Breaking the Cycle of Poverty

By Arlito Gomez

Most people know how to make money. Even the poorest of the poor know how to make money. However, Making more money and growing it requires skills, disciplines, and financial intelligence. This book is all about it; how to have the right mindset, the right attitude, and the right financial knowledge and using them to developing financial intelligence, which is the only way to breaking the cycle of poverty.
​Breaking the Cycle of Poverty is about the author’s life story how he climbed-up to the top of the corporate ladder from being an ordinary employee. The author, due to hardship in life decided to quit college and seek education outside the confines of school. It turned, out the author discovered, that seeking education outside of school is the best and fastest way to educate oneself financially and many other aspects of life that would give one an advantage.
​The author came from a long line of farmer family. His father was the first to obtain diploma in the family. Even though his father became a professional public school teacher, poverty never left the family. At a very young age, the author learned the value of hardwork not as a choice but as necessity. He is grateful that he had to pass through those hardships which helped develop his strong determination to get out of poverty.
​The author’s grandparents initiated the quest of the family to break the cycle of poverty. They thought that education is the great equalizer in life that will give their children the fare chance to prosper in life, but completely breaking the chain of poverty requires more than academic education and diploma. By studying the life of many successful people, the author discovered that it is not actually academic education or diploma that makes people wealthy. It’s ​financial education that can lead to financial intelligence that will make a person wealthy. He used this new knowledge to further his status both in his career and in business. He is the first in the family to finally break the chain of poverty. Currently, the author is working as Senior Executive Vice President in a property management company in Thailand while his wife is running their consultancy business at home in the Philippines. The author recently started Summer Publishing House as the publisher of this book right in his backyard in the Philippines.
The author, along with this book, has started a foundation “Break the Cycle of Poverty Philippines Foundation Inc.” to provide basic business education, manage-to-own business, and mentoring to deserving poor Filipino families. The proceeds of this book will initially fund the said foundation. By buying this great book, you not only learn the secrets to prosperity, but help relieve poverty of many selected deserving poor families in the Philippines.​

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arlito Gomez
• Release date: Jul 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476476551

Arlito Gomez

The author is the third in the family of six. He was born in Mindanao to a pair of public school teachers; raised and grew-up in Donsol, Sorsogon, Philippines --a once sleeping farming and fishing small town, but now a popular tourist destination for being the whale shark capital of the world. Arlito Gomez graduated elementary and high school in Donsol, Sorsogon, then bounced from one university to another trying to find the right college course that will get him and his family out from poverty. He finished a vocational course –General Radio Communication Operator in 1993 hoping to land a job in a shipping company, but by the time he started looking for a job after embarking on a two-year religious mission, he cannot find one. The job has been obsolete already due to the advent of internet based communications. He decided to go back to school and took-up a business course at Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Sta. Mesa, Manila after passing the scholarship entrance examinations of the school. But in the middle of the second semester, he realized that school has nothing to offer to get him to his dream of becoming rich and out of poverty. He started looking for lucrative jobs in real estate and insurance while trying to educate himself about the things that could lead to his dreams in life –in business. After staying in the real estate industry for a couple of years as property consultant while doing part-time life insurance underwriting at the same time, he decided to test the waters in business. It took him 6 failed business attempts before he successfully grew a small chain of pharmacy –Maharlika Drug in Sorsogon province with the help of his pharmacist wife. Unfortunately, in 2006, a super typhoon that regularly visits the province wiped-out the main store that left them with unbearable supplier debts. The couple was left with no choice but to sell the business and free themselves of the debacle. In the middle of these business failures, the author got the chance to attend a two-month intensive entrepreneurial training at the Academy for Creating Enterprise in Cebu City, Philippines with retired businessmen from the U.S. as mentors. He was hired as an instructor and as business development specialist at the same time in this training center a couple of years after his graduation. He considers the training and teaching opportunity at the Academy as the turning point in his career and business. After losing the small chain of pharmacy, the author landed a temporary job in call center just to survive while looking for a lucrative job or business opportunity. After a year, he got hired as Franchise Operations Manager by Generika Drugstore. His stint in the company was cut short when he and his wife saw a much better opportunity in consulting for pharmaceutical companies. He also started consulting to other businesses by making business plans for start-up businesses. In 2011, through a close American friend, he was hired as Senior Executive Vice President of Amethyst Development Co. Ltd. in Thailand and still serving in this capacity at present. He started writing this book a few months after getting hired. Along with this book, he founded Break the Cycle of Poverty Philippines Foundation Inc. The foundation's mission it to help relieve poverty to selected Filipino families through business training, manage-to-own businesses, and business mentoring.

