Why Do We Often Lose?

Everybody knows that switching from employment to having a business of their own takes a lot of courage and strength. It is not easy for some to switch because we became a little bit dependent on employment after we finished school and getting the idea of having your own business might come in late and can come in many different sources.

There might be some families who encourage their members to finish college and take over their family business while others encourage their members to finish school and find a job. While both are good and beneficial for earning money which will be a step for independence, there are a lot of things that a lot of people (I mean a lot of people including me) might have missed. We have oversimplified life when we were young. We thought being able to finish school and having a job is enough for us to live and be independent and yes have a good life. But as time goes by and we started to feel that we are passing time, we then realize that this is not what our supposed life should be. That something is wrong and we might find ourselves spending time thinking what just happened. We may try to reflect on our past and we started questioning ourselves why are we here or worst why are we losing and still continue losing?

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I started questioning my life in my mid-30s when everything is I guess already a mess. I know I lost and still continuing to lose no matter what I do. No matter how hard I try to make things better for me and my family. Unforeseeable things happen in a sudden and it will turn everything back to rock bottom. I thought it was just me but no, others have it worst right? But still why? The never ending “whys” in our life. And then one day, I started to stop questioning and started to observe. When I started to observe, that is when my questions are being answered. Not all but it is surprising. Although, being able to know the answers gave way to new questions and there becomes the never ending battle to seeking answers through observations.

The Child World versus The Adult World

5 years and beyond the Child World

Remember when we were still young and playful and basically we never have to think about earning money and just accept what our parents are providing us everyday. It was the time when we always smile and laugh. We are happy enough to do things we simply want as a child. We experience a lot of adventures in playing and learning a lot of things in school with friends and classmates and listening to each others’ stories. Life was all but good enough. The routine was go to school, learn and have fun, and go home, do homework and study and then sleep. And the same cycle repeats everyday in the next few years of our young life. We may have different stories when we were all growing up. Others might have had tricky, dramatic, and traumatic even, but the similarity is we are all going through similar growth phases in life.

In our teen stage, we then become a little bit or more aware of our surroundings and our environment. We get to become more sociable and we have the ability to choose our company. We experience being involved in situations common to teenagers like peer pressure and unaccustomed influences (some call it bad influences). Some of us tried deviating from our custom ways and we all have different interpretations of the outcomes (e.g alcohol and smoking are common). Some of us might have engaged in early orientations such as sexual orientations and drug addictions with again outcomes and effects are interpreted in many different ways. All of this became part of our teenage lives and became one of the most integral parts of making personal choices as we pass through the adult stage at 18.

18 and beyond the Adult World

As we enter the stage of 18, many doors will open up and this is where choices and decisions are made. Some might have to make big decisions before 18 but the finality is when the adult phase is turned. We may choose to continue school or we may choose to enter the earning stage at an early time. In some cultures, when a child reach 18, they are set to find their way in life, either to find a job and go to school or do both. In our culture, depending on the situation we are in, in our family, we are given the choice to take time to find our way in life regardless where we stay. We can still seek our parents or our family members help in cases when we need it. There are times when a family member becomes the breadwinner and he/she chose to stay with the family with the thought of giving and providing support while for others, they may not have the need to support their family, but they still stay with their family for the purpose of being with his/her family. Regardless of the culture we have in the family, as we enter the adult stage, there are things that we know we need to do and it would all be based on our choices and decisions.

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Choices and Decisions

Choices and decisions. These two words are very common to ears every since we were a child. It is believed that the outcomes of just about everything we do in life depends on both of these words. These words are vital especially in the game of life. It will depend on these words whether we win or lose.

Let us now answer this question Do we lose because we made bad choices and decisions?

My answer: NO.

You might be surprised as to why my answer is NO. And the universal society would disagree with me on this answer. But based on my observations, there are no bad or good choices and decisions. There are only choices and decisions. We were made to believe that there are 2 sides of it but the ultimate truth is there are no sides of it. Just choices and just decisions. This is the reason why we lose. Because we were raised to know that there are good and bad choices and decisions. Although it is acceptable to believe in it (which makes one become careful carrying out future plans), to be able to work on it, we to instead view it as a game. I call the game of choices and decisions.

