Are you more left brain or more right brain?

You Are 85% Left Brained, 15% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning. Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others. If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic. Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility. Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way. If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art. Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Are You Right or Left Brained?

My Lakbayan Grade is C! (still)

My Lakbayan grade is C!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

Visited countries! (update)

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

My Lakbayan Grade is C!

My Lakbayan grade is C!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out atLakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

My Celebrity Look-Alikes!

Visited countries!

Countries I've visited! But actually, I've been on only 3 states in the US, just at the US-Mexico border in California, and only in Hong Kong in China...




create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

[Blog Review] Yet another review on a Couch Kamote blog post (about the Filipino culture)

first, read this article, entitled "(Mis)leading by example":

http://digitalsolutions.ph/couchkamotereviews/misleading

and then here are my comments:

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yes, i really think anywhere in the world - countries, companies, families - it all depends on the leadership. we are all bad (or good) citizens, employees, or children, because we were brought up that way, intentionally or not, directly or indirectly.

so really, we can't do anything about our leaders or our past. let's just make sure that we do not commit the same leadership mistakes when we become politicians or government heads, CEOs or supervisors, and father or mother.

by the way, why the POA? because we were programmed that way. read this:

http://www.counterpunch.org/gray10052005.html

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hmmm, i think this should be in the thoughts blog.

[sub-labels: CPC blogs]

[Blog Review] Reaction to The Coach Kamote's blog post "How Pinoys Retire"

Are you Pinoy? Read this article:

http://digitalsolutions.ph/couchkamotereviews/how_pinoys_retire

Here is my reaction (supposedly a comment i will post) to that article:

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hi. i've forgotten now how i came across your website, but i thought of searching for "couch kamote" again to find your site, because i was interested to see if the ideas of "coach kamote" and my "coach potato" have any similarities. and through some clicking and clicking, i came across this blog post of yours.

my comment: ditto! i can truly relate to that. right now, although i am a little bit confident that my mom and perhaps my brother and i will be able to pay off this debt we have to acquire this certain property, i really thought that something else could have been done with the money that has been put into paying off this debt and the huge interest.

robert kiyosaki's philosophy come to mind again. save money, invest them in "assets" (real estate and/or businesses and other investments that can give you regular income), then use the earnings from your assets to buy your "liabilities" - your doodads, big toys, luxuries, and homes.

anyway, a friend said, "i think it's in their generation also - the post-war-born generation that experienced martial law and repression while they were in the prime of their youths."

alas, i myself am "stuck" with my mother who is expecting me and my brother to take care of her when she retires (approximately 5 years from now), and more than that, she expects me (and my brother) to shoulder her future around-the-world traveling expenses.

and so i am practically in the same predicament as you, except that i haven't yet "escaped" into marriage. i am looking at my potential salary (when i get work; i am presently "in between jobs") - and it will not let me reach my goals. of course i can change goals but... right now, let us just say that that is very difficult to do.

and yes, like you again, i would like to not become dependent on my (future) kids when i retire. for all i will give to them, i will not expect them to give back to me when i'm retired. i want them to enjoy their own lives even if i have retired, and they will most likely be married by then.

so what can i do? kiyosaki's philosophy is to not just depend on a salary. because with the salary, you stop earning when you stop working. the same is true when you're self-employed. he suggests saving money to go into business, stocks, real estate, and other investments that could yield higher returns than just saving in the bank. he actually suggests not saving in savings deposits because the interest rate is lower than the inflation rate, and thus you are actually losing money when they stay in the bank.

i am at the verge of doing that jump from employee to entrepreneur, but unfortunately, i don't presently have an operating system that makes me capable to go into business. i've been programmed to be an employee. plus, add to that the mixed messages from my mother. she herself has not been so greatly successful in entrepreneurship, but it's not that she is not a successful consultant. she would tell me to go into business, but when an enticing employment opportunity comes up, she asks me to consider. throughout my youth, my mom, not being really an entrepreneur herself, has given us fish, but has not really taught us how to fish.

anyway, my task right now is to talk to my mom, and convince her to support me going into business. i have these ideas already that are financially sound and potentially high profit-making. if not financial support, i really only need her moral support (i.e., hopefully she will not disown me or tell me "i told you so" if ever i should fail). and then i do hope that she can also live my lifestyle of delaying gratification. that is, you know, waiting for the chance to eat ice cream and to play the toy, if i can wait not playing with the toy just yet.

on my part, that is the difficult part. my mother has earned money through her consultancy business, and has spent it and lived the corresponding lifestyle. her philosophy is, when there's money, we spend. when we don't have money, we thrift. her money is hers, after all. and then she also has some sort of mentality that she's getting old, and she might not be able to enjoy the money that she has earned...

oh anyway, i've said too much. good luck to us all, and may we be able to provide ourselves and our own familes, as well as our parents, with what they need and want!

