Understanding the psychology, behavior & values of the rich & would-be rich

By Wilson Lee Flores

Understanding the psychology, behavior and values of the rich & would-be rich

I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money.  --- Pablo Picasso

            The following is a condensed version of my two-hours speech at the 2nd Financial Advisors Congress on October 24, 2013 at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati City:

Image below is from a mobile phone picture taken by Krisell Pedro and which she posted on Facebook, photo below showed the event host introducing me before my speech:

Almost everyone wants to be rich or daydream to be rich, but not all think, behave and act to be rich. I believe we are what we repeatedly think, what we repeatedly believe and  what we repeatedly dare to dream to become.

Differences between the rich and not rich, kinds of rich people

Novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald said: "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” True! That is why we should all aspire to be rich.

Remember this---The world isn’t fair, life is not fair. In our Philippine society, if you are rich you are “petite”, but if poor you are “bansot”. If you are rich you have “scoliosis”, if poor you are “kuba”. If you are rich, you suffered a "nervous breakdown" due to "tension and stress", but if poor you are "sira ang ulo". If rich you are eccentric", if poor you are labelled as "may toyo sa ulo", "may topak" or "may sayad". If you are rich and not making good grades in school, you are described as a “slow learner”, but if poor you are “bobo” or “gunggong”!

For those who claim that “money cannot buy happiness”, the model Bo Derek once said: "Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping."

            Seriously, before I discuss the mindset, behavior and values of the rich, let me first define the different kinds of rich people. The late Enrique Zobel of the Ayala Group and Bank of the Philippine Islands in the 1970s era of student demonstrations, he said in a speech that he could categorize the rich in the Philippines then into three groups – the “profligate rich, the idle rich and the working rich”.

            In this speech, I am tackling only those who are in the “working rich” category, including those who are the investing rich, the entrepreneurial rich and also those people already on the way to becoming rich.

Whether as financial planners, wealth managers, insurance brokers, branch managers, private bankers, trust officers, securities brokers, investment solicitors, and other professionals who offer financial advice and sell financial products, plus me who is a business columnist, all of us are missionaries about the gospel of wealth.

Image below of Tao Zhugong, the first taipan 2,500 years ago, image sourced from en.gmw.cn

            Based on my extensive interviews and studies of the rich, including my personal experiences as an SME entrepreneur who started from scratch because our side of the family wasn’t given our share of the inheritance, here are some ideas on the rich and would-be rich:

1. Focus on wellsprings or sources of cash flow, not just on assets--- Many people think that being rich is about owning lots of assets, I think it is better to own many wellsprings or sources of cash flow to be truly rich. This was a principle of my self-made paternal great-great-grandfather Dy Han Kia who became rich in 19th century Manila by establishing five lumber and furniture-making companies.

2. Have an investing mindset. --- It is not enough to have huge incomes, what is key to wealth is to have an investing mindset. 

3. A small fortune comes from frugality and hard work, a big fortune is from the heavens.---My late educator mother Mary Young Siu-Tin told me this old Chinese proverb. What it means for us is this: by sheer hard work and non-stop thrift, we can attain a minimum level of wealth in our lifetime.

4. Smart people know how to utilize loan, or other people’s money, to grow wealth---My former Ateneo accounting class professor, the banker Maurice Lim said this to our class before and he is right. 

5. Easy money is often easily lost.--- John Gokongwei, Jr. once told me this in passing, years ago before the rise of Napoles and her extravagant daughter. Moral lesson? Don’t go for short-cuts, don’t go for get-rich-quick schemes.

6. Take care of your shinyong or creditworthiness---Pay loans on time, safeguard your integrity among bankers, creditors and your suppliers. Many of the rich flourished even without capital, their capital was their shinyong.

7. Think of debt or loan as an obligation, not as a windfall or income. --- We shouldn’t also be addicted to too much and unnecessary debts. Mad magazine once said, which can apply to many of us too: “The only reason a great many American families don't own an elephant is that they have never been offered an elephant for a dollar down and easy weekly payments.”

8. Do not be afraid of discomfort for yourself or your family members, this advice is true even for self-made entrepreneurs who are raising children thinking they don’t want the kids “to suffer like they did before”. Don’t forget: hardships, discomfort, injustices and struggles are part of the character-building process for many of the self-made rich people in the world.

