Wandering In A Different Wonderland

Photo credits - Link
Today is the first anniversary for my moving abroad! Celebrating it with immortality - by writing! Booyah!

There is always something special connected with firsts. First baby steps. First tooth. First knee bruise. First home. First kiss. First love. First trips. First jobs. First heartbreak. First move. First career. The list goes on. All firsts and usually skips to the lasts. But before we do the bunny hops of lasts, let us look into the firsts. 

For this case, first move abroad. It is like going into the proverbial rabbit hole and becoming Alice in Wonderland personified. Never mind the culture shock or the inevitable realization that heck, you will change. Everything around you is different. 

You will be skinned alive and apart by a new set of judgement and perception. You will be shaken right down to the core of your established persona and end up with a stranger looking back at you in the mirror. You cannot trust yourself at this point of the journey as you are starting to feel you wandered too far off yourself to find you. People you expect to understand you - would really won't and your personal relationships might suffer due to double standards and unmet expectations. This would be one of those ugliest moments when you realize - who you are is being questioned and it would take a lot of faith and effort to remain true to yourself while trying to embrace who you have to become.

You will suffer a great quiet loss of your old life and old ways as you try to adapt to the foreign routines and way of life in your new location. There will come a point in time when you ask yourself if all the changes you must do are all worth the pain and loss of the process. Doubts will grow their sad heads in between who you can be and what you can only do (for now). You will be forced to some things that you never thought you would. These things are not usually criminal, but morally tugging at your heart. You will learn the Big Jungle of Life living abroad. Live and let live. 

You will start to stumble into things you never thought you can see, hear, taste, touch and feel. The movies you have seen will never be as great as the actual scenes you are actively being a part of. Even the books you read would never find the words to encapsulate the things in your mind when you experience something not usual before. You will feel ignorant and silly, but you know it is necessary to be aware of the mundane and acceptable knowledge and behavior around you. You have the lame excuse to be a "newbie" to embarrass yourself in more ways than one.

People will all seem unkind. No one can understand you or actually know how you are feeling adjusting to this new environment. You will have no support group to cry your hearts out when you feel lost, alone, lonely, and just regretful. You begin to be socially withdrawn and unassuming thinking this would make you stronger. But bit by bit, you find yourself being tired of your own drama and decide to tread on different waters. You try to associate with groups that you think can help you enjoy your quiet misery. And with some trial and error, you manage to snag a good friend or two who still cannot understand you but is genuinely concern about you. And that opens the rest of the windows and doors you locked and along the way you meet people who are lesser unkind. Even in one point, you will be able to pay the same understanding to someone who is a new kid in the block too.

You can never be thankful enough for true friends and moral support you managed to keep with the help of technology (thanks Skype, e-mails, Facebook, Twitter, among other Apps!). They will remind you who you really are no matter where you are deep inside. And in the end of this getting lost by wandering off to different shores, you become more better albeit a more stronger you. The you they know is still within you but you know you are becoming a different person too. The proof that these are your truest supporters is how they remain in your life even if you changed - or per se your location just changed. The ones that slipped out of your fast changing life events, either cannot accept the real new you or decided your paths has reached its end together. Never be sorry for finding out who these people are. They are the ones who deserve to be called true and also are to be listed to your private victory parties or success picnics.

You will find a routine far far different from what you have perceived when you decided to go abroad.  Forgive yourself and your naivete. Plans and expectations have their ways of creeping up on you but do not listen to them. Pay more attention to what you can do and be more open to the things that you must do. At this point, never say never at all. The great thing about this new place is that no one knows you and do not care if you make mistakes along the way as long as you find a way of your own. And it is with greatest hopes that when you find your own path in this new world, it is usually something more meaningful and successful in time. 

But ease your heart and fears. What you might go through might be entirely different from what you have been reading. So decide seriously this time if your first move abroad would either make or break you. Either answer can still be productive as long as you are the kind of person who wanders for the experience and not for the end results. Do not be tied with helpless goals like earning more money or being treated any differently when you have been to where you are right now. Make your own first move abroad when you are ready for a constant overhaul of who you are and you do not mind labels. When you learn to be with yourself no matter where you are. And a little curiosity of pushing your mettle never grow old.

So we might reach the topic of lasts at this point, but really, does the journey end? I do not think so. Even if you have changed your demographics, you will feel this won't be the last move you will make in your life. Pun very much intended, thank you!

