I’m easy.
I mean if you tell me you will not buy from me, I’m cool with it. I will not pester you or badger you. You will hear the end of it right there and then. Promise.
But (sigh), these are not the traits of a master sales (wo)man, traits that, Robert Kiyosaki assures me, will make me very rich.

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“What? You will not give each other any gifts for Christmas?!!!”

I had to laugh at the incredulous look on my sister-in-law’s face as I shook my head from side to side. She could not imagine that we would want no surprises or take no surreptitious trips to the market to find that certain something that would delight a lover.

We have taken the same route with my daughter, who chose her Monopoly game board, Here and Now Edition (electronic banking instead of paper money!), with care, over a coveted Baby Alive (she thought it was too expensive – I am so proud of her). We bought it and wrapped it together and I do not think her excitement waned or was lessened because she still waited for “the day” until she could play with it and play with us (she lost during our first game and wanted to cry but won during the second and got her confidence back – we do not believe in letting her win just because she is a kid).

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I remember a time long ago when “going green” was not yet the “in” thing but just “the right thing to do”.

Circa 1980’s.

We would wait patiently by the side of the road in front of our house for a faint cry: Dyaryoooo! Boteeee! (newspaaaaaaper, booooottles) And when we hear it, we would rush to our house, get all the old newspapers, put them in a stack, get our hands on old glass and plastic bottles – of fish sauce, vinegar, shampoo, softdrinks – and wait for a vision of an old scruffy man pushing a kariton (pushcart). He would waive to us and soon as he is “parked”, we would help him haul the newspapers to his weighing scale. He would then count the bottles, do some math in his head, give us some money (a few cents, some paper) and he would go his merry way. We would waive to mom (asking her for permission but vaguely so she could not say no) and go our merry way too – to the store where we would buy candies and ice-cold soda with the bounty. Such was the life.

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the power to dream of riches and making it come true lies at the core of one’s life – in one’s childhood. His views about poverty, about money, his poverty mindset (money does not grow on trees) and his wealth mindset (money grows on trees) start at that time which is at the root of all his memories.

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I called my daughter, who was busy playing, and asked her: C, what is money? Eyebrows going up, eyes slightly questioning (as if saying, now where is mom going with this), she says, tongue in cheek, voice bored, “It has a lot of numbers and signs on it.” Okay (sounds about right). I made a follow up question: C, do you know how you can make lots of money? Grinning, she answered, her voice lilting and confident, “I can draw it.”

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I had 30 or so cousins. We were quite a gang. We were fearless – we rode on the back of a truck together at top speed without any form of protection, and would even howl in enjoyment when the tires would meet a speed bump, wind on our faces and on our countenances, pure joy. We would go cavorting to the fair together and overwhelm the ferris wheel operator with our sheer number, or go swimming, or see a procession, candles dripping, and heckle whomever we wanted to. We went to vacations riding a jeepney that had a wooden plank in the middle so all of us will fit because it is unthinkable for us to be apart. We told stories as we ate, any and all stories, and slept side by side on makeshift beds.

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Parents, more often than not, are, really, well-meaning. But sometimes, their good intentions do more harm than good. That dole-out would only teach my brother that mommy is there if he gets into straits, that it is okay to spend because mom is there, always there, and she will pay…? No need to stand on his own two feet.

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Stories of the childhood of entrepreneurs always fascinated me. There was always this one fateful episode that would alter their path, make them entrepreneurs and lead them to untold riches – a parent’s influence, a disadvantage, an early realization that it is money which makes the world go round, and that they have got to have it on their side.

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