9. Take care of the small change, not just the big amounts. "A penny saved is a penny earned," said Benjamin Franklin.

10. Do not gamble, except calculated risks in business. Nobody wins in gambling except the casinos. Do not follow example of my great-great-grandfather’s nephew and successor Dy Chau Si, nicknamed “Lau Ah-Si” who gambled and lost 18 commercial shops in one evening in 19th century Manila.

11. Become rich by helping enrich others.--- “Never forget: the secret of creating riches for oneself is to create them for others,” said Sir John Templeton. We enrich ourselves if we can help enrich not only our clients, our business associates, investors and suppliers, but also our employees. China Bank has one of the best corporate slogans: “Your success is our business”

12. Don’t forget the ability to demand payment or collect. --- Lucio Tan years ago told me this one principle from Tao Zhugong (722-476 BC), whose former name was Fan Li. He was a statesman who became a tycoon 2,500 years ago in ancient China through business and his wife Xi Shi was also one of the world’s most beautiful women. Generating a lot of sales is not enough or is nothing, if we do not collect well. Tao Zhugong’s 24 business principles are studied by many overseas Chinese entrepreneurs worldwide.

13. Be fair to people in business dealings. Andrew Gotianun and his wife Mercedes Tan Gotianun of Filinvest Group and East West Bank told me this phrase, which they said has guided the way they do business for decades. I also learned this from my realty client before the late Jane Mallare, wife of ethnic Chinese lawyer and World News publisher Atty. Florencio Mallare.  

14. Low profit margins and big sales volumes. --- This is an old Chinese business strategy, look at SM stores of Henry Sy family, the Cebu Pacific Air and the former Sun Cellular of John Gokongwei, Jr.

15. Invest in people to reap riches --- “If you want one year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want one hundred years of prosperity, grow people, ” said an old Chinese proverb.

16. Be an iconoclast, think differently from the crowd---  “Buy when everyone else is selling and hold until everyone else is buying. That’s not just a catchy slogan. It’s the very essence of successful investing,” said J. Paul Getty, who was named by the 1966 Guinness Book of Records as the world's richest private citizen, worth an estimated $1.2 billion (approximately $8.6 billion in 2012).  “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful,” advised Warren Buffet, today the world’s richest investor.

Warren Buffet image below, sourced from women2.com

17. Customer is king, customer service is important--- “Customers are jade; merchandise is grass,” said a Chinese proverb

18. Riches and big companies start from small --- “The loftiest towers rise from the ground,” this is an old Chinese proverb quoted by pre-war Iloilo’s immigrant tycoon Pedro Marquez Lim to his grandson John L. Gokongwei, Jr. when the latter was a little boy walking in Calle Rosario (now Quintin Paredes Street), Binondo, Manila and marvelling at the buildings. Let us patiently build up riches from small beginnings and persevere.

19. Delayed self-gratification is key to riches & success---Save and think for the long-term, if necessary, self-sacrifice for the future generations. The Hollywood actor Will Smith hit the bull’s eye, when he said: "Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like."

20. Non-stop education is source of riches and success. Primacy of education is rooted in the moral teachings of the philosopher Confucius. I am not referring to just the act of collecting school diplomas, but of non-stop learning, reading, asking. Brian Tracy said: “Today the greatest single source of wealth is between your ears.”

21. The goal is not money itself, but excellence, productivity and fulfilment. Money is only a scorecard.  Why do many of the so-called “working rich” keep on working still up to now, it is not about the money, it’s the thrill, the sense of adventure and fulfilment in creating and making the world a better place through one’s business and vocation. The great philosopher Confucius said: “Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

22. Success is our birthright and destiny, we just have to struggle to claim it. Every crisis, failure or obstacles are only temporary setbacks or aberrations, because we’ll soon flourish! Don’t forget: The poorest man on earth is not the person without money, but those without a dream.

23. Giving is real wealth--- Not only do I personally believe that being generous to others is the best way to spend and truly enjoy riches, I also believe generosity also brings us so much unexpected blessings and more wealth too.

