The Lazy Millionaire by Marc Fisher

At first glance, this book doesn't seem to fit the theme of this blog, i.e. business and management books but then again, we can always learn something from anywhere right? In life, there are many ways to define success ranging to how many lives that you have touched and make it better, a life of no regrets and yes of course, how financially successful you are. I am a firm believer that it is alright to make money and lots of money as long as you did it legally, morally and your conscience is clear. Of course moral and conscience can be subjective and I don't think I have reached the level to be fully "enlightened" on this subject. To me, the best way to judge whether you are successful in life or not is the way you are remembered by your family and friends. Anyway, back to the issue of being a lazy millionaire which is the main topic covered in the book. I find the title inaccurate as the more I read the book, I find that there is no way that you can be a millionaire by being lazy. I am not sure whether the title is intended to generate more sales (everyone hopes to be a millionaire with the least of effort) or it actually refers to the stage where you can be lazy after you have successfully manage your finances such that you can actually relax and enjoy life. I think Marc Fisher is referring to the latter and as you will see, it certainly requires a lot of sacrifice and planning in order to reach the stage where we can "afford" to be lazy.

Being a millionaire by your own making (rather than luck/fluke like winning a lottery. But don't get me wrong, you still need a little bit of luck in order to be a millionaire) certainly requires some skills in business and management and as usual, the following are some key insights which I would like to share with all of you aspiring leaders out there:

1) ....... the lazy millionaire tries to use his money (or the bank's money!) to acquire assets instead of creating liabilities! (This set the theme of the book. Can you put off buying that new sport car and use your money to buy assets, e.g. income generating properties, shares, etc.)

2) "If you don't do it right away, you'll never do it!" (We are all guilty of procrastination)

3) "Perfectionism is spelled PARALYSIS!" (This relates to the point above. Sometimes we put off doing something because we wanted to achieve perfection but at the end of the day, ended up not doing it all. To be successful, we must be take action!)

4) If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants. (This is a recurring theme in this blog. A successful leader / manager will strive to surround himself with people who complements our skills and offer something which he/she lacks. Everybody need good teammates)

5) If something can go well, even if there is a chance that it will go wrong, it WILL go well!

6) The Lazy Millionaire is POSITIVE (I guess the Author is trying to make a point that to be a successful person, we have to be positive because pessimism can be paralysing and how can we move forward if we do not dare to take even one step?)

7) Instead of working, loosen your tie, put your feet up on your desk, and ask yourself what you could do to earn more money for your company! (I think the message from the Author is that we must find sometime to think about how to be more profitable. I guess this applies to everything in life. Whether it is about making money or helping others, we must first tune our own mind towards that objective. But if we are too busy just going through life's routines, time will fly and by the time we realised it, it would be too late)

8) On rules for successful afternoon thinking what you could do to earn more money:

FIRST RULE
Don't choose a workday, when you are exhausted, for this task.
You need to be at your best.
You can work when....you are tired!
But when the time comes to think (of profitable ideas) you need to be as fresh as a rose.
In the end, that's how you will be able to smell them!
If you are never as fresh as a rose, it's because you're working too hard....
If you're working too hard, it's because you aren't working effectively....
If you aren't working effectively, you aren't earning enough money....
And if you aren't earning enough money, you won't have any free time....

As a final word, I must say that it is important to differentiate between actual planning and execution (Point 8 above encourages us to think and plan) from daydreaming. A lot of people spent a lot of time thinking of how to get rich (the same for getting fit and healthy, be a better person, etc.) but it never gets implemented. With that, I wish you good luck!

Why Stocks Beat Gold and Bonds by Warren Buffet

In an article published in Fortune Asia Pacific Edition, February 27, 2012, Number 3, the Oracle of Omaha explains why equities almost always beat the alternatives over time and I would like to share many useful insights summarised below:

1) ......... investing is forgoing consumption now in order to have the ability to consume more at a later date. (This definition by Mr. Buffet is very important - some sacrifice now is always necessary for a better future. Investing is about delaying some immediate pleasure so that we can enjoy more in the future).

2) Investment that are denominated in a given currency such as money-market funds, bonds, and other instruments have destroyed the purchasing power of investors in many countries principally due to INFLATION. With the current uncontrolled printing of money in US and Europe, we will likely see further loss of purchasing power in paper money.

3) The second major category of investments involves assets that will never produce anything, but that are purchased in the buyer's hope that someone else - who also knows that the assets will be forever unproductive - will pay more for them in the future. Tulips, of all things, briefly became a favorite of such buyers in the 17th century.

This type of investment requires an expanding pool of buyers, who, in turn, are enticed because they believe the buying pool will expand still further. Owners are not inspired by what the asset itself can produce - it will remain lifeless forever - but rather by the belief that others will desire it even more avidly in the future.

The major asset in this category is gold, currently a huge favorite of investors who fear almost all other assets, especially paper money. (After reading the above, I am not sure what crosses your mind but I sure feel investing in gold is just like a big pyramid scheme. You may make money if you are at the top of the pyramid and get out before the music stops!).

4) Today the world's gold stock is about 170,000 metric tons. If all of this gold were melded together, it would form a cube of about 68 feet per side. At $1,750 per ounce - gold's price as I write this - its value would be about $9.6 trillion. Call this cube pile A.

Let's now create a pile B costing an equal amount. For that, we could buy all US cropland (400 million acres with output of about $200 billion annually), plus 16 Exxon Mobils (the world's most profitable company, one earning more than $40 billion annually). After these purchases, we would have about $1 trillion left over for walking-around money (no sense felling strapped after this buying binge). Can you imagine an investor with $9.6 trillion selecting pile A over pile B?

5) My own preference - and you knew this was coming - is our third category: investment in productive assets, whether businesses, farms or real estate. (The key word is productive assets).

Happy investing! And by the way, I am ok with gambling (or some people call it speculating) as long as we don't try to fool ourselves by calling it investing.