MENTHOR OUTPUT

"Don't wait for all traffic lights to be green for five  

miles, before starting your trip"

by Robert Kiyosaki

image from moonlightandhershadow.blogspot

Interim: the ATM game

Once I shared a game I use to play and noticed I'm on my own so I'll share it if for any reason someone finds it interesting and becomes popular. 

It's the ATM game you play every time you go to the ATM to get some cash. 

The game is simple and freaky as I'm alone in the world playing it. 

Objective: try guessing the denomination of the cash you get by the sound. 

Example: if you ask for $250 and when the ATM starts getting the cash and it sounds "flp flp - flp flp flp flp flp" then you'd guess it will give you two "hundreds" and five "tens" wouldn't you?

If the sound would've been "flp flp - flp flp - flp" you'd say two "hundreds" two "twenties" and one "ten"

INTERESTING! Wouldn't you say?

Hope so...

image from cnn.com

DAY 4: AWARENESS

Awareness is not only what you fight for in Marketing for your brands.

Awareness is what you need if you are entering an unknown surrounding. The more aware you are, the better your output will be.

As most of the children, when I went to elementary, I started selling stuff at school even if it was banned. (I wasn't the only one of course).

"Oblea" image from moonmentum.com

I started selling "obleas" which is a local sweet product similar to a sandwich made out of two big hosts (from the church, same ingredients) and in the middle, a caramel spread called "Arequipe" or "Dulce de leche".

My parents gave me the obleas and the arequipe and my job was selling them during free time.

The obleas came in a plastic bag, while the arequipe came in individual small plastic cans.

By the end of each day, both my sister and I came back home (went to the same school and had the same business) and made our financial analysis.

The result always was:

• Sister: sold 100% of the product
• Me: sold at most 40% of the product

WHY?? it was the same school, the same product, the same price, simply different friends and even areas of the school! what was I doing wrong or what was her secret or magic touch to sell it all?

I left the obleas business with a big disappointment, blaming the target, the consumers, and NOT BEING AWARE OF WHAT WAS HAPPENING!

In fact, many years latter, during a family dinner and talking about our early ages, my sister and I were talking about our businesses and the answer came to me!!

When my mother gave us the arequipe, and it came in individual or personal cans, the idea was that we had to give the obleas and the whole can to the buyer. In that way, the offer was attractive! In my case, I used to give the oblea and prepare it for the client, using only half a can of arequipe, (similar of what happens in the streets when you buy the product).

Obviously it wasn't that attractive and consumers left my side while they preferred my sister's deal!

After such a bad experience in the world of obleas, I started (also with my sister) selling chocolate bars.

It was simpler, a single product, nothing to prepare or sell separately, just a big chocolate bar.

Then a new learning came by with this business; a local habit very common in latinamerican cultures: "fiado" which means that you get the product but you are allowed to pay tomorrow.

Common in small products and with the condition of strong friendship between seller and buyer, as there must be TRUST behind it (Trust that the buyer will come back tomorrow and pay what he owes)

I started selling and selling by "fiado" and my "accounts receivable" number grew and grew significantly affecting my cash flow and so the future of my business.

I became a debtors persecutor more than a chocolate bar seller.

> Thought: Be aware of your culture or your business surroundings as these will have an impact and model it. A business can work perfectly in India, but might be needed to modify key issues before entering your market.

DAY 3: THE POWER OF STORYTELLING

I went to a University to become an Industrial Engineer; a great career, with a wide range of possibilities in my country. In fact finding a job would never be an issue.

I loved movies, did not went abroad to become a movie maker, so I was determined to take as many courses related to that "7th art": history of cinema was one of them.

As an Industrial Engineer, I had to learn about Marketing, Finances and Production among others.

>Thought: the same story with some magic in storytelling can make a BIG difference. It's a matter of perception.

Marketing was interesting, fun, creative, colourful. Never stopped surprising myself on how Psychologists were among the best in that class; obviously they had that advantage of people behavior and consumer understanding in their blood.

But here comes the moment when that little seed that I had planted when still being a child, would receive a great amount of water and sun that would make it start growing.

Due to coincidences (or as me and a group of friends call it, "Godcidences" as we believe that sometimes God arranges your path as he considers best for you and your dreams) my first Finance class was given by a teacher that I will define like this:

A male chauvinist, funny but scary master of finances. WOW! What a strange guy, yes, but he had among a lot of strange and sometimes bad characteristics, a single aspect that would make a difference in his art of teaching: storytelling.

Not only he started every class by saying: "I'm not here to answer your questions but to ask them" so you'd have to go to class with the chapter well understood or at least having read it to try answering any question or in the contrary become the target of his despicable comments for one hour, but he knew how to transform a supposedly boring and structured class into an amazing, time wrapper structured class by STORYTELLING.

Yes he was scary, grades were low do to many tests he made by surprise, but there was MAGIC in the way he made us learn about finances. By the end of my career, I had taken all my Finance classes with him. Believe me, grades were not the best, but the learning was the difference.

He made me start following what i consider my today's menthors: at that time Buffet, Soros among others. Now I've been following my own menthors in financial freedom and learnt quite few things from them.

During a finances class from my teacher made you feel like your where loosing time!

What? a spectacular class that made you feel loosing time?

Yes! in a good sense. "Time is money" or "Cash is the king" were some of his words; some of them I even don't agree 100% nowadays but at that time he made me:

• Care about money
• Understand the importance of it
• Get an interest in the game
• Yes! it was a game!

I became aware of it but not just the numbers! it was how to play with the numers.

So! Back to storytelling! let me show you how storytelling changed the way I got interested in finances.

