Miami Heat lands LeBron James

I'm a huge LeBron James fan ever since he was the most talked about high school phenom in America. I even bought his Cleveland Cavaliers Home Jersey and wore it while watching his NBA debut against the Sacramento Kings in 2003. I knew from the start of his NBA career that he would be the biggest name in pro sports of his time.

At age 18, 6’8, 250 pounds, he brought his NBA ready body and talent to Cleveland and didn’t disappoint the Cavaliers fans as he showed what he is capable of doing. However after seven years in Cleveland, the self-proclaimed King hasn’t won a championship. Although he brought his team to the finals in 2007, they came up short. Every season he worked hard to get better, even playing for Team USA in consecutive summers. All he needed was a group of guys that are ready to contribute. Dan Gilbert, Owner of the Cavaliers, failed to land a cast of players that are ready to contend with James.

Then at the summer of 2010, the biggest free agent summer in NBA history, dreams turned into a reality. Nobody expected all three big names, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to play for one team. It seemed impossible but the Miami Heat just pulled off a miracle and landed them all. The man behind this is Heat President Pat Riley.

Cavaliers fans were shocked with James’ decision and started hating him. On the flip side, Heat fans were celebrating their hearts out and just loved their team even more. Imagine Dwyane Wade, who already won a championship with the Heat, playing alongside two-time MVP Lebron James and former Raptors superstar Chris Bosh.

Complementing the superstars are veterans like Mike Miller, Juwan Howard, Udonis Haslem, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Jamaal Magloire, this Miami Heat overhaul just puts them on top of the food chain alongside Los Angeles Lakers who have made their team more solid than it already is.

Although on paper the Heat are too strong, their chemistry would be tested throughout the season. Just like what Boston Celtics did, Heat superstars need to know their role and give way to one another for this to work. If not it would just be a disaster.

Even if NBA legends criticize James and Bosh’s decision to play with Wade at South Beach, I believe this is the right move for them. Why wait for a championship when they can already win it now. The Cavaliers just keeps on failing to land big players and James can’t wait no more. Same thing goes with the Raptors and Bosh.

Thanks to my friend Charles Lazaro who is a LeBron fanatic as well, for giving me updates about what’s happening in the life of LeBron. I sometimes think that he wants to marry LeBron. HAHAHA. Nonetheless, we’re excited to watch their games this coming season and I want to buy a Heat jersey of LeBron James as well.

My take on this? A Lakers and Heat Finals on June 2011! I might even change my name to LeMron if the Heat wins the championship in June. LeBron All the way! Yeah MEN!- DE

Read more

Know What You Want Then Chase It

People never really get satisfied of what they have. We always want to have something better than what we have or something that we cannot acquire yet. No one can just get what he wants easily. Do you know what you want? What is it exactly? Be it material things or not, why aren’t you receiving such things?

When someone asks you “what do you want to happen in your life?” you must be able clearly answer the person back. If you can’t answer the question, then my friend, you’re lost. When you become lost, time flies so fast you wouldn’t feel years have already passed you by. You’ll be surprised 5, 6, 7 years after college, you’re still as broke as you started or haven’t made your life moving. Many people are victim of this. Not knowing where to go doesn’t make you move forward.

Think about it, you don’t get what you want because you don’t know what you want. This goes for everything and anything that has to do with your life. It should make sense because you would be receiving something that you really didn’t want consciously or subconsciously.

It all starts with a dream, big or small, it’s still a dream. When we were kids our imaginations are through the roof, maybe better than what adults have right now. But what happened? Most of us stopped dreaming where in fact we shouldn’t. Our dream should get bigger as we get older. Not just ordinary dream, but enormous dreams that would make people think your dream is impossible. These must be well defined as well.

Imagine, Steve Jobs didn’t stop his imagination and got satisfied with just a first generation iPod. Or Bill Gates didn’t settle with Windows 98. Or Henry Sy didn’t just build one SM Mall. Our lives were changed and touched by their dreams that they pushed to become a reality one way or another.

Before they became business magnate, they were once ordinary people. If they can, then we all can. There’s no such thing as too big of a dream. So I suggest you make a dream book and/or dream board. I got this from my company where they let me cut our pictures, write, and draw the exact things I want to have and want to happen in my life. The exact color, model, year, make, of the car I want. The exact gadgets, exact place and look of my house, the exact net worth I want to be, etc.

