I always tell my students about the importance of looking at problems with an analytical mind. I like to share to them my stories about my real-life experience that involved negative events in my life that I try to turn into something positive. This is my way of trying to survive through the pain of going through those challenges. I just believe in this personal acronym of mine in relation to P.A.I.N
“Perservering Against Imminent Numerous challenges”
Rodrigo Bonzerr S. Lopez
A common question that I would like them to ask themselves in certain situations in their life that they may have encountered, especially when they see it as something negative is the question. “What am I learning from this situation?”
In the book that I’ve written “Change and Get Rich” I mentioned the importance of always evaluating the errors in your life. What I meant is for you to always be actively assessing events in your life that could be affecting why you are not able to accomplish your personal, professional, and financial goals. It’s important that we always evaluate, evaluate , and evaluate things that are happening around us.
As a safety officer and self-defense instructor. I always tell students of the importance of situational awareness for survival. Similar to financial education and achieving our goals, the first step is to really be actively aware of negative things around us then trying to evaluate if we need to “CHANGE” something. It may be our toxic behavior, bad habits, and even long term relationships that we have.
“It took me a long time to understand that in order to fully embrace my worth, I had to first let go of those who did not value me.”
Ryan Elliott
The year 2023 has been a bit challenging for me due to certain rippling effects of the actions of some people around me and my own personal reactions to those bad events. And to practice what I preach, I wrote this article to document what I have experienced and try to answer the question….
“What am I learning from this situation?”
Just recently a typhoon and flooding affected our old traditional house from where I grew up. This is the house that I mentioned in my book “Change and Get Rich” that I had to give up because my mother didn’t have a contract with my uncle, her cousin, in terms of the property payment that she had as an agreement.
This is why I give my common advice to students in terms of property inheritance to their future children. I don’t want them to experience the same things that I experience a little late in my lifetime (By the way I’m already 40 years old as I wrote this article)
“Don’t give your kids properties to inherit, instead teach them how to buy their own properties with their own funds. That is the best inheritance you can give your children.”
– Rodrigo Bonzerr S. Lopez
We were not poor and not rich, I come from a family that I would say under the category of middle class. When I was young we were happy and satisfied with what we had, there were even times that I would eat sugar and coffee together with rice when we had nothing but we didn’t complain, that was how my father and mother raised me together with my sisters. However, as time passes by, people change, some of my relatives and role models changed, and I give this advice because of my personal bad experience in relation to property inheritance with my family and relatives that I mentioned in my book.
I had planned out three options with the property before having a discussion with my uncle, the cousin of my mother. First option was to acquire the whole property, second was to buy a portion of the property, and third was to have it rented out. I went with the third option because my uncle didn’t want to sell the property to me anymore.
I now only pay rent in our old traditional house and agreed to the terms of my uncle because I also didn’t want any family problems with family in relation to properties (I’m already 40 years old and didn’t want to have any problems with my family – One regret perhaps that I have is that a long part of my life was not focused on financial education, I only learned financial education in my thirties – When I was young, I strongly believed that passion is more important than money for a long time which I am now correcting – I have now shifted with the mindset that both money and passion are necessary in this lifetime – I learned this mindset from the book of T.Harver “Secrets of a millionaires Mind”). I agreed with my mother’s cousin with the agreement of just me having it rented out with a certain amount.
I was really hoping I can purchase the property from the cousin of my mom, however, when we had met up, my uncle was no longer interested on selling the property so I had to choose the third option which is to rent it out so that I can still stay and live in the house that I grew up from. Because most of my sisters have their own lives already and don’t really want to get involved with the property anymore and were giving me advice that I should just leave the property and look for another area to live in.
I’m a bit of a sentimental guy which I know is one of my weakness ( Just note that I’m slowly trying to step away from being sentimental and currently evaluating what I can do to not let it drag me down – and I’m evaluating some of my options in my current situation)
With the current situation that I have financially, and the investment that I’ve already made in having a part of the house renovated when my mother was still alive. I was looking for alternatives and trying things out before I go decided to give up on living in our traditional house from where I grew up.
This 2023 was a bit challenging due to the fact that I now only rent in our old house because as I’ve mentioned, that was the agreement that me and my uncle had (it was not too bad because the price that my uncle gave me was still manageable based on the condition of the property).
The first challenge that I had to face now is on how I can pay off rent in the old property that I’ve lost due to my mom not settling the payment for the house and not mentioning to me details that were needed to pay for the property. (I found it really difficult to persuade her to provide me with information regarding the property, and she would frequently become reticent when I tried to help her with a property-related problem.)
One of my solutions to find a way to pay off rent is to continue with our long term small business in our town since my father was still alive and that is as a tricycle operator / tricycle driver.