One day he made tests during class like "True or false!". He used to draw on the blackboard a table with numbers like: 0.3 or 0.5 or 1.5 etc. From 0.2 to 2

He took out his calculator and took a random number from it. We were al numbered before so we were simple digits on a 90 people class. He called that number, let's say it was me, and then he said: "Pick a number"

I'd pick 0.5 as an example.

Picking a number from the list would take it out from it so nobody else would be able to pick it again.

Then I'd ask a question on the days topic. Let's say "True or false! a Fixed asset is an asset that implies long permanence in your business, above 1 year?"

You simply had to say True or False depending on your previous analysis.

A good question meant +0.5 on your final QUIZ grade or -0.5 if wrong.

So it was risky, scary as hell but made you understand very well your topic.

Another case was making you understand about vertical and horizontal analysis on a P&L statement.

He used to say: (And you will get why I say male chauvinist)

"On a Playboy magazine you get that big big picture on the center of the magazine.There are two analysis that you have to do:Horizontal: it means that you have to see how she (the girl of the magazine) has evolved on time  on previous magazines or early ages.Vertical: it means that you take the center picture (like being the statement you are analysing that day) and focus on big accounts or interesting numbers, generally the big ones and understand again with vertical, how they have evolved"

Trust me, even being male chauvinist, using the woman's figure to make you get the point, YOU GOT THE POINT!

He used games (men against women), he even let you take a small paper with all formulas you wanted during the exams as he believed that the formula was not the key but understand how to use it (totally agree). But you only had chance of a small piece of paper, even with standard measures for everybody. Not bigger, not smaller. You had to make your formulas fit if you wanted them outside during the exam!

Storytelling made it a different wolrd away from structured boring numbers to a world of games, jokes and passion for the output.

Interim: no red lights

"There are no red lights when travelling by chopper..."

DAY 2: DADDY, I WANT TO BE A MILLIONAIRE

Image from nickstantonmusic.com

Me around the age of 5, as I remember.

Me: Dad you know what I want to be when I grow up?

Dad: Tell me! (All his attention on me)

Me: I love the way they throw those big large cans and bags to the truck!

Image from www.elespectador.com

Dad starts looking at me with weird eyes...

Me: I'd love being a "GARBAGE THROWER"! (as I called them)

The reason is that one of my first tasks at home was to take out the garbage so I kind of created an interesting ideal of this job. I wasn't paid! but I really enjoyed it listening to the bag falling from the 14th floor of a building through the garbage shut.

Later on I developed a skill that became my first job.

My dad taught me to shine shoes! loved the smell, loved the activity and decided to start charging for it! It was $100 per pair (local currency) which represented at that time I guess around 5 cents (USD).

I took all my mothers and dads shoes and started shining them. Loved black and brown, hated blue as they had not that much shoes, so changing colors meant a delay in production times. I use those words now that i know how to, but at that time it was just a strange feeling that changing to blue was a complication.

They paid well, immediately. the sad part of this is that i remember getting my coins, but don't remember how I used them; candies? comic strips? not a clue.

Years later and after wanting to be a cowboy, never a cop or fireman, I said the magic word.

Me: dad, I want to be a millionaire!

For that sentence to appear in me, I had to understand what money meant and the joy of having it.

Maybe such sentence stayed in the deepest part of my brain and was like a little seed.

Something like Jack and the magic beans as it was small at that time and never new how a simple trigger in the future would create a determinism, an almost obsession.

>Thought: IF YOU WANT IT, REALLY WANT IT, IT WILL COME TO YOU.

DAY 1: WHERE DO WE START?

In my previous post I answered a few questions that will give you an idea of where I am starting from.

Not rich, not rich family, no golden cradle.

So: father of three and husband of THE ONE
(That's how I define myself even in my twitter account @neverbrake)

Born in a developing country of South America in the late 70's.

Went to a french school, where a got a love for languages - learnt french and English - and drawing. I think I could spend hours and hours drawing comic strips or simply drawing stuff.

As any kid, I loved movies! not only going to the movies but understand what was behind of it. Read and learnt about special FX and made my own. I think I blew up and burnt several toy cars  and plastic soldiers trying to create a home-made explosion.

I used to go to the kitchen, put the little car on the floor and with a spray of Lysol, fill up the car and draw a line from the camera to the car. Then with a match of lighter, I would turn on the line of Lysol, and the fire would catch the little car and make a beautiful explosion!! (Don't do it at home I must say, don't I?)

Lived with my father and mother and a big sister. Normal family, VERY united, doing everything together. 

>Thought: MAGIC - it's where most of it starts...

My mother was (still is) carying, dedicated, worked during the mornings.
My father was a loving father, dedicated as well and had a little thing that I still cary: believed in dreaming! (Will remember him like that forever)

When I grew up I wanted to be a movie maker. Thanks to my parents I visited a cinema faculty and got the first impression (sadly a negative one). Tried to look abroad my country and made my research.

Guess what!

I am an industrial engineer, that loves movies, never misses an Oscar's night, and draws in its mind comic strips!

Did I took the chance? NO! 

So, what does it all have to do with this blog? being a movie maker that never became a movie maker? having a father that believed in dreams? not taking a chance?

I think that if you change Industrial engineer by other career, have someone in your life that believes in dreaming, play with your imagination during your childhood, 

WE ALL CAN BE THE SAME PERSON, OR WE ALL CAN HAVE THE SAME STARTING POINT, DON'T WE?

Great! so I am a common person, with an incredible dream!

And from my early ages I've been having learnings of behaviour that would change and define who I am right now.

(Image from www.kellyjbaker.com)