Go Negosyo or Why I Want to be Rich

I read Joey Concepcion’s Go Negosyo to understand how successful Filipino entrepreneurs made it. I wanted to see which industries they ventured into and what methods they used to start and grow their businesses. Since the book is a compilation of two page profiles, it does not go into a lot of detail regarding how a particular entrepreneur decided on what business to start and the hard work and thinking that went behind building a business empire. Nevertheless, reading about the story of business moguls like Henry Sy, John Gokongwei and Andrew Tan, and realizing they all built their fortune from scratch inspires me to dream about generating my own wealth.

I want to be rich not just because I want to retire early. I want to have financial freedom, which will allow me to pursue things I have always wanted to do, but could not do because I needed to pay the bills. I want to be able to travel and immerse myself in other cultures. I want to learn more foreign languages. I want to appreciate art, and perhaps create art. I want to read history, do research, and write history.

Beyond my own personal dreams, I feel I owe it to society to be rich. I have been given with enough intelligence that it would be inexcusable not to become rich. And by having enough money to transcend my personal needs, I will be in a position to help more people have a better life.

1421: The Year China Discovered America

Gavin Menzies aims to rewrite history by making the extraordinary claim that not only did the Chinese discover the New World, they actually sailed around the world almost a century before Magellan did. Academic historians criticize Menzies for his claims, but I found many of his arguments plausible, and I truly enjoyed reading his work.

I actually envy Menzies because he is exactly the sort of historian I would like to be. Like him, I would like to pursue my passion in history by writing something revolutionary yet I do not see myself becoming a full time professor, at least not yet. I would like to research and write for the sheer pleasure of it rather than simply satisfy academic requirements or write theses only a few old historians would care to read. Why, if my wife can pay for my travel and research like his wife does, then I can probably write that Filipinos discovered Spain instead of the other way around!

Conventional history accepts that the Chinese did explore the Indian Ocean and reached all the way to East Africa. It is also acknowledged that Admiral Zeng He's fleet was the largest the world had ever seen. Whether they actually rounded the Cape of Good Hope or not does not diminish the greatness of Ming China.

Celestine Vision

I have not read James Redfield's Celestine Prophecy so I was not able to appreciate fully this book's recommendations on living with spiritual awareness. I did glean from the book that his earlier works highlight mysterious coincidences as unique opportunities to learn more about our life purpose. Synchronicity include events such as thinking about someone and seeing him on the same day, or dreaming about something only for it to appear in reality. Seemingly unrelated events converge to create special meaning.

I am not comfortable enough with these concepts to go out and preach about them. There is enough of the skeptical scientist in me to keep me from really exploring these ideas in detail. However, I have learned enough about life to suspend my disbelief and keep an open mind. There are things we cannot rationally explain. There are critical turning points in my life that seem to have been part of God's plan even though these events appeared meaningless or even sad at the time they happened. For example, my career would not have progressed as fast as it did had I not been rejected by IBM the first time I applied.

On the other hand, I do not want to read too much meaning in coincidences. I do not know how to explain it but I still believe in human agency and our ability to determine our future. Yet at the same time, I am humble enough to admit that there is a lot beyond our control. And I am comfortable with the idea that I cannot resolve this apparent contradiction.

1000 Places to See Before You Die

Reading Patricia Schultz 1000 Places to See Before You Die was sheer delight. She manages to capture in just a few paragraphs the history and the magic of a particular place. I know I cannot possibly visit all of the places in the book, but it does make me want to get rich faster so I can retire earlier and visit as many as I can. I also now have a good idea of the best places to stay in in the cities covered by the book. Most of the hotels she features are high end, but I do not really mind as part of the reason I travel is I want to experience the good life. I normally travel with two kids so staying at a hostel and being "authentic" is not really an option.

The book has almost 1000 pages, but I looked forward to reading it everyday until I finally managed to travel around the world vicariously by reading about one thousand beautiful places. It will take some planning, and a lot of saving, but I definitely want to see and experience the world, and this book has managed to fire up my wanderlust even more. My family is taking baby steps by exploring the country and neighboring countries first. So this December, we will be spending New Year's eve in Hong Kong. Too bad we cannot afford a room at the Peninsula yet, one of the featured hotels in the book and reportedly one of the best in the world, but I will make sure we savor views of the harbor. I cannot wait for the New Year countdown. This time we will see fireworks over one of the most beautiful cityscapes in the world rather than just another Manila street seen from another hotel in Manila.