I saved someone's life...financially
August 2010.
I was on a flight on my way back from Los Angeles. While in the air, the flight attendant announced that she would be passing forms from a major credit card company. It was a Master Card that had rewards of about $500,000. Really? Now, the flight attendant really sold the idea of this credit card very well...so well that even I almost saw something good in a credit card.
Over the years, I have put many hundreds of hours researching the financial industry -reading, listening to podcasts, talking to professionals. I have looked at the advantages and disadvantages of owning a credit card, I have listened to experts on the subject...looked at the Word of God, and put my own thought to it...after all that, I have come to a conclusion.
THERE IS NO REASON TO OWN A CREDIT CARD. Period.
So, after the flight attendant went through her spiel, she asked for people to raise their hand if they would like to fill a form. A few people raised their hands, including a younger sista who sat by my left. As I watched a dvd digital copy of a movie on my Macbook, I watched her through the corner of my eye as she tried to decide if she wanted to fill the form. It would be her first credit card.
As soon as she began filling the form, I stopped my movie and turned to her.
I asked for her name, she told me, and I told her mine. I said, "You don't need a credit card". "All that $500,000 reward-bonus-crap that she said, it is a lie." [Legally, she did not lie, but for 99.9% of credit card owners, it might as well have been a lie]. I explained to her why she did not need a card. I told her my story about credit cards, and how I had come to the conclusion that one can live well and survive in the U.S. without credit cards. I mentioned that I had not used a credit card in over 3 years, and here I am sitting in a plane that I paid cash for (Debit Card).
I explained to her that one's finances should boil down to a few simple rules:
Work for your money. Save your money. If you need to buy something that you cannot immediately afford, wait till you have saved enough, and then buy it. Also, give away 10% of your income.
She understood what I taught, and accepted it. Then I told her to tear the Master Card application form. The paper size was too thick to tear, so I helped her and ripped the form to shreds. We both laughed and exchanged more personal stories.
My hope and prayer is that she follows, not just this teaching, but the teachings of our grand-parents about money. Simple guidelines that work, that save people from financial disaster.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Friday, October 01, 2010
Topmost Tutoring - the founder's history
I would consider myself as someone who knows Mathematics, understands it, and is able to solve difficult Math problems. In my 2000 SAT, I my score placed me in the top 5% in the entire country.
Despite this Math skill, Mathematics did not come easy for me. From a very early age, I put in a tremendous amount of time and effort into studying Mathematics. I remember specifically in high school, I had great difficulty with grasping the concept of the negative sign (-).
For example, why is 3 - - 4 = 7, -3-4 = -7, -4 + 3 = -1 and 3 - 4 = -1
I used to get headaches trying to understand the rules of the negative sign. They seemed counter-intuitive to the way the mind normally worked. So, I asked 2 of my closest friends who seemed to understand it, but I could not understand their explanations. I spent countless hours studying the textbook, working on most of the problems at the end of the chapter (usually over 20 problems), until I finally got it.
I have many examples of situations in which it was difficult for me to understand a concept, but when I finally got it, I felt like nobody in the world understood it better than I did. After many years, I looked back and I could see the reason why I was allowed to go through a lot of mental pain in Mathematics...enter Topmost Tutoring.
When I started college at the University of Memphis, I was told that Math tutors were paid $10/hr. Many desk assistant jobs were paid $6.50 at the time. So, since I knew I could tutor, I applied. The manager nicely explained to me that 1st year students were not allowed to tutor, only Sophomores and above. So, I took the desk job, waited a year, applied for the tutoring job again, was hired and so it began.
Over the course of 4 years in college, I have had about 6 or 7 various tutoring jobs, depending of which was available during regular school season or the summer, or depending on what tutoring program was available. I became better at reading people, quickly understanding how they thought about a problem, then guiding them to the solution. I say guiding because I did not just hand them the answers. I would solve the first 1, 2 or 3 problems, then watch them solve the rest.
I noticed many of my students making the same mistakes that I made back in junior high and high school, mistakes that I had learned from. Therefore, since I knew how they approached the problems, it was easy for me to say, “I understand why you are thinking of it that way. It may seem logical for you to think of it that way, but that is not how it works, this is the way to think about it.”
