Introduction
Everybody wants to be rich. But not everybody can be like Cinderella. This is because we are living in a world where the rich will be richer. And that is fully sensible because the rich owns resources to create more wealth. But the most difficult task is actually to preserve it. From Warren Buffett’s teaching, I learned how to invest my income in stocks to earn higher returns and then preserve my profit from been taken back by Mr. Market. But to depend on employment income to generate wealth, the process is extremely slow and is not likely to reach the ultimate goal. Being rich is only the process, not the ultimate goal.
So what’s the ultimate goal?
When I asked a few colleagues on why they want to be rich, the common answer is to buy bigger house, car and more holidays and may be to attract girls’ attention. That is one of the lousiest answers as it implies higher expenditure with more money. Believe me that many millionaires are sitting on huge debts at the same time. I may be poor but I am debt-free. A few years ago, I bumped into a college friend by the name Bob. Bob is an internal auditor with a big listed company earning good income. He is also working very hard for his direct selling business at the same time and Bob recommended me to read Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad”. Initially, there was some resistance due to my ego, but very soon I persuaded myself to keep an open mind. Fortunately, and for the first time, I finally understand the true meaning and ultimate goal of wealth creation.
The “Rich Dad Poor Dad” Teaching
Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad is a must read for anyone
who wants a breakthrough in his/her financial situation. The book will not turn a person into a millionaire magically but will give an insight on how to reach there. From his book, I finally know how to create wealth and most importantly, the ultimate goal of wealth creation – financial freedom. As I am trained in account and finance, it is not difficult for me to appreciate his concept. In fact, after reading his book, I borrowed his renowned Cash Flow board game from another friend. This friend also believes and understands Robert Kiyosaki’s teaching and working towards that goal. So I played the board game with my mentor and I got out of the “Rat Race” in around 2 hours. My mentor got out an hour after me when he realized my tricks. You see, throughout the game, I was randomly selected to play the role of a cleaner while my mentor was a pilot (if I remember correctly). His has a much higher monthly income than me but I got out of the rat race first. To get out is not difficult as long as you understand how to accumulate passive income and managed risk. When you are out of the rat race, you are financially free (in the game)!
Achieve financial freedom means that a person will be completely freed from any forms of financial crisis such as recession, unemployment, lacking of retirement savings, lousy bosses etc. In fact, when a person reached financial freedom, there is no need to seek employment at all. Robert Kiyosaki was financially freed at the age of 46. Besides his own businesses and investments, Robert Kiyosaki has all his books and board games to sell around the world. That is passive income and these items aren’t cheap. The board game will cost around S$100 and of limited production yearly. Everyday, someone in another part of the world is paying for his products. So there is really no practical reason why he would want to be an employee, even if you are the best employer on earth. Robert Kiyosaki still conducts training and seminar not because he needs that income to survive, but because of his passion. I have a similar dream that one day, I will reached financial freedom and I will spend time doing stock analysis and giving training – simply because I love to do it. But at this stage, I think God is not going to let it happen, no matter how hard I try. That is also the reason why I no longer go to church. Anyway, that’s not my point.
So the open secret of attaining financial freedom is to seek passive income. Certainly, employment income will never lead to financial freedom but slavery to the employer. In his book, Robert Kiyosaki gave detail instructions on how to seek passive income through his cash flow quadrant concept. I don’t think I want to go into the detail. You can get his book from Popular bookstore and contribute to Robert Kiyosaki’s passive income. He deserves it.
Back to Bob, his ultimate objective was to convince me to join his MLM company - Amway. This is because one of the sources of passive income is through MLM business. When a person reached certain level in a (good) network marketing company, he can be financially freed. Kiyosaki also endorsed it (he studied and wrote a book on it even though he did not engage in such business). So if I understand and agree with Robert Kiyosaki, and with positive mindset, certainly I wouldn’t reject MLM business. This leaves him one last task; that is to convince me that Amway is one of the few trustworthy MLM company exist today.
Multi-Level Marketing/Network Marketing/Direct Selling
Why so many terms? Actually they refers to the same thing and used interchangeably. For simplicity, I’ll just use MLM throughout my article. I knew this
business concept many years ago when I was still in the government sector. I was very much against MLM then as it resembles a pyramid scam. Besides, I was really disgusted with the way those distributors targeting their very own friends. They engaged unethical tactics to get people to sign up and/or purchase the products. Once this has been achieved, there is no turning back. Ten years of friendship would be cheaper than the sales deal. Suddenly you discovered that the friend you called “brother” is so ugly deep inside. Today, none of these people I know make it in MLM business.
Everybody wants to be rich. But not everybody can be like Cinderella. This is because we are living in a world where the rich will be richer. And that is fully sensible because the rich owns resources to create more wealth. But the most difficult task is actually to preserve it. From Warren Buffett’s teaching, I learned how to invest my income in stocks to earn higher returns and then preserve my profit from been taken back by Mr. Market. But to depend on employment income to generate wealth, the process is extremely slow and is not likely to reach the ultimate goal. Being rich is only the process, not the ultimate goal.
So what’s the ultimate goal?