Erich Fromm said: “Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.” The self-made tycoon Andrew Carnegie said: “Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.” I’m not religious, but the Bible also said in Acts 20: 35: “The Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

Immigrant tycoon & philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, image below from explorepahistory.com

***

Thanks feedback! E-mail willsoonflourish@gmail.com or follow WilsonLeeFlores on Twitter, Instagram.com, Facebook and http://willsoonflourish.blogspot.com/

Harvard students by the hundreds are now studying ancient Chinese philosophy, for success & better lives

Why hundreds of Harvard students now studying ancient Chinese philosophy to change their lives for the better?  

How to be truly successful and enjoy a balanced life of tranquility? Let us learn from the world's oldest living civilization with over 5,000 years of recorded history. The wisdom of ancient Chinese philosophy and Confucian moral teachings offer the rest of the world priceless insights, more non-Chinese like hundreds of Harvard University students in the United States are learning all these nowadays. It is not only the "economic miracle" of China and Asia which should be the reason for us to study Chinese culture, but its unique Chinese philosophy and diverse ideas.

Let me share this interesting article from The Atlantic authored by Christine Gross-Loh on October 8, 2013: 

Image below of America's oldest and most prestigious Harvard University, sourced from www.top10rankings.org 

Below is image of Hong Kong actor Chow Yun Fat playing the role of the great teacher and philosopher Confucius, image sourced from www.seeraa.com  

Why Are Hundreds of Harvard Students Studying Ancient Chinese Philosophy?

The professor who teaches Classical Chinese Ethical and Political Theory claims, "This course will change your life."

BY: CHRISTINE GROSS-LOH OCT 8 2013, 10:49 AM ET

Picture a world where human relationships are challenging, narcissism and self-centeredness are on the rise, and there is disagreement on the best way for people to live harmoniously together.

It sounds like 21st-century America. But the society that Michael Puett, a tall, 48-year-old bespectacled professor of Chinese history at Harvard University, is describing to more than 700 rapt undergraduates is China, 2,500 years ago.

Puett's course Classical Chinese Ethical and Political Theory has become the third most popular course at the university. The only classes with higher enrollment are Intro to Economics and Intro to Computer Science. The second time Puett offered it, in 2007, so many students crowded into the assigned room that they were sitting on the stairs and stage and spilling out into the hallway. Harvard moved the class to Sanders Theater, the biggest venue on campus.

Prof. Michael Puett, image below sourced from  ealc.fas.harvard.edu

Why are so many undergraduates spending a semester poring over abstruse Chinese philosophy by scholars who lived thousands of years ago? For one thing, the class fulfills one of Harvard's more challenging core requirements, Ethical Reasoning. It's clear, though, that students are also lured in by Puett's bold promise: “This course will change your life.”

His students tell me it is true: that Puett uses Chinese philosophy as a way to give undergraduates concrete, counter-intuitive, and even revolutionary ideas, which teach them how to live a better life.  Elizabeth Malkin, a student in the course last year, says, “The class absolutely changed my perspective of myself, my peers, and of the way I view the world.” Puett puts a fresh spin on the questions that Chinese scholars grappled with centuries ago. He requires his students to closely read original texts (in translation) such as Confucius’s Analects, the Mencius, and the Daodejing and then actively put the teachings into practice in their daily lives. His lectures use Chinese thought in the context of contemporary American life to help 18- and 19-year-olds who are struggling to find their place in the world figure out how to be good human beings; how to create a good society; how to have a flourishing life.

Puett began offering his course to introduce his students not just to a completely different cultural worldview but also to a different set of tools. He told me he is seeing more students who are “feeling pushed onto a very specific path towards very concrete career goals” than he did when he began teaching nearly 20 years ago.  A recent report shows a steep decline over the last decade in the number of Harvard students who are choosing to major in the humanities, a trend roughly seen across the nation’s liberal arts schools. Finance remains the most popular career for Harvard graduates. Puett sees students who orient all their courses and even their extracurricular activities towards practical, predetermined career goals and plans.

