6 Steps to Enjoying Your True Wealth

How to Be More Emotionally Present to Your Family No Matter How Busy You Are
By Bo Sanchez

We were going to Hong Kong that day.
I was going to preach for three days but had two extra days to be with my family.
Picture us at the airport: My wife carrying our baby in her arms, my eldest son bouncing about like a rabbit and announcing to the whole world, “I’m going to Hong Kong Disneyland!” And the poor skinny father? Straining to push eight massive bags on a wobbly cart with a stubborn right wheel. (I’ve noticed that these eranged carts supernaturally end up with me wherever I go.)
That was when we heard the crying.
Correction. Not crying. But spine-chilling, lung-busting screaming.
Two kids were holding onto their mother. They were separated by four-foot tall steel bars. But to those distraught children, those steel bars represented two years of being without their mother — the contract of a domestic helper in Hong Kong.
Four small arms clutching, grabbing, not letting go.
The whole world heard their pleading scream, “Mommy, please don’t go! Please don’t go!”
I’ll never forget the mother’s pained, tortured face — as though a knife was ripping through her body.
My wife cried openly.
I wept inside and held onto my kids more closely.
That was two days ago.
Yesterday, the story continued…


Those Small Arms Continue to Reach Out

Yesterday was Sunday.
And I walked around Central.
If you don’t know Hong Kong, Central is where thousands upon thousands of Filipina Domestic Helpers congregate. They sit on sidewalks. They sit on overpasses. They sit by storefronts.
I walked passed one woman who was reading a handwritten letter.
The handwriting was obviously a child’s penmanship.
I walked passed another listening to a little cassette player — not to listen to music — but to a voice of a kid telling stories.
But what broke my heart was the news given to me by Shirley, the head of one organization that tries to help them get financial education. I was shocked by what she said. “Brother Bo, out of our 700 members who are married, 80% are already separated from their husbands.”
Families aren’t designed for prolonged separation.
They’re not just made for that.
We’re supposed to spend time together.

6 Steps to Spending More Time with Your Family No Matter How Busy You Are

“Bo, why are you telling me this? I’m not in Hong Kong. I’m living with my family under one roof.”
Listen. Yes, you’re not in Hong Kong.
But if you don’t have time for your family — and your heart is not focused on them — you might as well be in another country.
You could be physically present — but are you emotionally present as well?
Let me share with you five important steps you could take to become more emotionally present with them…


Step #1: Be Close.
I’m still in Hong Kong as I write this piece.
It’s five in the morning as I type this article in bed.
And my little family is literally around me because we’re all sleeping on one bed. Yes, we’ve become one mass jumble of intertwined humanity — our limbs, legs and arms crisscrossing each other.
And that’s when I realize — gosh, I don’t know how blessed I am.
Why?
Here I am with my family. I feel their skin. I smell their scents. We’re so close, I feel their breath.
And yet I’m surrounded by 148,000 domestic helpers here in Hong Kong that have been away from their families for months, for years, for decades. And for those who’ve separated — forever.
Let me say it again: We don’t know how blessed we are.
We complain that our families are nutty.
But we don’t understanding how blessed we are to have them close enough to experience their nuttiness.
We complain about our petty quarrels, our cold wars, our dysfunctionality.
But whose family isn’t dysfunctional?
I’ve talked to some people here in Hong Kong who would give anything to be with their families again — even for just one day of nuttiness.
The first step is to be more emotionally present to your family is to actually be physically present to them. Be close!
You need to know how precious your family is — and treat them that way.
You need to see them as your true wealth — that nothing is more precious than your relationships.

Step #2: Be Deliberate.
Because you need to protect this treasure or they get stolen from you.
No matter how busy I am, I schedule a weekly romantic date with my spouse.
Yes, I actually write it down in my appointment book and treat it like a meeting with the President of the Philippines. These weekly nights are blocked off for the entire year. Nothing can touch it, except some dire emergency. Why? Because if my marriage fails, everything else stands to fail as well: My ministry, my businesses, my soul… So it is an emergency that I bring her out every week.
I also schedule a weekly date with my kids.
I believe parents need to do these one-on-one dates with each of their kids. Unless of course you’ve got 18 children and may need to bring them out by two’s or three’s.
Sometimes my son and I just walk around the village and talk.
It doesn’t have to be big. But swapping stories and opening our hearts to one another on a consistent basis is already very big to them. It means they
matter to you — that you value them — and you’ll see their self-esteem grow.