So go on, Alice. Curiosity got you this far...down the rabbit hole a new world exists. You are the protagonist of this story. Wander about the places you can be and the person you can become!

Learning How to Unlearn and Re-Learn about Your Finances

(Two not-so-broke girls after a 3-day Rich Dad Poor Dad seminar, Disclaimers apply.)

Another path in the future

"A book can never change your life unless you start within."

It was a no-brainer to attend a seminar about financial education and real estate investment (duh!). You had some time off and you got to have a close pal along with you to learn new stuffs. Cool. Doing one (or three days for this case) about money and real estate is not scary enough for 30-somethings with no financial background whatsoever. This is not a form of review and is purely written out of the gratitude we felt in learning about finance management.

So with as much as smart business casual outfit we can put together, we went to brave the 3-day seminar mentored by Mike “Pip” Stehlik who pretty looked like an awesome (but crazy, he told us himself) American about Canadian real estate and a bit of facts about money. Awkward small talks happened between complete strangers and at 9 am all of the lectures, discussions, and sarcastic humor went on. We had a class of about 17-20 people in a big Scotiabank Convention Center function room and it felt close-knitted enough to be able to know most of the class’ names. It was also a good thing that we had to switch sitting arrangements more (terrifying) than it was. Snicker right here. And yes, we did appreciate the (attempts on) stand-up comedy, Pip. Not to mention the Cash Flow game is an awesome tool to learn about good and bad investments.

And besides those points and the obvious repertoire between mentor and each student, we had actually been mind-blown about the “stuffs” we learned. These are only tips of the icebergs ladies and gentlemen but we are hoping it can inspire you to be curious enough to find out more (just like we were) and in a way paying it forward to somebody out there who might need options. 

You have to feel comfortable about being in debt.
We were taught to avoid death like a plague. But being in good debt that earns you positive cash flow can be a good thing. You have to learn to borrow money to invest in real estate, business, or even paper money. If you do not learn creative financing then you have no jumping point in launching you way to financial freedom.

Do not pay off your house mortgages and (sigh) get as many credit cards as you can.
Most financial planners and acquired financial common sense (that I found out are usually in the Industrial Revolution and no longer in the Information Age) would say pay off your house mortgages and do not think about your home equity line credit (HELC). Also, pay off your credit card billing statement and do not attempt to up your credit limit by any chance. Rethink and ponder. If you pay off your mortgages, your house becomes a liability and you cannot take out your HELC to use it to acquire other investment. Same goes with your credit cards too – they are the cheapest form of money you can afford and can use to dabble in say real estate.

 Being rich will cost you – a lot.
If you earn big money, you have to lose some big money and time. And if that is further advanced education on finance management and courses, personally we would not mind (financially, well it is a different stories for now). If you can work with mentors to guide you with your next steps to earn your first significant deals, what is there to fear? And if a mentor, like Pip, would help you in any way he can (he is a great guy) I’d say the price is worth paying for to be around people who can teach you to earn and keep money. And this is no rich quick scheme. The method of actually executing what you learn and building your wealth will take time and effort on your part. Everything is simple but not all of it will be easy.

Real estate is not an alien word to the average Joes and Janes – you can actually be part of it!
We often think of real estate only for people who can in the first place, afford one piece of property in the least. This is a common notion and we were fooled by it before. The five basic necessities to any human being are food, water, oxygen, clothing, and shelter. I repeat shelter. So at the end of the day, we all have someplace to rest and we call it usually a home – and home is real estate whether owned, rented, or leased. So no matter how much or so little you know about real estate – you are already involved as a real estate investor in a way.

But after hearing the possible ways you can creatively finance your way to have leverage in the industry, you can actually do it! And believe it or not, scam or not, you can actually do this by using other people’s money or with no money no credit on the line. Sounds crazy? Well, we were taught by one crazy American but we know some legit stuff now that years in schooling would not – being street smart about having, using, and keeping money.

Find solutions and the money will come.
People who are involved in real estate are judged to be unscrupulous individuals who are out to get money out of other people. But if you work your way in real estate with integrity and all legal means, you can actually help other people in their real estate problems in the long run. You will be the solutions provider and you will creatively find a solution to their real estate dilemmas so you can have a win-win situation for everybody involved. Your actual goal is to make everyone happy in the end. And always ask "how" instead of "I can't" is where it all boils down into.

