My 2017 Review & 2018 Prospects

Time flies and today is the last day for 2017.

Looking back for the past 365 days, I would say it is a memorable year to me in doing business, looking for the other half and the road in investment.

Doing Business

With the current economy situation, a lot of things getting tougher and it is no longer comfortable doing business like last time. All we need is keep changing and walk ahead of others. Thank God that this year our business has improved comparing to last year even though the revenue is slightly shrinking. But thanks to the team's continuous efforts, improvement and hardworking, we managed to improve our margin.

For 2018 prospects, I would say it is getting more challenging due to the stiffer competition of price and competitors, employees turnover and higher demand from the customers. We have no choice but will try to get talented employees and be innovative in order to overcome these challenges.

The Other Half

I'm quite sick of looking for the other half at my current age, as I think it should be way over. Unfortunately, I have tried my very best but to no avail at this moment. The available candidates are too limited at this moment. By being more aggressive and thick face, hopefully I can try to solve this problem by 2018. :)

Investment Road

I feel like being cheated for my 2nd unit of local property investment by the developer salesperson 2 years ago, and hence, that unit investment brought negative return to me this year. I have no choice but to hold the unit for now. Anyhow, the market is quite pessimistic for now.

As of crypto currency, I don't understand how it works. Hence, I'm not interested to invest in it for now.

I'm doing reasonably okay for local stock market investment thanks to bull market. Even though I've made huge mistake in investing one of the companies, there's still good return in overall. I have reviewed the lessons learned this year and look forward for better return in 2018. Hopefully I continuously improve my return and eventually achieve my early retirement age in the future.

Good bye 2017, and welcome 2018! Happy new year to you, cheers!

I'm Getting Rich Soon

I received an email 2 days ago from an anonymous, mentioning that he wants to share with me USD1.25M. Hey, yea I know, again...

Let's look at his email content (I copied and pasted exactly the same content, font color & size) below:

Subject: CAN YOU WORK WITH ME

Dear Sir / Madam,

 

I write to inform you that the GOVERNMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF THAILAND in conjunction with International Monetary Fund (IMF), has resolved to refund each victim of scam (Advance Fee FRUAD) the sum of $2,500.000 (Two Million Five Hundred Thousand Dollars only) On that note, I seek your consent to collaborate with me so that I will put your name as one of the victims entitle and legible for this refunds for our mutual benefits.

 

If you are interested in actualizing this deal with me respond back urgently with your below details to enable me put your name among those that will benefit from the refund this month.

 

1 Your full names/ address.

2 Your phone number.

3 Your age/sex and occupation.

 

Please note that the process of filing for this refund is risk free and has nothing to do with illegality because I have perfected every plan for the smooth processing of the refunds. Bear in mind that our working ratio shall be 50% each as soon as we get the refund in your name.

 

Yours Faithfully,

 

Mr. Rodrigo de Rato

Managing Director

International Monetary Fund

What do you think?

First of all, I found a lot of typos in his email and the content looks really unprofessional. It seems like this fellow has a lot to improve.

Secondly, this tactic is totally obsolete. But this fellow is still trying his luck, by changing from one story to another.

Thirdly, this email is attention to Sir / Madam, and TO: is left empty. This fellow doesn't know who to send to. So it should be a mass mailing to try his luck.

Fourthly, it mentioned he is the MD of IMF, Rodrigo Rato. Okay, have a check at IMF MD list, the latest MD is Christine Lagarde. Rodrigo is retired since year 2007!
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund#List_of_Managing_Directors

Finally, I found out if I decided to reply to work together, it is replying to a GMAIL instead of the original email.
from: Rodrigo de Rato
reply-to: teresa.samonte111621@gmail.com

Source: http://aplhr.com

Yes, it is another usual spam email. But it's having fun to find out what can be improved.

Hit Jackpot from Share Investment

Talk about share investment, my return stumbled badly yesterday afternoon after one of my heavyweight invested listed company got serious fire incident at the main factory. This is the first time in my life suffering so much loss from share investment.

As per quick phone interview with the company director published by the media, he expressed that there’s about 500 control machines were affected, estimated $150 million losses and roughly needs 9 months to recover! And their existing inventory can only last for 2 months.

Once this news spreads out yesterday noon, the counter share slumped 30% just within an hour and it’s been suspended due to hit the down limit. And it also hits the highest volume among the entire stocks, about 36.7 million shares transacted within an hour! Not only that, it also created the highest volume record since listed from 2005! Why majority of the shareholders has just a big reaction while fire incident is not something new for manufacturer?

Unfortunately, this is not the first time for this company to hit fire incident. The previous incident was occurred in Jan 2014, merely less than 4 years! And this time, the estimated losses and recovery time are at least 3 times worse than the previous fire incident!

