I Among the Winds

By Daniel Dumaraos

I may be miles and miles apart;
From her touch and my stolen heart;
That was gone from the very start.

But her spirit lives well in me;
I close my eyes to make me see;
I close my eyes to set my spirit free.

I fly and my spirit’s up high;
Among the winds that play and sigh;
The tears that dries your tears when you cry.

Note: Here’s a short and simple poetry I made way back when I was in college in 1992. This was inspired and made for some lady in my future (then) whom I haven’t met and yet I truly cared about. Up until now, can’t say for sure if I had.

The photo above is the actual pen writing made at the back of paper pad backing

It’s easy to get lost and lose money even just to get started on online forex trading. The internet has literally thousands materials, advertisements and other  offerings that can cost you an arm and a leg. I outlined a list of very useful, and mostly free, resources to get one started to online forex. With only US$ 72 and an internet connection, one can now setup a serious home-based business – if you plan to be a trader. Success depends on how much time is devoted to studying and controlling emotions.

1. BabyPips: BabyPips.com is the best way to learn about Forex basics. They handle all topics from ground up that isn’t intimidating to newbies. The levels of learning is graduated from Pre-school all the way up to College depending on level of technical complexity.
2. Your Trading Coach: Once you get into the topic of Technical Analysis (such as candlesticks & candlestick formations), Lance Beggs has several easy to understand video tutorials on YouTube. This will quickly speedup your learning about candlesticks, technical indicators and a host of other trading strategies.
3. Trading Spreadsheet: A serious trader always keep a journal of all trades handy. This is the only way to improve ones skills by identifying weak trades and improving on them. Trading Spreadsheets provide a comprehensive tool set to help every trader manage every entries.
4. FXCM Micro Account: FXCM is the world’s largest forex broker. A beginning forex trader can start trading to as low as $US25 and is the best way to get the real feel of online trading without risking too much of your start-up capital. Visit FXCM Micro for details.
5. Demo Accounts: I highly advice beginning traders to trade first for at least six(6) months on demo accounts. Demo accounts uses live charts trading on virtual money. This will help beginning trader to familiarize the trading platform and put into practice all theories learned from different sources provided above.
6. News & Live Charts: Keeping updated on financial news is very important and gives a heads up on what position to make when entering or closing a trade. Some of these include: DailyFX and Bloomberg.
7. Forums & Portals: The best way to quickly learn trading techniques & strategies is by communicating with other traders. The internet has many forums but I would highly recommend DailyFX Forum since many of their members are longtime time professional traders.

One time, I called on to have a talk with my sister over dinner after she announced her plan to resign from work. With only a few short months of leading a medical team that provide annual physicals to our clients, she’s ready to pack up and leave. The reason: she was frustrated and disappointed from her team members’ incapability to follow her exact instructions thus, according to her, they keep making too many mistakes in the process. Because of this, she felt things were out of control which explains her frustrations and helplessness towards work. Things weren’t going well as she wants and expects it to be and she want out. I continued to listen as she pours out all her negative emotions toward her team that went to almost an hour until she finally asked for my advice.

My sister, and like many more others, has a different view and understanding of leadership. Clearly for them, leadership is telling people to follow a set of procedures and expects them to follow to the letter. Just like what Henry Ford once complained: “Why do I always get the entire person when I only need is a pair of hands”.

Having lead an IT and medical technology department for more that six years combined, I have learned through experience how to nurture work teams and recognize signs that makes them tick. Overall, for my part, leadersip is letting go than controlling. Identifying strengths and liberating creativity than imposing restrictive rules. It all starts with enablement.

Enabling teams is the very first step in bringing out creativity and achieve maximum performance among team members. The following are some useful tips I have learned along the way while leading people in my workplace.

1. Recognize Individual Strengths

Everyone one is unique and are very capable in their own respects. It is counter productive to assign an indivudual on tasks that are not naturally his/her strengths. This can be done by observing closely how individual members work on their regular tasks and if they are passionate and able to do things well in short time – a skill. Start observing things like: how they organize their desks during and after work, the way they talk, the way they write, personal grooming, performance of work duties and etc. These provide small but important clues on how members work naturally and what sort of tasks to assign to them.

2. Failure Is An Option

I remembered a phrase from a well renowned director, James Cameron, while giving a talk at one of the TED conferences. In contrast to popular wisdom particularly in the field of business and sports, he said “Failure must be an option. Fear isn’t”. Human as we all are, we all make mistakes – period. As leaders, one must have high tolerances for mistakes for it is through them that we discover and learn from.