Prof. Michael Puett of Harvard, image below sourced from  www.asia-institute.org

Puett tells his students that being calculating and rationally deciding on plans is precisely the wrong way to make any sort of important life decision. The Chinese philosophers they are reading would say that this strategy makes it harder to remain open to other possibilities that don’t fit into that plan. Students who do this “are not paying enough attention to the daily things that actually invigorate and inspire them, out of which could come a really fulfilling, exciting life,” he explains. If what excites a student is not the same as what he has decided is best for him, he becomes trapped on a misguided path, slated to begin an unfulfilling career. Puett aims to open his students’ eyes to a different way to approach everything from relationships to career decisions. He teaches them that: 

The smallest actions have the most profound ramifications. Confucius, Mencius, and other Chinese philosophers taught that the most mundane actions can have a ripple effect, and Puett urges his students to become more self-aware, to notice how even the most quotidian acts—holding open the door for someone, smiling at the grocery clerk—change the course of the day by affecting how we feel.

That rush of good feeling that comes after a daily run, the inspiring conversation with a good friend, or the momentary flash of anger that arises when someone cuts in front of us in line—what could they have to do with big life matters? Everything, actually. From a Chinese philosophical point of view, these small daily experiences provide us endless opportunities to understand ourselves. When we notice and understand what makes us tick, react, feel joyful or angry, we develop a better sense of who we are that helps us when approaching new situations. Mencius, a late Confucian thinker (4th century B.C.E.), taught that if you cultivate your better nature in these small ways, you can become an extraordinary person with an incredible influence, altering your own life as well as that of those around you, until finally “you can turn the whole world in the palm of your hand.”

Recent research into neuroscience is confirming that the Chinese philosophers are correct: Brain scans reveal that our unconscious awareness of emotions and phenomena around us are actually what drive the decisions we believe we are making with such logical rationality. According to Marianne LaFrance, a psychology professor at Yale, if we see a happy face for just a fraction of a second (4 milliseconds to be exact), that’s long enough to elicit a mini emotional high. In one study viewers who were flashed a smile—even though it was shown too quickly for them to even realize they had seen it—perceived the things around them more positively.

Decisions are made from the heart. Americans tend to believe that humans are rational creatures who make decisions logically, using our brains. But in Chinese, the word for “mind” and “heart” are the same. Puett teaches that the heart and the mind are inextricably linked, and that one does not exist without the other. Whenever we make decisions, from the prosaic to the profound (what to make for dinner; which courses to take next semester; what career path to follow; whom to marry), we will make better ones when we intuit how to integrate heart and mind and let our rational and emotional sides blend into one.  Zhuangzi, a Daoist philosopher, taught that we should train ourselves to become “spontaneous” through daily living, rather than closing ourselves off through what we think of as rational decision-making. In the same way that one deliberately practices the piano in order to eventually play it effortlessly, through our everyday activities we train ourselves to become more open to experiences and phenomena so that eventually the right responses and decisions come spontaneously, without angst, from the heart-mind.

If the body leads, the mind will follow. Behaving kindly (even when you are not feeling kindly), or smiling at someone (even if you aren’t feeling particularly friendly at the moment) can cause actual differences in how you end up feeling and behaving, even ultimately changing the outcome of a situation.

While all this might sound like hooey-wooey self-help, much of what Puett teaches is previously accepted cultural wisdom that has been lost in the modern age. Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do,” a view shared by thinkers such as Confucius, who taught that the importance of rituals lies in how they inculcate a certain sensibility in a person.  In research published in Psychological Science, social psychologist Amy Cuddy and her colleagues found that when we take a power stance (stand with our legs apart, arms thrust out, taking up space), the pose does not only cause other people to view us as more confident and powerful; it actually causes a hormonal surge that makes us become more confident.

At the end of each class, Puett challenges his students to put the Chinese philosophy they have been learning into tangible practice in their everyday lives. “The Chinese philosophers we read taught that the way to really change lives for the better is from a very mundane level, changing the way people experience and respond to the world, so what I try to do is to hit them at that level. I’m not trying to give my students really big advice about what to do with their lives. I just want to give them a sense of what they can do daily to transform how they live.” Their assignments are small ones: to first observe how they feel when they smile at a stranger, hold open a door for someone, engage in a hobby. He asks them to take note of what happens next: how every action, gesture, or word dramatically affects how others respond to them. Then Puett asks them to pursue more of the activities that they notice arouse positive, excited feelings. In their papers and discussion sections students discuss what it means to live life according to the teachings of these philosophers.

