The absurdity of our habits of being busy

Do you have a habit of keeping yourself busy?

I had, now looking back, it looks really absurd.

It looks like this:

From Jan to mid-Dec, busy at work.

Each day I was busy telling people "I have no time",
or a variation of that.

Each night I wished I had time to do that something,
something like "read that book", "do that exercise",
or "invest time with that someone".

Then it was holiday time.
Finally, I had time, right?
Except we are a creature of habits.
So I was busy traveling, getting from one
destination to another, one resort to another,
busy photo-taking and shopping.

As for the things I had always wanted to do?
"Oh, I was too busy because ..."
A bunch of bullshit - so much that it really
gave me good excuse to procrastinate for
another year, and another...

"Maybe I will try harder later"

Is this absurd?
Please share your view below (unless
you are too busy.  In that case, you can
try harder later".

Merry Christmas and happy new year!

Dr OIC - Creator of Technology Behind Life
Technology for getting what is important in life!

What do you do with absurdity?

Some people complain about absurdity, some laugh.  The wise profit.  ~ Dr OIC

Now that the Feb has done what I have been predicting for 2 years (i.e. QE2), what is next?



I predict: QE3.

Mark my word.  Whether it is called QE3 or not, it is coming.

Why?

The current deficits, both trade and fiscal, in the USA is huge and accelerating.

There are only 3 ways to deal with it.

1.  Raise tax - which is not likely.  As predicted in my workshops, in a democratic society where politicians are elected, any idea to raise tax is a wishful thinking.  Take a look at the world in the past 12 months, both the UK, Australia and Japan have new Prime Ministers (in those countries, a PM can be voted out anytime in contrast to the USA where the president, no matter how unpopular he is, has 4 years to finish).  President Omaba just experienced a major setback in the mid-term election of the USA.

2.  Cut spending - just like option 1, it is both politically unpopular and economic suicidal.  Look at Greece and France, all they see is more riots and strikes, damaging their fragile economies more than saving costs.

3.  Default (i.e. print more money) - as long as they have the right to print.  Unlike PIIGs, the US dollar is still a reserve currency that the world accepts.  Therefore, this is what they just did (in fact, they do not even need to print, nowadays it is electronic - good for saving paper and thus trees).

Option 3 is not a cure for deficits, only to worsen it with interest payments.  Even the most financially retarded knows that you cannot pay a credit card with more borrowing from another credit cards.

Of course, in God we trust, that someone has printed money will print it again.

So what do you do?

You can choose to complain, laugh, or take actions to profit.

What can you do?

Come to my workshop is a good first step.

Just in case you are thinking of me writing such a long blog to sell you a ticket to my workshop, I am now truly laughing.  I can profit far more from riding on someone's absurdity. 

Our world has too many complainers.

My mission is to shift people up from victims and survivors to wealthy people who have the resources to make a difference to the world.

Until next time, live your bottom line!

P.S.  Remember to leave a comment to let me know what you think of ... anything I wrote or wrote about here.  

Dr OIC Allan Cheung - TBL Legend inside

Have you found your flower?

This movie would never catch my attention to watch it.

However, as if the greater wisdom has planned for it, I watched it.

And I liked it a lot - perfect timing too after the Technology Behind Life was just born and I had a lot to contemplate about life.

Even the name of the movie is so divinely picked.

The movie is about life stories of 6 women.

Very ordinary lives, very ordinary stories.

No bullets, no blood, no extraordinary sex scenes (I guess they all had children, so they must had sex inside their bedroom - the typical normal kind).

In short, this is the kind of life you and I have (well, I assume you are not someone like James Bond or Forrest Gump).

And just because I watched it after I conducted the conundrum exercise in my workshop, I got to see the beauty of this movie.

And it is exactly the beauty of our life - ordinary but magnificant every single moment.

The only question is: are we aware of such magnificence here and now.

Until next time, live your divine miracle!

Dr OIC - Creator of Technology Behind Life
Technology for what matters in life.

Will this be what you look like when you have found your flower?

How do you want to die?

In the movie, I see that life is so fragile that it can be taken away so quickly.

In one scene, a swinging wire cut through a body and the upper part fell into the lake.

In another, thousands of people's body were taken, entirely leaving only bones, or more grossly partially leaving parts of body dangling, after helplessly being eaten by Piranhas.

