Update

I have decided to update this blog but with less about atheism and more about some other stuffs. First an update related to my post "Back To Work". I was granted a 90-day temporary visa for "designated activities" with the activity "preparing for departure." On the last day of my visa, I flew back home to the Philippines and after a month, I started a bar in Laguna. I only closed it a little over a month ago as it didn't work as I wanted it to be. It ran a total of 9 months. It was fun and a good learning experience. Here's the post-mortem of what mistakes I committed and my explanation on why it happened. When I started it, I had a very clear picture of what I wanted to do. I wanted to operate a small bar that can be run by at most, 2 people. The four things that should be maintained with high standards are (1) the beer should be ice-cold, (2) the toilets should be very clean, (3) should be air-conditioned, (4) plays great music. My biggest mistake was that I didn't stick to my plan. My plan was to put up a bar in Laguna first not mainly for profit but more for learning the ropes, then I'd close it and move the business to a more profitable location either in Valenzuela City near Fatima University or in Meycauayan, Bulacan near Meycauayan College. Also part of the plan was that there would be no live bands. But things gone out of hand, the next thing I knew, we were hosting live bands regularly which greatly increased our operating expenses (show bands are paid per head, while equipment is rented per piece). It went on for nine months in the red before I finally pulled the plug. Mistake number two is that I let it run indefinitely without a clear time frame of goals. The third mistake I did was that I didn't put everything that's needed to make it succeed like capital infusion was done more like piecemeal rather than right from the beginning. There was a good reason why I shouldn't have put all the capital upfront but now with the benefit of hindsight I am inclined to say that it was not a good reason. The root cause of the issues is that I didn't have a business plan worked out on paper that include the financials and the time-frame for measuring milestones. So next time I do it, I'll write one up so I can have clear guideline on how to execute it. There are other valuable lessons I learned mostly on operations, marketing, and financial analysis but I don't want to go into details here.

Wanna get rich?

In the past few months, I have encountered quite a few threads in the various forums I participate in including the two mailing lists for Pinoy Atheists and Filipino Freethinkers. These alleged financial coaches/advisers/gurus ask questions like Is a real estate property an asset or a liability? or Is buying and selling of stocks investing? As I see these financial gurus or coaches invade the various online forums making such silly questions, my SCAM meter started to move to the right. Eventually, these guys will make a pitch to find out the answer by going to another website. Or at times, they'd ask you to read Robert Kiyosaki, the inspiration guru himself. Say who? So now I am trying to get hold of one of his book which I found out has been consistently at the top of the NY Times bestseller list. What is this book about? I have heard it a few times already before this whole thing seemed to have suddenly exploded among the Pinoy. 2 million copies sold in the US alone! I checked Amazon to read the 1-star rating and most of the reviewers who gave 1-star are fairly consistent about what think the book is about. I'll write about this more as I gather more information.