Once they’ve understood themselves better and discovered what they love to do they can then work to become adept at those activities through ample practice and self-cultivation. Self-cultivation is related to another classical Chinese concept: that effort is what counts the most, more than talent or aptitude. We aren’t limited to our innate talents; we all have enormous potential to expand our abilities if we cultivate them. You don’t have to be stuck doing what you happen to be good at; merely pay attention to what you love and proceed from there. Chinese philosophers taught that paying attention to small clues “can literally change everything that we can become as human beings,” says Puett.  

To be interconnected, focus on mundane, everyday practices, and understand that great things begin with the very smallest of acts are radical ideas for young people living in a society that pressures them to think big and achieve individual excellence. This might be one reason why, according to the Chronicle for Higher Education, interest in Chinese philosophy is taking off around the nation—not just at Harvard. And it’s a message that’s especially resonating with those yearning for an alternative to the fast track they have been on all their lives.

One of Puett’s former students, Adam Mitchell, was a math and science whiz who went to Harvard intending to major in economics. At Harvard specifically and in society in general, he told me, “we’re expected to think of our future in this rational way: to add up the pros and cons and then make a decision. That leads you down the road of ‘Stick with what you’re good at’”—a road with little risk but little reward. But after his introduction to Chinese philosophy during his sophomore year, he realized this wasn’t the only way to think about the future. Instead, he tried courses he was drawn to but wasn’t naturally adroit at because he had learned how much value lies in working hard to become better at what you love. He became more aware of the way he was affected by those around him, and how they were affected by his own actions in turn. Mitchell threw himself into foreign language learning, feels his relationships have deepened, and is today working towards a master’s degree in regional studies. He told me, “I can happily say that Professor Puett lived up to his promise, that the course did in fact change my life.”

CHRISTINE GROSS-LOH is the author of Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us (Avery, 2013)

Image below of Confucius quotation in ancient Chinese calligraphy and its English translation, sourced from www.chilture.com

Success Secret: The hardest victory is the victory over self.

"The hardest victory is the victory over self." --- Greek philosopher Aristotle

Image below of Aristotle, sourced from martinfrost.ws



This is one of the true secrets to success that most of us human beings either do not know, refuse to acknowledge or just simple cannot do.

Conquest of our own selves in terms of self-discipline, self-study, self-evaluation of strengths as well as weaknesses, nonstop self-training, all these are essential for achieving true and enduring success.

Outstanding entrepreneurs, great writers, exceptional artists, champion athletes and other peoples from all walks of life have attained the hardest of all victories which is the victory over self!


Here are photos of two super entrepreneurs who I admire for their business genius and discipline:

Image below of  world's wealthiest investor, the simple-living Warren Buffett, sourced from money.cnn.com



Asia's wealthiest billionaire as of 2013 is the disciplined, hardworking and simple-living "rags-to-riches" entrepreneur Li Ka Shing of Hong Kong, image below sourced from online.wsj.com




Imags below of athletes, sourced from salempress.com

China's female realty tycoon is richer than Donald Trump or Oprah! WOW

China is not only rising to soon become the world's ultimate biggest economic superpower, it is also changing socially, economically and culturally with the emergence of equal opportunities for women as shown by more and more successful women entrepreneurs.

Here I wish to share the inspiring, remarkable sage of a self-made real estate businesswoman in modernizing China.

China's "rags-to-riches" real estate billionaire Zhang Xin, image below sourced from money.cnn.com

Another Zhang Xin image below, sourced from cbsnews.com

This image below of Zhang Xin, sourced from forbes.com

The article below is from CNN:

Richer than Trump or Oprah: Meet China's female property magnate

From Pauline Chiou, CNN

 

July 3, 2013 -- Updated 1429 GMT (2229 HKT)

Richer than Trump or Oprah

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Zhang Xin runs China's largest real estate developer with her husband
• Worth $3.6 billion, she is the world's seventh richest self-made woman
• She grew up in poverty during China's Cultural Revolution

Beijing (CNN) -- Zhang Xin grew up in poverty and at the age of 14 began a laboring job in a factory. Today, she is richer than Donald Trump, Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey.