Shall we have fear over death?

I believe part of our brain, the lymbic system that is responsible for our survival, does have fear which is important to our survival.

The question is: are we being unconsciously driven by fear, or do we consciously dance with fear?

In the movie, thousands of people died despite of their fear and desperation for escape.  One Sheriff, in performing his duty, died with no fear.

There are 3 other people, with love, overcome fear to rescue people, including those they love and care dearly.

What I see is that - we will all die.

Even without piranhas, we will all die.  So it is not a question of whether we die.

The question is: how do we want to die.

Have you thought of how you want to die?

This question may lead the ancient samurais to the spirit of Bushido - the warrior spirit that overcome fear and death.

Think about it, and leave a comment here.

Stay tuned.

Dr OIC - transforming hard-working caterpillars to life-enjoying butterflies in a garden of flow-ers.  

Does Hunt in Pack have to be bloody?

I just finished watching the movie Piranha. 

Oh my God!  It is bloody.

The producer knows how to push our buttons in our brain and play with our fear.
With the consciousness we talked about in the Diamond course, I see how they are playing the tricks with our stem brain.  

After watching this movie, my first response to Hunt-in-Pack is that it is very bloody.

In the movie, we human beings become the sashimi for the piranahs.  What we are left with is bones and hair and a few remaining body parts. 

Like it says in the movie, piranhas hunt-in-pack.

Then, it reminds me of the documentary movie I see how we human beings use the same tactic to hunt dolphins, whales, and other fishes.

And sometimes we may eat them alive so that we get the best freshness.

What a movie for me to reflect upon our own bloodiness.

I also got to see the importance of integrating spirituality and materialism.  

If we only have a drive for materialism and no spirituality, we become the piranhas automatically going after blood.  We become the money makers.

I also got to question that, do we human beings have more than flesh and blood?

If so, then whatever is beyond our flesh and blood must be our soul and spirit.

And finally, hunt-in-pack itself is neutral, no good or bad.

Perhaps human beings being eaten by piranhas is also neutral, bad from our perspective, good (if piranhas can think) from piranhas' perspective.

And perhaps it is us, with consciousness and soul purpose, can make Hunting in Pack the best for the world we live in.

P.S. In this article, I used a few jargon from the Diamond course.

Please post your comments, stay tuned, and I will see you next time.

Dr OIC - transforming hard working caterpillars to butterflies among the flow-ers.

What is Wealth?

Since this blog is about wealth creation, let us start with the basic definition of wealth.

Different people have different definition of wealth.

What is yours?

For me, wealth is not money, not stock, not property, not a car, ...

All those are what I call assets. 

Wealth is our capability to generate all of the above, plus happiness, fulfillment, love, health, family, and contribution.

With the above definition, more money can be one of the outcome of our wealth.  Some others include making a difference to the world, enjoy satisfaction from work, etc.

Think of the metaphor of a tree.

Money, happiness, contribution, etc. are all fruits.

When these fruits are sour and small, do we focus on those fruits?

Or do we explore putting in the right amount of fertilizer, water, sun light, ...

So what are the fertilizers and water for wealth?

Post your comment to tell me what you think, and I will tell you what I believe.

Dr OIC - transforming hard working caterpillars to butterflies in a garden of flow-ers.

You do not need to gamble at Macau - Part 3

So what will be a good alternative to participate/invest in Macau's future?

I have found a few Macau related stock listed on the HK stock exchange.

I am not going to mention these names.  You have to do your homework.

What I have found is that there are a few stocks currently trading at a discount to its book value.  Some are related more to Macau's property sector, while others more to its casinos and hotels.

Be aware that Macau stocks move up and down like roller coasters according more to speculation and less to fundamentals.  That means, if you do your homework and be patient, you can pick up a few bargains at incredible discounts.

I see that to be better alternative then buying Macau property directly - unless you hunt-in-pack of course. 

P.S.  Always remember that investment is only a game and you play to win.  And when you play, whether you win or not, remember to have fun and enjoy.

Please post your comments, stay tuned, and be rich.

Dr OIC. 

