Thought of the Week

Try, try, try, then try again. Try till you drop. Then pick yourself up and try again. The single most important word in the dictionary of success is try. To try and fail is progress. To never try is to die. Trying even when apparently doomed can snatch victory from jaws of defeat, destruction and even death. - Dato' Vijay Eswaran

Prominent Personal Pick of the Month

Napoleon Hill (October 26, 1883 – November 8, 1970) was an American author who was one of the earliest producers of the modern genre of personal-success literature. He is widely considered to be one of the great writers on success. His most famous work, Think and Grow Rich (1937), is one of the best-selling books of all time (at the time of Hill's death in 1970, Think and Grow Rich had sold 20 million copies). Hill's works examined the power of personal beliefs, and the role they play in personal success. He became an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1936. "What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve" is one of Hill's hallmark expressions. How achievement actually occurs, and a formula for it that puts success in reach of the average person, were the focal points of Hill's books.

Life & Works

According to his official biographer Tom Butler-Bowdon, Napoleon Hill was born in a one-room cabin in the Appalachian town of Pound in Southwest Virginia. Hill's mother died when he was eight years old, and his father remarried two years later. At the age of 13, Hill began writing as a "mountain reporter" for small-town newspapers in the area of Wise County, Virginia. He later used his earnings as a reporter to enter law school, but soon he had to withdraw for financial reasons.

Influence of Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919)

Hill considered the turning point in his life to have occurred in the year 1908 with his assignment, as part of a series of articles about famous and successful men, to interview the industrialist Andrew Carnegie. At the time, Carnegie was one of the most powerful men in the world. Hill discovered that Carnegie believed that the process of success could be outlined in a simple formula that anyone would be able to understand and achieve. Impressed with Hill, Carnegie asked him if he was up to the task of putting together this information, to interview or analyze over 500 successful men and women, many of them millionaires, in order to discover and publish this formula for success.

As part of his research, Hill interviewed many of the most famous people of the time, including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, George Eastman, Henry Ford, Elmer Gates, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Charles M. Schwab, F.W. Woolworth, William Wrigley Jr., John Wanamaker, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft and Jennings Randolph. Hill was also an advisor to two presidents of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The Philosophy of Achievement

As a result of Hill's studies via Carnegie's introductions, the Philosophy of Achievement was offered as a formula for rags-to-riches success by Hill and Carnegie, published initially in 1925 as a multi-volume study course called The Law of Success, later re-released in 1928 in an abridged version under the same title. The Achievement formula was detailed further and published in home-study courses, including the seventeen-volume "Mental Dynamite" series until 1941.

Hill later called his personal success teachings "The Philosophy of Achievement", and he considered freedom, democracy, capitalism, and harmony to be important contributing elements to this philosophy. Hill claimed throughout his writings that without these foundations upon which to build, successful personal achievements were not possible. He contrasted his philosophy with others' and thought that the Achievement Philosophy was superior. He felt that it was responsible for the success Americans enjoyed for the better part of two centuries. Negative emotions such as fear, selfishness, etc., had no part to play in his philosophy. Hill considered those emotions to be the source of failure for unsuccessful people.

The secret of achievement was tantalizingly offered to readers of Think and Grow Rich, but Hill felt readers would benefit most if they discovered it for themselves. Although most readers feel that he never explicitly identified this secret, he offers these words about 20 pages into the book: If you truly desire money so keenly that your desire is an obsession, you will have no difficulty in convincing yourself that you will acquire it. The object is to want money, and to be so determined to have it that you convince yourself that you will have it. . . You may as well know, right here, that you can never have riches in great quantities unless you work yourself into a white heat of desire for money, and actually believe you will possess it.

He presented the idea of a "Definite Major Purpose" as a challenge to his readers in order to make them ask themselves, "In what do I truly believe?" According to Hill, 98% of people had few or no firm beliefs, and this alone put true success firmly out of their reach.

One of Hill's most moving stories was about his own son, Blair. He tells how his son was an inspiration to him, because although Blair was born without ears, without any normal hearing organs at all, even though his doctor told Hill that his son would neither be able to hear nor speak, Blair grew up to be able to hear and speak almost normally. Hill tells how his son, in his last year of college, picked up the manuscript of chapter two of Think and Grow Rich, discovered Hill's secret for himself and went on to be an inspiration for hundreds and thousands of people who could not hear or speak.

