Imagine

I've been interested in starting up a business for some time. To move away from having a job, where you serve your boss, where you do something and get paid by someone else who is running the show. I want to run the show. To do that means you've got to start using your imagination. And you've got to imagine a market, and customers, and a product or service. Being a businessman is not very different from being a teacher. Your product either sells, or it sucks. Same with the teacher.

How to keep customers (or students) happy is a measure of how much the teacher cares, how happy the teacher (or seller) is doing what he is doing. Doing what works gives a sense of reward, a sense of enjoyment. Success in teaching depends on how much the teacher believes in what he is doing, and how much of himself he can see in the student, or how much he can see the student inside himself.

I have not known what to do with my money while I have been in Korea. I have made a lot of effort, and many attempts, to find an investment, a way to make my money work for me. There's only so far you can go using email and the internet. When it comes down to money, you really need to know you can trust the person who is advising you, that you are both on the same playing field.

So, if I return to Korea, I'd like to set up a way for expats to invest their money. Some sort of mechanism that finds the best and biggest advantage to being a foreigner in Korea. Maybe it is investing in blue chips like KT and Samsung. Maybe it is in some kind of Korean unit trust. Maybe it is finding specialists in different countries and synchronising the investment between them, and a source here. I don't know the answer, but I know I'd like a system like that - an easy to invest system, one that works and is easy to understand - I'd like that to be here. Maybe there is one already. But this is an area worth looking into.

If I go through my blog I can see that I've had plenty of flashbulbs - bright little ideas like this. Some I forget about, some I am too busy to attend to. I'd like to get around to them, otherwise I'll be a teacher, with just a teacher's salary my whole life. I'd like to start a habit where I devote myself, wholeheartedly, and passionately, to one idea a month. Even if I abandon it completely, at least I will learn something new, and grow.
This idea, (which sounds better :MoneyGrow or Octopi Investments) is something I'd like to discuss with Alex. He's a banker in South Africa, and we studied together. I'll see him the day after Christmas. Despite regular contact I was not able to find a way to leverage my finances, but I hope being face to face with him will provide me with some directions. I am obviously not totally dependent on him, but I do realise he is a professional in the area of finance, and I feel it is worthwhile putting first things first - getting the best information from the word go.

I also see how intrusive thinking can be. I think a lot. That's why I write so much. It interferes with my training, it diverts energy - from exercise and sleep - into mental buzz. Need to change that. If I think it must be about what I can DO, not neverending hypothesis or constant analysis. In December I'd like to see my training begin to dominate again, have a resurgence of physical activity and put the buzz in the background.


Imagination. It's far more important than intelligence. I told this to my two adults today.
By means of an illustration, I explained how intelligence, thinking, often limits what you can do. It often tells you what you can't do.
Imagination asks: what if? What if people could fly?
Intelligence says: Impossible. We have no feathers, we're too heavy.
Imagination: But what if we could. Wouldn't that be amazing.
Imagination asks, Intelligence answers, often with 'No.'.
The imagination allows us to dream, and if we are consistent in seeing our dreams, in dreaming our dreams, then the intelligence will try to find a way to bridge the gap, to find a solution. It may not be quite what we visualise - a man flapping his arms with planks attached. But it will allow us to fly.

Think less, imagine more.


>