3. Nurture Independence

The time when I spearheaded an IT team for about six years, my ideas (I thought) were the best ideas until we huddled together for a brainstorming session. I was surprised what my team came up with with a bright idea with very minimum project detail. Work independence means providing them the freehand to think creatively based on their personal strengths. Only one must do, as a leader, is to give and clarify work objectives. Objectives, in this case, must not be too specific as this restricts creative thinking and innovation. Objectives must be very clear and general.

4. Provide necessary tooling

This is the very basic need for every worker in a workplace – tooling. This may be in the form of office supplies, books, softwares, computers or other equipments. In my IT team, I do provide only books and fast intrnet connection and I leave the rest for them to think. One good example in my experience was to look for a solution to integrate communication services in our office.We have emails, chats, document management, and calendar from different providers and ofcourse, with different user logins. Such setup was too much to manage as an administrator. If we were a big company, I can easily opt to buy an expensive software of the rack to finally solve this problem – but money was scarce. With time, patience and an internet connection, I was able to scour for the best solution for a very small fraction of a price.

It must always be remembered that tooling is used to build something economically and much faster. However, simple tools can also be made to make other more complex tools. One of those simple tools, yet the most important one, is the worker’s mind.

5. Promote Creativity

A leader’s idea is not always the best idea. This is most often times difficult for many leaders to accept. Many leaders are trapped in the thought of them having only the best ideas to contribute thus lending a hand to team inefficiency – unknowingly. Each member has different personal experiences and diffrent set of expertise based from learned experiences. Each one has unique potential that when pulled together can always create maximum results.

Google is one of the many companies I admire that promotes and welcomes new ideas. Their 20 Percent Factor is one novel way of promoting and supporting ideas from employees. In fact, many of their popular services came from their 20 Percent program. No wonder they always come up with better ideas all the time.

6. Strip out rules that hamper creative processes

An oil painter depends largely on his physical capacity and emotions. These are the only set of parameters that he recognize and limits his ability to paint another Mona Lisa. As with any other creative process it must not be defined by strict rules or policies that are common among manfacturing industries. Many companies believe that implementing the same manufacturing stanards like: Six Sigma and ISO will produce the same maximum results. Humans are not like robots that can be restricted in too much bureaucracies and expect significant results. Humans achieve milestone results when allowed to think beyond boundaries of rules, beliefs or any standards.

7. Create a happy environment

Happy employees achieves better outcomes. Any enoromous task, no matter how difficult it can get, becomes easy and light to take on to a happy employee. I experience this first hand in my IT team even when faced with a seemingly impossible task. I noticed also that they are also the most productive employees yet with the most challenging jobs.

Your children need your presence more than your presents. - Jesse Jackson

Yesterday, I went home unusually early and excited to teach my son some basketball for the first time. Not surprisingly, he got on his shoes faster than he usually does, and with a big shining smile. We played, had fun and talked seriously about basketball, life and God. I can see very clearly that he was so happy that I came home early and kept my promise to teach him basketball. After a couple of hours as we walked home he said, “Thank you daddy” – and that made my day.

As parents, and being so busy at work, we tend to drift into ‘auto-pilot’ mode thinking that our kids will just be fine even with our hectic schedules so long as we can put them to good schools and provide them the things they need. The truth is, they need more of us, our time and we need to be more hands on with them like: taking a concious effort to join them to dinner, go to church on sundays, go to a park and find regular time to talk to them individually. No good child was ever brought up in the absence of good ‘hands-on’ parenting.

Being a ‘hands-on parent’ means being in control of ones’ time for the children and doing things with them. This practice provide real-time guidance and quality time that will indelibly mark our children’s memories and shape them according to our will and purpose.

1.   Be contented with what you have

Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor. –Benjamin Franklin

We live in the age where wanting something is the basic ground work of every successful economy. Our generation is centered on acquiring possessions and gaining power or recognition, thinking all these are important to a more prosperous life. To many, having one car or one watch isn’t enough and so they continue to work more to acquire more. “Keeping up with the Jones’” or just wanting to look good triggers a chain of actions that slowly build up pressure and the first that usually gets affected is your time. This is followed by the pressure to sustain one’s image and a host of other emotional wants that can spiral to an endless loop of must-haves.

An old but handy timepiece adds no value to ones being other than it in can make you look good – for a little while or until someone comes up with a better looking watch than yours. If we learn to look the other way and appreciate the simplest things that life has provided us, we immediately put ourselves on path out of the ‘rat race’ and moving independently forward to a life where we are truly in control.

