Managing Spare Time : Virtual Assistant + Serving GOD + Financial Education

I had a tremendous week.

My spare time is well spent. I can’t believe that I actually did those stuffs.

Anyway, let me share what happened to me this week.

I started my week with a bang. Just came from a blessed Easter Sunday. Edel and I celebrated the Easter Sunday attending the Grand Feast at SMX Convention Center in SM Mall of Asia. I’m so blessed to have almost all of my mentors in one place. I talked to our financial mentor Dr. Dada Rosanes of International Marketing Group with her kids. I discussed virtual assistant stuffs with my Internet Marketing mentor Jomar Hilario while waiting patiently for the food queuing area. I listened to Bo Sanchez’ awesome preach, the first part of the Overcome Series. There are various published articles online that discusses the things that happened during the Grand Easter Feast. 

Feel free to check them out.

Edel’s Choose to be Wealthy Article

Bo Sanchez’ blog post : Be a Sponge and Absorb God's Blessings

Later that afternoon, Edel and I had a great full body massage at Rafraf together with Marvin located in Halang Calamba Laguna. After that Marvin, Edel and I discussed our future plans regarding our business. We’re on the path in making this a reality. Soon you’ll find out. In case you’re interested to join feel free to email me at projects@elvinperia.com.

This fuels me to start my week right. I’m so fired up!

I went to the office. I had mountains of things to do to start my week. I need to prepare the Post Campaign Analysis for Malaysia, prepare the March Month End Excess Inventory Report, submit the daily inventory report and the weekly service reports, give an orientation about the service and inventory reporting plus other stuff and attend a lot of meetings.

Anyway, these tasks are the things I need to accomplish within the week. Sounds like an easy task but most of these reports require half to one day to finish.  Imagine that. 

This is the exciting part. Every after I finished my day job, I look forward to finishing my assignments as a virtual assistant. Having two jobs at the same time requires proper time management (which I'm currently learning). My tasks as a virtual assistant are just simple. It only requires me to answer emails, to save the inquiries in a template in Microsoft Excel and provide a daily update regarding the status of the project to my client. In fact, this week, as far as I know, I answered on an average, 50 emails in less than 1 hour. Cool right?

Also, this week, I re-started my passion. I joined Laguna Feast’s Music Ministry. In fact, I just got home from the band practice. Of course, I played the guitar. I learned 4 new songs. I met new people (people who are very passionate in serving God’s people thru their talents). Just in case you want to be part of Laguna Feast you may email them at LagunaFeast@gmail.com.

One more thing, of course, I attended Wealth Academy’s Series 10 entitled Distinctions in the mind of Poor, Middle class and Rich discussed by Wealth Academy’s proponent and CEO Noel Arandilla. On my next post I will be sharing the things I learned from this series.

Until my next post.

Ooops. Before I forgot. I'm posting this article using my email. I'm using a Blogger feature called Mail2Blogger. Mail2Blogger allows you to create blog posts using your email.

eLviN

PS. Rex Mendoza will be discussing the Entrepreneur’s Mindset this April 14 at the IMG Makati office. This talk is exclusively for IMG members. In case you want to attend seminars like this, please contact me at ask@elvinperia.com.

PS1. Do you want to serve? Laguna Feast will be conducting a Basic Communication Skills Training on April 11 and April 18. This will be for those who wants to be part of the Feast’s Servants.

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Money Working For You

What a week!

I guess last week is the most tiring and rewarding week of my life.

It is tiring because for the first time in my life I’m doing two jobs at the same time. I’m an employee at day and a virtual assistant at night. It is rewarding because I’ve learned a valuable lesson.

I learned the difference between money working for me and me working for money. Obviously I’m currently working for money and I’m happy that money is coming to me but there’s a challenge. My body is screaming! I could not have a good night sleep.

This just shows that human beings have our own sets of limitations. We can only work at the maximum of 16 hours a day to have good enough sleep. We need those 8 hours of sleep to have a healthy body and a refreshed mind. (Additional note : Drinking of energy drinks is not a permanent solution for this. Take note, NOT THE PERMANENT SOLUTION because I know that there are very hardworking people out there who drinks a lot of energy drinks just to stay awake. This is very, very unhealthy.)

