allegorical kung-fu

Previously , I thought that since I haven’t experienced failing in business I wouldn’t also lose in some midget war in life!  My archi-stud friend in HKU thought that all of my life experiences will be far more superior compared to any strategist’s plans.  In business, I’m continually amazed that my core strategies are really sound (even if it looks crazy) but maybe not too usable in real life. I was brought up as a child in a rough public market environment.  I grew up seeing gang wars (use of psywars), extreme gambling (where I got my love for statistics), drugs (not me.  my seatmates sa chess club), national scale syndicates (where my opportunity meister skills have been sharpened) and most things where a kid of a military father will be exposed.  I grew up to understand the simple actions, reflexes, slight hand movements, facial gestures, phrasing of words, use of words, timing of speech and a lot of other things that I process to relate to an opportunity for attack.  I know I see an opportunity faster than most people and it is usually without the knowledge of the prey that it’s that weakness that I’m using as an entry point.

During high school, we were trained by a renowned chess teach, psychological chess!  Contrary to public opinion national level speed chess is not on the technical and logical skills (since it is assumed that you already have that).  It is more on the control of emotions.  I’m used to acting weak when I’m strong and acting strong when I’m weak.  I know what intensity of tapping (and wrecking too) of the chess clock that would bring fear, anger, guilt, liking (if chics) and insult to an unsuspecting opponent without using words.  I know how to use sounds, eye movements and especially timing to mount attacks.  Maybe that is what was meant by Carlo on his testimonial, “sa kibot kibot nya pa lang pirdi ka na”.  I play on rhythm and intensity on blitz games. All of these helped me become a good strategist in business since it is very much like chess!  You just consider winning and not care how badly your opponent looses (hala..i remember some vivid emotional crys of some competitors), as long as you get what you want.  I attacked with a lot of funny things in business where Jun remarked last Sunday, “wala ka man ya business ethics when you do such!”  It’s business.  It is how things are.  Evolve or die out in the cold as I always say.

To do these you must not be understood by anyone.  You must purposely act weird by letting people see your capacities of being extremely good and extremely bad beyond their imaginations!  But these capacities must be also true.  That’s why Iva says, that I really have a very simple life that I’m complicating when most people coat their complicated lives in simplicity! I was sharing to John the strategy of how these grade 3 rice traders ensure winning in business in far away places.  And unlike the kids of these people, I can’t mix personal life with business.  How I wish I can.  How I wish I would use all my “allegorical kung-fus” to manipulate people by hiding in the cloak of weirdocrity (hahaha.creating words again..) to just get what I want (even if it’s wrong).  How I wish that the level of my personal ethics is the same as my business ethics!  How I wish I wouldn’t really care about how badly they’ll get stumped and used that they will not be able to go back to their lives!  How I wish that I may really be coerced to show my true capacities (even if I don’t need to).  How I wish I can just show what can be possible (as I do in business) without hurting people.  How I wish I wouldn’t care how they’ll feel after.  How i wish i’ll challenge my “no lose” statistics.  But I’m not really this same person in real life.  I am a very simple person with a conscience who listens to friends even if I may look like a hard-headed moron!hahaha

As a retrospect, daw hindi naman ni maintindihan sang iba na tawo except for the people I mention here who understands the nitty bits inside the seeming complications of my twisted mind.  I just need to let this out.

oddest of ideas

as i was thinking this evening sa lawn, i can’t explain my feelings.  perhaps i’m more disillusioned, happy, sad, thankful and amazed of how things are just coming in connection.  i feel like i’m playing a level 21 game of tetris where all of my choices just fit in perfectly (with no logical time for thinking despite crushing pressure).  things are becoming second nature to me and im eye-popped, “how can this be statistically possible?”.

after four years of waiting, our satellite tv project is just unfolding to reality in slow motion of absolute joy!  despite the problems things just fit in perfectly.

1.  i came to know this very artistic internationally trained architect who has the highest CQs (creativity quotient) of all the persons i know in my appreciation.  his creativity transcends beyond visual arts, structural forms, interiors and some wild imaginations of concepts of lines and curves.  i enjoy having coffee with him (most of the time he pays even if its my pleasure..hehehe)!  specifically, i enjoy his imagination in taking worthless pieces of things to look like things of magnified real value.  his treatment of cement and marble, ordinary flush door with glass and a lot of other things.  things you wouldn’t think that only cost this much.  he is ingeniously creative which amazingly shifts my perceptions of value.

and should i say, he is designing our satellite tv shop and some drawing for the vendo?

“ecstatic me”,  i said!