2.   Connect With Others

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession –Mark Twain

Humans need another human and apart from it, we are like weeds plucked out from a fertile soil and left to wither. A community group must be spiritually nurturing and supporting. It values our diversity and weaknesses while it takes on it’s strength from its common belief systems. We find comfort by the numbers. We find our courage from the support of others and find wisdom from the experiences other community members make. It is like a strand of fiber, when pulled, it easily breaks but when bundled close and tight , it becomes almost unbreakable.

We can only be as strong or as weak as all the members in our chosen community pulled together.

3.   Spend more time with family

The family is the country of the heart –Giuseppe Mazini

As they always say in church and in many books that, “the best things in life are truly free”. The problem is, we refuse to believe or simply do not believe as our little minds are molded by commercialism that “there is no such thing as free lunch”. The biggest treasures that we have are those people that are waiting for us back home who, just wanting to see and share their time with us.

I realized, despite my very busy schedule, that the more time I spent with my wife and kids, I tend to be less worrisome, calm and I smile or laugh more often. Thinking more about them gives me a special purpose and fulfillment in life which is just about everything I need to be happy.

4.   Serving Others

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. -Albert Schweitzer

Being a Christian obliges me to return all the blessing I receive to others in need. Every chance I get, I share anything that comes abundant to me and give it to anyone who have less. This act always gives me a natural ‘high’ that is beyond anything that I’ve felt in the past. This feeling of helping and serving others relieve me from physical tension brought about by problems at work, a sense of genuine purpose and an enlightened spirit.

To be completely scientific about it, an independent research also indicate that any form of help such as: tithing, volunteer work, donations etc prove beneficial to human bodily functions which significantly help reduce emotional pressures and eventually increases life expectancy.

5.   Exercise Regularly & Eat Healthy and Less Foods

As with any well oiled machine, our bodies need regular tune-up much like that of a car. Things like: changing the oil regularly, replacing the spark plugs, the air filter and etc. Our bodies need proper nutrition to keep its bodily functions working properly. It needs regular exercise to condition our muscles to move and burn away excess calories and prevent storing additional body fats.

Our mental and emotional condition is also affected by the food and exercise it gets. The chemistry derived from different variety of food sources influences our moods which in turn influence the decisions and choices we make every day. Basically, we if we feel good about ourselves from inside-out, our emotions stay uplifted and give a general feeling of happiness.

A few months back, something sparked my interest on getting into spot (Foreign Exchange) trading and so I started practicing on demo accounts, enrolling on online courses, attending webinars until finally I openned a live account – a microlot account.

The real trading practice is significantly different from the demo and yes, as expected, I burned some good money away the instant I started placing my trade. It was disheartening at first but I surely got something more valuable to my future as a beginning trader than the money I lost at startup. I gained practical knowledge on the best practices on how to and how not to trade going forward.

For those newbies like me considering on getting into spot trading, here are some practical and no non-sense advice you would definitely find it handy:

The whole idea of getting a life insurance is purely for protection however, there are now a wide variety of life insurances, bundled with some form investments,promising better returns (cash value) and boasts wider coverage. But, before you pull your wallet and get excited please ALWAYS take time to know what you want, how much you can spare, and for how long you wish to keep the policy. Carefully selecting the right life insurance can spare you from disappoitments and save you huge sums of money in the future.

After careful deliberation, you’ll surely be faced with the million dollar question – should you buy a permanent life insurance or term insurance? Here are some useful facts and tips you should consider first before buying.

1. Buy Life Insurance for Protection ONLY

Life insurance is NOT an investment vehicle and should never be considered as such. Many life insurance policies nowadays are bundled with some form of investment component that primarily makes your premium very expensive. To give you an idea, Term Life Insurance will only cost you around 10% of the actual cost you’ll get from Permanent Life Insurance having the same coverage. Also, another reason worth mentioning is that investment component in permanent life insurance policies generally yields very low returns because it does not earn cash value in the first two years from your policy application.

2. Term Life: More value for less

If your young or a middle-aged dad like me, getting a term life insurance policy make alot more sense. A term life coverage at a younger age makes your premium very affordable and the likelihood of you cancelling your policy is less because it’s cheap and sustainable. Fact is, many permanent life insurance policies are cancelled in the first 10 years for the very same reason.