Money on the other hand can work 24 hours a day for us. No limit. No rest day. No holidays. No weekends. No summer breaks. Money works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

You might ask? How can I do that?

First, you must understand how money works. Second, you must know how to handle your money by having the courage to discipline yourself and lastly, find a way to increase your sources of income.

Fortunately, I am part of a group that can help you have your money working for you. The group is called International Marketing Group (IMG). It has a program called WEALTH ACADEMY PROGRAM consisting of twenty series that can transform you by teaching you these three things (1) Financial Literacy, (2) Discipline and (3) Entrepreneurship. We believe that the greatest asset is financial intelligence.

Here are the topics covered in the WEALTH ACADEMY PROGRAM

Series 1 : Finacial Solutions Today

• Six Steps to Financial Freedom
• How Money Works
• The Wealth Formula
• Building a Solid Financial Foundation
  

Series 2 : Finance and Investment 101

• Different investment vehicles and strategies
• Bypass the middleman and become your own financial adviser/broker
• Mutual Funds / Diversification and Money Cost Averaging etc
  

Series 3 : Creating Multiple Income Streams

• Different sources of passive income
• Creating passive income streams
• New concepts in making good money
  

Series 4 to 20 : A comprehensive approach to personal and financial success

Sounds interesting right?

The knowledge I got from attending these series motivates me to act and take control of myself and my finances. That's the primary reason why I'm adding more sources of income for me to invest more for my future. Soon, I'll have my money working for me instead of me working for money. Soon, this will come true (I'm looking at 5 to 10 years time frame). How about you? When do you want to have your money work for you?

Until my next post.

PS. In case you want to know more about the WEALTH ACADEMY PROGRAM you may contact me by sending me an email at elvinperia@yahoo.com. I'm willing to send you the schedules of the WEALTH ACADEMY PROGRAM. Again, email me at elvinperia@yahoo.com.

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Money Problems Solution

As I was browsing my facebook page I noticed my financial mentor posting a status message that is something worth sharing.

He said on his status message that there are two reasons why most of us have problems with our hard earned money.

1. Money Management.
2. Not Enough Income.

There are a lot of people earning lots of bucks in a month. Towards the end of the month they started to worry how they will survive for the remaining days before paycheck. They mismanage their hard earned money. They never budget. They never save.

Okay let us assume that they save. They save in banks. Most of banks give 1% interest rates for their savings and 4% on their time deposit account. Is it enough? Nope. If you place your hard money on these kinds of investments, you’ll lose. Why? Average inflation is around 7% per year. I was not surprised when I heard that the price of petroleum, rice, and sugar increased. Thanks to inflation. A good money management tip I can give is to place hard earned money on at least 8% interest rate. This way your money will earn.

For those who never save. I suggest that you save first then live on the remaining percentage. The ideal saving is around 20% of your income. So let’s say you’re earning 20K a month, after you receive your 20K set aside 4K and live with 16K.

I developed a formula for this. This works for those people who have a budget plan for their expenses. Divide expenses for the month by 0.8 or 80% to get the ideal net income. For example, if a person has an average expense of 20K per month, then he should be earning 25K at least in order to save 20% of his income.

If he earns less than that amount, then we move on to the next money problem. Not enough income.

The only solution for money problem # 2 is to increase your cash flow. Increasing cash flow can be done by (1) reducing expenses and (2) getting more sources of passive income. Passive income is a long topic to discuss. I’ll reserve that topic in the future.

Hope this post can help you manage your finances better.

PS. If you want to know more about handling finances you may contact me through my email. Email me @ elvinperia@yahoo.com

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Frogo the Frog who made that JUMP!

Recently, I’ve been playing Icy Tower in Facebook. The game’s objective is to reach the top of the tower by jumping on collapsing floors. This game reminds me of Ice Climber, a game in Family Computer when I was a kid. Now you have an idea how old I am. Laughs.

Also, it reminds me a story of the frog whose dream is to see the world outside the well.

The story goes like this.

There was a group of frogs living in the well. They live in that well since they were born. They never thought of hopping outside the well. Their ancestors told them stories of other frogs who dared to go out of the well.