Zhang, a Chinese real estate developer, is the seventh richest self-made woman in the world, worth $3.6 billion, according to Forbes. She's worth $800 million more than Oprah Winfrey, the world's best known self-made female billionaire.

Not only does Zhang's rags-to-riches story mirror that of China itself, but it is Zhang who has shaped much of the country's modern urban landscape, with the logo of her company SOHO China on the side of buildings wherever you turn in Beijing.

SOHO China has 18 developments in Beijing, many of them landmark buildings, and has recently expanded to Shanghai, where it has bought or built 11 properties.

China's real estate opportunities

Galaxy SOHO, designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Zaha Hadid for Zhang' SOHO China, was built in 2012 on a 50,000 square meter plot in central Beijing. It was Hadid's first building in Beijing.

With its gracefully merging dynamic form devoid of corners, Galaxy SOHO, has become a landmark building in on Beijing's East 2nd Ring Road.

SOHO China's development Commune by the Great Wall is a collection of 42 villas by 12 Asian architects with a private pathway to the Great Wall of China. This villa is called Suitcase House by Hong Kong architect Gary Chang.

Commune by the Great Wall was exhibited at the 2002 Biennale di Venezia, where it received a special prize.

SOHO Peaks, currently under construction and due to open in 2014, is a second building by the architect Zaha Hadid, midway between Beijing city and airport.

The design of SOHO Peaks, by architect Zaha Hadid, is based on Chinese fans that circle and embrace each other.

Sky SOHO, due for completion this year, is a third development designed by architect Zaha Hadid, this time in Shanghai. The design is based on calligraphy.

Sanlitun SOHO, completed in 2010, comprises of five shopping malls and nine office or apartment buildings of varying heights in Beijing.

Sanlitun SOHO has become one of the liveliest shopping streets in Beijing, with its five malls linked with a rollerskating rink and mesmerizing courtyard.

China's changing skyline

Landmark buildings

Luxury on the Great Wall

Prize-winning architecture

Future peaks

Chinese fans

Shanghai style

The future of shopping

Beijing's new night sky

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China's changing skyline

Two of her Beijing projects -- one completed last year and another under construction -- are designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid.

Zhang, 47, was born in Beijing just before Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, when educated people like her parents were sent to the fields for "re-education." She returned to Beijing with her mother, but they endured poverty and hardship.

Banking boss: Nothing scares me

"I was born and grew up when the city was very quiet: no cars, no shops, no lights, no machines. People were just on bicycles," she said.

Tina Brown: 'Taking risks comes easily'

Read: 'Taking risks comes too easily,' says editor Tina Brown

At 14, she and her mother moved to Hong Kong, where she spent five years in low-paid factory jobs, manufacturing toys, clothes and electronics, trying to save enough to go to England for an education.

I was born and grew up when the city was very quiet: no cars, no shops, no lights, no machines.
Zhang Xin

"As a new immigrant to Hong Kong with no education, no background, didn't even speak the local language or dialect, Cantonese, and it was just a hard way to live in Hong Kong," said Zhang.

It took Zhang five years to save enough for a plane ticket to London and an English language course. She won a scholarship to university, studied for a master's degree in economics at Cambridge University and landed her first job at Goldman Sachs in New York.

Instead of remaining in her comfortable life in Wall Street, Zhang returned to Beijing, where she met her husband, and together they started SOHO China.

"There was excitement of people talking about how to change China, and it was a very intellectually vibrant time," she said. "I felt that this country was really making a transition, and I wanted to be a part of that."

Since Zhang and her husband, Pan Shiyi, formed SOHO China in 1995, it has become China's largest commercial real estate developer, with 56 million square feet in prime developments in Beijing and Shanghai.

While Zhang's story is incredible -- giving her celebrity status in China -- it is not unique. Of Forbes' 2013 list of 24 self-made female billionaires, six are from China (including one from Hong Kong), more than any other country outside the United States.

"I think women of our generation went through Cultural Revolution, went through hardship, coming from nowhere, and suddenly see China's amazing opportunity," said Zhang. "So women just seized the opportunity."