I recently purchased a new motorcycle for my small business as a tricycle operator.
Just one note, I did have an old tricycle because this has been my side hustle for a long period of time since college, however, another challenge that I encountered during 2022 was the challenge of my old motorcycle getting totally wrecked because I tried helping out the driver of my motorcycle. I allowed him to drive it during the pandemic without any pressure of bringing it back home to me every time he used it and I was also not that strict when it came to his “boundary “(the payment for him using my motorcycle for the day) during the pandemic starting from 2020 to 2022. I was very lenient with my driver because I know how difficult it is to be a driver (I have also been a tricycle driver since college – this is my extra source of income when I was still studying). Sadly, when I decided to check on the motorcycle, my driver didn’t take care of it and it was returned to me totally wrecked and was no longer working. I had to sell the sidecar and I’m still working on trying to figure out how to have it repaired.
“Never regret being a good person to the wrong people. Your kindness says everything about you. Their behavior says everything about them.”
– Anonymous
Now going back to my advice. “What did I learn from this situation?”
To answer that question, I learned that I need to be the only person who will be using my motorcycle and not have it used by a driver who will not be taking care of it. Based on my long-term experience as a tricycle operator. I believe the best option that I have is for me to be the one to drive my motorcycle during my free time and not have it used by a driver who will only be giving me a “boundary”of 100 pesos per day after using my motorcycle.
I know that It will not be passive income, because when I’m the one driving my motorcycle, it’s under the category of earned income from my time. However, as I try to evaluate my experience as an operator. I think it will be more practical for me to use my own time rather than take the risk of having my new motorcycle be used by a driver who will not be taking care of it.
This 2023, I decided to buy a new motorcycle, so that It can help me augment my funds while I’m still learning and doing some upskilling with my coding skills. (I haven’t accepted any full time job because I want to take the risk of using most of my time to learn and improve my coding skills). I need to have an alternative and extra income so I planned out some milestones in trying to purchase the new motorcycle this year.
Now the only problem with having a new motorcycle in my area is the fact that we are always commonly affected by typhoons and flooding because our old house is located near the river.
Just recently another challenge happened this year 2023. And that is when the rooftop of one of the areas of my old house fell down. Luckily, no one was injured.
When I’ve encountered this situation. This has now forced me to think again and ask the question. “What am I learning from this situation?”
Before the roof fell, I was already seeing the hazards and the possibility of the roof falling. (Let’s just say an intuition because of my observation skills as a safety officer).
I was really hoping that I could earn extra funds to have the parts of the house repaired, however, because I was a bit distracted due to the other challenge that I’ve encountered with my cousins on my father’s side that I mentioned in my book “Change and Get Rich”.
My funds were diverted and the time that I’ve allotted for milestone planning in trying to have the house repaired was not enough and then this new challenge happened. The rooftop fell before I had a chance to allocate some funds for repairing it.
Now that you have some ideas about adversities that I’ve personally experienced, this year of 2023. Let’s talk about possible solutions and ideas that I’ve come up with to convert these negative events into something positive and possible opportunities.
One of the possible solutions that I’ve started to work on is to look at the scrap materials that are available, especially the wood materials. There are a lot of wood materials that I’m now planning to utilize and recycle so that it will not be put to waste.
I’ve been watching a lot of tutorials related to wood craft because I see the old wood materials as an opportunity for me to learn a new skill which is wood crafting.
My first try at wood crafting a Horse Chess Piece
Creating my First Pawn
Dream Board
I’ve also been planning to start a small business in our town that would fit the challenge that I’ve encountered with the rooftop that fell in our house.
I’ve been really planning to start a chairs and tables rental business which I believe will complement the motorcycle that I’ve just recently bought for delivering the items. It also fit the area from where I live because of chairs and tables that are made out of plastic won’t be easily affected by flood and they will not be easily damaged for wear and tear.
So far, these are just some of the challenges that I’ve encountered that I would want to share in this blog post and some possible solutions that I’ve found on how I can try to solve some of the problems that I’ve encountered this last few months of the year as I’ve posted this blog article.
2022 to 2023 were challenging years for me due to rippling effects and a series of challenges that really had a great impact in some of the goals that I had. There were a lot of redirections that I had to take due to a number of events that was a result of actions of the people in the environment from where I live and my own reactions to their actions.
I’m really not sure what will be the next series of events and results of the ventures that I have engaged in this 2023, I’m just hoping for the best and expecting the worst to happen so that I can further prepare and learn along the way on how to figure out solutions to my problems.
I hope this article gave you some insights that can help you also overcome some challenges and look at some of the challenges that your encountering as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Rodrigo Bonzerr Lopez 
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