[sub-labels: CPC blogs]

Are you Filipino? Read this!

Go to this webpage: http://www.counterpunch.org/gray10052005.html. It's a website I encountered a couple of years ago pa, and the article itself was written/posted on 10/05/2005.

[Book Review] [Blog Review] More on "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"

As I've mentioned in my earlier post, there is this review of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" (Site #4) that I really like, compared to another one (Site #1) which was so biased and full of hate.

Anyway, I was the first to comment on that review (Site #4), and here is what I had to say. This essentially provides my review of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but mostly, it is building on top of the review in Site #4. So go read Site #4 first.

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Hi Trent. I would say, you wrote a great review. I like that you pointed out the good, the bad, and the ugly. I agree with everything you said.

Sometimes one person might be the holiest person in the world, but if he does one wrong thing, he gets all the crap in the world. The thing is, I did find “the good” in Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad (and in his other books and even games), but I would like to think there is no perfect book or any other product. Rich Dad Poor Dad has its many flaws, and considering that not everyone can see them as flaws (some may see them as inspiration), I guess that’s the really ugly thing about it. To me, I just take the good lessons, and leave out the bad.

Now if I may add something… The first time I read Rich Dad Poor Dad, I also got inspired. But at the same time, I felt like I was in an MLM (multi-level marketing) seminar all over again, where some guys who only held high school diplomas told us college and master’s degree holders, “You don’t need a college degree to get rich. Look at us!”, almost implying we’re stupid to even study in college. And in that same MLM group, there was also this one guy with a Lamborghini saying “I got this car after just a year working for this MLM company!”, implying that we’re stupid to be working for some other company, and not their MLM company. And did I mention, we were “fooled” by a friend who told us that seminar was just going to take an hour, and it took three hours?

Anyway, I guess that part of the book that made me feel like that, is that part you refer to as “the ugly” part.

And then in this book, Kiyosaki also suggests to go into MLM. Overall, while I was inspired by this book to do something, I had some questions that lingered in my mind. I did think I was definitely still not going into MLM, after all that insult I got from them.

If I may say something about MLM, it is also flawed in a way. It’s about selling, and expanding the network, the larger your network, the better your sales and commissions. But what if everyone became part of that MLM network, who will buy and who will sell? And who will become rich? The answer to that last question might be, the one who produces the product. So again, there’s the lesson that you also pointed out. Create a product or profit from your intellectual property.

But fine, I forgot if it’s in Rich Dad Poor Dad or in his other books, Kiyosaki somehow says that if there’s one good thing about MLMs is that, they could teach you how to sell. And I agree with him that business is all about selling, whether it’s your product, your service, your self, the business itself, and so on. And if there’s one thing that I am not good at, it’s at selling.

And fine, I might consider entering into an MLM just so I could learn how to sell (as opposed to, say, working for a company like Xerox). So I guess that’s his main selling point for joining these MLM companies.

In Kiyosaki’s last part, as you mentioned, he suggests to do some further reading and education. And then he somewhat recommends his other books, and his Cashflow games. His other books cost twice as much as Rich Dad Poor Dad (back when I first read it), and his Cashflow 101 game costs US$200 (US$300 here in my country)! Back then I thought, “This is a scam!” But I also admired the fact that it was such a great marketing tactic for his company, for himself, and for his other products. Rich Dad Poor Dad was written somewhat to appeal to many (who were not one of them “hamsters”), and it was also written to sell his other more expensive products. He indeed was a “bestselling” author, not a “best-writing” author.

Now I re-read Rich Dad Poor Dad just recently, and only because I’ve met actual people who are now earning significant passive income, courtesy of them getting inspiration from Kiyosaki’s book. But it was not without problems or risks, and without help from experienced friends and lawyer- and accountant-friends.

In fact, these guys are now doing something with practically no-money-down deals on real estate via this one technique that Kiyosaki himself has never mentioned (as far as I know). One of these people is someone who is a famous spiritual/Christian leader, and together they’re professing that God wants to bless us abundantly, that God wants us to be rich and to be able to handle being rich, and that God wants us to be rich so that we could have more to give away to those who need it more. This spiritual leader I’m talking about has goals of giving away up to 90% of what he’s earning to the poor.