From 1952 to 1962, Hill taught his Philosophy of Personal Achievement – Lectures on "Science of Success" in association with W. Clement Stone. In 1960, Hill and Stone co-authored the book, Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude. Norman Vincent Peale stated "These two men [Hill and Stone] have the rare gift of inspiring and helping people...In fact; I owe them both a personal debt of gratitude for the helpful guidance I have received from their writings."

Think and Grow Rich remains the top seller of Napoleon Hill's books – a perennial best-seller after 70 years (Business Week Magazine's Best-Seller List ranked Think and Grow Rich as the sixth best-selling paperback business book 70 years after it was first published). Think and Grow Rich is listed in John C. Maxwell's A Lifetime "Must Read" Books List.

Hill's numerous books have sold millions of copies, showing that the secret of achievement is still highly sought-after by many today. Hill dealt with many controversial subjects through his writings including racism, slavery, oppression, failure, revolution, war and poverty. Persevering and then succeeding in spite of these obstacles using the Philosophy of Achievement, Hill stated, was the responsibility of every human.

Today's philosophy-of-success teachers still use the research formulas taught by Hill to expand their students' knowledge of personal development.

Mother’s LOVE is Unconditional

MY parents were of south Indian origin and came from the state of Tamil Nadu. My mother was a beautiful lady with fair skin and was staying in the town of Kamunting, Perak, when my father first met her.

 

My father, a cook for a rubber estate manager, was dark. He was captivated by my mother’s looks and married her.

 

My father took my mother to the estate and taught her to tap rubber and when she was good enough she joined the estate work force.

 

Every day she would get up early and set off to answer the roll call before going into the field to tap rubber with two metal pails dangling on either end of pole balanced over her shoulders.

 

Mosquitoes were a nuisance and deadly snakes were abundant in the rubber estate, and tigers were also often spotted. The workers had to brave all these creatures to make a living.

 

Many amenities were lacking. There was no electricity or tap water in the estate then. They depended on wells, rain and the river for water. They went into the bushes to answer the call of nature.

 

My mother became pregnant soon and she went to work, with me in her womb. She was still working on the day her water bag burst and had to be rushed to hospital.

 

I was born on Aug 15, 1947, the day India achieved its independence. She was the happiest person in the estate and everyone came to congratulate my mum.

 

It was an auspicious day for the Indians. I was considered a lucky baby. Even though I was pitch dark, to my mum I was the fairest baby on earth.

 

When she went to tap rubber I was left in the hands of the estate nanny known as Ayamah and when work was over my mother would come running to fetch me at the estate nursery with great speed and relief. She would hug and kiss me as if I had been lost and found after many months.

 

Her love for me was unconditional and she would starve to feed me. Later, she took me with her when she went to tap rubber and I would help her clean the rubber cups.

 

When an ant bit me, she would shamelessly cry with me. I cried more on seeing her cry and that would make her cry, even more.

 

As I grew up I got sick many times, mostly due to malaria, and as I shivered she would be by my side to console and nurse me back to health. Every tear from my eyes would break her heart. She bled inside her and shed a thousand tears for every tear of mine.

 

When I reached schooling age my father was not keen on sending me to school because hardly any estate boy succeeded in school. My mother never went to school and she did want me to be deprived of an education and she insisted that I go to school and so I went.

 

I had to walk several kilometres to school come rain or shine and she would not fail to give me a few coins to quench my thirst.

 

However, it was never enough because of the extreme heat so I resorted to stealing coins from her copper containers which she kept at the alter.

 

She knew that it was me who emptied the containers. She scared me by saying that God would make the person who stole the coins blind without pointing the finger at me.

 

I was worried for a week but as I was still able to see it only encouraged me to continue with my thieving ways.

As I faced my examinations and late night studying, she was there to make me coffee and my suffering less painful.

 

When I grew up and married a girl from another race she never objected and cared for my wife the way she cared for my sister.

 

When the grandchildren came she descended gracefully into the role of a grandmother and took care of them, saving us anxiety and the cost of hiring a maid. My children were always safe in her hands and her love for them was as unconditional.

 

When she grew old she became a different person. She became a child and it was difficult for everyone around her. I understood her condition.

 

She began imagining things and would tell me that someone wanted to kill her, and she was having horrible dreams. I would sleep next to her and I cried within. I was helpless.

 

One day she complained of severe pain in her abdomen and we rushed her to the hospital. She was operated on but passed away the next day.

 

Mothers are special and there can be only one mother. They will sacrifice their happiness for the sake of their children.

 

We must never forget their love and sacrifices and ensure their last days on earth are as painless as possible.

 

GOPAL ANNAMALAI,

Nilai, Negri Sembilan.

