is what makes us who we are regardless of how small we will make around us, but if applied and used correctly, dignity will be the source fuel like the Sun in the galaxy burning its own fumes warming other planets that stay around the sun. Like Bruce Lee, he started low, throwing away his pride, learning multiple disciplines of martial arts, keeping his dignity and respect for our yellow skin and done us Chinese proud.

Do you want to be the person offering and extending a helping hand to others or do you want to be the receiver asking for help? It’s your choice and only YOU can decide what you need!

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Chinese New Year is coming, which represents a new Chinese Lunar Year welcoming the zodiac Tiger this year. Every Chinese New Year, Chinese will practice certain beliefs to keep the wealth inwards to the home rather than outwards.

There are taboos during Chinese New Year. Like for instance, sweeping is not allowed during the Chinese New Year period, if there’s really a must to sweep, than it must be sweep from outside inwards to the home so as not to sweep away for God of Fortune.

While everyone is preparing for New Year and welcoming the god of fortune, most of the people however, will not open the door even if god of fortune is knocking on the doors. Those who open the doors will be given and be blessed with fortune and prosperity.

Majority of the people in Singapore have being trained and bought up to look, think and plan only for short term. All that they see and ask of is money, only real hard cash is what they want, they don’t want opportunity which requires hard-work. All that they wish for is money to fall from the sky just like a game played in television shows annually, shaking the money tree in game shows.

Money comes in many variations. It can be in gold, silver, jade, antique, home, insurance savings plan, investments and businesses. It can also come in a form of a business opportunity. An opportunity to be trained by the rich, wealthy millionaires who knows the secrets of doing a business successfully greatly reducing the risk of loses with their valuable experiences.

New Year Resolution is a wish that everyone will make, but only a minority of the people will actually welcome anything opportunity that comes their way. Most of which either give reasons which are excuses to turn away money or tell the opportunity to wait for them, thinking it is their right to get rich and the opportunity must wait for them.

This kind of thinking is completely wrong, but suitable for respective nations, who wants to groom a large pool of civil servants, but I view them as slaves slogging hard for the rich without having a justifiable income for their efforts.

A bull who works so hard, will still be a bull after many years of hard. If working hard is really the proven way to get rich, than the third world should be richer than us already but why are they poorer than us?

The answer is simple and straight-forward: make the right choice choose the cash machine wisely before working hard to grow that cash machine.

Do you want to continue servicing your cash printing machine, or do you want to build a bigger, better cash printing machine with a New Year? If you’re working in the same job, have the same pay, doing the same thing which you have being doing for years, nothing have changed and like wise same for your income over these years and it will remain stagnant for years to come and even is losing in value thanks to inflation which is happening.

Inflation is the number one factor why the rich is getting richer while the poor is getting poorer. Without using the same tools which the rich are using to get rich, the poor will only get poorer because their tools are rusty, broken and not efficient to make more money.

Money is only possible if the poor is willing to change their tools (thinking) and adopt (follow) what the rich do (business investments) instead of slogging (planting a bean sprout) as compared to the rich who’s working hard too in a different way (panting durian trees) looking ahead for the long term continuous income once it ripens and bear fruits.

Here’s the difference: The poor use a green bean to plant a bean sprout with each bean, there can only be a bean sprout which is exchanging an item for an item.

The rich is smarter: Using a durian, to plant a durian tree, for the first twenty-years, there will be no fruits, and required constant care, attention and fertilizer as nourishment. After the twenty-years is up, when the durian tree is ready with deep roots, the rich (famer) will than no longer be required to care for the durian tree as it is ready to stand on their own producing rich quality and quantity of durians with zero effort from the twenty-one year onwards reaping the fruits of labor than sharing it with the people who assisted him during those difficult years.

Earning money is easy, exchanging time for money. Building wealth is much more difficult like planting a durian tree, but success will only belongs to people who are not only hard-working but also smart in making the right decision as to what kinds of seeds to plant and looking ahead of the benefits of planting the right seeds.

If you want to work with millionaires in printing money right now, don’t hesitate, contact me now and I’ll show and share with you what seeds I will be planting, and how I know it’s going to be the next durian tree. Success belongs only to people who makes the right decision and seek proper guidance. I’m learning from millionaires, and so should you. Join me as we go on a journey planting and farming durian trees.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Loan Sharks, a frequent problem exclusively only to HDB home owners, why not condominium, and on landed property owners? One may wonder, but by just looking at the three options, the difference is clear-cut, the difference in education upbringing and perception to what it takes to be wealthy.

Loan sharks in Singapore is a business that will not disappear and vanish at least for the next two to three years despite the hard clamp down on the illegal business model. Like any other businesses, any business model that can generate money should be looked at and learn it’s pros and cons so as to re-model after a successful business model in short is copying. Business is all about copying, and to make the most money out of copying, you have to add a little bit of creativity into it.

