Hi Everybody,
My name is Tim, from Bangkok, Thailand. I’ve been in here reading this forum for several months but didn’t register until now. I am not really good at giving comments or contribution to a discussion board in general.
After reading The Millionaire Fastlane for the third time, now I’d like to introduce myself to the community.
I bought “The Millionaire Fastlane ” in 2011. Because English is not my first language, my reading speed is slow and it took me almost 5 months to complete the reading. Then I read it for the second time. This morning I finished my third-time reading.
This book pretty much reflects my sidewalk and slowlane life.
I’d like to share story of my life.
The Great Deception is real (and it is everywhere)
I am a Thai person, born in Northern Thailand, in a poor farmer family. Tim is my real name.
During time I was born, everybody in our villages was so poor (Even now they don’t get any better). There were no roads, no automobile, no electricity and no means of communication. When people wanted to go somewhere, they either walk of commuted by cow chariots. The majority of area of our town (or even city we were in) were jungle. Our only one occupation was being farmers – to grow rice.
In The Millionaire Fastlane , there is one section MJ wrote “The well salaried workaholic who is never home to strengthen the relationship with his wife and kids is likely to be less happier than the poor farmer in Thailand who spends half his day tending to his fields and the other half with his family.”
When I read that I thought of my father. Yes, he was a happy man.
My parents, all my relatives, every adult I knew, and even school teachers always taught me the same thing. It is something like “Don’t become a farmer. It’s too hard for you. Instead, go to school, get good grades, get the highest education level as much as you can and get good salary”. <Chapter one: The Great Deception>. I’d heard these words thousands of times.
As far as I can remember, the idea of going to school and get a good job was with me since I was a kid. And I believed it. I think it this was the same for other kids in my town or other towns.
I kept telling myself “I have to study, I have to go to college, graduate and get good job. Then I will have more money”
Able to crawl out of the jungle but WRONG direction
Primary school has been compulsory education level in Thailand. So every kid had to attend school from year 1 to year 6. Good portion of study couldn’t make it to year 6 due to financial problem. Only 1 out of 20 was able to continue with secondary school (pre-high school)
One thing I knew at that about getting education with less or no money is to win a scholarship. I won scholarships on the way. I was the only one among few kids who were able to go beyond secondary school.
I moved to Bangkok to have higher education. I was able to study in university through government’s scholarships. Not just any university, it’s one of the best universities. I chose Engineering as my major study. Only reason I have for this was at that time only engineers and doctors get good salary. Good salary still stuck in my head.
I studied very hard.
Into Sidewalk
After I graduated, I had to work in a government organization to compensate government’s money while I was studying.
One significant thing about working for government is the salary is very little. I had no choice but to work there. There are 9 grades for government officers. Start with level 3 and end with 11.
Level 3, new officer with salary THB6500 Thai Baht ($200) per month, and about $7 increase per year, depending work performance. Normally people would need to stay 3-5 years at this level. Level 7 is for senior officers, salary is approximately THB20,000 ($700) per month. People will need at about 15-25 years to get to this level!!
Level 8-10 are for office directors, with salary between THB30,000 to 45,000 (max $1500) per month. It needs about 25+ years to get to this level, and most never make it. Level 11 is for head, deputy and general secretary of each ministry with maximum salary of THB70,000 ($2,300) per month. Less than 0.01% of government officers are able to reach this level.
If labors are not counted, government jobs earn the lowest salary among all jobs in Thailand. No offense to government officers, but it is the truth. However, each year more than 200,000 people apply and take examination for government jobs. Less than 3,000 people are accepted.
Why? I think it is another fault belief that society has put into our heads. Here is saying in my culture that everyone knows. “Work for government, it is the most secured job. Free hospital, free healthcare, and free insurance. When we retired, the government pay us for the rest of our life”. Yes it is true. But the real truth is one will get the worst hospital, worst healthcare and worst insurance. When one retired, the government pays 50% of salary as the form pension, at age 60. In my country, people have Life expectancy of 70 years.
Ok, back to my sidewalk life story. I worked for the government for a few years. As soon as my obligation period ended, I quitted and jumped to private company which paid much better.
Then I started to have credit cards, bought some new stuff, went out for party, I made a few loans for something unnecessary etc. And more credit cards. <CHAPTER 5 - The Sidewalk Roadmap>. Besides that I needed to support my niece throughout college years and I had to send money back home. Not too long I found myself full of expenses.