3. Keep it lean and simple.

Do not buy some additional riders you wouldn’t really need and most probably will not use. Insurance riders contain a lot of exclusions that is usually written in fine prints for very obvious reasons – they don’t want you to know. Riders also drive your premium payments up and put more money into your agents pockets. The rule of thumb when getting a policy is, keep it simple and lean. The only exclusion to this rule, in my opinion, is the Waiver of Premium Rider (WoPR). This rider suspends premium payment but keeps your policy active when you become disabled.

4. Buy only from reliable source.

Always do your homework by knowing the financial standing of the insurance company you’re buying a policy from. Don’t be deceived by nice looking brochures or verbal promises made by your agent. Know their financial standing and get opinions from others. You have to know and make sure the company will still be there when you need them.

5. Select a professional insurance agent.

Surely, the first people who will approach you to buy their insurance are either some very close friends of yours or your relatives. My brother bought his from his mother-in-law which he eventually cancelled. My advice is stay away from them and get someone not related to you that can equally be trusted. This will make it easier for you to say no on offers you don’t need or not be ashamed should you want to settle for a low-premium policy. This is one good reason why I find it difficult to cancel my policy which I bought from a close friend.

Foreword: This article was kept back for quite some time until today for the reason that it might cause a stir among many of our business partners, affiliates and a handful of close friends. I do not intend to discredit the medical profession in general nor embarrass anyone. My sole intention is to let them know that they should put people first above all before themselves.

Quality healthcare is one of the very basic benefit every Filipino should and always have. Yet, even those who have and can afford, cannot truly appreciate health care in its true sense of the word. I’d say, much of the problems in service delivery  lies entirely not our government or the system but from the principal drivers of health care – the doctors.

I have listed some common and very annoying habits that doctors do or doesn’t do in the practice of their profession and what med schools should teach to our young graduates.

1. Respect other people’s time.

Have you ever seen a doctor who came in for work on time? Probably there are but in my experience 9 out of 10 doctors never make it on time. What’s even more disheartening is the fact that people graciously accept doctors’ tardiness. No one expresses anger or disappointment whenever the doctor come in late for work. Instead, they are greeted with respect and reverence much like greeting a priest in a confessional. Also, our chronically tardy doctors were given ‘safe passes’ or ‘blanket’ acceptance for such socially unacceptable behavior. It’s high time that we should express to our doctors that our time is equally important as their time and that there are no excuse good enough for disrespecting our covenant of properly keeping time.

2. Always consider patient’s financial capacity.

The cost of health care including diagnostic tests and medicines are steep these days most specially with the advancement of very modern medical technology. Ever wonder why doctors prescribe too many lab tests and not even ask if we can afford to pay for it? In retrospect, doctors should always qualify the financial capacity of the patient to pay for medical bills and that procedures should be conservative and given in accordance to patients’ economic status. In other words, before an expensive procedure is to be given to a patient, a low cost alternative must first be considered unless extremely necessary.

If it may help to understand, doctors get as much as 15% to 30% percent (commission) for every laboratory referrals they make to private laboratories. The more referrals they make, the more income they generate – that is how the ‘game’ is played. Sad but true, there are no prevailing health care standards placed by our Government to better monitor and manage medical practice, much like an ISO for the manufacturing industry, and so doctors are left to do basically anything they want without being accountable for anything.

3. Give what is due to the Government.

Doctors make poor businessmen. A dishonest businessmen at that. In fact, they don’t consider their practice a business at all; probably another excuse not to give official receipts and being chronically tardy. Doctors don’t declare how much patients and money they earn for medical consultations. Doctors don’t declare their commissions or referral fees they get from private laboratories and hospitals. Doctors don’t declare cash gifts and bonuses. And, doctor’s refuse to deduct taxes from services rendered to insurance holders. Well, if there is anything these doctors want to deduct from, it probably is their obligation of service and charity to their countrymen.

4. Stop asking favors.

We are in the business of health care and, part from being that, we hire doctors to manage our clinics. If there is truth to what our medical director once said that: “doctors need medical reps for conference sponsorships“. Is it really a need or just merely a want? I pity the medical reps these days for they are reduced by these doctors to become their personal sponsors for conferences and even their dinner parties. This is one major reason why our medicines are among the most expensive in Asia because of the representation costs incurred by drug companies to these doctors. Yes, your doctor is the reason why they are expensive.

5. Work with the system.

Many doctors always seems to feel that they are always a cut above the rest. This probably stemmed from long and expensive education that they feel they should be given special treatment. Thus, being socially placed above the pedestal, they feel that they can work their best if there are less rules to follow. Rules that particularly govern their professional practice.