Back to loan-sharks, as the words suggest, sharks, they go for the kill. Loan is a transaction between the lender and a distress borrower who has no means of ownership to any assets to make a legal loan from either banks or private money loaning companies and thus turning to them. Sharks are the fearsome marine animal in the ocean, especially the great white sharks.

As the term loan-sharks suggest, it is a simple model with a wise business model supporting the structure. Money lenders offering money loans to distressed borrowers at high interests killing the person who volunteer he/she to be the dish served on the plate.

While many people who take loan will give excuses or reasons saying that they are left with no choice, but to a wealthy mind-set person, this are all just excuses and seeking a temporary solution which will snowball into like a snowball on the top of the hill over time.

It takes two hands to clap, without either one; there will not be any sound. Having said it, here a flaw in the business which is noted by the experienced loan-sharks owners and thus they have a counter solution to verifying the lender’s home address with recent cases of people using their old home address to borrow from loan-sharks implicating the innocent and they (both parties) don’t care seriously.

Here’s something which I learnt from documentary, Great-White sharks although are the most fearsome marine animals in the ocean, the success rate of killing the prey is only fifty per-cent due to the poor vision. Once the shark knows that you’re not a push over, the shark will release you from her mouth. What you need to do is to continuously hit that shark in times of danger when bitten, best would be to hit and attempt to poke if not stab the sharks’ eye and you’ll be saved, if the paramedics arrived on time before another great-white comes to you with the scent of blood.

The newly set up loan shark businesses are often dumb and they don’t have checks to ensure that the borrowers are really living in that home, thus that’s why so many borrowers when fail to repay the interest, they run away from home leaving the other residents in lurch at the mercy of the loan-sharks. That’s when you’ll see news articles, spray paints poured all over the address but looking from business aspect, they are wasting more money in the process which is why I say they are dumb spending money on paint incurring risk of being caught on monitoring close circuit television to trap the runners. They should instead camp around the venue the borrower hangs out with or around the friends who knows he and wait for the prey to reveal it’s weak spot.

The experienced loan shark business operators will take steps to ensure the borrower is really living in that home by sending a runner to verify it, and to the extend check if there are valuable items to sell off in the effect should the person fail to do so. To top things off, they even request to see the family members and ensure that they know it before the runner confirms it and report back to the business owner/operator over the phone before the go-ahead is given to allow the transaction. This way, the chances of incurring bad debts is greatly reduced.

Don’t ask me how I know this, because I know of people who talked of his loan shark experience before when we were serving national service over a smoking break (I don’t smoke, but I join in to learn valuable information which can only be shared this way).

Here’s another piece of information which most people will not know. Loan shark business operators are supportive of each other, when the business is big enough or when a runner has lots of debtors, the operator will than hand the runner with a large database of referrals from debtors with a capital start-up of forty-thousand dollars and does his own business. What I don’t know is how they recover this investment, by the time I wanted to ask, our superiors shouted for us and the conversation ended.  If I ever do get to ask again, than I’ll talk more about the details, either way, you can read up a book which talks about similar businesses “Freakonomics” to explore the business and understand the model behind those discussed in that book.

With that, your fate lies in your own hands, never ever borrow from loan sharks, when there’s a will, there’s a way. Make a dumb move, and you’re out of the game to wealth.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Thanks to the book “Why we want you to be Rich” from Donald J.Trump and Robert T. Kiyosaki, it has help me cleared most if not all of the blocks, riddles and reasons why becoming rich is no longer a want but a need to do so. In fact it is such a strong need that most countries ought to do so. If you want to know and find out reasons why you should be rich, either buy or borrow this book to read.

At page 248 of the book, there’s a section which talks about living below your means or expand your means. Most of the poor people would choice the former as the latter is out of the question to them having little to zero financial education. The latter will than be chosen by people who aspire to be rich one day if not are people who desire to be even richer.

While it’s true that rich people can also live in a simple lifestyle below their means but it comes with a heavy price tag to be able to buy a land, grow the plants, vegetables and be self-sufficient but in Singapore and land scarce nation, it’s nearly impossible already except for the existing kampongs which both government and developers have no say in, rejecting their offer to sell their land which has at least the size of few soccer field big.

Left with no choice than, the poor has to bow down to fate and the destiny that awaits them for being poor – no choices and living below their means, one standing phrase among all the poor minds’ are “Study hard, get a job, work hard and save your money for rainy days.”

I’m so sick and tired of such words, like wise for the majority of the people who took up MLM hoping to change their destiny, but it somehow seems far reach as most sales distributors are still dreams and not entrepreneurs themselves.

The poor mind works simple, they seek only not to lose, and not to gain, just living each day to the bare minimal hoping to be able to fill their stomach and nothing more than that. The simpler thinking each poor mind has, the worst their lives will be having their savings slaughtered like pigs in the farms by banks, governments, insurance agents, and financial advisers.

Look at the banks; list me anybody who has went become a Millionaire by just purely savings – no one, the only people getting rich from banks are the top management people getting paid high salary for making wrong investments at times with our money and being directed the way to the exit.