When I asked a few colleagues on why they want to be rich, the common answer is to buy bigger house, car and more holidays and may be to attract girls’ attention. That is one of the lousiest answers as it implies higher expenditure with more money. Believe me that many millionaires are sitting on huge debts at the same time. I may be poor but I am debt-free. A few years ago, I bumped into a college friend by the name Bob. Bob is an internal auditor with a big listed company earning good income. He is also working very hard for his direct selling business at the same time and Bob recommended me to read Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad”. Initially, there was some resistance due to my ego, but very soon I persuaded myself to keep an open mind. Fortunately, and for the first time, I finally understand the true meaning and ultimate goal of wealth creation.
The “Rich Dad Poor Dad” Teaching
Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad is a must read for anyone
who wants a breakthrough in his/her financial situation. The book will not turn a person into a millionaire magically but will give an insight on how to reach there. From his book, I finally know how to create wealth and most importantly, the ultimate goal of wealth creation – financial freedom. As I am trained in account and finance, it is not difficult for me to appreciate his concept. In fact, after reading his book, I borrowed his renowned Cash Flow board game from another friend. This friend also believes and understands Robert Kiyosaki’s teaching and working towards that goal. So I played the board game with my mentor and I got out of the “Rat Race” in around 2 hours. My mentor got out an hour after me when he realized my tricks. You see, throughout the game, I was randomly selected to play the role of a cleaner while my mentor was a pilot (if I remember correctly). His has a much higher monthly income than me but I got out of the rat race first. To get out is not difficult as long as you understand how to accumulate passive income and managed risk. When you are out of the rat race, you are financially free (in the game)!Achieve financial freedom means that a person will be completely freed from any forms of financial crisis such as recession, unemployment, lacking of retirement savings, lousy bosses etc. In fact, when a person reached financial freedom, there is no need to seek employment at all. Robert Kiyosaki was financially freed at the age of 46. Besides his own businesses and investments, Robert Kiyosaki has all his books and board games to sell around the world. That is passive income and these items aren’t cheap. The board game will cost around S$100 and of limited production yearly. Everyday, someone in another part of the world is paying for his products. So there is really no practical reason why he would want to be an employee, even if you are the best employer on earth. Robert Kiyosaki still conducts training and seminar not because he needs that income to survive, but because of his passion. I have a similar dream that one day, I will reached financial freedom and I will spend time doing stock analysis and giving training – simply because I love to do it. But at this stage, I think God is not going to let it happen, no matter how hard I try. That is also the reason why I no longer go to church. Anyway, that’s not my point.
So the open secret of attaining financial freedom is to seek passive income. Certainly, employment income will never lead to financial freedom but slavery to the employer. In his book, Robert Kiyosaki gave detail instructions on how to seek passive income through his cash flow quadrant concept. I don’t think I want to go into the detail. You can get his book from Popular bookstore and contribute to Robert Kiyosaki’s passive income. He deserves it.
Back to Bob, his ultimate objective was to convince me to join his MLM company - Amway. This is because one of the sources of passive income is through MLM business. When a person reached certain level in a (good) network marketing company, he can be financially freed. Kiyosaki also endorsed it (he studied and wrote a book on it even though he did not engage in such business). So if I understand and agree with Robert Kiyosaki, and with positive mindset, certainly I wouldn’t reject MLM business. This leaves him one last task; that is to convince me that Amway is one of the few trustworthy MLM company exist today.
Multi-Level Marketing/Network Marketing/Direct Selling
Why so many terms? Actually they refers to the same thing and used interchangeably. For simplicity, I’ll just use MLM throughout my article. I knew this
business concept many years ago when I was still in the government sector. I was very much against MLM then as it resembles a pyramid scam. Besides, I was really disgusted with the way those distributors targeting their very own friends. They engaged unethical tactics to get people to sign up and/or purchase the products. Once this has been achieved, there is no turning back. Ten years of friendship would be cheaper than the sales deal. Suddenly you discovered that the friend you called “brother” is so ugly deep inside. Today, none of these people I know make it in MLM business.The key difference between a pyramid and MLM lies in the source of earnings. While an MLM company offers various products thus earnings comes from the sales, a pyramid scam earns from the downlines, and more downlines. No product changed hand in the whole process. At some point in time, it will collapse and only those on top will make good money (and run away with it). During those days, many of my friends and colleagues joined the MLM company and subsequently resulted in conflicts among them. I remember a colleague (A) engaged hard-sales tactics and induced another colleague (B) to buy his massage chair that cost above S$1,000 paid by installment. But then something went wrong with the contract and colleague (B) wanted to stop the purchase. Obviously, the MLM company is not going buy it and threaten to sue him if he breached the contract. These two colleagues’ relationship turned sour. And this kind of incidence is plentiful for MLM companies without code of ethics and standard of professional conduct.
In late 90s, another friend called me up to invite me to join his business venture. As I am always interested in doing business, I agreed to attend his “business talk”. Sigh… the seminar was organized by New Skin. The seminar touched on how MLM helps to create huge income and that the business concept will soon replace traditional business model in big waves. They highlighted their plans to enter the un-tapped China market. To become a ‘partner”, I need to fork out more than S$2,000. And when I asked exactly what they meant by “entering China market”, that friend replied that I need to join first to know more. I told them that I need to think about it and discuss with some friends. But his upline discouraged me from doing so claiming that other people may mislead me. Instantly my confidence in this so-called business venture dropped to zero. Thereafter, that friend kept persuading me to join and his upline never fail to follow up with me. I pretended to be friendly, playing around with them depleting their stamina. Finally they gave up and we are not in contact ever again.
To be continue…….