So anyway, that’s them. The thing is, there are some people who are now earning more in passive income thanks to inspiration from Kiyosaki’s book. And they’re teaching and inspiring others also, they’re expanding their own network also. They have dreams of helping make 1 million millionaires in our country by 2020.

They took the good from Kiyosaki’s book, and made it even better. They did not anymore look at the bad or the ugly side; they must have just tossed it aside.

And that’s how I look at Kiyosaki’s book. And I guess thanks to this review of yours - and again I think it’s a great review - I don’t have to re-read Kiyosaki’s book all over again (except if I want to re-read his “parable”), plus I could easily see which is the good, the bad, and the ugly. Because for me, I just take the good, and leave out the bad, and the ugly.

Again, thanks to this review of yours!

[sub-labels: CPC blogs, CPC books]

[Book Review] [Blog Review] All About Robert Kiyosaki, and his book, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"

I've recently read three blogs/articles talking about Robert Kiyosaki. In the order in which I read them are:

1. John T. Reed's analysis of Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad
2. Thinking About Money - commentary on Kiyosaki
3. The Simple Dollar - deconstructing Robert Kiyosaki
4. The Simple Dollar - review on Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Site #2 (Thinking About Money) actually provides a free download of an e-article which contains his review of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. He sells the e-article for $1.99, but you can download it for free.

Anyway, I recommend reading Site #1 (J.T. Reed's site) with an open mind or hopefully it can open your mind. By the way, it's a very long article.

But I really recommend Site #2, and I agree with their review of Kiyosaki's book.

I like Sites #3 and #4 (from the same author) because it is a much shorter read than Site #1, but also because it presents both the good, and the bad, plus also the ugly.

I wrote a comment on Site #3 which follows.

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What this site has done - is sell - using controversy! Okay, somebody just made that point a few comments earlier.

The end product of this website/webpage is a virtual forum on Kiyosaki. That John T Reed guy won’t even post everyone’s comments on his main Kiyosaki-is-Evil page. He just selectively picks comments that would support his arguments.

So before I talk about that other website (johntreed.com) again, I should say that this site or this page I guess has done something good, although I doubt that it was its primary purpose.

So now I’ll talk about another website. I like how the website looks at Kiyosaki’s books. I agree with the website owner. Like the website owner, I don’t care about Kiyosaki, or whether Rich Dad is fiction or non-fiction - the thing is, what did I get from reading his books? What could I use and not use? So visit that website and compare to the post here (thinkingaboutmoney.com).

And finally, what about those people who failed miserably after reading Kiyosaki’s advice? There are three things (I think).

First, they MAY have not understood all of Kiyosaki’s (few) points.

Second, they possibly just jumped into business without getting really prepared right after reading Kiyosaki’s book/s, and related to the first point, did not really get that part about Kiyosaki’s message.

Third, Kiyosaki says you make THAT decision to go into business, you don’t expect to (as in my second point) just throw a pair of dice and get double sixes right away. You could get lucky on the first shot, but if you don’t, you should eventually get your double sixes. The thing now is, considering the odds of getting the double-sixes, the best (or “educated” or “smart”) thing to do I think is to determine first how much money are you willing to lose, do your best within the budget you’ve set, hope for the best, and expect the worst - and manage through the worst. It’s all about management. If a business fails, it’s not the fault of the business (it doesn’t make the decisions) or external factors (duh, did you really think the world will conspire to help you out?). It’s the fault of the manager. If a car can’t bring you from point A to point B, it’s because the driver may have overlooked something, or overdid something.

Anyway, can someone really lose so much after reading Kiyosaki? He’s also told us about practically making money without using any money! I know someone who has made money - a steady monthly cashflow of close to $400 (here in my Asian country) with no money down! It just took efforts, guts, preparation, psyching up, SELLING skills, and listening to a mentor who has succeeded herself.

Well, what could you do, it is a fact of life that some people fail and they blame others for their failure. The thing is, for anything we should do, we should be prepared to do them!

So I guess I should answer the big misconception about Kiyosaki’s books: can Kiyosaki help you prepare for business? No! Kiyosaki himself professes getting more financial education, or business education, he says buy his next book or buy his game - fine you learn a few things. But really, it takes more than one book. It takes more than Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And no, the second book doesn’t have to be Cashflow Quadrant, and the third doesn’t have to be Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing. Ask a friend-slash-business-expert for advice, or ask him what books to read. Of course, experience is the number one way to learn. If you failed real bad, and got nothing left, give some thinking to what you could next to actually profit this time, and get a job (or keep your job) to keep putting food on the table.

I’ve said too much!

[sub-labels: CPC blogs, CPC books]