Hi I'm Lawrence, but better known within my family as 'bart', because The Simpsons was my favorite TV cartoons when I was a kid.

Hmmm.. Sorry that was awkward. Not used to introduce myself in big crowds or entirely new communities, so maybe let me start by telling why I'm here in PeakD.

In Facebook I often write my thoughts with my original #bartthinks - more on what I write about later - and while I do get a fairly good amount of reactions relative to the size of my quite personal network (of just around 1K), I feel that I'd like to be a part of a more engaging community, where people are free to discuss with me (because it's kinda toxic right now in traditional social media sites so people don’t easily express themselves), so as to sharpen or test my ideas. I don’t mind being wrong at times.

My usual topics

What I write about mostly are, but not limited to the following:

Macroeconomics

What are the drivers of economic growth? How come Northeast Asia is prosperous and Southeast Asia is late in terms of development? Why is there inflation? Which assets perform well during inflationary periods? What is money? Why was gold going up in the 1970’s? Is bitcoin an inflation hedge? These are the type of questions I ask myself that I try to answer too. I don’t aim to lecture people, but I intend to share my findings and ideas as I learn on the go.

Books

I grew up reading pocket books, encyclopedias, and wildlife books. During my intellectual or emotional highs after reading books I do post my insights, like reaction posts lol. Hope you’d find value there. Ah, I’m into non-fiction, trading, history, personal development, rich mindset, these kind of things. One day I might gobble up novels too hehe

Financial education

I like money because I want to enrich lives around me, starting with my family. I’m certainly not very thrifty but I am conscious why I spend money. I’m not yet a multimillionaire but I’d say I want to live life at its fullest - that includes traveling around the world - and at the very least I want to send deserving youths to college. Not because it’d make them rich but at least they get a first step. So yes, I occasionally post about money.

Growth mindset

To accomplish great things we need to become great people first. Not saying I already am one but I strive to become better, especially starting with the mind. Thus my “thinkering” - tinkering with thinking (if that makes any sense lol)

Dimensions of myself

Forgot to mention, I was born in Cebu, elementary days was in Metro Manila (Pasig, Muntinlupa, Cavite), high school was in Mindanao (Cagayan de Oro, except 3rd year when we were in Makati), university days were in Cebu. After 5 years of working in Cebu, went and stayed in Japan for 5 years, and then back to Cebu again.

If I’m to remain a part of PeakD for a long time, it wouldn’t be a surprise that I’ll be talking about topics aside from what I mentioned, because people and purpose do change over time. And as a testament to that, let me introduce the different dimensions of myself, from the recent one going back to the past, all of which has a direct impact to who I am right now.

Trader

I’m a full time trader. Not so full time actually, because I don’t do short-term trading, which is the typical idea of a trader portrayed in movies: a guy watching charts every minute waiting to click BUY and then SELLing later and millions in the blink of an eye! While that’s possible, unfortunately that’s not what I do. Much of my time is spent on studying market environments that matter for boring long-term trading. This is exactly why I’m inclined to learn about macro. But I don’t claim to be the best around though. Just aspiring. :)

OFW

I worked in Japan for five years, mostly for our client in the automotive industry. I did customer support for HMI (human machine interface) software development - the navi you have in your car, the software used to develop that, we did troubleshooting for Japanese customers (and customers do mean companies, not individuals). Japan is special for me, because I love kanji lol. Seriously when I was in 2nd year high school I studied Japanese language for a year on my own, without any concrete plans on how I can ever arrive in Japan. My dad is the president of his own translation company. He met my mom in a Japanese ramen shop. So yeah Japan is really kinda embedded into my history (and hopefully my future as well).

Software engineer

In all honesty I don’t see my IT career to be really exciting at all, or maybe it’s just my bias. Before I went to Japan, spent 5 years in an outsourcing company, but looking back I feel like I worked for 10 years already thanks to overtime. I did customer support for years, you know, listening to customers’ technical or project development issues, then solving those with a team, loads of communications and miscommunications in between, getting assigned onsite, etc. I don’t know, to me it feels like it helped me a lot to be more dynamic - because you need to make decisions and give recommendations on the spot. Mainly did Java, C#, databases, web development. C++ when I was in Japan. Lately I’m interested in AI, so yup, once a programmer, always will be.

Networker

My financial education started when my housing mortgage was about to start, and I realized my net income from my payroll wouldn’t suffice. So I joined Usana, advanced to builder rank, racked up debts (my fault), didn’t succeed in sales obviously, but I learned a lot there.

Keyboardist

I was trained to play the piano (electric keyboard) by ear and did so for around 5 years in an evangelical church (born-again). Not to say I’m a professing Christian in all my deeds now, but yes, I understand the value system. Practice is a different thing though.

DOST scholar

I’m a Computer Science graduate from Cebu Institute of Technology, Magna cum Laude. To me it’s more of a badge of being able to work really hard, rather than innate talent. My purpose really wasn’t the title, but the financial perks - I wanted very high grades for this semester to qualify for next semester's tuition fee discounts, so that whatever stipend I receive from DOST would be my allowance, because our household income that time was really low and borderline poor.

Gamer

Before I entered high school I asked mom to allow me to stop going to school for a year, because I wanted to focus on playing games lol! Grew up playing counterstrike, battle realms, red alert, deus ex, tenchu, mortal kombat, starcraft, and diablo. I'm back to playing games but careful enough not to get addicted again haha!