Defensive or Offensive?

I thought that financial planning can be explained a little differently.

Consider the work that I do. I help clients review their finances, adjust spending, set up insurance programs, build investment portfolios, bring dividends, bring interest rates, monitor performances, etc. These help preserve and grow money that my clients have.

I explained the above to a couple of my important clients, and asked them what they thought. Generally, they felt it was good to have such work in place. I later told them, that I coined such work as defensive financial planning.

So when there is a defensive, there has to be an opposite called offensive. Now what's offensive then?

What if I told you that an aggressive investment portfolio is not considered offensive? What if I told you that cutting down expenses by 50% is not considered offensive? What then is offensive?

I explained further that offensive means that you work on building your income, not your investment portfolios.

Here's why I said that.

All these years I discovered that clients want and have an ideal lifestyle ahead of them. However, they usually dismiss these ideals because it's just "not realistic" due to the expenses that they already have in their lives. They say these commitments cannot be reduced, despite how they try.

Fine. I mean, why reduce it? Why not earn more?

With recessions like what we are facing, opportunities abound everywhere. The majority of the herd will be hiding, not daring to make potentially rewarding moves in their career, or strike out on business opportunities in the weekends. If you observed the streets on Valentine's Day yesterday, you would have guessed that those nice looking gentlemen selling bouquets of flowers made very handsome profits (why didn't I do that myself???!!!).

Offensive financial planning is critical, because how you save, how you spend, how you build your insurance, how you build your investments, all depend on how much you earn!

You can increase your income by weekend business opportunities, trade some commodities, provide a service to a niche market in your evenings, work hard and smart in your existing career with a definite direction and plan of growth, whatever it may be.

You don't have to desperately put on whatever armour you can find now and go to war. Begin by first visiting the library and get your hands on good books. If you'd like personal recommendations, you may drop me an email, and I'll gladly give you my choice titles. Whatever you do, your new journey of success only begins on the day you take your first step. Else, you'll probably find yourself in the same place when it's 5 years later from now.

All the best.

Rich Dad Revisited

For Christmas, I got Rich Dad, Poor Dad from my buddy at work. She thought I never read the book before... how could she...?

But it was really timely. Not too long ago, I told myself to revisit the book again. I was halfway through another great book called The Richest Man Who Ever Lived, and wanted to complete that first. After I was done with that, I ordered a copy for my buddy for her Christmas gift because I thought the contents of the book was so crucial to financial and life success. In other words, I gave her what I wanted to give, and I got what I wanted to receive.

(Marge, if you're reading this blog, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.)

I'd like to share about one paragraph from Rich Dad.

In the last chapter, I offer ten steps that I followed on the road to my financial freedom. But always remember to have fun. This is only a game. Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn. But have fun. Most people never win because they're more afraid of losing. That is why I found school so silly. In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk. The same is true for learning to ride a bike. I still have scars on my knees, but today I can ride a bike without thinking. The same is true for getting rich. Unfortunately the main reason most people are not rich is because they are terrified of losing. Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.

-- Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T Kiyosaki

Well it's not just about buying stocks, unit trusts, real estate, setting up a business, or the likes. It's just the mindset of wealth. It's not about how much money you have today that determines your wealth, neither is it about how much you will get tomorrow. I've come to learn and accept that wealth is a mindset. The amount of money is usually just the by-product of the mind that is developed.

Do I have a lot of money? No, not yet. Am I still working like a cow to pay my bills? Do I still have loans? Do I still have debt? For the last three questions asked, my answer is -- you bet! These were mistakes made from the past, which my family and I still pay the price today. But failure is really not about how many times or how bad your fall is, but how long you stay down.

I wish you a great 2009 coming up soon. Opportunities abound in times of trouble.


PS: I've found a relatively cheaper way in buying books. If you intend to buy good books, drop me a mail to find out how.

Turning your passion into your profession

I thought this was an interesting article.



The maker of the iPhone game, Steve Demeter, made $250,000 from his iPhone puzzle game called Trism, that he quit his day job to set up a development studio.

Another person I read about, Anthony Borelli, became successful in affiliate marketing after much attempts, and now enjoys a lot of time with his family, and now a millionaire.

If you followed my blog long enough, Yaro Starak shouldn't be a strange name to you. He's another successful entrepreneur. Even before his professional blogging days, he already had considerable successes on the internet.

How about The Terminator-turned-Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger? Did you know that even before he was Conan The Barbarian (his breakthrough movie), he was already a millionaire business man?

All these men transformed their passion for something into a lucrative income earning career. It can be from a passion in making computer games, to simply a passion in building businesses (particularly in restauranting, isn't it, Governor Schwarzeneggar?). I began mine in an accidental passion in financial planning years ago, and I sure have more than one passion, but I'll have to take it one at a time. At least I've got started too. What about you?

In the older days, work is HARD work. You don't sweat, you don't bleed, you don't get paid. Long gone are those days. Even if you sweat and bleed yourself dry today, you still get laid off. Employers cannot hold up their own businesses. The risk is sometimes only an hierarchy difference. If you have got what it takes to run a business, why not do it yourself?

If you read beyond the gloom and doom in the newspapers, you will find some articles here and there about some unique group of people who are pursuing their dreams particularly right at this moment! At this global slump? Yes! And I agree with them 100% that there is no better time than this!

What could be your passion that can be transformed into a career? It sure takes a lot of planning, a lot of attempts, and a lot of failure. It may cost you a lot of money too. But if you desire to break through but choose to not move, the failure will be permanent and guaranteed.

Or maybe for some, it's simply just injecting more passion into the work you are already in.

I'll leave you today with a quote from the late Abraham Lincoln, who knows better than most people what it is like to fail over and over and over and over again. He said, "My greatest concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure."