Wednesday, August 19, 2009

My (second) Life-Changing Book

Ok...Maybe my primary objective is not to protect wealth (I have none) as stated in the first post, but rather..I enjoy learning the game of money because it's fun. The process of making money is fun. Having the money in my hands is secondary.

For the past 3 weeks, I have been researching on a new-found investment opportunity, day and night. Literally day and night! No more dota, no more anime (i started, and finished reading 2 mangas to cut time), no more watching random youtube videos. All my time are spent reading and watching videos related to this opportunity. I've played less piano than usual, and I'm gonna temporarily halt my formal piano lessons to focus entirely on this investment. I no longer sleep at 2-3am. Now I sleep at 5am. My mind is just consumed by this. Sound like a no-lifer, but yeah I am.

What is this opportunity I'm talking about? To put it simply, it has got to do with precious metals. Gold and Silver. I cannot explain the opportunity in this post yet, because I have to tell you the fundamentals, and that may take some time. But before that, I want to talk more nonsense stuff. It has been a long time since I write essays. It was rather fun to write - once you get started, that is. So to do my GP teacher (whom I like a lot) proud, I shall continue writing boring essays. So here goes..

I would never have stumbled across this opportunity had a friend of mine not asked me to do a favour for him. I have a very good friend who is a sailor. He shall be known as Appu in my blog. Anyway, Appu brought back a sapphire ring which he bought in a Myanmar street for USD 50. I remembered we were in a cab one night, and he showed me the ring, saying something like "Dude, help me value and sell this ring. If it's valuable, we can have a nice business here. I'll keep on buying from Burma and you sell here in Singapore." Being someone who is not a non-boastful guy, he made sure that the taxi driver hears of this brilliant idea as he talks to me. I couldn't help but to laugh to myself inside.

So, off I went to clementi a few days later. I checked with several jewelry shops, and as expected, they don't buy from individuals. So I have no choice but to try the pawnshop. A mixed feeling of foreboding and excitement engulfed me as I entered the shop and waited patiently while the lady behind the counter scrutinized the ring. Finally, she turned to me and uttered, "It's fake."

I had wasted one hour in Clementi doing this. And being the otaku that I was at that time, 1 hour is very precious to me. 1 hour is equivalent to 2 anime episodes, or 1 dota game with my higher-otaku friends Hoa and JM. So I headed to my usual haunt - a bookshop, to check out on new books. I saw a book I've never seen before: Rich Dad's Advisors: Guide to Investing in Gold and Silver: Everything you Need to Know Now to Profit from Precious Metals (by Mike Maloney). Gosh. What a long title.

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Although I was kinda broke and am not really excited by investing in gold and silver, I grabbed the book without a second thought. I also bought another thick book by Robert Kiyosaki on Real Estate Investment. I'm a Rich Dad series' fan, you see.

That night I started reading Maloney's book. And holy cow! What a revelation!! I was hooked. Over the next day, I read through the book like a beast. I started discussing on Msn with some friends. Of course, they're super skeptical of me. "Jin, you think too much". "Jin you're brainwashed by the book". "Jin, if you buy some silver, I'll come and rob you".

Even so, I lent JM my book. I dislike lending people my new books, especially if unwrapped. Who knows what kind of weird stains my friends will leave on them. But the book is too good to keep to myself. I have to share it. It took him 3-4 days to finally start reading (because of his hectic otaku activities). And he was instantly hooked. I made an urgent trip down to another friend's house to lend her the book. And oh dear me, Ms. Cheng waited one whole week before she starts to read the book. But she was hooked too. :D

There is something in this book which is so true and hard-hitting. I had thought that my finance modules in NUS were crap. I do not think that I learned much in Uni. This book helped me connect the dots. Now I think 50% of my modules are actually useful after all. The other 50% are still crap though.

Enough of my bantering. I will try to summarize the book, and all my research thus far. On my next post, I will start with The History of Money. Stay tuned!

Jin



2 comments:

  1. A Otaku will always be a Otaku. Life-changing or not, I think your life isnt going to change much.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Otaku!! stop hiding as anonymous la.

    ReplyDelete

 
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