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By ARLITO D. GOMEZ

Copyright 2012 by ARLITO D. GOMEZ

Published by Summer Publishing House at Smashwords

Email: [e-mail]

Smashwords License Statement

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

First Edition 2012

Website: www.breakthecycleph.org

Email us: [e-mail]

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Special thanks to my wife Chari for the support, to Mike Valdez for the insights, to Arneil Aro for the encouragements, to Bret Anderson for the contribution, to Andy Gundaya for helping in the publishing, to Lisa Crawford, Annie Valdez and Susan Reyes for editorial assistance.

CONTENTS

Foreword By the Author iv

Chapter 1 Breaking the chain of poverty 1

Chapter 2 Develop your financial intelligence 33

Chapter 3 Free agency and accountability 59

Chapter 4 Progression 75

Chapter 5 Stagnation and Retrogression 95

Chapter 6 Get real education 123

Chapter 7 Let’s talk about money 141

Chapter 8 Proceed with the end in mind 149

Chapter 9 Think and act like a wise businessman 171

Chapter 10 We were born a salesmen 187

Chapter 11 What the boss wants to hear and see 195

Chapter 12 Never give-up 211

Chapter 13 Guide in Starting a Small Business 225

FOREWORD

I have the desire for a long time now to write an inspirational book that will help change the lives of many. Some years ago, I started writing a few articles about some principles that I have proved to work well for me on my way out of poverty. Those articles have always been on my computer and have never been published nor had any reader aside from my wife (well, some of them). The thing that had been holding me back to write and publish a book is the fact that I have not achieved much in my life yet and doubt if I have the moral authority to preach those principles at all. Even now that I am Senior Executive Vice President of an International company here in Bangkok, Thailand, I am still hesitating. I may have broken the chain of poverty in my life by getting into the column of middle-income earners (by Philippines standard), but I still feel I don’t have the credentials to teach others.

A few months ago, my wife requested that I should write a journal about my life for the kids to read later in their lives that can be their guide, which I immediately obliged, like most husbands would (Don’t get me wrong; at home I am always the one who has the last say…my last say is Yes Dear!)  While writing though, some thoughts crossed my mind: what if something happens to me next week or next month or next year? Will I die not realizing my goal to write a book to show others the way out of poverty? Do I need to be extremely wealthy to help inspire others? Do I need to procrastinate?

The thought magnified when while I was walking along with one of my subordinates who is a 60-year old man (about to retire from the company). While we were climbing up the stairs of an overpass of about 30 steps, my subordinate got to the top faster with so much ease ahead of me (as if he were just walking on a plain road) while I was catching my breath on the way to the top and he was laughing at my performance. I am only 38 years old, but I feel like my body is that of a 60-year old man already. I am bothered with some old age diseases since several years back, at a very young age. My father died at 46; I might be in the same path. So, I decided to write this book and think of each day as if it’s my last.

I am borrowing a line from another author of an inspirational book Dare to Fail which I read almost a decade ago now, Mr. Billi Lim; Lest we be forgotten, when we die and decomposing, write something worth the reading, or do something worth the writing.

Over the years, I learned that to be rich and wealthy is not just a state of your wallet or your net worth; it is more of a state of mind. When you have the mindset of a wealthy person, you are already wealthy, even though riches are not there yet. Riches follow the wealthy-minded person, and I somewhat have proven that in my life. I have no doubt that very soon I will get into the column of the wealthy and completely get my family out of the cycle of poverty. Right now I may be temporarily broke since I don’t have the assets that the wealthy have; but I am not poor, because I don’t think and act like poor do. I have the mindset of a rich man,

When working with Called2Serve Foundation as an Instructor and Business Development Specialist sometime in 2004 at the Academy for Creating Enterprise in Cebu, Philippines, I recognized how great the Academy program was; teaching people on how to start small businesses as a way towards self reliance. However, I realized that many of these students returned to employment, underemployment or unemployment, just like they were before. I feel the need to help them get funding to start a business and continuous mentoring to increase their chances of success. I know too, that there are other foundations that do lend for start-up businesses or livelihood, but don’t provide training and mentoring, thus resulting in failures of the businesses and consequently, failure to pay the loans back.