I went from one job to another. Only one purpose in mind at that time was to get better salary. At one point, I had the conclusion that I should get to industry that (I thought) it pays the best and stay there for a long time – Airline industry. Finally I got a job in commercial airline company. I thought I had good money.
In to mediocrity
At this point, even I had a lot of expenses, I managed to save 5-10% of my income which I started a few years back. Also I put some % into a fund. I still had a dream to buy a nice house, live in better environment and have lovely family. Before this I read some domestic best-seller books that recommend to save 10% of your income, pay your debt and live below your mean. I had to do this and I hoped this would help < THE SLOWLANE IS A PLAN OF HOPE >.
I realized that my current pay was not enough and also I got bored of my current job. So it was time to make a change again. Honestly out of my knowledge, my education I have so far, and all talent I had that was only thing I could think of. Get a better JOB!
There is one industry whose job pays a lot of money. Its entry level would get equivalent to $30,000 a year. In the country’s economy I am in, that amount is a lot. The job is ERP consultant (Enterprise resource planning) in a large factory. ERP is to do with management information across an entire organization. Not really to do with computer, but it’s rather planning.
I spent my own time to attend a few courses on ERP for about 9 months which I hardy learned anything. I only needed it for when I fill in application forms what special certificates I have. Here, certificate or special training is considered to be advantages.
I got the job in multi-billion dollar company.
I worked there for a while. At one point in time, I have approximately THB500,000 ($17,000) in saving and in what they called a 5-year terms fund. It’s big. But it is not big enough to buy a big thing in life, for example a new genuine & standard house here cost around 3 millions up. I have to save like this another 5 times to get one house. That is 35 years, not to mention the need for spending on car, family, kids, etc.
If I go for a loan, that amount was only sufficient for down payment for a house. Then I would probably have to pay for mortgage THB20,000 a month ($650) for another 25 years. Now I started to realize that working as employee is not a correct route to have enough money – not to mention a lot of money.
I had good salary but I never had enough money. There was always something to pay <Choices>.
Following Guru’s advice “Be your own boss”
It was 2008. I’d worked for 8 years now.
I met someone who was quite success. He recommended me to read a book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”. I did. In the book, the author says something like “Be our own boss, don’t work for others, own your business and get out of Employee side.
It just seems to be coincident as 3 friends who knew while in university contact me a few times if I wanted to join them to start a company. Without much of hesitation, I quitted my job and joined them. At that time everything looked so good as we seemed to have similar goals. Our business was to sell electronic parts to factories. I have 25% of the share. It turned out that I had to work 14 hours a day – no holiday.
The business wasn’t so good either. We made little money and it was hardly enough for all the costs including salary of 4 of us. Then we started to have some conflict about each person’s ideas. Sometimes we had big argument related to question who is doing what and who is not doing what. < CHAPTER 41 -- Throw Hijackers to the Curb!, THE BUSINESS MARRIAGE: PARTNERS>
I went to hospital for 2 weeks because of back pain I. Before things get worst, the company was closed down after 12 months of operation. All went back to normal employee life. I lost some money and 1 year.
It was 2009, I still had those saving with me. I turned to one of my close friends for advice. Bad idea! He told me I should invest. I believed him because he as a degree of master of finance <CHAPTER 14 -- The Hypocrisy of the Gurus: Broke Know-It-Alls>
I don’t know what to invest on because I have zero knowledge of investment. So I sought investment opportunity including stocks but I didn’t go very far.
Only a few months after that, I got two. One was to open a restaurant – a big restaurant with group of people I slightly know. This group of people opened 7 night clubs in Bangkok and they got very successful. Now they wanted to move to restaurant market. Two friends who suggested me to this business already received THB20,000 ($700) per month past 6 years from 2% share for night clubs they put it.
So I put approximately THB300,000 ($10,000), constitute of 5% of the total the restaurant investment, with projected return of THB10,000 per month as soon as it turns profit. I believed it was good deal. In fact, I know nothing about it. I believe these people will do business well and I would profit from it. <HITCHHIKERS DON’T DRIVE!>
This is almost all my life saving. 3 years later, next month (August 2012) the restaurant will close down because there is no sign of profit. I jumped into this with zero knowledge of what was going on in restaurant business. <CHAPTER 9 -- Wealth Demands Accountability: THE LAW OF VICTIMS >
Second investment, open a company (again). Back to 2009 again, I got a call from a 45-year old women friend I knew from one company I worked for earlier. I knew her quite well. She told me about opportunity in cleaning industry. A few months later, we established a cleaning service company in Bangkok. We have 3 shares. I put THB300,000 ($10,000) – 33% of the ownership.