How the big boys play the money game.
Corporations are there thriving in the finance industry and now we know why. The rich are there because they think differently about how to use money and fair laws in acquiring, managing, operating, and securing their companies. And so, if the rich people can actually thrive using the three-tiers of business, why can’t your future enterprise? Before we did not know how the corporate world functions and why the billionaires we know operate their empires – but with the pointers we were given, we can say we got it big boys and these girls have been given some nice wisdom nuggets.

 Always know your big WHY.

The ‘why’ part of you being financially educated is a big factor in keeping you in the path to your own financial freedom. It is your motivation to push yourself out of your ego and engage in the possibilities of improving your financial life.

Pip said with the contrarian methods that RDPD presents to the world, it can encourage people to discourage you to not try this at all or have cold feet in the commitment to putting this into practice. And sadly, the people that can discourage you are the people who tell you they love and support you. But be reminded that it is in human nature that people who love you can rob you in pursuing your dreams unknowingly because they are afraid of you being better than them and the changes that might happen if you actually not fail. So be ready to have negativity around your efforts. This is the road less traveled and you have to keep your sight on the bigger picture and keep your own positivity even if your cheering squad is not helping at all. 

So yeah, it was 3 days well spent from our part amidst the snow storms and social awkwardness. We have actually inspired ourselves to find a way to put the stuffs we learn here into practice and get the further education in our long term goals. Who knows where we will be sitting next? And before we left, unable to commit to the costly educational program as of now, we left Pip (and great team Tammy & Baz) telling him we will seek him out when we reach the top at the time when we make it BIG!

And yes, we have got a lot of side books from RDPD to read and adapt. It is a gradual unlearning and re-learning but we have to start somewhere. This is going to be a team consistent effort and we are hoping we can make it work in the next couple of years. So booyah for the initial step! Now, where do we put our purple library? (wink)

Of Cross Roads

Photo credit - Web
written 06.06.2012 inspired by the movie "Another Perfect Stranger"

Often the word crossroads mean uncertain times, feeling lost, and having too many options at once. Almost always, cross roads symbolize a very meaningful if not life changing event in our lives. 

We may not know it, but every day we get to see The Cross in our roads. Preachy and quite something quoted from the Bible, but at the end of the day - after the hustle and bustle - you just remember something good even if you have had a bad day. That is the Cross - that is the voice that might sound like our thoughts and decisions but actually, it is the very same voice we fail to listen from God. That is the very same hope that allows you to take another crossroad each day. 

At those times when we feel uncertainty creeping on us, listening becomes easier to do, do you agree? We ask for advises, we consult our shrinks, and we find all possible ways to reassure ourselves 'we are right'. We listen intently in the hope of finding the reassurance we desperately need. But in the middle of it all, we fail to listen to ourselves and we ignore the silent clues sent by Him to lead us in the right path.

This is the part when we get lost. The excruciating point that we lose hope. And at this point, listening to The Voice is nearly next to impossible. We cower in our bad turns and decisions and find it hard to believe that you put yourself in a tight spot. We react differently and take actions variously. Most of us, when decisions take the wrong turn, turn bitter in finding The Cross in the road. Some take the down fall graciously, understanding that sacrifice is crucial to success in their undertakings. But what we fail to understand is that The Cross in our roads gives us the directions if we listen earnestly. That suffering and feeling lost and defeated is not what The Cross would want for us. The process is necessary to teach us to wait. That faithful waiting requires hope. I remember the movie line saying when there is delay in what must be done right, it is only allowed because of His mercy not to leave anyone behind in being right. 

And when we reach the point when we have earned patience in waiting, we find ourselves listening back to The Voice present in each one of us. Then, our hearts and mind slowly open to the possibilities ... and with them comes options that cause confusion. With too many options unlocked, which way does The Cross would want us to go?

There are three steps to remind yourself when you encounter a crossroad. 
Listen.
Wait.
And above all times, always hope. 
The Cross in your road will give you the certainty that you will be found with the right path in time.

Untitled Sadness

Photo credit - Link

I feel you fading further away

As your absence gnaws at me

I began to say goodbye

And yet now you tell me to stay

Broken promises

Empty words

Waiting in vain.

A friend or a lover

You dare not tell

Undefined is hurtful

Loosing you is the same.

I wrote your name in the sands

Hoping the ebbing waves take it away.

But the wind whispers your name

And the waves cry out in dismay.

True love,

Where has it gone?

Far away...

Remembered and then forgotten...

Too late

Too soon

Too deep

Too regretful,

So I walked away.