The inordinate love of money, is also presumed “the root of all evil,” but money itself, when properly used, is not only a “handy thing to have in the house,” but affords the gratification of blessing for humans by enabling its possessor to enlarge the scope of human happiness through sharing and human influence.

Money cannot buy everything but it does make life easier. The desire for wealth is nearly universal, and none can say it is not laudable, provided the possessor of it accepts its responsibilities, and uses it as a friend to humanity.

The history of money-getting, which is commerce, is a history of civilization, and wherever trade has flourished most, there, too, have art and science produced the noblest fruits. In fact, as a general thing, money-getters are the benefactors of our race. To them, in a great measure, are we indebted for our institutions of learning and of art, our academies, colleges and churches.

It is no argument against the desire for, or the possession of wealth, to say that there are sometimes misers who hoard money only for the sake of hoarding and who have no higher aspiration than to grasp everything which comes within their reach. As we have sometimes hypocrites in religion, and demagogues in politics, so there are occasionally misers among money-getters. To everyone, therefore, the best advise I could say (and heard from many sources), make money honestly, and not otherwise, for Shakespeare has truly said, “He that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends.”

Business men must write letters, but they should be careful what they put in them. If you are losing money, be specially cautious and not tell of it, or you will lose your reputation. You must learn to know which things to tell and which not. Read books on communication for different situations. Know public relations and keep a positive attitude to keep your head cool especially when confronted with criticisms. Watch out what you are saying especially in front of Clients because you might be saying something too personal or something that my fall you into ruin.

Solomon says: “There is that scattereth and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than meet, but it tendeth to poverty.”

Of course the only true charity is that which is from the heart. The best kind of charity is to help those who are willing to help themselves. Promiscuous almsgiving, without inquiring into the worthiness of the applicant, is bad in every sense. But to search out and quietly assist those who are struggling for themselves, is the kind that “scattereth and yet increaseth.” But don’t fall into the idea that some persons practice, of giving a prayer instead of a potato, and a benediction instead of bread, to the hungry. It is easier to make Christians with full stomachs than empty.

“Like begets like.” An individual who gives the greatest amount of goods of a corresponding quality for the least sum (still reserving for himself a profit) will generally succeed best in the long run. This brings us to the golden rule, “As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them” and they will do better by you than if you always treated them as if you wanted to get the most you could out of them for the least return.

Frequently it occurs because a man has been engaged in “outside operations,” of some sort. Let’s say, a man gets rich from a legitimate business. He is told of a grand investment where he can score thrice his worth of assets. He is constantly flattered by his friends that he is born lucky. He becomes overly-confident, forgets his economic nature and invests majority of what he has.

“I will put in twenty thousand dollars. I have been lucky, and my good luck will soon bring me back sixty thousand dollars.” A few days went by and he learned he has to invest a bit more. He did so and invested another twenty thousand dollars which will definitely reap him a big harvest. Before the time comes around to realize, the bubble bursts, he loses all he is possessed of, and then he learns what he ought to have known at the first, that however successful a man may be in his own business, if he turns from that and engages ill a business which he doesn’t understand, he is like Samson when shorn of his locks his strength has departed, and he becomes like other men.

Reminder to all: Be aware of SCAMS or anything that promises a lot with minimal participation or effort.

This also applies to people who trust too much on family and friends. My dad has a friend who saved forty thousand dollars from selling fish in a local market. Let’s call this friend Tim. Tim’s friend came up and asked for money, which he said he will use to start up a business and they will be partners. Tim, trusting his friend, lent him his forty thousand dollars as starting capital. After that, he never heard anything from his friend and his forty thousand dollars went poof. His friend left without a word. Gone were Tim’s years of savings.

In these days of technology and Internet superhighway, many important inventions and improvements in every branch of trade are being made, and the individual who don’t consult the news (in any medium) will soon find himself and his business or work left out in the cold. We are very fortunate these days that everywhere we go, we avail of the news from one source to another.

Public transportations either have a TV or a radio system that can be heard while commuting to work. Newspaper stands are everywhere for us our own copy on our way to our destination. Gadgets like cell phones and mp3 players are equipped with AM and FM stations for us to listen to anytime, anywhere.

For office workers, they have to login to their internet to avail of their favourite news sources while sipping a cup of coffee (my favourite time of the day). Take a few minutes to hear the news. You could buffer an online radio to listen to while working. Listen, learn and evaluate. Know more of the world. Be updated with the times.

This my father had taught me since I was small. He trained me to be prompt, to manage my time according to priorities and to list everything down to not forget anything. I didn”t see the benefits of this till I started working and I saw the need for a system in a fast paced world where technology works in the speed of light and man has to keep up with its fast innovations to accomplish more.

During my first evaluation for regularization in my current company, my supervisor and HR manager complimented me on my knack to “slide from one task to another”, especially during very hectic days. Besides that, they were amazed to observe I even have the time to read feeds or articles relating to our trade even during work hours.

By introducing a system in all your work and daily routine, you will find time leisure for your pastime and recreation. For a man who does things half done and shifts to another and half does that, will find his work at loose ends and will never know when his day ends for his work will never be done. Of course, there is a limit to these rules.

We must try to preserve the happy medium, for there is such a thing as being too systematic. There are men and women, for instance, who put away things so carefully that they can never find them again. Or sometimes, an improvement or growth for an idea could be put into risk if unable to bend the rules a bit to make the idea work. This often happens in an Advertising agency. Every agency follows a process of accomplishing a project.

First, the Client will talk to the Accounts Executive (AE) for a campaign they want to launch within a specific timeframe. The AE will bring this information and a Creative Brief to the Creative team for brainstorming. Once the Creative Team completes the idea, the AE will coordinate with all Agency departments (Production, Studio, Traffic, etc.) to accomplish the project in record time. There will be times though when the Creatives will get a last minute idea that would fully change and improve the ad or campaign. When this happens, chaos will happen since this will result to bending Client requirements a bit (budget and timeframes). The AE needs to be systematic to handle the Agency manpower and handle any Client grumbles on the extensions. This could also affect the AE’s extra curricular activities and adjustment on this part will be needed if he needs to get things done and NOT HALF DONE.

When a man’s undivided attention is centred on one object, his mind will constantly be suggesting improvements of value, which would escape him if his brain was occupied by a dozen different subjects at once.

I have personally experienced this through blogging. People with blogs tend to talk about a number of things. Usually, this multitude of subjects does not help a net surfer (or the search engines for that matter) to easily access a blog for a possible content necessary for a search. This is the reason why many bloggers get frustrated when they put up a blog with the objective to earn money from it.

When a blog does not have a niche topic to focus on, visitors loose interest and move on to the next search result upon not immediately finding what they need on the page. I can testify to that as I”ve tried hard to talk about various stuff in my personal blog. My blog didn’t get anywhere. It didn’t generate much traffic, didn’t acquire a high page rank but I was able to earn a few bucks per month from text link ads. I’ve come to realize that my blog is made on a truly personal level and though I am aware of this, I have no plans to change it.

Rather, I’d focus on a subject with a new blog. Whereas, the most popular blogs are those with niche topics and niche contents. Their statistics are high from specific keywords search and they garner thousands of traffic everyday. From this, advertisers call on them to bid on placements on their pages, ads are clicked with equivalent cost involved, and people or companies contact them for their expertise and get paid for it.

Now, isn’t that a sweet deal? Many a fortune has slipped through a man’s fingers because he was engaged in too many occupations at a time. If you are trying to learn different things all at the same time, your brain gets muddled and confused into which knowledge it needs to access to get work done.

There is good sense in the old caution against having too many irons in the fire at once.