Yes, dreams may seem too big right now, but you shouldn’t care! Mark Zuckerberg (Co-Founder of Facebook) became a billionaire at age 23. If his imagination can, so can you! Even if you can’t get it now, go after it every time you wake up.

If you just let life dictate your life, then nothing really exciting or significant will happen to your life. Whereas when you know what you want clearly, instead of being lazy getting out of bed, it would be your very reason why you wake up in the morning and why you work your way towards it. Think big, dream big!- DE

“The journey’s what brings us happiness not the destination.” – Peaceful Warrior, 2006

Read more

Never Seek Advice of Experts In Failing

All of us have encountered having troubles about certain incidents in our life that our brain cannot solve it alone. Producing no answers is the time we ask other people for solutions and answers. It is also part of the learning process. Everyone in this planet has encountered this, especially in the formative years of a kid, to the time we enter school, and up to now that our brain is still working.

Our mind never sleeps, it keeps on thinking. And if our brain cannot answer a problem or question, we ask or seek for answers. We never get satisfied unless that question is answered. The more questions you have, the more answers you would have. The more answers you have, the more knowledgeable you become.

Professionals have tons of questions that got answered, thus they have supreme knowledge. However entrepreneurs do have more answers than questions, thus they earn tons of money by answering people’s problems and adding value to their lives.

Although professionals and entrepreneurs have different paths, they started with asking and seeking advices. Not just from anyone, but advices that came from people who have been successful on the field they want to take.

Who would you rather seek advice from? Is it from people who have no idea or have failed in the field you want to take? Or do you seek advice from people who have been successful?

Think about it. If you have problems solving math equations, do you seek advice from an English Literature expert? Or if you want to build a house, do you seek advice from banker? And if you wanted to put up a business, would you rather ask someone who have a failed business how he did it or ask someone who made millions with it?

An example would be John Gokongwei. Although I haven’t talked to him personally, I can say that he doesn’t know a lot about business when he was born. I believe he studied it and sought advice of other entrepreneurs in the said fields before he entered an industry. Even if he have a highly successful Universal Robina Corporation (country’s largest snacks manufacturer), he tried to find out and learn about other industries such as telecommunications and airlines, thus Sun Cellular and Cebu Pacific Airlines. Imagine if he talked to a lot of failures in the past, do you think he would be successful in what he does?

Seeking for answers means you want to be better than what you are right now which is something that we all must be. Never stop learning because there’s no such thing as you know everything even if you’ve been doing what you do for years. Even the richest people in the world never stop letting knowledge get inside their brain.

This is a simple lesson in life that we don’t acknowledge. Maybe we should start re-thinking about what we want to happen in our life and re-shape it by seeking advice of successful people rather than experts in failing. - DE

“Once you stop learning, you start dying.” – Albert Einstein

Read more

Think and Re-think Before You Let Go of Your Money

Letting your hand off your money is not as hard as earning it. You work your tail off the whole month, 5 to six days a week, just to receive what you are currently earning. That’s how hard you earned your money, only to spend it as fast as a flying jet plane on things you didn’t really thought about.

This results to shortage simply because of your failure to manage your money. When the time comes you are running out of money, you would think of ways how to earn extra. You then start thinking of investing in any option you encounter that could get you cash instantly. A get-rich-quick mentality would then trigger your emotions to invest in investments that you thought would yield immediately.

Usually these types of move aren’t thought about real hard. Before you invest you should think about it twice, thrice and many, many times over because you might only see the positive side of the investment which is earnings.

These are the factors you need to consider before you let go of your money:

