Author Archives: Issa

The Secret: Thank You

Climbing Up To the Skies

Climbing Up To the Skies

During my birthday last year, D gave me The Secret Gratitude Book.  It was beautiful, in aged brown, with scribblings dry-embossed on the front.  I ran my hand over the cover and read “Dank Je”… “Gracias”… and said to myself, thank you, these all means thank you.  I was intrigued.  Is The Secret thank you? Rhonda Byrnes in her introduction explained that yes, The Secret is gratitude, that the mere utterance of “thank you” would lead to unimaginable blessings.  I was surprised.

Thank you are the simplest of words, taken for granted, mostly un-uttered because it is unnecessary sometimes because people feel entitled to the deed, or the giver, almost always, has already walked away and it is only the wind that will catch the last strains of the words…  Personally, I would wait for its utterance, and I would expel bated breath when I hear it.  I did not know that, like me, the universe also expels bated breath when it hears it, except that the bated breath has with it the makings of a miracle.  Truly, there is something about expressing gratitude that finds favor with the air around all of us.

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Teaching Children To Grow Money: The John Gokongwei Story

Teaching The Little Ones To Fish

Teaching The Little Ones To Fish

I look at C and ask myself: How do I teach her about money philosophy?  Forget philosophy.  How do I teach her about money?  It looks like such a daunting task.  Can it be taught?  I decided I would tell her stories.

Stories of the childhood of entrepreneurs always fascinated me.  There was always this one fateful episode that would alter their path, make them entrepreneurs and lead them to untold riches – a parent’s influence, a disadvantage, an early realization that it is money which makes the world go round, and that they have got to have it on their side.

JOHN GOKONGWEI

John Gokongwei belonged to a family of rich migrants.  He had it all as a kid.  He was such a gallant young man that there were days when he would treat all of his classmates to a movie at the cinema his father owned.  But at 13, his father died and he lost it all.

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Stocks on the Upswing

To Financial Freedom

To Financial Freedom

Stocks are on the upswing again.  How do I know?  I look at the stock market reports daily.

This was one of the first tips given by my financial planner to me – to look at the business page, particularly the big rectangular block full of numbers and letters, read it over, pick at least 10 stocks that I would watch daily, and watch them daily (yes, it is a commitment).  He said that this way, I would develop a feel for it.  This, he tells me further, is how the pros do it – everyday, full time.  I looked at him, half-smiling (I was trying to convince him that I could do it) and half-wincing (I imagined it as a painful exercise).  Sure looked like it was a lot of hard work.  But I found out – it was not.

Let me tell you, I hardly ever looked at the business page before.  It screamed boring! to me.  After all, who cares about companies and mergers and acquisitions when there’s news that Actress A is pregnant and the dad is Actor B who is married and their story is played till kingdom come and I had 30 minutes to spare?  Even the cartoon page would get first dibs.

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Grow Rich, Play Monopoly

Under the Sun, Playing

Under the Sun, Playing

It’s a funny thing. I have known Monopoly since I was a young kid. I enjoyed it, yes, and tried hard to get playmates to play with me but we usually get bored early in the game so we end up, always, not finishing it. We did not even care who won. But I did not know it could have such an impact on me. It was just a board game, after all, and board games do not really teach skills. Apparently, this one does, and I learned to look at Monopoly – and games – in a new light.

Fast forward to 20 years after. I read Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Kiyosaki said in that book that one can learn the basics of finance with Monopoly, such as “trade four green houses for one red hotel.” I could not believe my eyes as I was reading, I know this game! I immediately downloaded it to my Treo and played, and played, and played.

At home, at night, at traffic when my car is at a standstill – every chance I got, I played. And then, finally, I got it.

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Passion, Schonberg and Miss Saigon

By D: Hanging By CMS' Bedroom

By D: Hanging By CMS' Bedroom

He was captivated by a single photo where the mother, with pain palpable on her face, was saying her last goodbyes to her bui-doi. It was but a single picture, of emotions caught on a flash, that immortalized her and fired-up the imagination of one French and the world of musical theatre. His name is Claude Michel Schonberg.

My first memory of Schonberg was of him playing the piano. He was with Lea Salonga, while she tried out the strains, in her melodious voice, of Sun and Moon. They were on TV as Saigon specials were aired every day. Every little girl at that time wanted to be Lea Salonga. From obscurity (in the global sense), Schonberg brought the Philippines and Lea to the forefront of musical history.

My last memory of him was of one Sunday afternoon, four years ago. He was sitting across from me, while strings were playing and the Sofitel dessert tempted us from the distance.

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Let It Be Done According To Your Will

One With The Sun, The Moon and The Stars

One With The Sun, The Moon and The Stars

Death is in the periphery, unacknowledged, but it is a truth as certain as the setting of the sun.  All of us will die.  While the “how” is not up to us (under normal circumstances), the disposition of our body and our possessions are within our control.

Can you face it?

Sooner or later, you need to.  Yes, the law does provide for instances when there is no will (intestate succession) but you may leave more destruction and confusion in your wake (literally) if this is the path you choose.  But the law has given you an easy way out (again, literally), and this is through a holographic will.

I always imagine a hologram when I hear the term holographic will.  In my imagination, I see a dead person speaking from the grave, telling the ones he left behind how he loved them, how he lived, how he wants things to be, now that he is gone.  Kind of a love letter, and a confession at the same time; a bequeath, his last chance to be generous; an acceptance that everything is temporary and that he cannot bring things material, not one, to the great beyond.

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Crocs: It’s True

Still Life: Shoe

Still Life: Shoe

Ever since the world was captivated by colorful kiddie shoes with the crocodile insignia, horror stories about traumatized children and mangled feet have not been far behind.

Google search alone has yielded 425,000 results for Crocs + escalator + injury.  Ranking first is the lawsuit filed by the parents of a 3-year old girl against the company for $7 Million for an accident which happened at the JFK airport in November 2007.

I would have dismissed these news, or they would not have come into my orbit, except that it happened to C.

9:50 p.m.  We were going up the escalator of one popular mall in Quezon City when C suddenly felt her Crocs being pulled by the escalator grills.  She tried to pull it but it would not budge.  Looking up, she saw that she was nearing the top, the end of the escalator.  She had the sense to pull out her feet and hop to safety.  Horrified, she saw her Crocs go deeper into the grills, which kept going and going and going.

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