Look at the government, poor investor mind sets, only squeezing the poor, ripping our hard earn savings, make and squeezing us dry like loan sharks just that they do so legally by law due to lack of financial education. Which is why global educational institutions and governments do not and will never ever encourage people to take up financial sectors instead hire only people who chose the path themselves.

Government people are poor individuals with only knowledge in politics and academically smart yet holding high paying jobs making costly mistakes sucking us dry yet playing with trillions worth of money from respective nation’s citizens’ savings. Making a few mistakes with millions, and at times billions worth of mistakes does not warrant their immediate resignation due to primarily lack of politicians so they are free to make costly mistakes with our hard savings yet the poor can’t complain nor do anything because they don’t even know that government are not helping them at all.

Here comes the best part – insurance agents and financial advisors – they are the group of ‘trusted agents’ with nothing more than a paper qualification getting paid for each policy and financial package signed under them. With no prior experience of investments, they are just copycats, following the leader who tells them what to invest in, what to look out for etc. In short, they are not trained nor taught to help us get rich. They get rich by simply selling your paper services that help themselves get rich. Is this the world that you want to be in getting squeezed by those ill-trained advisers in different fields?

Quoting from a phrase said by Robert in the same book page 119 “Wall Street is the only place that people drive in a Rolls Royce to take advice from people who ride the subway.” This is truth that even a rich nation like US is taking advices from the wrong advisers, so what will become of the future in terms of dollars and cents? Do you want your money to be managed by ill-trained financial advisers or would you like them to be place in trusted people in the hands of entrepreneurs who knows the secrets of doubling if not helping you with increase your wealth?

To get rich, it’s as simple as knowing who to place your trusts in with your hard earn money. I have identified five mentors (in property, financial, and businesses) who will help me increase my wealth but first I got to proof my own worth first. While I have identified my own future mentors who will assist me, have you found yours yet? If your answer is no, I suggest you read this book “Why we want you to be RICH” It’s available at National Libraries in Singapore which can be loaned for free.

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Risking is a part of our daily lives. While many didn’t put much emphasis on it, it has actually being with each and every one of us since the day our life started in our mom’s womb.

Growing up in the mom’s womb, we run the risk of miscarriage at any point until birth. Growing up as an infant, running the risk of infections and learning new knowledge while growing up, kids are at risk of picking up negative influences leading their kids astray with bad influences from peers.

As students, having the risk of not able to attain satisfactory results to be admitted to desired educational institution having the risk of being looked down by nasty neighbors who will than gossip and make small issues evolve and worsen things.

Upon completion of studies, graduates are at the risk of unemployment, much made worse if they are competing in China, not much of competition for Singaporeans. Yet another risk surfaces due to low birth rate annually, the influx of foreign talents to replace the low birth rate.

Foreign talents, highly educated professionals are good for the society, but what about the average educated foreigners – they taking up the unwanted jobs which Singaporeans avoid and now even replacing Bangladesh workers. Foreign workers are here to stay and our jobs at risk despite government aid to Singaporeans. Hardworking foreign workers, getting less pay, working harder than Singaporeans, will increase the competitiveness but bring down the morale of Singaporeans making the situation like dog versus dog, the strongest survives only.

As adults, we run the risk of unemployment especially for those season workers not producing either results or willing to upgrade themselves.

Even in daily life, eating is risky; someone may be talking while eating, and get choke on a fishball (touch-wood). External factors also put us at risk, natural disasters such as earthquake tremors from Jakarta affecting some parts of Singapore. Flooding thanks to heavy downpour of and partially due to small canals unable to cope with rising waters, which takes place almost annually without fail else once every two years.

Floods caused businesses in low-lying area to wipe out their stocks such as flowers etc, while at apartment flats; it will cause damages to the car owners who park their cars at the basements as reported in both the news and newspapers.

Even walking, cycling, travelling in public/private transport also carry risk. Referring to most recent taxi incident, a taxi driver accidentally stepped on the accelerator and crash into Seven-Eleven Convenience store to avoid crashing into the crowd at the shopping centre for safety reasons yet claiming another victim standing near the convenience store.

Life is all about risk; it’s just a matter of perspective and education required for risk management which separates the rich and the poor. Most of the time, risk among the poor can’t be controlled because they are usually caused by external factors listed above, so why are the rich willing to take more rich from the view point of the poor? That’s because rich and affluent people have related knowledge to make calculated risk thus converting it to near zero risk unlike the poor risking their lives everyday jay-walking without much control of what’s going to happen to them.

Would you like to be a ignorant risk taker following the steps of the poor or would you like to follow and learn the ropes of the rich making informed decisions to greatly minimize their chances of risk. You decide, if it’s the former, stay away from my website, if it’s the latter, help spread this blog entry (by using the share button below) around and start making smart decisions while learning how to gradually reduce your risk.

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