A review of the No Nonsense Seminar on Finance

I have been an avid follower of Randell Tiongson’s blog on finance-related matters for a long time now. I love the way he writes as he makes financial concepts that may cause nosebleeds for some seem very easy to understand. I also like the way he puts a biblical perspective on sharing ideas to his readers. I once chanced upon his blog entry regarding the third run of The No Nonsense Seminar on Finance: How to Invest in the Future, marked it in my calendar and totally forgot about it. A few days before the event, I got a message from a friend who asked me if I wanted to attend a seminar. This meant that I would spend half a day less with my kids, but when I found out that it was THIS seminar, I just had to say – I was going to meet Randell Tiongson himself!

The seminar was held last July 10 at 1:30 p.m., at the Victory Center Greenhills. I made sure that I wouldn’t be late, so I was there before 1:00 p.m. It was a good thing because I was able to chat a bit with Mr. Tiongson. There’s a picture of him on his blog, but it still felt great to see someone you admire in person. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would converse with him. I know, I know. You might be thinking that he is not even a celebrity (not yet!), but I am really a fan of his blog! I am currently trying to work on financial independence and abundance, and reading his blog somehow felt like I was talking to a financial adviser, personally. So, I was really expecting to learn a lot and have a great time at the seminar. I did!

As the seminar title implied, it really was a no-nonsense financial seminar. It talked about investments, a topic that we commonly find boring, daunting and so out of this world that it can only be understood by men or women wearing suits and looking smug. It was no-nonsense because it wasn’t about the speaker, and he did not talk about financial theories or models that were hard to grasp let alone digest. Mr. Tiongson found a way to share his financial knowledge and expertise that could easily be understood by everyone. He provided concrete examples to explain concepts and translated technical terms into layman’s terms. I saw a lot of heads nod in understanding. If our high school or college Economics teachers were like that, then I think that we would have a lot of more financially adept individuals in the country. His experiences as a financial coach and educator, coupled with his sense of humor, made him a credible person to tackle the topic.

The seminar was not your typical motivational talk on how you can manage your finances. I am not saying that motivational talks are useless: I believe in its power to inspire others to take action, but there are some who would need more than inspiration. They need a little push to action, and The No Nonsense Seminar on Finance provided concrete actions that one can take to create money, grow it and hold on to it. Since the seminar talked about how to invest, I think it was most useful to those who want to grow their money, but it was still very useful to those who, like me, still need to create the money or wealth that we could invest as this can serve a basis for creating our financial goals. By knowing the financial vehicles that can get us to our financial goals, we can carefully plan for the achievement of these goals.

I noticed that there were a lot of attendees in the seminar; their ages ranged from as young as 18 years old to approximately 60 years old. There was a mix of people: businessmen, doctors, employees, housewives, celebrities and students. It goes to show that regardless of your background, it is never too early nor too late to think about and do something about your own financial situation. He stressed the importance of knowing how to manage your money well before we start investing. This is a good point that the young ones can take as a first step in financial management, and a learning point for the more experienced ones who are still not successful in neither saving nor investing. We should all have the discipline and hard work needed to manage our money well, as well as the sound knowledge of investment tools and appropriate level of risk to grow it.

Aside from the financial concepts that I learned from Mr. Tiongson, there were two points that he mentioned that served as my major take-away from the seminar. First is that there is no recession in God’s economy, and second is that investing or saving has to be for a higher purpose. Sometimes, it is easy for us to be blinded by the lure of money, possessions and comfort in life. We spend our time pursuing monetary gains or rewards and forget the more important things in life – our relationship with our family, friends, loved ones and most importantly, God. These are things that cannot be cultivated with money, therefore money should never be our end in mind but merely a tool that will help us achieve our greater purpose, and that is to serve God.

I highly recommend this to those who want to make sense of their financial matters. Attending the seminar is truly a worthy investment for your future!

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