At this point all my life saving was gone + some debt.
One year in 2010 we have revenue of THB4.8 million ($160,000) a year, with THB500,000 ($17,000) as profit. This profit will go to some expenses later. Virtually no loss and also no profit yet.
Second year the revenue dropped. Found that not only us could start a cleaning service company. Anybody with little money and cheap cleaning equipment could do it. In our area, there are more than 12 companies. In business directory, there are over 400 companies in Bangkok. Why didn’t we notice them before? That was still a question. < The Commandment of Entry> < The Commandment of Scale>
Sometimes I saw my partner cried out because of a lot of stress from managing unskilled workers. <Ashlyn Gardner story> <A MONEY TREE THAT NEVER GROWS>
Back to 9-5 job
We used to have 60 cleaning staff. Due to the big flood in Bangkok last October for almost 2 months, there were no customers no staff. Our office was under water. After the flood, we expected to have more customers but it turned out to be no staff and no equipment supplier. So we temporally stop operations and I get back to employee life again. Not to blame anything, only to blame ourselves for lack of planning and business skills. I was back to 9-5 job again.
That time was the time I found The Millionaire Fastlane Book. While looking for some inspiration book to read, I found in one forum where people discussed about the excellent review the book has in Amazon.com. I bought the book.
It took me 5 months to complete reading. It is not only inspirational, it’s mind-shifting.
While reading it, I one half of me wanted to cry and another half wanted laugh. I said to myself “I should have read this book sooner. Or someone should have written something like this long time ago”. I can’t believe the majority of people are so blind and have fault belief about our freedom.
Now I realize that I’ve just wasted 13 years of my life”.
Nevertheless, thanks God I found this book.
And thanks MJ for uncovering the truth and show us the right path.
The question is I am 35 years old now. I know I can’t get my 13 years back.
Is it a little too late? Is there still time to get to the Fastlane?
I don’t know, but I need to make a big turn now! This morning I started doing something.
I want to come back again one day and write story like this but this time I want it to be something more successful.
Ok, that is all about myself.
Thank you everyone for reading my (long) post.
::Edit typo
My name is Tim, from Bangkok, Thailand. I’ve been in here reading this forum for several months but didn’t register until now. I am not really good at giving comments or contribution to a discussion board in general.
After reading The Millionaire Fastlane for the third time, now I’d like to introduce myself to the community.
I bought “The Millionaire Fastlane ” in 2011. Because English is not my first language, my reading speed is slow and it took me almost 5 months to complete the reading. Then I read it for the second time. This morning I finished my third-time reading.
This book pretty much reflects my sidewalk and slowlane life.
I’d like to share story of my life.
The Great Deception is real (and it is everywhere)
I am a Thai person, born in Northern Thailand, in a poor farmer family. Tim is my real name.
During time I was born, everybody in our villages was so poor (Even now they don’t get any better). There were no roads, no automobile, no electricity and no means of communication. When people wanted to go somewhere, they either walk of commuted by cow chariots. The majority of area of our town (or even city we were in) were jungle. Our only one occupation was being farmers – to grow rice.
In The Millionaire Fastlane , there is one section MJ wrote “The well salaried workaholic who is never home to strengthen the relationship with his wife and kids is likely to be less happier than the poor farmer in Thailand who spends half his day tending to his fields and the other half with his family.”
When I read that I thought of my father. Yes, he was a happy man.
My parents, all my relatives, every adult I knew, and even school teachers always taught me the same thing. It is something like “Don’t become a farmer. It’s too hard for you. Instead, go to school, get good grades, get the highest education level as much as you can and get good salary”. <Chapter one: The Great Deception>. I’d heard these words thousands of times.
As far as I can remember, the idea of going to school and get a good job was with me since I was a kid. And I believed it. I think it this was the same for other kids in my town or other towns.
I kept telling myself “I have to study, I have to go to college, graduate and get good job. Then I will have more money”
Able to crawl out of the jungle but WRONG direction
Primary school has been compulsory education level in Thailand. So every kid had to attend school from year 1 to year 6. Good portion of study couldn’t make it to year 6 due to financial problem. Only 1 out of 20 was able to continue with secondary school (pre-high school)
One thing I knew at that about getting education with less or no money is to win a scholarship. I won scholarships on the way. I was the only one among few kids who were able to go beyond secondary school.