Internet Video Conferencing Excellent Features

By Matt Gibbons

Internet video conferencing is an enormous device if you and your colleagues need to distribute visual information. This information may possibly take account of graphic representations, surveys and additional things related to that. Video conferencing services have transformed the system on how businesses are done. They have supported offshore outsourcing in a substantial approach. Straightforward and cost efficient communication in the course of such services has smoothed the progress of distance meetings. Meetings within company employees across distinct geographical boundaries as well as client conferences have been made straightforward and well-situated.

Internet video conferencing succeeds in much of the equivalent technique as the usual teleconferencing. Throughout an Internet conference call, the participants will sit at their particular offices at the same time as being connected to each other through the Internet. The development of the Internet has changed the transmitting of information enormously. It is no surprise that conference calls have moved from the usual telephone to the Internet as well. Indeed, industries are progressively switching more to Internet conferencing so they can take advantage of reduced travel and telephone costs. This fund in expenses translates to better time management and improved efficiency.

Internet video conferences are much more enthusiastically acknowledged and utilized for several reasons. One of the major grounds is the actuality that the individual or individuals on the other end are capable to distinguish accurately what the other related participant is doing. This is amazing if you are looking to distribute information such as charts and graphs.

An extra enormous feature of Internet video conferencing is that there is less of a possibility of mystification and disturbance. With audio conferences, there is an enormous possibility that someone will be intermittent throughout their speech and this may possibly instigate problems within the company.

On the other hand, with video conferencing, everybody is capable to see accurately when the presenter is done with their part and everybody on the opposite end knows when they can talk. An additional great feature of video conferences is the sum of money that a company can accumulate by adopting this equipment. Another great feature is online video conferencing. With technology recently, you don't even need to obtain the most excellent conferencing software to facilitate or carry out these forms of meetings. With plain software, you can carry out these meetings throughout the Internet at an incredibly small expenditure.

Internet video conferencing has swiftly turned out to be the innovative wave, so it is desirable for companies to search for this type of promotion in order to make the most of their prospective and lessen their costs.

Matt Gibbons owns and operates http://www.goodeventplanning.com/, Corporate Event Ideas

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matt_Gibbons

Prominent Personal Pick of the Month

Robert Kiyosaki...

Full Nama: Robert Toru Kiyosaki (born April 8, 1947) is an American investor, businessman, self-help author, motivational speaker, game inventor, financial literacy activist, and occasional financial commentator. Kiyosaki is perhaps best known for his Rich Dad Poor Dad series of motivational books and other material published under the Rich Dad brand. He has written over 15 books which have combined sales of over 26 million copies. Although beginning as a self-publisher, he was subsequently published by Warner Books, a division of Hachette Book Group USA. His new books appear under the Rich Dad Press imprint. Three of his books Rich Dad Poor Dad, Rich Dad's CASHFLOW Quadrant and Rich Dad's Guide to Investing have been on number one on the top 10 best-seller lists simultaneously on The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the New York Times. Rich Kid Smart Kid was published in 2001 with the intent to help parents teach their children financial concepts. He has created three "Cashflow" board and software games for adults and children and has a series of "Rich Dad" CDs and disks.

As a devout global financial literacy advocate, Kiyosaki has been a staunch proponent of entrepreneurship, business education, investing, and that comprehensive financial literacy concepts should be taught in schools around the world. Kiyosaki also operates his own blog and maintains a monthly column on Yahoo Finance writing about his latest thoughts on global economics, investing, business, world financial markets, and personal finance.

Life & Career

A fourth-generation Japanese American, Kiyosaki was born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii. He is the son of educator Ralph H. Kiyosaki (1919–1991). After graduating from Hilo High School, he attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in New York, graduating with the class of 1969 as a deck officer. He later served in the Marine Corps as a helicopter gunship pilot during the Vietnam War in 1972, where he was awarded the Air Medal.

Kiyosaki left the Marine Corps in 1975 and got a job selling copy machines for the Xerox Corporation as a salesperson. In 1977, Kiyosaki started a company that brought to market the first nylon and Velcro "surfer" wallets. The company was moderately successful at first but eventually went bankrupt. In the early 1980s, Kiyosaki started a business that licensed T-shirts for Heavy metal rock bands, which was later sold in 1985. In 1994, after becoming financially independent through various real estate investments and private business operations, Kiyosaki retired at the age of 47. In 1997, after his short lived retirement, he launched Cashflow Technologies, Inc. which owns and operates the Rich Dad and Cashflow brands.

