About Liuhua

First of all let me extend my utmost thanks for visiting this humble site of mine.

My name is Liuhua (pronounced lee-you-hoo-wah) but some call me Fenix since it’s much easier to remember (Not Felix, it’s Fenix ). I am the sole owner and proud author of this little website sitting in cyberspace that you are reading right now.

Little random facts about Liuhua

I’m currently an undergraduate studying at the lovely University of Michigan in the United States. I am an international student (hint #1 - see box below) who is lucky enough to have a chance to study and live in this wonderful and beautiful city of Ann Arbor.

I love meeting people and exploring new life experiences (which was one of the reason I came all the way to the States).

My passion, a.k.a Why I Do What I Do

When I was in high school, I was a peer counselor. People who had problems came to me for advice. As such I developed my listening skills, and of course, my communication skills. Communication is a tricky thing, especially when you’re talking to people who aren’t feeling very positive. (Sometimes I'd ask if they would like a modulus sign over them) You don’t want to nudge them the wrong way, but you don’t want to make them feel like they’re being looked down upon.

From there I begin to develop an interest in the way people interact with each other. How do people talk? What kind of language do they use with friends? Families? Co-workers? Crushes?

You’d be surprised.

Want to Win $30.00?

Just guess which country I am originally from. Head over here and submit your guess! If you are one of the first THREE people who get it right, you win $30! Simple as that!

Want a hint? English is not my first language, so that effectively eliminates about five country choices.

If you submit multiple guesses, only your first will be considered, to be fair to others. Otherwise you can just send in 195 guesses, and that wouldn't be fair. You can definitely submit under different email addresses, but the form tracks submissions by IP addresses, so it would still count as multiple submissions from a single address.

In other words, please be nice and give others a chance to win too! =)

I always believe that there are always two ways to say something; the nice way, or the other way. A lot of times fights happen because we don’t seem to think first before we talk. I’ve seen too many of those.

Also in high school, I was involved in a lot of clubs where I’m expected to stand in front of a whole bunch of strangers and talk to them about something they may or may not care about. My first public speaking was a disaster. I walked up the podium and immediately started reading my speech. No opening lines, no warm welcomes, absolutely nothing. All I could think of was to get up there, vomit everything out and run away as fast as my legs could carry me.

I interned at a real estate agency when I took a year off after high school. One of my jobs was to sit in during sales negotiations and then write reports after that. Soon enough however I was allowed to even participate in the negotiations themselves. It wasn't easy trying to convince people to part with a six-figure sum for a property, but it was definitely way fun.

I have a friend who helps out with certain aspects of content. She is Kaylen Shubrick, a mother of a cute "2-year-old who doesn't know how to blow her nose". She used to be a marriage counselor, and I learnt alot from her. Thanks Kaylen!

My Quest to Share My Knowledge

Am I a professional communicator? Am I a public speaking pro? Can I establish myself as a field expert in communication? Probably not.

I don’t pretend to be one, I just want to share my experiences, knowledge, and most of all, my interest in communication. I’m more of a “street-educated” person, that is, my knowledge that I share on this website is based on my own life experiences and not from textbooks or a degree in Communication Studies.

I got the idea of starting a website one day when I was talking to Shoko-sensei. I know a *little* HTML, but that was all. I knew that if I went with the traditional webhosting route, I'm going to have to soak up A LOT of technical information just to get started. As a full-time student, that just wasn't the plan.

Then I stumbled upon SBI. Their philosophy intrigued me. I especially like their motto:

"Why Just Build A Website When You Can Build A Business?"

"Build a business". It certainly got my attention.

The thing that struck me about SBI was that they are anti-Get-Rich- Quick. They say right off the bat that if you're looking to make a million dollars overnight, then they do not want your business.

The core principle of SBI works something like this: They provide you the tools to build your business, and in return they ask one thing from you: BAM.

Brain And Motivation.

In other words, SBI expects you to work for your business. And that alone was a good indicator that SBI is not a scam. Believe me, it's hard work working on this site. Although the tools given by SBI were plentiful, it is I who have to put them to use and get things done. But you know what?

I enjoy it.

I, and many others, have turned our passions into money-makers, with the help of SBI. Note that I said "with the help of", because ultimately, SBI only works if YOU work it.

I could go on and on about SBI, but I think what speaks for the effectiveness of any business is the kind of results they deliver. If you take a look at this page, you'd see that several major universities have already started offering SBI as a course!

That, in itself, is amazing.

Proofs? Take a look at their Hall of Fame listing websites that rake in so much traffic they make the I-90 look like dirt road. These site owners had their life changed for the better thanks to SBI.

My SBI Scholarship

Unfortunately, it's not something you can apply for. What I meant was that this SBI site is like a scholarship to me. My site is still small, far from what you see on the SBI results page, but it has made me a nice sum that I do not need to worry about living expenses in the United States. That's a lot of money for a 21-year-old undergraduate, trust me.

For moms who work at home, it means more time to care for little Jamie who needs help with her diaper.

For retirees who have spent the first half of their lives making money for someone else, it means not having to rely on Social Security alone.

For university students (me!), it means they graduate with not just a degree, but also a business.

SBI is not all roses, though.

Although SBI is meant for people who have absolutely no knowledge in HTML, because its core principle is to provide you all the tools you need to build your business, if you don't know any HTML, you are going to have a LONG HARD journey ahead of you. A lot harder.

"You build this site with *little* HTML knowledge? Yeah right!"

Okay, I admit that advanced HTML coding is involved here. But my site is one year old, and when I first started out it looked nothing like what it looks like now. I learnt HTML as I "build my business".

And it's a lot of work. So while SBI says that you don't need to know HTML to use it, it sure helps cut down A LOT of the learning process.

Speaking of learning process, the learning curve to master the tools in SBI is just plain huge. There's so much to learn, and it's so easy to get overwhelmed and distracted. If you know nothing about HTML, that curve just got steeper.

People who drop out of SBI drop out because of that; too much hard work. It's not for the faint-hearted; it's for the motivated.

But in the end, it's all worth it. You're building a business after all, and sometimes when you sit in front of the computer typing, it's easy to forget that that is exactly what you're doing.

It's all worth it in the end because no matter how overwhelmed you are, the people in the SBI forums are so caring and helpful. That is possibly the one priceless asset in SBI. I've never seen a forum so friendly, so helpful, it makes you want to cry.

I have made many friends in the forums, people I trust, people I know who will be there when I feel like my site is murdering me slowly. Words cannot describe the value of the forums, you have to see it for yourself.

Send me a message expressing your interest in taking a peek at how caring the SBI community is, drop me a line and I will gladly let you hop on board!

Once again thanks for visiting this corner of cyberspace! =)

Love,