Book Series: SENIOR MOMENTS ARE FOREVER

49th Moment: Rural Entrepreneurs, Advertising and Leftist Lions

My 49th Installment on “Senior Moments are Forever” at the Bicol Mail and bicolmail.net Thanks Guys for following. ---------------------- A bad lesson on advertising; There is a restaurant in Naga city that displays a sign “free sack of rice tomorrow” - very few customers come to eat. They wait for tomorrow! ---------------------- It is very difficult to teach the village people entrepreneurship. They interpret profit as the cost of labor. In fact, sometimes they don’t want to make a profit from their co-villagers at all. ---------------------- I was wondering how we can improve the lives of small entrepreneurs if, whenever we buy their goods, we keep on bargaining to the point that they are almost always forced to borrow money for their fare to go back home! ---------------------- And then there is Fermin who just came back to the village with his brand-new Mercedes Benz. Knowing that Fermin never finished elementary his friends asked why he became so rich. Fermin told everybody – “I joined an entrepreneurship development training workshop run by a guy named Rudy Baldemor. After the training, I got involved in buy and sell. I learned that in order to make a profit you just multiply the cost of the good you bought with the profit margin that you want, and bingo you will make money.” So his village friends asked him to explain how to do it. “It’s simple, it’s just like this. When you buy P10 worth of good and you want to make 5% profit, you just multiply P10 by 5 and you sell it for P50”. ---------------------- Before my laboratory tests after my car accident, I thought Pipino (cucumber) is only for removing eye bags or age lines of women; and garlic is only to add flavor to foods or to drive away vampires. Now I am an expert at making Pipino salad and my morning scrambled eggs look like a garlic pizza! ---------------------- I conducted my own survey and study: The number one ambition of 9 out of 10 Filipinos is how to own a cell phone! The most famous farm animal in the Philippines is the Carabao, but few people know its scientific name. The most famous farm animal in the world is the Chicken. No religion or country prohibits eating it. The modern sport of bungee jumping originated on the remote island of Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu. The most famous folk hero in Jamaica is Bob Marley. St Lazarus hid in Cyprus to escape persecution from the Jews. All high-rise buildings do not have a 13th floor. ---------------------- Lions are leftists: In Africa, I learned that lions are leftists. While on a group safari in Zimbabwe our guide taught us that if we are faced with a lion we should never stay on their front or their left side because they will easily strike. We must be always on the right side or on the tail side. We were asked to try it with a domesticated lion. I immediately pointed to my companion on my left! ---------------------- I took this one from a friend who told me a story: One time he went to a restaurant and asked the waiter about their SPECIALTY and the waiter said, “oh we have many kinds of TEA; jasmine tea, green tea, lemon tea”! ---------------------- A Crab story: We had two village projects in Mindanao on Crab Fattening. I told one group to work well on their project because their competitor is able to raise their crab so big that one arm if split into two, the other half can be used as a boat that can accommodate two people. In the other group, I told them to raise their crabs bigger because their competitor can raise their crabs so big that one crab can feed the whole barangay for three days. I was about to tell them that it was a joke when one villager, with wonder in his eyes, asked me how big was the cooking pot to accommodate the crab! ---------------------- Five “Es” how to deal with Enemies or Toxic People (Instruction: Do it step by step; start from No. 1 – not from No. 5) 1. Estimate – their power and strength 2. Ensure – that they commit more mistakes 3. Envelope – them separately from your major concerns 4. Eliminate – them from your list when their power diminishes 5. Exterminate – them if they come to persist and continue to pose a big threat to you and your constituents, clients, friends, partners, and allies. ---------------------- When your enemies are committing mistakes do not stop or correct them. Give them time to commit more so they can dig their own graves. ---------------------- Hindus and death: While traveling in rural Nepal we passed a huge bridge and saw people converging around a pile of burning logs at the river bank. I asked our driver what it was all about. I was informed that those were Hindus cremating their dead. So, I wondered how the ashes of the dead are carried along the river during high tide and how the fish would enjoy their meal out of it. I never ate freshwater fish in Nepal after that. But it is the reason why I decided that my body should be cremated when it is my time. ---------------------- Sometimes it is better to leave the poor in their peaceful miseries. Trickledown economics does not work from above, the market economy is only effective if there is a market, and free enterprise is only true if people are free.