This is another major reason for me to have this book published so that part of the proceeds of this book will fund the Break the Cycle of Poverty Philippines Foundation, Inc. The threefold mission of the foundation is to provide;

1. Skills training and business education.

2. Manage-to-own-business

3. Mentoring

The complete package offered to selected beneficiaries in the Philippines will ensure success to help these families out of poverty. Thank you for donating to the foundation by buying this book.

The Author

CHAPTER 1

BREAK THE CHAIN OF POVERTY

I will not die in poverty, I will have poverty die on me says one of the great entrepreneurs of our day whose rags-to-riches story is just like those of so many other successful people born and raised in poor families—people who persevered to get out of the purgatory they were born in. They refuse to die under miserable conditions.

I was born in Mindanao (Southern Philippines) where my parents met in their first year as public school teachers. I am the third in the family of six. A month after I was born, my family moved to my father’s small hometown, --Donsol, Sorsogon; a used-to-be sleeping farming and fishing town. Now, Donsol is dubbed as the whale shark capital of the world and a very famous tourist destination in the country both for local and international tourists.

I came from a long line of fishermen/farmer family. My father was the very first in the family to finish college. Back then, a fisherman’s and farmer’s life was not really as hard as it is now. Perhaps it’s the reason why my great grandparents did not bother to send their children to college. I’m glad to say that most of my cousins are now also degree holders. And there are a lot of economic changes that is taking place with our own families now. On my mother’s side, the quest to get out of poverty has begun earlier on, starting from my great-grandparents. As a result, my grandfather became a principal in a public elementary school. But after him, everyone stagnated. All are educated academically, but no one has made it out of poverty yet as far as I know. Completely getting the family out of poverty for many like mine involves a few generations.

Mankind’s greatest achievements did not happen overnight by coincidences and accidents, they are by design and through great efforts of people with noble missions and visions involving many generations; some to sow the seeds, others to grow them, and for many, TO REAP.

In my very young age, I was somewhat exposed to the hardships of life. Even though my parents’ income were a bit better than my father’s siblings who remained farmers and fishermen, our economic condition then was still hard. My father taught us the value of hard work. During school breaks, my older brother and I would go fishing and farming with our relatives, so we can earn money to buy new clothes and help bring food to the table. I sometimes envied my playmates whose lives were better than us; they don’t need to work the way we did to be able to buy new clothes and whatever they wish to buy. Their parents could afford to buy those for them. At that time, I did not understand the values we were gaining from those experiences. I realized later in life the value of those early life experiences and grateful that my parents and my grandparents taught us the value of hard work, even though they had to do it not as a choice, but as a necessity.

However, no matter how determined my parents and grandparents were to get us out of poverty, they never had financial intelligence to pass on to us. We were still in poverty when I was a child. They thought that academic education or diploma alone were already enough to get us out of poverty. Yes academic education can help us make more money, but not how to grow that money. We can’t have financial education at school either. Our current school system does not provide for such. I gained financial education because of my thirst and hunger for knowledge and by studying the lives of successful people, as all financially intelligent people do.

The economic status of my family during my childhood could have been a lot better had my parents developed financial intelligence and have saved or invested some of their income. My father died at age 46 while my mother retired just a few years back. My mother is now living in a scant pension she had acquired over time through her more than 40 years of working for the government as a public school teacher and the pension my father left to her after his untimely death. With the now very expensive cost of living, she needed to ask for additional monthly assistance from us.

I do not blame my parents and grandparents for coming-up short in teaching us all that are needed to break the cycle of poverty in the family. I admire them for providing my parents academic education the best they could as they thought it is the ultimate means for getting out of poverty. They had laid the foundations; the rest is for us to work on.

As I contemplate about life though, a degree is not an ultimate means to get out of poverty. There are so many degree holders out there right now, with some even having masters degree that are still in poverty. Worse, some are even jobless.

During my first years in college, I would bounce from one course to another trying to search for one that would lead me to the dream that my father had envisioned for us. My father would advise us when yet alive to try courses aside from teaching. He wanted us to be rich. He told us to be in business. Just as my father advised, I had always wanted to take-up business course, but knowing that my parents could not afford to send me to a private university to take the course I wanted, I settled with the scholarship grant in agriculture I got by virtue of passing an exam. I did not finish the first semester of that first course. I thought No, not again, I won’t go back to farming! I knew it would never get me to where I wanted to be—a wealthy man.