I felt that this country was really making a transition and I wanted to be a part of that.
Zhang Xin

Read: In search of the female Indiana Jones

Zhang has a following of more than 5 million on Weibo, the Chinese social media site often compared with Twitter, where she shares her views on business, current affairs and architecture.

But despite her financial success, Zhang, who practices the Baha'i faith, avoids excessive trappings of wealth, even suggesting her 14-year-old son find a job in McDonald's or KFC. He tried, but was too young to be accepted.

"It's not easy to be my sons because we're very high profile. We try so hard to give them a normal life," she said.

"I'm very, very tight with them about money. I don't give that money until they ask, 'I need 100 yuan for my lunch card,' and so on. So they never have extra money. But I think that still cannot compare to how we came, where we came (from)."

A secret behind successful, hardworking & highly efficient people, why keep on striving even when already a success?

Why some already seemingly successful folks still work, study and innovate non-stop?

A lot of people say to hardworking people in Tagalog or the Filipino language: "Hindi mo madala 'yan sa hukay. (You cannot take it with you to the grave)."

For most hardworking, disciplined and efficient people, it's never about the money or the accomplishments, it's being productive, making the most of life and our God-given talents, it's about striving for excellence nonstop.
Here is a quote I want to share, which can partly explain the phenmenon of disciplined and driven people...

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me." --- Erma Bombeck


World's wealthiest investor tycoon, the hardworking and simple-living Warren Buffett, also a philanthropist. Image below sourced from money.cnn.com





Asia's richest self-made tycoon, Hong Kong billionaire taipan and philanthropist Li Ka Shing who is well-known for his frugality, simple lifestyle and hard work. Image below sourced from ualberta.ca




The Italian artist and genius Michaelangelo, this image below sourced from socialmedianews.com.au

I read this inspiring story about this courageous and idealistic Jewish rabbi named Herschel Schacter. Ideal for Holy Week reading.

I highly recommend that we read and share this story to others. Uphold goodness, faith and righteousness in this world! Best wishes!

(Image below of Buchenwald student conference - David Shechter - September 2011, sourced from haaretz.com)







Rabbi Herschel Schacter Is Dead at 95; Cried to the Jews of Buchenwald: ‘You Are Free’

via Yad Vashem

Rabbi Herschel Schacter leading the Shavuot prayer service for survivors in the Buchenwald camp in Germany in 1945.

New York Times article by  Margalit Fox

Pu

blished: March 26, 2013

The smoke was still rising as Rabbi Herschel Schacter rode through the gates of Buchenwald.

Multimedia

Photographs

Buchenwald’s Liberation, as Seen by Louis Nemeth

Librado Romero/The New York Times

Rabbi Herschel Schacter in 1999.

It was April 11, 1945, and Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army had liberated the concentration camp scarcely an hour before. Rabbi Schacter, who was attached to the Third Army’s VIII Corps, was the first Jewish chaplain to enter in its wake.

That morning, after learning that Patton’s forward tanks had arrived at the camp, Rabbi Schacter, who died in the Riverdale section of the Bronx on Thursday at 95 after a career as one of the most prominent Modern Orthodox rabbis in the United States, commandeered a jeep and driver. He left headquarters and sped toward Buchenwald.

By late afternoon, when the rabbi drove through the gates, Allied tanks had breached the camp. He remembered, he later said, the sting of smoke in his eyes, the smell of burning flesh and the hundreds of bodies strewn everywhere.

He would remain at Buchenwald for months, tending to survivors, leading religious services in a former Nazi recreation hall and eventually helping to resettle thousands of Jews.

For his work, Rabbi Schacter was singled out by name on Friday by Yisrael Meir Lau, the former Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, in a meeting with President Obama at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.

In Buchenwald that April day, Rabbi Schacter said afterward, it seemed as though there was no one left alive. In the camp, he encountered a young American lieutenant who knew his way around.

“Are there any Jews alive here?” the rabbi asked him.

He was led to the Kleine Lager, or Little Camp, a smaller camp within the larger one. There, in filthy barracks, men lay on raw wooden planks stacked from floor to ceiling. They stared down at the rabbi, in his unfamiliar military uniform, with unmistakable fright.