You do not need to gamble at Macau - Part 2

What have made Macau's future brilliant is this:

1.  Macau has become the world's number 1 (measured by what matters the most - $$$) casino center.

I did a casual observation that at each table (I never gamble, only to observe) each round the dealer had around $1000 profit.  That reminded me of a McKinsey interview question we practiced at MBA: how many gas stations are there in the USA.  I did an estimate...

Actually, there is a better way now, with the advancement of the Internet and mobile phones, I did a search for Macau's gaming revenue.  The answer?  I will let you do the same exercise here and you will be shocked.

2.  Even when people (one in a thousand) make money from the casino, with so many shops, restaurants, and other entertainment places most of those winnings never leave Macau.

3.  Macau has been importing labor.  With such a quick explosion of the economy, there isn't enough local people.  Therefore, labor import has been necessary and acceptable. 

Where do these people live?  hint hint!

4.  Forget about tearing down an old building in Macau to rebuild.  And Macau is surrounded by ocean.  Most of its land is from reclamation and as it reclaims further, the depth it needs to reclaim goes up.  Therefore, the cost of land is also going up dramatically.

5.  The transportation infrastructure to be built in the next 5-10 years will make this small city explode.


6.  The best part is: when you ask most people about investing in Macau, they will tell you their concern about vacancy, crime, and lack of transparency.  All of those used to be true, but silently improving significantly.  As a result, even though Macau's GDP per capita has surpassed HK's, its property price is still at a huge (40%) discount to HK's. 

To my sensitive nose, this smells opportunity.   

I can go on and on, but still there are a few obstacles.

Among which, the biggest is the proximity of Macau.

I live in Hong Kong.  I do not want to go to Macau all the time to manage my property.
If I want to invest, I want to invest 100 units to make my trip worthwhile.

This is where Hunt-in-Pack comes in.

When I can bring 100 investors in, we can bargain for a good deal.  We can collectively appoint a good management company and they, wanting to have us as a big client, will give us the best service.

...

And we can collect much better intelligence in terms of prices, vacancy, economic data, ... and manage the property units with the best professionalism.  (Amateurs never make money, they pay to play).

So what else can totally eliminate the nature of gambling in investing in Macau?

Post a comment.  Subscribe to this blog.  Stay tuned!

You do not need to gamble at Macau - Part 1

When it comes to real estate investment, size sometimes matters.

Small is better! That is the city/country size I mean. 

Why?  Because when hot money flows in, the small size makes the hot money shoots up like a geyser. 

Hong Kong is small.  Singapore is smaller.  Macau is the smallest amongst these 3.

Therefore, ever since the beginning of 2010, I have been studying the Macau property market.

There are many economic factors suggesting that investing in a Macau property can be a good investment in the next 5-10 years.   

On a separate note, I teach people never to invest as a retail investor.  Always hunt-in-pack to get the wholesale discount, or at least with more bargaining power to get better deals or services.

Therefore, I organized a hunting trip on July 1 to Macau.  We attended a privately arranged seminar, interviewed some experts, visited a few properties.  We have also done our homework before the trip, that collectively we came up with over 100 questions to ask the local property experts.

Hunt-in-Pack includes food, yummy Macau food.

Coincidentally, the Capital magazine on July 2 published a cover story about the property of Macau.  Because they covered most of what we discovered, I am not repeating our finding here.

In short, Macau looks good. 

Hold on...  Before you rush to Macau, let me tell you a few more things.

First, the legal documents in Macau is in Portuguese.

Second, managing a property overseas (unless you live in Macau) is not always pleasant.

Third, information in Macau is not that transparent.  Unless you are living there locally, there is not much research you can do over the Internet.   

There are a few more obstacles,...

So what is the solution?

Stay tuned...

September 6, 2010

Dr OIC

From Church Mouse to Rich Rat - financial freedom in 3 years!

I have been invited to facilitate Cash Flow Game in Hong Kong and Singapore.  During these games, I have seen many people frustrated at stuck in the rat race and not getting out.

Playing the Cash Flow game in HK, Sept 02, 2010.

 After the game is finished, I told game participants that the good news is: the game is over.  "Tomorrow, you will wake up not remembering the game any more.  Life goes on as usual"  (do I sound like the Oracle in The Matrix?) 

And the bad news is: in real life, if you are stuck in the rat race, it lasts much longer.  And in case you still cannot achieve financial freedom when you retire, you will be stuck for your entire life!