I then took a vocational course -radio communications operator which my mother pushed me for, with a job at a shipping company in mind. I finished the course on my own by driving a tricycle, and then I went on a religious mission for two years. Upon return, I can’t find a job relating to my course; it had become obsolete with the advent of the internet communications.

I took another scholarship examination at Polytechnic University of the Philippines. Luckily, I passed the qualifying examination and was able to go back to school again, and this time, it’s a business course. I took transportation management and supported myself by working as a rider (motorcycle delivery man) at Kentucky Fried Chicken where I got the privilege of two free meals each day; and as a part-time life insurance underwriter for Insular Life, which I do on weekends. But in the middle of the second semester, I realized, the school doesn’t have anything to offer to get me to my goal. So I stopped, secured a job in sales as a property consultant and I started looking for the real education I needed.

It took me more than a decade though after reading many books on how to get rich, studied entrepreneurship at the Academy for Creating Enterprise (an American training center), worked for them as one of their instructors, and failing several times in business before I figured out that academic education is not what will make one wealthy. It is financial education that will lead to financial intelligence that can make one wealthy. I also realized that even one’s ability to make money is not enough to make him wealthy. Financial intelligence is really the ultimate way out of poverty.

The quest for wealth had me pass through the experience of starting small businesses and employment as manager of several companies and currently as senior executive vice president. These experiences had taught me ways to make more money, now I am mastering the technique of turning that money into assets to keep it growing through financial intelligence. The quest led me to continue to educate myself financially.

Chain of Poverty

The chain of poverty is the condition of being poor. Poverty is like a chain that holds you back from doing what you want to do in life, what you will enjoy the most and what will give you the right reasons to continue to live. When you are under this condition, you are like a prisoner with limited space to move and very short foresight. Wherever direction you look, you face a wall. It’s never enjoyable. It’s a prison. I have yet to know someone being happy while in poverty.

Poverty is the lack of material things, which affects the moral and spiritual aspects of our lives. You cannot instill faith to an empty stomach. Said David O. McKay, a modern religious leader. Poverty is a shackle that keeps you from going anywhere. Poverty is not eternal though. It can be broken. A lot of people have broken it and you can break it. More than 80% of successful people are self-made, which means, you can also do it. All you need are the right tools to get rid of that burden.

Right attitudes are the tools you need to break the chain of poverty in your life.

Cycle of Poverty

The cycle of poverty is the condition of being in the chains of poverty from generation to generation. The cycle is preceded by ignorance of the past generations and the lack of motivation to get out of poverty; thus poverty is passed on from one generation to another. The cycle may involve the future generations if you of the present do not make a strong decision and do the best you can to break it. Your goal should be to break the chain of poverty in your life now and make sure that your children will learn about the principles you used to lift yourself out of poverty so that they will not return to the cycle of poverty that chained you and your ancestors.

When we are living in comfort, we have a tendency to forget the important principles that have kept us from poverty. We have heard plenty of stories about people claiming their ancestors owned such and such but they are living miserable lives because their parents blew what their ancestors left for them.

In my province in Sorsogon, the JB Line Bus Company grew so big (it started from just a pair of passenger jeep) during the lifetime of the original owners that you wouldn’t think anything could happen to the company to make it crumble overnight. But when the aged owners allowed their untrained children to take over the multi-million business, they ran it to the ground so fast it closed business even before their parents closed their tired eyes permanently.

The children who had not passed through the same ordeal in life their parents had, who lived in comfort all their younger days, did not learn the principles necessary to keep them from going back to the cycle of poverty. The parents can be blamed partly for the mistakes that the children made by not passing on to them the principles they needed to keep out of the cycle of poverty. Certainly, the children did not appreciate the business left to them as an inheritance.

While working with a group of Americans in a foundation, I learned one strange principle; they don’t let their children inherit the same business they labored hard to establish. Instead, they sell it and give each child a portion of the proceeds to start their lives with. The rest is spent in retirement and given away to charities. At first I thought that was a cruel act towards the children, but now I realized these Americans have the right principle in mind.

Completely exempting children from the dark realities of life will not help them learn the same correct principles you have learned in life. If they are to run a big company, they have to learn how to create one first. Or at least have them work from the bottom-up to help them understand every aspect of the operations of the business. Only then can they be well equipped to run the business.