Step #3: Be Expressive.
I tell my wife “I love you” seven times a day.
I hug my kids countless of times a day.
At night, I tell my kids, “I’m so proud you’re my son. I’m so proud I’m your Daddy. You’re a genius. You’re a loving boy. You’re an incredibly gifted young man…”
This is true. I have met 40-year olds who long to hear these words from their parents — “I’m proud of you,” and feel an empty space — like a gaping wound in their souls because their parents have never told them this.
Don’t do that to your kids.
And before I forget: Praise your kids seven times a day.
And praise your spouse seven times a day.
I’m not kidding. It will revolutionize your marriage.
If I say, “Criticize your spouse seven times a day,” I bet you’d say, “Kaunti naman. I do that already.” But that’s the problem. We don’t realize that when we criticize our spouses, we actually destroy our marriage bit by bit — not just our spouses.
But when you praise and honor your spouse — you build up your marriage.
It can be very simple stuff:
Ang sarap ng luto mo ngayon, Hon.
I thank God He gave you to me.
You’re so hardworking.
I love it when I see you play with the kids.
You know how to make me happy.
Ganda mo ngayon.
Keep on doing this and you’ll see changes in your life and your marriage you thought were not possible.
Let me say it again: Praise your spouse — and your children — seven times a day.

Step #4: Be Deep.
Your weekly dates shouldn’t just be watching movies, eating out and going home.
Talk deep.
Talk about your feelings.
Enter into each other’s worlds. Dive into each other’s dreams, hurts, desires, worries, hopes and burdens.
When you open yourself up to your spouse or your child, there are more chances for the other person to open up to you.


Step #5: Be Simple
Yesterday afternoon, I preached to 700 people in Hong Kong.
I usually give my talks for 45 minutes. That’s been my trademark.
But yesterday, I gave a solid two-hour talk. Vein-popping, heart-pounding, passion-driven talk — because I had a burden in my heart.
Because I preached on Financial Literacy.
I challenged them, “Raise your financial I.Q.!”
I scolded them, “When you left the Philippines, you told your kids, ‘Anak, two years of separation lang ‘to. After two years, Mommy will have saved enough and will go home and we’ll be together again.’ But after two years, you go home and you haven’t saved. Because you repainted the house. Because there’s a new TV set in the living room and a new gas range in the kitchen. Because the kids have new designer rubber shoes.
I taught them how to live simply and ruthlessly save 20% of their income.
Because unless they do this, they will be forever trapped in Hong Kong.
Look at your life.
Are you living simply?
Are you saving 20% of your income?


Step #6: Be Financially Intelligent
I also taught them where to invest.
I told them, “It’s not enough to just save. You need to know where to put your money. Because savings accounts at 1% and time deposits at 5% won’t do. Inflation — which is at 7% — will simply eat them up.”
So I taught them about mutual funds and other investment vehicles, including the ability to sell something and get into business.
Here’s the truth: The more you know about money, the less time you need to make money. So the more time you have for your family.
Actually, a time should come when you don’t need to make money. Instead, you let money make money. And that requires financial intelligence.
Read. Attend seminars. Look for mentors.

Go Home.
After giving my talk, I took a deep breath and told my audience in Hong Kong,
“When you follow these principles and have saved enough — please go home. Please go home to your children.”
I made a lot of people cry that day.
I’m telling you the same thing.
Oh yes, you may be living with your family in one house, but it’s possible that your heart is so far away from your spouse and kids — and they are far away from you as well. You need to let your heart go home.
Go home my friend.
Your heart belongs there.

Is an expensive Ateneo education worth it?

DEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo Chanco
The Philippine Star 03/31/2006
http://www.philstar.com/philstar/NEWS200603310711.htm

A week ago, I had mixed feelings about the graduation ceremony I attended at the Ateneo. I was a typical parent, happy and proud that my youngest child is through with college. I was also happy that it was the last such ceremony I had to attend in the oppressive high humidity heat of the Ateneo High School gym. I thought, given what we have paid the Jesuits in college tuition, they should have realized that parents have suffered enough and could have rewarded us by holding the ceremony in air conditioned comfort somewhere.

In fairness to the Jesuits, they did try to shorten the affair. When my son graduated six years ago, the Jesuits gave us a preview of what purgatory could be for forgotten souls. They had just one ceremony for all the college graduates and it took forever. Last Friday, they only had half of the graduating class… only the business, engineering and science majors. Still, I am sure everyone, graduates and parents, only had one thing in mind: Getting out of there.