I can vividly remember when we first installed our first medical director to our chain of medical clinics and discussed on house rules and policies, they (the doctors) started feeling very uncomfortable.

The practice of medicine has changed dramatically over the years most specially with the advent of modern medical technology. We were able to probe deeper and understand primary causes of diseases and how we can protect ourselves from them. But, despite all the advancements, some basic yet very important things hasn’t changed and that is how our modern shamans (doctors) practice their profession for the sake of science?

I must admit, I am not really big on saving money much less on investing. However, we all need to save and make money one way or the other; if we atleast care about securing our future or our children’s future.

The only way I know then on saving money is the same way how most people still do now – apportion an income and place it in a bank. Very crude and ineffective. No wonder saving money takes so much discipline and effort to make it work.

But before we jump in, allow me to say that there are two key elements that must always be considered when saving money. Elements needed to make saving money to work for you, every time. First is doing it ‘automatically’ and second, protecting it from yourself .

1) Saving ‘Automatically’. This means having someone apportion your money for savings on your behalf with no conscious effort. A common example may be automatic deduction by your payroll officer or automatic fund transfers by your bank.

2) Protect from yourself. These may be processes or programs that limits you from touching your nest eggs from unnecessary withdrawals for a  specific period of time.

So what are other ways to save and how do we start it? Here it is:

1. Increase your monthly HDMF (Home Development Mutual Fund) contributions.

I am pretty sure that right now, you are paying only the minimum required by the government for your HDMF or PAG-IBIG. And, what still many of you do not know is that, PAG-IBIG also functions like a bank (a provident saving bank).

Increasing your PAG-IBIG contributions doubles or triples your money since this will be matched equally by your employer. So, say for example, your monthly contribution of 50 bucks is matched equally by your employer with another 50 bucks. That’s easy money! Also, since it is a savings deducted together with your other obligations like your SSS; it is non-tax deductible and earns dividends overtime.

This means the more you contribute the more you earn overtime and without you even knowing it.

2. Get a savings-linked annuities.

Annuities are premium payments made on regular intervals like monthly, quarterly or annually. There are some non-traditional investment vehicles that are now linked to savings. A very good example is a whole life insurance where you pay annuities until the age when you plan to retire and a portion of these premium payments goes to your savings. This way, one is compelled to pay and save at the same time to get covered by an insurance.

I got mine at PruLife UK with a no-frill life insurance plan. Scout for a plan that fits your needs and make sure its linked to savings. To do this ‘automatically’, ask your payroll officer to do an automatic salary deduction and directly deposit the premium payments to the insurance company’s bank account.

3. Save windfalls and extra incomes to savings-linked annuities or other investments.

Yes we do have windfalls once in a while and these may be in a form of bonuses or successful business deals. Windfalls or extra incomes provide for us an opportunity to advance our payments on mortgages, savings-linked annuities, or to buy more investments. The whole idea of advancing payment on savings-linked annuities other than increasing your savings is to protect you from difficult times such as unemployment.

But do not advance your savings-linked annuities too much as you might be putting all your nest eggs in one basket. An 18 to 24 advance payment will do the job and give you enough protection during hard times.

4. Simplify investment. Get a Managed Fund.

I’ve written in my previous blog article that I am completely opposed to putting my savings in a bank since it only earns very little interest plus other deductions. So it’s really not a wise move if you do and it’s only the banks that earns from your hard earned money.

So where do you put your money? Put it in a managed fund. I prefer managed fund because its simple, balanced yet yields higher returns, and less time consuming. This way, my money is diversified across different investments thus making it more secure in the long run.

5. Pretend that you didn’t get a raise.

If you do get a raise, I highly advise you NOT to tell your wife or else… you know I mean. Since you and your family has adjusted to the lifestyle prior to your salary raise, keep your mouth shut and save the extra to any investment vehicles that you may have. Again, you may pay in advance your annuities or make another investments.

You can the again negotiate with your payroll officer to direct deposit the raise to annuities of your choice.

6. Buy Certificate of Deposits (CDs).

A certificate of deposit is a promissory note issued by a bank. It is a time deposit that restricts holders from withdrawing funds on demand. Although it is still possible to withdraw the money, this action will often incur a penalty.

CDs only offers a small annual rate of return, usually around 5%-6% per year but the good part is it prevents you from touching your money unnecessarily. It also provides another good option to place your windfalls or extra income since it only requires a minimum of five thousand (Php 5,000.00) pesos per certificate.

As you can see, there are ways to force yourself to save and there are still some more out there. So far, I only included those that works for me and still slowly increases my savings contribution every so often.