“Shalom Aleichem, Yidden,” Rabbi Schacter cried in Yiddish, “ihr zint frei!” — “Peace be upon you, Jews, you are free!” He ran from barracks to barracks, repeating those words. He was joined by those Jews who could walk, until a stream of people swelled behind him.

As he passed a mound of corpses, Rabbi Schacter spied a flicker of movement. Drawing closer, he saw a small boy, Prisoner 17030, hiding in terror behind the mound.

“I was afraid of him,” the child would recall long afterward in an interview with The New York Times. “I knew all the uniforms of SS and Gestapo and Wehrmacht, and all of a sudden, a new kind of uniform. I thought, ‘A new kind of enemy.’ ”

With tears streaming down his face, Rabbi Schacter picked the boy up. “What’s your name, my child?” he asked in Yiddish.

“Lulek,” the child replied.

“How old are you?” the rabbi asked.

“What difference does it make?” Lulek, who was 7, said. “I’m older than you, anyway.”

“Why do you think you’re older?” Rabbi Schacter asked, smiling.

“Because you cry and laugh like a child,” Lulek replied. “I haven’t laughed in a long time, and I don’t even cry anymore. So which one of us is older?”

Rabbi Schacter discovered nearly a thousand orphaned children in Buchenwald. He and a colleague, Rabbi Robert Marcus, helped arrange for their transport to France — a convoy that included Lulek and the teenage Elie Wiesel — as well as to Switzerland, a group personally conveyed by Rabbi Schacter, and to Palestine. 

For decades afterward, Rabbi Schacter said, he remained haunted by his time in Buchenwald, and by the question survivors put to him as he raced through the camp that first day.

“They were asking me, over and over, ‘Does the world know what happened to us?’ ” Rabbi Schacter told The Associated Press in 1981. “And I was thinking, ‘If my own father had not caught the boat on time, I would have been there, too.’ ”

Herschel Schacter was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn on Oct. 10, 1917, the youngest of 10 children of parents who had come from Poland. His father, Pincus, was a seventh-generation shochet, or ritual slaughterer; his mother, the former Miriam Schimmelman, was a real estate manager.

Mr. Schacter earned a bachelor’s degree from Yeshiva University in New York in 1938; in 1941, he received ordination at Yeshiva from Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, a founder of the Modern Orthodox movement.

He spent about a year as a pulpit rabbi in Stamford, Conn., before enlisting in the Army as a chaplain in 1942.

After Buchenwald was liberated, he spent every day there distributing matzo (liberation had come just a week after Passover); leading services for Shavuot, which celebrates the revelation of the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai, and which fell that year in May; and conducting Friday night services.

At one of those services, Lulek and his older brother, Naftali, were able to say Kaddish for their parents, Polish Jews who had been killed by the Nazis.

Discharged from the Army with the rank of captain, Rabbi Schacter became the spiritual leader of the Mosholu Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue on Hull Avenue in the north Bronx. He presided there from 1947 until it closed in 1999.

He was a leader of many national Jewish groups, including the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, of which he was a past chairman. He was most recently the director of rabbinic services at Yeshiva.

Rabbi Schacter, who in 1956 went to the Soviet Union with an American rabbinic delegation, was an outspoken advocate for the rights of Soviet Jews and an adviser on the subject to President Richard M. Nixon.

A resident of the Riverdale section of the Bronx, Rabbi Schacter is survived by his wife, the former Pnina Gewirtz, whom he married in 1948; a son, Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter, who confirmed his father’s death; a daughter, Miriam Schacter; four grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

And what of Lulek, the orphan Rabbi Schacter rescued from Buchenwald that day? Lulek, who eventually settled in Palestine, grew up to be Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau.

Rabbi Lau, who recounted his childhood exchange with Rabbi Schacter in a memoir, published in English in 2011 as “Out of the Depths,” was the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel from 1993 to 2003 and is now the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv.

On Friday, when Rabbi Lau told Mr. Obama of his rescue by Rabbi Schacter — he thanked the American people for delivering Buchenwald survivors “not from slavery to freedom, but from death to life” — he had not yet learned of Rabbi Schacter’s death the day before.

“For me, he was alive,” Rabbi Lau said in an interview with The Times on Monday. “I speak about him with tears in my eyes.”