Now, after finishing my Masters program. I want to use what I know, to add value to my community, and the world.
Topmost Tutoring was formed with the slogan, “We make difficult courses simple”. Our goal is to show that Math problems are like puzzles. When scattered, they look very complex and impossible...but as soon as you put the pieces together one step at a time in the right spots, they form one big puzzle. Ostensibly complex math problems are made up of of simple rules. The challenge to solve the problem, is that one has to know and understand every single rule that is required.
And that is where we come in. We will find out where the student is deficient. What laws were not covered in elementary school or junior high, what rules have been forgotten, and we will put it all together in a way that is easy to understand, and maybe even fun.
A friend of mine who has difficulty with Math said, “Math can be taught if the teacher is good enough, and Math can be liked if the teacher makes the subject engaging enough.” - Roberta
I told her that I would include her text message in one of our business plans, and I just did.
Our vision for Topmost Tutoring is to be the very best in Math tutoring in the world. We will make Math easy and fun to understand. Our vision is to eradicate the Math deficiency epidemic.
I would consider myself as someone who knows Mathematics, understands it, and is able to solve difficult Math problems. In my 2000 SAT, I my score placed me in the top 5% in the entire country.
Despite this Math skill, Mathematics did not come easy for me. From a very early age, I put in a tremendous amount of time and effort into studying Mathematics. I remember specifically in high school, I had great difficulty with grasping the concept of the negative sign (-).
For example, why is 3 - - 4 = 7, -3-4 = -7, -4 + 3 = -1 and 3 - 4 = -1
I used to get headaches trying to understand the rules of the negative sign. They seemed counter-intuitive to the way the mind normally worked. So, I asked 2 of my closest friends who seemed to understand it, but I could not understand their explanations. I spent countless hours studying the textbook, working on most of the problems at the end of the chapter (usually over 20 problems), until I finally got it.
I have many examples of situations in which it was difficult for me to understand a concept, but when I finally got it, I felt like nobody in the world understood it better than I did. After many years, I looked back and I could see the reason why I was allowed to go through a lot of mental pain in Mathematics...enter Topmost Tutoring.
When I started college at the University of Memphis, I was told that Math tutors were paid $10/hr. Many desk assistant jobs were paid $6.50 at the time. So, since I knew I could tutor, I applied. The manager nicely explained to me that 1st year students were not allowed to tutor, only Sophomores and above. So, I took the desk job, waited a year, applied for the tutoring job again, was hired and so it began.
Over the course of 4 years in college, I have had about 6 or 7 various tutoring jobs, depending of which was available during regular school season or the summer, or depending on what tutoring program was available. I became better at reading people, quickly understanding how they thought about a problem, then guiding them to the solution. I say guiding because I did not just hand them the answers. I would solve the first 1, 2 or 3 problems, then watch them solve the rest.
I noticed many of my students making the same mistakes that I made back in junior high and high school, mistakes that I had learned from. Therefore, since I knew how they approached the problems, it was easy for me to say, “I understand why you are thinking of it that way. It may seem logical for you to think of it that way, but that is not how it works, this is the way to think about it.”
Now, after finishing my Masters program. I want to use what I know, to add value to my community, and the world.
Topmost Tutoring was formed with the slogan, “We make difficult courses simple”. Our goal is to show that Math problems are like puzzles. When scattered, they look very complex and impossible...but as soon as you put the pieces together one step at a time in the right spots, they form one big puzzle. Ostensibly complex math problems are made up of of simple rules. The challenge to solve the problem, is that one has to know and understand every single rule that is required.
And that is where we come in. We will find out where the student is deficient. What laws were not covered in elementary school or junior high, what rules have been forgotten, and we will put it all together in a way that is easy to understand, and maybe even fun.
A friend of mine who has difficulty with Math said, “Math can be taught if the teacher is good enough, and Math can be liked if the teacher makes the subject engaging enough.” - Roberta
I told her that I would include her text message in one of our business plans, and I just did.
Our vision for Topmost Tutoring is to be the very best in Math tutoring in the world. We will make Math easy and fun to understand. Our vision is to eradicate the Math deficiency epidemic.
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