Open up your mind

Recently, I have shared my plan of achieving financial freedom with some people around me. However most of them don't seem to be very interested. I believe that most of the people are "too educated". They can do certain task very well for other but are not willing to try out new things to improve their own financial status. Perhaps, this story will explain why many people are not able to achieve financial freedom.


Once upon a time, there was a wise Zen master. Many people would come and ask him for enlightenment in the ways of Zen. One day, a general came to visit this Zen master. He said arrogantly and proudly to the master, “After fighting so many battles successfully, I really tired of it. So how can you enlighten my mind?” He began to laugh loudly while waiting for the master to reply.

The master slowly raised the teapot and began pouring tea into a cup. It was slowly filled up and the tea started to overflow onto the table. The general stopped his laugher as the tea began to drip onto his clothing. The general shouted, “Stop that, can’t you see it is full?”

The master stopped the pouring and smiled at the general, “You are like this cup of tea. It is full and cannot be filled up anymore. Come back to me when it is empty.”

The morale of this story is one must clear his or her opinions before learning new thing.

For those who want to achieve financial freedom, please remember to keep your mind open for any opportunities. Search for opportunities rather than waiting for the opportunities to come to you. And one more thing, "Less educated" sometime can be a good thing too.

Jack and Jill

Just to share a financial story about Jack and Jill.


Jack and Jill were providing a service to their village by fetching pails of water from the hill to the villagers. They were paid based on each pail of water fetched to the villagers.

After fetching the water for 1 year, Jill thinks of a idea. The idea is to make a pipe from the hill to the village, so that they no longer had to go up and down the hill any more. After hearing Jill's idea, Jack shouted "What a stupid idea, how are you going to build a pipe from the hill to the village. Since you are so free, why not go and fetch a few more pails of water to earn more. Stop day dreaming and get back to work"

Jill ignored Jack comments and started to think of how to build the pipe. She spent one year to figure out on how to build a pipe from the hill to the village. She spent another one year to build the pipe. In these two years, she earned 50% less than Jack, due to the commitment on learning and building the pipe. Jack always mocked her as a crazy girl in the village during the two years.

After the completion of the pipe, Jack was still going up and down the hill to fetch water. Jill however has a better life now. She just needed to turned on the pipe in the village to fill up water for the villagers. Also she can now charge less than Jack.

The villagers were very happy and satisfied with Jill's service as it is fast and efficient. More villagers are willing to get the water from Jill rather than Jack as they do not want to wait and is cheaper. Sooner or later, Jack was workless as no villagers want to get water from him. He regretted what he said to Jill in the past few years.

The morale of the story:
1) Have a open heart when someone share a idea with you. Do not shoot down their ideas or mock anyone based on your ignorance. There is a saying in one of the Zen stories, "You must empty your own cup first, before other people can fill up the cup for you."

2) If you keep doing the same thing without any improvement or better services, sooner or later you will be replaced. There is no such thing as stable job now.

3) If you failed to plan now, you plan to fail in the future.

4) Building a pipe from the hill to the village is the same as building up your assets. The more assets you have, the higher your passive income will be.

Purpose of this story:

Many people are afraid of doing something different from the majority. When someone want to try out new thing, they are often mocked or discouragement by the majority due to their ignorance. My stand is do not be afraid of trying out new things.

What is financial freedom?

What is financial freedom?

Before explaining what financial freedom is, there are two terms you need to know. They are active incomes and passive incomes.

What is active income?
Active incomes are incomes that you get by doing some services for other. One example of active income is money that you earn by working for other. There is nothing wrong with this type of income, but this is not the income that will make you rich. You are using time to exchange with money. Logically the more you work, the more you earn. But what if you suddenly couldn't work anymore, for example you become very sick permanently? This source of income will stop too. Normally people will only focus on this source of income, which is why very few become rich after working for their whole lives.

What is passive income?
Passive incomes are incomes that you received without doing anything at all. Yes, you can treat it as money dropping from the sky. So how can it be possible? Some examples are rental you collect by renting out your room or the whole house, interest that received in your fixed deposit and dividends that you collect from your stocks. People who focus on this source of income will slowly become richer and eventually their passive income is more than their active income.

For the term financial freedom, it means that your passive income is more than your expenses, and you will no longer need to have any active income (or need to work anymore).