2.  we have a long waiting project of fabricating water vendo machine (we have existing prototypes).  we are however afraid to move on even if we have the knowledge and technology because we dont have the money for it to run properly.  we need to get IPO (intellectual property office) documents for it that would need two years of court hearings on the special court for IPO (i guess we would spend 2M for all the IPO grants, patents, requirements and permits).  all of which are preoperating expenses (luckily pre operating expenses can be amortized)!

our solution?  once our satellite tv project (which could sell 4-6M a month) runs, i’ll risk it all without waiting for the 2-year registration process.  we will do it simultaneously and risk court suits (which i think is just a 40% probability since by deductive reasoning i know that they don’t have the IP).  risking will allow us to place vendos inside malls.  i think we could sell 2400 80z dispensed water per machine.  at 2 pesos per glass that’s 4,800 per machine.  maybe two in the foodourt, two on both back entryways for the stairs, 1 on each floor and 1 on the supermarket.  we’ll have 6 performing assets at 28,800 pieces of 1 peso coins per mall per day at 90% gross profit margin!  water can’t cost 1200 and operating expense wouldnt be over 1800 on a daily basis.  one peso coins?  imagine?  i don’t even plan to make my staff manually count it!  kilohon lang (prob is hindi magba-to ang bangko sang kilohay)!whahahahaha

additonally it is controlled by a PLC (process logic controller) that is connected to an SMS messenger output.  the PLC will interpret the sensors service requests (sensors like TDS meter, low level float swithes, height sensors, weight sensors..i can’t even imagine how was it possible to think of these)  and will send the interpretaion thru SMS (short messenging service or text as oftenly called).  service requests like 25% water level, full coin box, auto-off when someone purposely squeeze in a contaminant and other operational management application that is imaginable to the human mind!  also the machine can receive and interpret commands from sms syntaxes (feeling inventor na gd ang buang!  pati ah..assembly lang ni of readily available modules on the net)

i’m ecstatic on this nitrous spraying moments.  however i am also sad.  with these, i feel that i’m tempted to cross the darkside.  success will allow me to have disposable income of unimaginable proportions.  this could make me afford the best chics in town on a daily basis (i saw that a 10,000 peso chic is drop dead gorgeous, wavy haired, tall, sophistcated with words and sexy!  with no strings attached pa!), get all of the gadgets i need for beyond your comprehension things i so dreamed when i was young, make me more proud and not step on ground, it could allow me to shift opinions of right and wrong together with the opinions of those near me and a lot of other darkside things.

i hope that i can and will still do the right things despite of the tempts and odds.

i can compare the feeling with my early speed chess days where i am amazed that my hand-mind coordination is faster than my eye!  we can finish off in 10 seconds a 30-move 2-bishop ending!  i guess my mind moves my hands without my eye seeing!  ofcourse gnapajogging kami upod sang football team to have less flabby weight for faster hands, we are given the right vitamins and i’m allowed to see my crush without striking a conversation (to increase the killer instinct mindset)!hehehe

thinking like a child

our school system tends to prevent us from “thinking like a child”!  artists would often hold art workshops not only for the purpose of teaching kids the love for the arts but to be also amazed with kid’s artworks that is beyond societal inhibitions!  a great influence for an entirely different set of artworks for an art show.

same with business, our school system make us believe that a lot of concepts are impossible.  parang impossibility is the only possibility.  parang if you hear of specualative business concepts people will tend to shrug it off and line delineating words of non-acceptance.  if you make it they’ll buy a book from you!  ofcourse one of the favorite lines i read, “entrepreneurs write the experience in a book, while employee-types love to read the hard experiences and propagate the book without acting”.  perhaps its true.  perhaps we are so wired with impossibilities in our educational system that we have automatic-eject mechanisms when we hear of speculative things.  And will only flip acceptance if we see real results.  to think ideas are of the same value when it was just on “plant stage” and “reap stage”, however the “plant stage” is more exciting!

i’ll write some seemingly impossible things i did in the past 4 months and i will do in the following 4 months.

 1.  converting a 20-peso (5 for the sack and 15 for the scrapper) bag of thrash to a 180,000 – 350,000 worth artpiece (see accumosaic.com).  look at the photo of the entry st. anthony public art commission.

2.  have revenues of 4-6M per store per month (opening apr 15 2007) from satellite tv equipments and subscriptions sales, after-sales support, spareparts and people service with only 200,000 in capital!  any cpa would think that its 1:240 equity to sales ratio.  a very risky proposition if not impossible! (note: 4 years to process an approval for this business concept inside sm malls and good reputation from creditors)

3.  sell 20,000 peso worth of water a day with 95% gross profit ratio per sm mall!  how to do that?  10,000 8oz of water per sm mall at 2 pesos per glass!  4 vendos.  use sm’s glasses sa foodcourt para water and electricity lang ang cost.  (note: we are building this vendos ourselves!)

please share a lot of impossible things that you would flip into the realm of possibilities.