I moved to Bangkok to have higher education. I was able to study in university through government’s scholarships. Not just any university, it’s one of the best universities. I chose Engineering as my major study. Only reason I have for this was at that time only engineers and doctors get good salary. Good salary still stuck in my head.
I studied very hard.
Into Sidewalk
After I graduated, I had to work in a government organization to compensate government’s money while I was studying.
One significant thing about working for government is the salary is very little. I had no choice but to work there. There are 9 grades for government officers. Start with level 3 and end with 11.
Level 3, new officer with salary THB6500 Thai Baht ($200) per month, and about $7 increase per year, depending work performance. Normally people would need to stay 3-5 years at this level. Level 7 is for senior officers, salary is approximately THB20,000 ($700) per month. People will need at about 15-25 years to get to this level!!
Level 8-10 are for office directors, with salary between THB30,000 to 45,000 (max $1500) per month. It needs about 25+ years to get to this level, and most never make it. Level 11 is for head, deputy and general secretary of each ministry with maximum salary of THB70,000 ($2,300) per month. Less than 0.01% of government officers are able to reach this level.
If labors are not counted, government jobs earn the lowest salary among all jobs in Thailand. No offense to government officers, but it is the truth. However, each year more than 200,000 people apply and take examination for government jobs. Less than 3,000 people are accepted.
Why? I think it is another fault belief that society has put into our heads. Here is saying in my culture that everyone knows. “Work for government, it is the most secured job. Free hospital, free healthcare, and free insurance. When we retired, the government pay us for the rest of our life”. Yes it is true. But the real truth is one will get the worst hospital, worst healthcare and worst insurance. When one retired, the government pays 50% of salary as the form pension, at age 60. In my country, people have Life expectancy of 70 years.
Ok, back to my sidewalk life story. I worked for the government for a few years. As soon as my obligation period ended, I quitted and jumped to private company which paid much better.
Then I started to have credit cards, bought some new stuff, went out for party, I made a few loans for something unnecessary etc. And more credit cards. <CHAPTER 5 - The Sidewalk Roadmap>. Besides that I needed to support my niece throughout college years and I had to send money back home. Not too long I found myself full of expenses.
I went from one job to another. Only one purpose in mind at that time was to get better salary. At one point, I had the conclusion that I should get to industry that (I thought) it pays the best and stay there for a long time – Airline industry. Finally I got a job in commercial airline company. I thought I had good money.
In to mediocrity
At this point, even I had a lot of expenses, I managed to save 5-10% of my income which I started a few years back. Also I put some % into a fund. I still had a dream to buy a nice house, live in better environment and have lovely family. Before this I read some domestic best-seller books that recommend to save 10% of your income, pay your debt and live below your mean. I had to do this and I hoped this would help < THE SLOWLANE IS A PLAN OF HOPE >.
I realized that my current pay was not enough and also I got bored of my current job. So it was time to make a change again. Honestly out of my knowledge, my education I have so far, and all talent I had that was only thing I could think of. Get a better JOB!
There is one industry whose job pays a lot of money. Its entry level would get equivalent to $30,000 a year. In the country’s economy I am in, that amount is a lot. The job is ERP consultant (Enterprise resource planning) in a large factory. ERP is to do with management information across an entire organization. Not really to do with computer, but it’s rather planning.
I spent my own time to attend a few courses on ERP for about 9 months which I hardy learned anything. I only needed it for when I fill in application forms what special certificates I have. Here, certificate or special training is considered to be advantages.
I got the job in multi-billion dollar company.
I worked there for a while. At one point in time, I have approximately THB500,000 ($17,000) in saving and in what they called a 5-year terms fund. It’s big. But it is not big enough to buy a big thing in life, for example a new genuine & standard house here cost around 3 millions up. I have to save like this another 5 times to get one house. That is 35 years, not to mention the need for spending on car, family, kids, etc.
If I go for a loan, that amount was only sufficient for down payment for a house. Then I would probably have to pay for mortgage THB20,000 a month ($650) for another 25 years. Now I started to realize that working as employee is not a correct route to have enough money – not to mention a lot of money.
I had good salary but I never had enough money. There was always something to pay <Choices>.
Following Guru’s advice “Be your own boss”
It was 2008. I’d worked for 8 years now.
I met someone who was quite success. He recommended me to read a book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”. I did. In the book, the author says something like “Be our own boss, don’t work for others, own your business and get out of Employee side.