The Game of Choices and Decisions

The game of choices and decisions. I remember playing RED ALERT 1 and 2 when I was in high school. It is like a war game between allies and soviets. You will be given a territory and there you are given basic necessities you need to raise an army and a set budget to buy some things needed for war (and invasion). I cannot recall the terms now but I do remember the ore truck and ore refinery. In short, my choice was to have the ore truck ready for ore mining so I could have more money to buy infantry and have soldier units. The next I did was to have 2 to 3 soldiers to find ore fields (at the start of the game, everything is cloudy and I can only see my base) to buy a satellite. And the game goes, and we know when it comes to war, regardless of the choices and decisions, win or lose. That is just it.

This is exactly what I mean. Your choice and decisions will depend on you winning or losing. There are no other sides. Just like for war, there is only one side, to survive. Because when you die, there are no do overs. You just die. And this is the reality of life. There are also no do overs in making choices and decisions, you win or you lose. This is why before we make choices and decisions, we have what we call plans and strategies.

Plans and Strategies

To make plans and strategies work, and this is a straight up point statement, we must not just rely on our own plans and strategies, but do observe other people’s plans and strategies. Pay attention to people who are teaching you about planning and strategies. And I mean, pay attention to what they are NOT teaching you. Pay attention to what people who seem successful in what they are doing. And I mean pay attention to what you are really not SEEING. If they are on a live marketing or on a Zoom meeting or Google meeting and their topic is about being successful in life, pay attention to the part where they will make you make fast choices and decisions. In this part, I really mean pay attention to what they are NOT REALLY SAYING and be keen on what their ultimate goal is. Because ultimate goals especially in a marketing sessions and seminars are always being mentioned at the end of it. I bet you have experienced being in a seminar and refusing an offer nicely due to either you don’t have money for it or due to waste of time. We all have experienced taking actions on investments in many ways only to find out that we only got a crumb out of it. Only then we realize that we were lured into a trap of more losing and like 10% chance or winning. Now I understand that we were raised to be good and nice and kind to people but the reality always slaps. Slaps in the most toughest ways we can imagine. Why? Because we were also made to believe that it was our choices and decisions to take it. And failures are just our own responsibility. People hide behind masks of the word “we will support and help you” but it will then slap you again. Never ending slaps due to our failure to recognize “behind the scenes.” And we are left to believe that it is sorely our own fault and the most commonly used word for failure is “laziness.” We failed because we are lazy. We will only succeed if we work hard. Very common statement tactics. But what if we are working hard and we are still failing? Do they have an answer to that? Unfortunately, they don’t. No one can answer that. Because nobody cares if you are working hard. They only care about your output and what you can give them. If you cannot give them anymore, you are lazy. And when we hear this word, we often lose, because we know we are not lazy. But we still lose.

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How to avoid losing

So now how do we avoid losing? PAY ATTENTION. We can invest all our time paying attention to the smaller details that these life has to offer. Pay attention to information we encounter and information we do not have. Pay attention to investment offers, marketing strategies, the art of persuasion tactics, the reverse psychology tactics, the win or lose tactics, the information under and overload tactics, the limited offer tactics, the guarantee offer tactics (especially money backs because they don’t guarantee that), the friendly connection tactics, the too good to be true tactics, testimonials and ratings tactics (some people are paid a crumb to give 5 star ratings), the niche and click bait tactics (Vloggers in YouTube and other video watching sites are using this), the mystery tactics, percentage share tactics, and all kinds of tactics that are out there. I am not saying that all of these tactics are bad but we just have to PAY ATTENTION.

How to intensively PAY ATTENTION

Here are some of the things that we can do to intensively PAY ATTENTION

1. Create a Plan - you can take note of simple things you want to do or what you want to have and study how you can do what you want to do and how you can have the things you want to have.