• Earnings. This is arguably the most important factor for any investor. However, this isn’t the only thing to consider. An investor must weigh the rate of return to the length of time of return. Some investment vehicles are just too good to be true.
• Time and Effort. Before you invest, you must also look at the time you will spend for this income stream. If you plan to just make this part time or to make money work for you, consider the time and effort you would spend for this investment vehicle because your day job or business might suffer.
• Cost. Check your finances first before you let go of your money. This would serve as a parachute in case all things go bad. The amount you invest in case of loss, should hurt, but not starve you and your family.
• Expenses. Not all investment vehicles would give you big amounts in exchange for nothing. Expect expenses one way or another. Be it communication expense or travel expense, no matter how small it may seem, in time it will pile up. This wouldn’t be a problem if these expenses would generate you more income.
• Background of the person you invest in. There are a lot of bogus people out there. They are excellent in selling themselves and their bogus ideas. They would try to make you invest on the spot by saying that they have a limited offer.
• Background of the vehicle you invest in. Aside from the person who you will invest in, you must also check where he will use the money. It is important because you would want to know if your money would be invested in a high earning and legal vehicle. From there you could decide whether it would be a good idea to invest in or not.
• Length of time of return. Weigh the rate and length of time of return. Sometimes the rate of return is too low for the length of time of the investment. This could be considered a bad investment because you could have reinvested the money again in a different vehicle.
• Seek advices from people who have done it before.Opinions of people who have failed and succeeded in the path you will take would give you a guide line on how to do it properly. They could give you insights that you would encounter that you couldn’t see right away.
• Alternatives. There may be similar investment vehicle that have a better rate of return, or a better background of company, or a cheaper investment with a shorter time of return. List down their pros and cons.

When I say investments, this includes education (enrollment to MBA or specialization degree programs), purchasing plans (gym, telecommunications, insurance, etc.), stocks, and start up businesses. Before getting into something, consider the factors above.

Make your mind work, it's healthy. Thinking many times over is way, way better than impulsive decision making that would make you regret in the end. Let’s put a stop on that and make better choices, make better decisions that would give you a better and happy life in the end. No regrets!- DE

Read more

FRANCHISE 2010 was a Success!

16th of July 2010 marks the opening of FRANCHISE EXPO 2010, where people from different walks of life meet in one venue with one common thing in mind – Business Opportunity. International experts in franchising flew in to teach current franchisors, franchisees and wanna be franchisees and franchisors everything they need to know about the business. Although I wasn’t able to attend the conference and seminar, I managed to make time to drop by the SMX Conventions Center for the EXPO proper.

Just like last year, I saw familiar faces, from franchisors to wanna be franchisees, from franchising experts to the models. Owners of franchises still work hard to sell their concept to their prospects. They’re very passionate about their business and I could feel it with the way the talk. Visitors of the expo on the other hand have different agendas. Most of the people came there just to get brochures, have free tastes, observe the event, build network, socialize, have photo op with the models, etc. Only few serious wanna be franchisees were there.

Since I have been visiting FRANCHISE EXPO since 2008, I knew I’d know someone is an international franchising expert guest if I saw one and I did. They were having a great chat with current franchisors in the expo. And as usual, they were teaching business owners how to tweak their systems to make it more profitable.

Start-up franchises like yakisoba cart, twisted fried potatoes, tap-si-log cart were the newest in the franchising business. Other than those were the same old franchises I saw from last year. Pizza, Panini, dimsums, fried noodles, burgers, hotdogs, inasal, salons, drug stores, internet shops, computer retailing, and petrol were present as usual.

And how could I forget about the models. They were the same models as last year’s event - same faces and same sexy bodies. They still play a role of enticing visitors to know what their respective franchises offer. Last year I got to take photos with them, but this time I just wasn’t for I was there only to observe.

At first I was kind of bored seeing those same franchises back, but when I left the expo, I knew they came back because they were highly successful in franchising their businesses. Instead of getting uninterested, I suddenly admired them again. And as expected, franchising giants were there together with sponsors like PLDT, BDO, Caltex to name a few.

These past few years, I observed that this country is slowly shifting from being a man power country to an entrepreneurial country. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone because the Philippines are a very rich country in terms of resources. I am very happy to see that Filipinos are becoming more open to having a business rather than working their asses off their whole lives.

Everyone wants to have their own business, but often can’t think of a concept and do not know how to start one. Well, franchising might be the thing you are looking for. Here you can find an already successful business with a proven ready to use system that is offered to everyone. No more hassle of looking for suppliers, creating a concept, losing money on trials, creating a system because everything is provided in this event, from knowing about franchising to choosing what franchise to buy.

Buying a franchise makes you an instant entrepreneur. However, this doesn’t guarantee you would have an instant successful business. It would still boil down to how you handle the business. Instead of letting opportunities like this past you by AGAIN, make time to find out about these businesses. You’ll never know if the right business is just there waiting for you.

FRANCHISE 2010 was a success! Kudos to the organizers who once again pulled off another successful event!- DE

Samsung M3510’s 2.0 megapixel camera phone used to take the photos, I apologize for the quality.

Read more