He has been married to wife, Kim, who is an entrepreneur, investor, author, and a motivational speaker. They have been married since 1985. He and Kim have settled in the Scottsdale area in Phoenix, Arizona since 1994. Kiyosaki also has one sister, Emi Kiyosaki, a Tibetan Buddhist nun known by the name Ven. Tenzin Kacho. He has co-authored one book with her called "Rich Brother, Rich Sister".

Business Ventures & Investments

Aside from operating the Rich Dad Company and Cashflow Technologies, Inc., Kiyosaki continues to operate external business ventures and has continued engaging with various investments since he came out of retirement in 1997.

Mining Ventures

Kiyosaki bought a silver mine in South America in 2002, took a gold mining company in China public back in 2002, and took public additional mines from IPOs listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange during the early 2000s. In 2009, Kiyosaki revealed in his book Conspiracy of the Rich that he is currently working on a copper mine that is yet to be taken public once copper prices begin to rise in value.

Precious Metals & Coin Dealing

Through his teenage years, Kiyosaki dabbled with silver and gold coins as a starting investment during the 1960s. In a July 2005 Yahoo Finance article Kiyosaki states that

If you only have a few dollars, you may want to go to your local coin dealer and buy silver and gold coins as close to the price of gold or silver as possible. I would not invest in 'collectible' precious metal coins unless you really know a good collectible coin from a bad one. For as little as $20 you can buy a few precious metal coins and begin to take steps to prepare for one of the biggest crashes in world history.

In addition, Kiyosaki states that he is a "gold bug", meaning is that he holds various commodities such as gold and silver to hedge against government misprinting of the U.S. dollar as a fiat currency since the early 1970s when President Richard Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard.

Solar Company

In a 2010 Rich Dad Insiders video, Kiyosaki stated that he also invested in a startup solar company.

Robert Kiyosaki's Great Teachings.

A large part of Kiyosaki's teachings focus on what he calls "Financial Education" generating passive income by means of investment opportunities, such as real estate investments and businesses, with the ultimate goal of being able to support oneself by such investments alone and thus achieving true financial independence WITHOUT working for a paycheck. In tandem with this, Kiyosaki defines the term "Assets" as things that generate cash inflow, such as stock dividends, rental properties, or businesses, and the term Liabilities" as things that use cash, such as houses, cars, and so on. Kiyosaki continuously argues that financial leverage is critically important in becoming rich, despite the inherent financial risks, repercussions, and pitfalls that come with it.

Originally self-published before being picked up commercially to become a best seller, the central concept of the book is an anecdotal comparison of his "Two Fathers", His Poor Dad was his biological father, who was highly educated and became Superintendent of the Hawaii State Department of Education but was poor. Contrasted with this is his Rich Dad, his best friend's father who became "The Richest Man in Hawaii" by investing his smaller income into income-producing investments, and was a high school dropout. Its main purpose as a self-help book is to help people rethink their idea of money and especially their concept of themselves as employees who will gain financial rewards from conformity and education.

Kiyosaki uses the Rich Dad, Poor Dad comparison to illustrate his view that the majority of people are stuck in what he refers to as "The Rat Race" - living paycheck to paycheck and spending all of their time working to pay bills and other expenses. In his books, Kiyosaki advocates tax-advantaged investment vehicles, such as real estate or businesses, rather than ownership of securities such as stocks. This idea is further developed in his later books and "Rich Dad" became Kiyosaki's personal brand for various publishing ventures.

Kiyosaki continuously stresses financial literacy through the acquisition of he calls "Assets" as the means to obtaining wealth. He says that life skills are often best learned through experience and that there are important lessons not taught in school. He says that formal education is primarily for those seeking to be employees or self-employed individuals, and that this is an "Industrial Age idea". And according to Kiyosaki, in order to obtain financial freedom, one must be a business owner, an investor or both generating passive income, particularly on a monthly basis.

Kiyosaki often refers to The CASHFLOW Quadrant, a conceptual tool which he developed to categorize the four major ways income is earned. Depicted in a diagram, this concept entails four groupings, split with two crossed lines (one vertical and one horizontal). In each of the four groups there is a letter representing a way in which an individual may earn income. The letters are as follows.

• E: Employee - Working for someone else.
• S: Self - employed or Small business owner - Where a person owns his own job and is his own boss.
• B: Business owner - A person who owns a business to make money; typically where the owner's physical presence is not required.
• I: Investor - Investing money in order to receive a larger income in the future.

For those on the left side of the divide (E and S), Kiyosaki says that they may never obtain true wealth. Conversely, those on the right side of the divide (B and I) are supposedly following the only road to true wealth.
 