2. Create a business plan if you are planning on having a business of your own - there are free information online now that we can make use to analyze the business we want to have and invest in. There are three things we have to primarily pay attention to when we want to have a business of our own: Operations, Human Resource and Business Process. I have seen people doing business without a business plan, and yes they fail. They fell into the percentage share tactic.

3. Never fall for the tactics mentioned. But take into consideration of what you can get in return. Pay more attention to what would benefit you rather than what would benefit them. I am not saying not to accept it. You can if you want to try. This is where choices and decisions come to play. If it would fairly benefit you in return, why not. But if you are in doubt, regardless if a marketer or a friend is insisting and persuading you, just leave it.

4. The art of calculation: This is why I appreciate Math as a subject learned in school or can be learned and taught at home by parents or relatives. Advanced calculation of profit returns before making investments can help minimize losses. For example, we get products at 5 to 10 pesos off when we buy in bulk items as a reseller. Let’s say the retail price is P10 per item. The reseller price or bulk buy is P5 per item with a minimum of 10 orders. That would be P50 pesos for reseller price. Since the retail price is P10, you can sell it at its retail price. You can have a return of 50%. This is the primary step. The next is you have to know your community and environment (not the market). You can have many target markets but basically it is really not that especially for first timers. Target markets are already difficult for professional marketers so it would be a lot difficult for first timers. Calculate how many people are in your community (you can even study and observe them and find out about their lifestyle). If there are more than 10 people in your community, there is a high chance of making sales. Then you can try to make an offer. Also consider in your calculation their lifestyle. Even if there are more than 10 people in your community, if they are not interested in what you are offering, you will not make a sale.

5. Transparency: How transparent is the offer? Does it include important information you need? If there aren’t, is the seller attentive to answering your questions? Remember that there are particular questions you have to ask and not just generic questions. Some sellers tend to use terms in their marketing strategies that are good to hear or good read. Most of the offers that are posted as I have observed are incomplete. There are missing points that they will not intentionally include in marketing materials that are very important.

These are:

- Prices - some are misleading too. The price is posted might not be the real price at all.

- Important descriptions (missing features and specs especially for gadgets and electronics)

- The “ask me how” through inbox or private message. This is very common practice. Although “ask me how” is also part of it if you have other questions. But if you have to ask the most basic questions such as prices and descriptions over inbox or private message, there is a chance of spamming.

- Vague and too good to be true descriptions - this happens when the offer is quite exaggerating. When an offer is exaggerating, pay attention. Most of the information written are not really true.

- Hidden fees and investment schemes: Money making systems and Investment offers that promises huge profit returns for an investment that will cost you from a hundred to a thousand pesos. And most people (especially scammers) are not including this unless you send them a private message.

- Genuine photos: People who like to sell will show vibrant and appealing photos of products. But this is an issue for most people because of expectation issues. The major one though is photo grabbed photos. Unless it was used with consent, people grab photos to lure people into their lair. This is what most scammers out there are using.

Seller’s use of words: There is only one way to detect a genuine seller. Straight to the point and polite answers to the questions. This reflects professionalism. No story-telling or wasting time discussing what must or must not do. They will straight up say the needed answers to your queries and they will proactively track your purchases for you in case you decided to buy. They will be transparent enough to say the status of the product and availability. They can accept canceled orders as long as it falls under the given cancellation days. They do not push you to buy instead they will present themselves well. In short, when talking to people, follow your guts. If your gut is telling something is off, just leave it and move on.

We have been bound by this kind of system for decades and decades and the system still continues. It is sad to think sometimes that a lot of people are continuously losing because of this system. Unless we have little changes in the way things are taught both in school and in the family, this will continue for another thousands of years. It is time for us to open our minds and be winners for once. Money will always be everyone’s target (blame capitalism for that). Money became the most vital thing we need to survive and it is also the only thing that this kind of system preys on. Let us all PAY ATTENTION and be extra careful in handling our choices and decisions in life.

That way, we will win this!