Their ancestors tell them this horror story since they were a tadpole. The world outside this well is full of monsters. There was this young frog on his mid-20s (I’m using here Frog Calendar, okay? Believe me, their calendar is different from Gregorian calendar we use in our everyday life) who dares to jump off and leave this place. He never came back. He was eaten by monsters. He was eaten by giant monsters living outside this well.

These monsters have huge teeth that can crush every bone in your body. They have huge claws that would rip your skin apart. They use every inch of their strength to get you as a test subject in their biology class. So that they will dissect you and do anything and everything to make you suffer the rest of your life.

Every time a group of tadpole hears this story they were so scared. They were so scared to be eaten, to become test subject, to be dissected. They don’t want this to happen to them. So they never dared to jump out. They never did.

So they just play, eat, hop, jump, sleep and everything a typical group of frog is fond of doing. These activities were all done in the well.

But there was a frog who does not believe in this story. He believes that there’s a larger playground outside that well. In his mind he believes that the world outside the well is a larger playground where they could play, eat, hop, jump, sleep and everything a typical group of frog is fond of doing.

One day, he shared this idea on his parents. But his parents never believed him. They did not agree on a huge playground outside the well. They said that jumping off the well is a suicide.

However, Frogo has a different vision. He still sees a huge world outside the well.

Every day he trained so hard to reach the edge. Every day he works so hard. Every day he plans a strategy on how to use the walls of the well.

Then one day, he said to himself “today is the day to get out of the well.”

So he jumped as high as he could. He jumped and jumped until he was halfway through. At the middle of his ascent, he got tired. He is so exhausted. He started slipping on the side of the well. He started to worry. Other side of his mind said that he can’t make it but the other half keeps on pushing and reminding him that he’s near.

Of course, he trusted the other half of his brain, the one who reminded him to make that push. So he kept on jumping.

Eventually he got out of the well.

He saw the huge lake in front of him.

It was an overwhelming site. There were no monsters. There were no Biology students. Only a giant lake just like he saw on his vision.

He looked down on the well saying that his right. There’s a huge lake outside the well.

But his friend never heard him.

So he jumped off and enjoyed the huge lake he discovered.

There’s an ocean of opportunities outside your comfort zone. There are obstacles that block your path to success. But I tell you, most of the successful people (Bo Sanchez, Robert Kiyosaki, my IMG mentors, etc) did what Frogo did. They made that decision to jump outside their comfort zone.

Do you want to be successful? Do what they did. Make that jump.

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image courtesy of financial philosopher

Parable of the Fisherman and the Bank Investor

A bank investor was taking a much-needed vacation in a small coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. The boat had several large, fresh fish in it.

The investment banker was impressed by the quality of the fish and asked the fisherman how long it took to catch them. The fisherman said, "Only a little while." The banker then asked why he didn't stay out longer and catch more fish?

The fisherman replied he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.

The investor then asked "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The fisherman replied, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my friends: I have a full and busy life."

The investment banker scoffed, "I am an Ivy League MBA, and I could help you. You could spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats until eventually you would have a whole fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to the middleman you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You could control the product, processing and distribution."

Then he added, "Of course, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to another city where you would run your growing enterprise."

The fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"

To which the investor replied, "15-20 years."

"But what then?" asked the fisherman.

The laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You could make millions."

"Really? Millions? Then what?"

The investment banker replied, "Then you would retire. You could move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your friends."

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My note on this parable. It does not take a lot of money just to have wealthy life.

I got this story from one of my financial mentors Todd Tresidder. He is good is giving out a lot of advice from financial literacy up to personality development just like Bo Sanchez. By the way, he has this financial coaching program that would help you to plan your finances. Feel free to check it out by clicking on this link.

Speaking of financial literacy, we will be attending IMG 1st and 2nd sessions this Saturday at King's Court in Makati. IMG or International Marketing Group is one of the few companies of its kind in the industry today. It is a marketing company dedicated in serving the financial needs of individuals and families in all walks of life. They are devoted in helping us to move from dreaming to doing. For more details about IMG please check out this link.