It just seems to be coincident as 3 friends who knew while in university contact me a few times if I wanted to join them to start a company. Without much of hesitation, I quitted my job and joined them. At that time everything looked so good as we seemed to have similar goals. Our business was to sell electronic parts to factories. I have 25% of the share. It turned out that I had to work 14 hours a day – no holiday.
The business wasn’t so good either. We made little money and it was hardly enough for all the costs including salary of 4 of us. Then we started to have some conflict about each person’s ideas. Sometimes we had big argument related to question who is doing what and who is not doing what. < CHAPTER 41 -- Throw Hijackers to the Curb!, THE BUSINESS MARRIAGE: PARTNERS>
I went to hospital for 2 weeks because of back pain I. Before things get worst, the company was closed down after 12 months of operation. All went back to normal employee life. I lost some money and 1 year.
It was 2009, I still had those saving with me. I turned to one of my close friends for advice. Bad idea! He told me I should invest. I believed him because he as a degree of master of finance <CHAPTER 14 -- The Hypocrisy of the Gurus: Broke Know-It-Alls>
I don’t know what to invest on because I have zero knowledge of investment. So I sought investment opportunity including stocks but I didn’t go very far.
Only a few months after that, I got two. One was to open a restaurant – a big restaurant with group of people I slightly know. This group of people opened 7 night clubs in Bangkok and they got very successful. Now they wanted to move to restaurant market. Two friends who suggested me to this business already received THB20,000 ($700) per month past 6 years from 2% share for night clubs they put it.
So I put approximately THB300,000 ($10,000), constitute of 5% of the total the restaurant investment, with projected return of THB10,000 per month as soon as it turns profit. I believed it was good deal. In fact, I know nothing about it. I believe these people will do business well and I would profit from it. <HITCHHIKERS DON’T DRIVE!>
This is almost all my life saving. 3 years later, next month (August 2012) the restaurant will close down because there is no sign of profit. I jumped into this with zero knowledge of what was going on in restaurant business. <CHAPTER 9 -- Wealth Demands Accountability: THE LAW OF VICTIMS >
Second investment, open a company (again). Back to 2009 again, I got a call from a 45-year old women friend I knew from one company I worked for earlier. I knew her quite well. She told me about opportunity in cleaning industry. A few months later, we established a cleaning service company in Bangkok. We have 3 shares. I put THB300,000 ($10,000) – 33% of the ownership.
At this point all my life saving was gone + some debt.
One year in 2010 we have revenue of THB4.8 million ($160,000) a year, with THB500,000 ($17,000) as profit. This profit will go to some expenses later. Virtually no loss and also no profit yet.
Second year the revenue dropped. Found that not only us could start a cleaning service company. Anybody with little money and cheap cleaning equipment could do it. In our area, there are more than 12 companies. In business directory, there are over 400 companies in Bangkok. Why didn’t we notice them before? That was still a question. < The Commandment of Entry> < The Commandment of Scale>
Sometimes I saw my partner cried out because of a lot of stress from managing unskilled workers. <Ashlyn Gardner story> <A MONEY TREE THAT NEVER GROWS>
Back to 9-5 job
We used to have 60 cleaning staff. Due to the big flood in Bangkok last October for almost 2 months, there were no customers no staff. Our office was under water. After the flood, we expected to have more customers but it turned out to be no staff and no equipment supplier. So we temporally stop operations and I get back to employee life again. Not to blame anything, only to blame ourselves for lack of planning and business skills. I was back to 9-5 job again.
That time was the time I found The Millionaire Fastlane Book. While looking for some inspiration book to read, I found in one forum where people discussed about the excellent review the book has in Amazon.com. I bought the book.
It took me 5 months to complete reading. It is not only inspirational, it’s mind-shifting.
While reading it, I one half of me wanted to cry and another half wanted laugh. I said to myself “I should have read this book sooner. Or someone should have written something like this long time ago”. I can’t believe the majority of people are so blind and have fault belief about our freedom.
Now I realize that I’ve just wasted 13 years of my life”.
Nevertheless, thanks God I found this book.
And thanks MJ for uncovering the truth and show us the right path.
The question is I am 35 years old now. I know I can’t get my 13 years back.
Is it a little too late? Is there still time to get to the Fastlane?
I don’t know, but I need to make a big turn now! This morning I started doing something.
I want to come back again one day and write story like this but this time I want it to be something more successful.
Ok, that is all about myself.
Thank you everyone for reading my (long) post.
::Edit typo
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