The worst: you only have ONE life.  How do you make sure you achieve financial freedom (which should just be the beginning of a life worth living) and live your dreams?

Let me share a story of my friend, Petrus Carstens, with you.

Petrus officially become the Rich Rat in May 2010

For many (15) years, Petrus was known as a church minister, earning only $2,000 US dollars a month.

When he played the Cash Flow Game, together with a few other changes in his life (the most important one is his alignment of life and purpose), he managed to build up 2 shopping malls, 2 gaming reserves, 1 gold trading company (each week 70 kg of gold), 1 water treatment company for the entire Africa continent, calling center business, 5-star hotels, a health product distribution company and an investment service companies.  Someone estimated his personal wealth to be over US$20,000,000 and growing fast.  (If you do the math, it is nothing short of a miracle!)

(Click here if you want to know more about Petrus Carstens)

Is it a miracle?

Over the past 2 years, I have the privilege of working with him as a business partner and teach one course that he developed.  Both on the stage teaching the course he developed and behind the stage in business partnership, I can tell you one "secret" that there is no secret - anyone who is willing to learn and practice consistently and diligently these practices can achieve the same result (including creating your own LUCK). 

Okay, let me not been seen as marketing Petrus or his course here.

The point I am making here is: you can get out of the rat race in 2-3 years and enjoy financial freedom, when you have what it takes to get out.




Would you like to embark on a journey to achieve financial freedom in 2-3 years?

If so, you have to earn your right.

Please answer this question: where do you think is the starting point? 

Post a comment here.  And subscribe to my blog to walk this journey with me.

P.S.  for the record: I went from financially almost Just-Over-Broke to financial freedom in 3 years.  I can do it, you can too. 

September 5, 2010

The Dark Side of the Force

"Don't underestimate the dark side of the FORCE" ~ Darth Verda

In real life, do we have the Force? and the dark side of the Force?

I believe so, especially after I taught the Diamond course recently.

In the Diamond course, we look at the drive behind our actions with regard to money.

Do we work hard to earn money? (Money Maker)

Or do we try hard to keep money (Money Keeper)?

Or give money away (Money Giver)?

There is a type of people where money is attracted to them without them working hard.
We call them Money Magnet.

Everyone put up his hand wanting to be Money Magnet.

Except, ... none of us are taught to be a Money Magnet in school.

How many of us are taught to set goals? Nothing wrong with
setting goals, just they empower us to be Money Makers
(and nothing wrong with Money Makers, just they are not Money
Magnets).

It is a personal choice, after comparing all the pluses and minutes
of Money Magnet, Money Maker, Money Keeper and Money Giver.

The tricky part is, if we have chosen to be a Money Magnet, but we
unconsciously tap into fear and goals to achieve results, we become
Money Makers and if that is not what we want, we have to watch out.

So what is the dark side of the Force?

Fear, guilt and the reaction to fear and guilt: goals.

The above article is written with terminology not commonly used in
daily language. If you are interested to find out more about Money
Magnet, Money Maker, Money Keeper and Money Giver, check out
the Ample Wealth with Diamond Home Study Program.

The 7 Levels of Learning

Do you know that there are 7 levels of learning?

At school, at least the traditional schools I have attended, we use the first 3 levels that are:

LISTENING - how many lectures and classes have we sit through that feel like torture or the best sleeping medicine? I do not know about you, when I listen to some lecturers talk, my mind was thinking how could they keep talking until the bell rings.

READING - unfortunately research shows that not only is it slow to read, we hardly understand and we forget 60% of what we read within days.

WRITING - now it is getting better. At least, when we write, we have to think. However, we are so well trained by school that we take notes all the time - and we seldom read the notes again.

TALKING - now, it is getting better and better. When we talk, we have to think before we talk to make sense (I hope you do), and the learning has become both interactive and collective. We are tapping into someone else' learning.

This is why, in the learn*shops that I conduct, we have a lot of sharing and discussion exercises.

DOING - when we experience learning by doing, either in simulation games or in real world, then we truly understand. What makes DOING even more powerful and productive is to have guided coaching, debriefing, and team discussion afterward.

This is why we have invented LOCKER ROOM REVIEW, the Boardroom processes and many business simulation games in our learn*shop to empower our participants get amazing results.

What is the 6th level of Learning?

And where can you find the 7th?