Kiyosaki also classifies the four main "Asset" classes as means of gaining wealth.

• Businesses: Businesses that generate monthly cash flow that don't require the owner’s physical presence.
• Real Estate: Real estate such as owning warehouses, small family homes or apartment houses that generate monthly cash flow.
• Paper Assets: Investments such as stocks, bonds, hedge funds etc.
• Commodities: Gold, silver, iron ore or copper that is used to hedge government's mismanagement printing of the nation’s currency.

Financial Market Investments

In his debut book Rich Dad Poor Dad, Kiyosaki mentioned achieving consistent 16% ROI through tax lien certificates.

Written in a chapter of Rich Dad's Prophecy, Kiyosaki states of having invested in various government tax free bonds such as municipal bonds and municipal mortgage REIT's offered by real estate development companies paying over 12% tax free dividend interest.

Kiyosaki has also stated in numerous interviews that he does not invest or play the stock market much like the fact that he does not invest in oil company stocks. Instead, Kiyosaki trades stock options, Forex currencies, and other derivatives in the financial markets as stated in a chapter written in his book, Rich Dad's Prophecy and in a 2009 interview with real estate investor John Hartman.

Kiyosaki has frequently mentioned himself of investing in hedge funds, private placements, and other various funds such as private equity funds typically investments reserved by SEC law only for millionaires or high-income individuals.

Kiyosaki is also involved in the commodity market where he invests in gold and silver commodities as well as gold and silver ETF's, as written in chapter of his 2008 book, "Rich Dads, Increase Your Financial IQ".

Real Estate Acquisitions

Kiyosaki is also an active real estate investor. A large portion of his wealth is concentrated within real estate investing. He has various real estate investments, real estate development ventures, and property management ventures operating around the United States, such as Texas and Oklahoma, particularly in his home state of Arizona, where he lives. Many of his holdings include hotels, golf courses, and large apartment complexes as stated in an interview with The Alex Jones Show back in late 2010.

Starting with small residential real estate investments back in 1973, Kiyosaki began investing in small condos on the island of Maui, making a small profit from capital gains by the mid 1970's. Kiyosaki starting his own real estate holding company in the 1980s during his tenure with Xerox and continued on with smaller real estate investments after the Savings and loan crisis and the 1986 Tax Reform Act hit the United States in the early 1990s where much foreclosure investment real estate was sold for pennies on the dollar. After progressing with smaller real estate investments, Kiyosaki moved into the commercial real estate business, branching off into semi-large apartment complexes, with a large portion concentrated in Arizona and the Southwestern United States and retired in 1994. Since coming out of retirement in 1997, Kiyosaki still remains involved with the apartment business and stated in an interview with Jason Hartman in 2011 that he owns over 1400 units of apartment houses.

Kiyosaki has been involved with commercial real estate sector such as investing in warehouses, Triple net lease and real estate development ventures around the United States.

Oil Wells & Natural Gas Investments

Kiyosaki has stated in a Rich Dad video, several interviews, and a on number of Yahoo Finance articles that he owns oil drilling operations and oil wells around the United States but does not invest in oil company shares such as ExxonMobil or BP.

Robert Kiyosaki Live in Malaysia

 

Robert Kiyosaki Live in Malaysia

29^th May 2012 at 9:00am – 31^st May 2012 at 9:00pm

Venue: Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Are You Ready to Seize Opportunity and Create Success?

Learn from the Experts, Believe it or not…

The National Achievers Congress has strategically assembled a program of diverse and complementary systems for success. A First-Ever Extraordinary Event coming to Malaysia... Presenting you

Robert Kiyosaki - The Wealth Powerhouse behind the 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' Phenomenon & Kim Kiyosaki - The Author of ‘Rich Woman’ LIVE here in Malaysia. Yes, you heard it right… they are coming to Malaysia to TALK to YOU.

They will expose you with their breath taking journey on what they have done to create Wealth and Success and also to share with you all on how you can create the same Wealth and Success or more.

Of course you’ll receive groundbreaking Concepts, Philosophies, Principles, Theories and Latest Trends.

The National Achievers Congress exists for YOU – those who have identified that life has much much more to offer and want to know NOW how to go about getting it.

You’ll be exposed to cutting-edge strategies from the world’s leading strategists that you can cherry-pick and apply NOW to your unique life parameters and create your OWN Ultimate Success. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?

Enroll Fast… Please call us at +(60) 3 7492 8000 or fax us at +(60) 3 7492 8001 to book your seats today!

This event requires registration: http://nationalachieverscongress.com/malaysia/

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