To get out of the cycle of poverty, someone in the present generation has to step-up, go out and show the way to the coming generation. The chain must be cut and at least one from the family should be brave enough to sail the ocean to find the promise land, where milk and honey flows in abundance. Your decision to break the cycle of poverty now or do nothing about it will have a direct impact on the generations to come. In the future, you will be remembered as either the hero among their ancestors who victoriously battled poverty; or you will be just like many of your ancestors on whom you put the blame for doing nothing or doing less to lift your family out of poverty. You may choose which legacy to leave to the future generations. I have chosen to be the hero. I hope you do too.

As parents, whether we know it or not and whether we like it or not; we will all pass this mortal life with something to leave for our children to inherit. Always! Our parents and ancestors have left something for us to inherit. If we die wealthy, our kids will inherit that wealth. If we die in poverty, our kids will inherit that poverty. If we live a righteous life, our kids will live to inherit that good reputation and the world will be gentle with them for their advantage. If we are wicked, our kids will inherit the wrath of the people who knew us. We have to decide which legacy we want to leave our kids to inherit.

Your decision on which inheritance to leave your children will reflect your true affection for them. The judgmental world will not easily forget the reputation we leave to the future generations. It should be our utmost concern.

You must decide now with a strong will. How would you like to be remembered when you are gone? How would you like your reputation to affect your children and the generations after them? You can’t let someone else paint your own portrait for you. You and only you by the means of your actions, reactions, and decisions now can paint it for you. No one else in this world will.

Poverty is mostly the cause of wickedness, immorality, and corruption in many third world countries like the Philippines. Most people say that corruption is the root of poverty, but I say, it is ignorance that is the cause of poverty. Poverty is what drives people to commit crimes and corruption the most. Anyone in poverty makes him more vulnerable to crime and corruption. He can be an easy accessory to crime and corruption.

Greed for power is also a cause of corruption of the politicians who are not shackled by poverty and may not have reasons to want more money or material possessions for themselves which they already have, but to have more money so they can buy power. But most crimes, petty and big, are committed due to poverty.

Let’s stop putting the blame of our poor economic condition directly on the government. It may affect us somehow indirectly, but not directly, and remember it’s us who affect us most. Don’t be too concerned about what they do wrong in the government; they will not escape the long arm of the law. They will have their time in jail, so to speak.

There are things that are outside of our influence, which means we don’t have the power to change them. Why waste your time then, if your effort is not that noticed and with very little effect, if any at all? Work inside your influence; leave those outside of your influence where they belong. You and only you have the power to break the chain of poverty that shackles you and your family, and will shackle the future generations if you don’t work on it now. Most importantly remember this; no one will ever care to change your situation as much as you do. Other people including your own siblings have their own problems to solve. They have their own crosses to carry. Why would they care so much for you if you yourself don’t care that much to change your situation?

The president of the country cannot change your condition either. He may offer a bandage to your wounds (cash card, philhealth or Medicare, and other social welfare programs), but that’s all he can do to help you. What you need is a permanent healing, not a temporary bandage. Talking and thinking too much about the country’s political and economic condition is a waste of your precious intelligence and time. Spend them wisely in improving yourself.

Only when you have improved yourself will you have the moral authority to change others and your community. Your influence expands once you are out of poverty, but never when you’re chained by it. Focus on what you do to break the chain of poverty.

There may not be that much opportunity available because of the bad political and economic conditions of the country, but for people, who are specialized, who are experts in the field of their choice, and who have strong determination; these people will never be out of opportunity. In times where there are but few opportunities available, the rule of survival of the fittest prevails. You can choose to be less fit and not able to grab what few opportunities are there to grab; or you can choose to be fit and have some opportunities for yourself. You have to be among the strongest few; specialize in your skills, improve your abilities and prevail.

When parents say change your future while they are not doing anything to change theirs and their children’s; children sense otherwise, and more likely than not, they will do the same thing their parents did, and will say the same thing to their children their parents said to them. And so the cycle goes on and on, it is passed on from one generation to another. The change has to start somewhere, or it will never get started at all. As parents, it should start from us. Do not expect your children to change theirs, when you made no effort to change yours.

In the region where I grew up (Bicol), which is one of the poorest regions in the Philippines, there is a place where parents are not happy when a newborn member of the family is a boy. They want girls to be born to the family because when they reach the age of 14 to 16 they will send their daughters to Manila to have them work as prostitutes, hoping the daughter would be lucky enough to find a dirty old