That is why I didn't appreciate the over long address of this year's valedictorian. I realize that it is his day and if he wanted to speak all afternoon to early evening, that's his prerogative. In fact, when my son graduated, I had tears in my eyes when I joined the rousing standing ovation at the end of a most inspiring valedictory address of that year's top graduate: a blind mathematics major who had her secondary education in a public high school and got an Ateneo education on a full scholarship.

This year's valedictorian is a Development Studies major (don't ask me what that is) whose address sounded like a typical Atenean trying to "make bola" in their usual cute but predictable way. I suspect he would take on a career as a politician, end up as a member of Congress (or parliament) and feel right at home trying to sound important but saying nothing. That address was a missed opportunity. I was expecting someone who is supposed to be the best of the best, to say something that's thought provoking in the context of our troubled times.

It so happened I attended Sunday Mass that week at Ateneo's Church of the Gesu and the officiating priest, no less than Father Bienvenido Nebres, Ateneo president, said something that stuck to my mind the whole week. Father Nebres said they took a survey of their graduates to ask them what their thoughts are on the eve of their graduation.

In one word, success… personal success. That's expected. We are all dreaming of success, all our lives. They were asked to define success and most equated it with amassing power and wealth for their family's benefit. That's expected too, in today's success-driven society. Those are my thoughts too, for my own children.

But wait a minute… I thought the Jesuits are the best indoctrinators in history. Why are they now failing to get their graduates to think in terms of being "a man for others?" It is too early for these young people to be so into the ways of the world. When I was their age, I thought I could change the world. I know better now, but that's another story.

I just thought how refreshing it could have been if the address of Ateneo's top college graduate took up that survey Father Nebres talked about in his Sunday homily and gave us cynical men of the world some original thoughts on what it is to be young and privileged in a country teeming with poverty and immorality in high public (and private) offices.

He could have taken a survey of Ateneans in high places and made his conclusion of how close to the "man for others" ideal they have managed. Having obtained a legendary Jesuit education with top honors, he should have endeavored to titillate the mind, ruffled some feathers, not just deliver pages and pages of nice sounding platitudes as a typical Rotarian speaker would in the presence of Joc Joc Bolante. Or, devoid of such high expectations from a summa cum laude with a minor in philosophy, he could have kept his address short so we could all escape the oppressive heat in that gym a lot earlier.

A member of Ateneo's faculty with speaking lines that afternoon, was not any better. His introduction to the guest speaker, Manny Pangilinan, was longer than MVP's speech. The worse part is, the intro was printed in the program. It was as if, the Dean of the Gokongwei School of Business assumed he was before an audience of illiterates who didn't have the capacity to read Manny's impressive credentials.

Mercifully, MVP was inspirational and to the point. I just hope the rich kids he was addressing, including mine, managed to empathize with his rags to riches story… I don't think Manny would have been taken in as a barkada by the Ateneans waiting to receive their diplomas that afternoon. MVP simply wasn't the typical Atenean…not then… not today. Not too many Ateneans had to worry about jeepney fare home, as Manny said he did. Their main daily worry at Ateneo these days is getting a parking slot on campus.

With a lot of time on my hands that afternoon in Ateneo's purgatory, I amused myself by thinking of things like, what is really the value of an expensive Ateneo education? With two Ateneo graduates in my family, I should have a good idea. My son, an honor graduate, found it useless as a credential to get an interesting entry level job in the US, which was why he had to go to graduate school quickly. But he once told me, it was valuable in how it taught him to think… to think rationally. That, to me, is worth the tuition fee.

Then again, two of my daughter's friends found jobs as stewardesses in an Asian airline. I am not sure you need an Ateneo education to demonstrate how to use the life vest and serve meals in an airplane. But the starting salary, at over P80,000 a month, is nothing to sneeze at, specially for a young, single, fresh graduate. It certainly beats a local call center job. And the adventure could be a good post graduate education in life as well. It is just that I am bothered by the mismatch in the allocation of a scarce economic resource, a good education is such, in our third world country. Couldn't we just have a two year finishing school to produce stewardesses for export?

The way I see it, the concept of Ateneo's educational philosophy — combining the technical and the philosophical, the arts and the sciences and training the young mind how to think rationally– makes it valuable. It is the monoculture of upper class kids that bother me. That's why I can't help wondering if UP, my alma mater, would have provided a better education if only because it provided a more real world environment.

But in answer to my question, the cost of an Ateneo education is worth it… but only if the graduate recognizes its intrinsic value and does something about it in his life.