To me, it’s not a big deal about the fire incident and one-time loss, as most probably they can be recovered 80 to 90% via insurance compensation. What matters me is the company reputation and customers’ order! With the production is affected for 9 months or more, how can they deliver the goods to customers as their inventory only can last for 2 months?

I’m not sure the current factory capacity % and number of control machines at Plant 2, 3 & 4, but the affected factory is the core production site which consists of 1,500 control machines and about 1/3 of the machines are affected by fire. Assumed the capacity is about 80-90% with another 750 control machines, they only manage to cover 75 – 150 machines capacity while the remaining 70-80% of productions are not able to fulfill after 2 months.

Put aside the trust and the upcoming 9 months affected income, if they are not able to deliver the goods to customer but the customers are growing, what will happen next? The customers will definitely approach other manufacturers for the orders, may be for short term. But if other manufacturers are aggressive enough, providing perhaps a better quality and price than this problematic company, what will happen next? That’s what I worry about.

The revenue can sure come back upon the rebuild of the machines and production. But trust and orders cannot once customers ran away. Unless the management is able to demonstrate the outstanding leadership and effective way to solve this production issue, else I think that’s it.

The company market capitalization is about $312m before slump, and now at $230m upon slumped. Can you see that? The fire incident has caused $150m loss but the capital is only $230m. It looks very attractive provided the management takes a prudent steps to pinpoint this issue by next week.

Well, crisis always comes with opportunity. I think most probably I’ll give it a small shot on next Monday to average down my buying price, regardless the share price slumps further, retains or bounces back. I personally think this company is still having a bright future, but perhaps I have to hold longer than I expected now.

I'm Back

Time flies, I've been escaping from writing this blog for 7 weeks.

Usually on Sunday late noon, I spent my time to write this weekly blog article. For the past few months, I went out coffee with friends or do some casual articles reading over the Internet, because I'm bothering by a big issue in my life. :(

Source: http://inthiaano.com

My purpose of writing this blog is to share, in terms of what I know, what I discover and what lessons I learned in my life. I hope the readers can benefit from those articles, as simple as that. So why I escaped and came back again?

Initially I thought of giving up, as there’s no response, no feedback and I’m quite demotivated to write it further. Until I saw a positive feedback comment last few days about my last blog article, which I missed the comment earlier. That’s the reason I’m back again. J

I'll update again next weekend. For now, let’s prepare to start a tough Monday again.

Malaysia's Hotels Check-In Time is 2pm Now?

Do you know West Malaysia, especially Kuala Lumpur (KL) and Melaka's most of the budgeted and mid cost hotels' check-in time has changed from 12pm to 2pm?

I only realized this when I brought my family there for vacation last week (and that's why there's no blog update from me last week ;)). The last time I visited KL was only early last year.

Source: https://www.smartertravel.com

Out of my curiosity, I asked the receptionists but they did not tell me the truth. They just said it's their policy. I did ask Grab (similar to Uber in Malaysia) driver what's going on later. I was told that it's because the hotel operators are short of 'house keepers', due to increasing number of hotels and tourists, unable to find local workers, lesser foreign labors available as Malaysia currency has dropped so much and increasing foreign labor cost.

Well, I'm not sure if it's true, but it does makes sense they want to postpone the check-in time from 12pm to 2pm to alleviate the house keeping resources.

If you ask why there's no local people want to do house keeping job? Please don't get me wrong, they don't want to work for low to mid cost hotels due to the low pay condition.

Project Management Professional (PMP)

If you are interested to be a project manager, or currently a project manager who wish to get a certification on project management, perhaps you can try to go for Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

I did it before and it is not that difficult, as long as you put some efforts on it. Before I took it, I was a only 1.5 years project manager, which is consider green. For exam details, you can refer to PMI web site, as it can be changed from time to time. But we have no choice that we have to sit there for a couple of hours like a student to go through hundreds of questions!

Below are how I did for my PMP certification:

1. When I did research via Internet, most of the people are proposing PMP Exam Prep from Rita Mulcahy. Without hesitate, I purchased PMP Exam Prep latest edition written by Rita Mulcahy. It costs about USD60-80 depends on where you buy. You can buy directly from Amazon for cost saving. No doubt, the content she written are really aim for exam prep. The way she tried to explain is bringing us to the right understanding on what the answer we should input. One time study may not enough because I don't really get 60% of understanding from my first study. The book is quite thick but the second time should be very fast.I spent about 4 weeks to read it twice.

Source: http://www.rmcls.com

2. When I started my 2nd time study on PMP exam prep, I have registered for the official 4 days PMP training course at Kuala Lumpur (KL). The instructor was the famous MC Leong. I managed to pick up the training syllabus easily because I have done item 1. Among all students, I was the only one can pick up, while the rests are facing some challenge as the instructor is doing knowledge transfer based on the PMI's PMBOK (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge) text book.

3. Upon return from the training, I scheduled for the exam in 3 weeks time. I went through the PMBOK text book once and then start to do sample exam questions available from the Internet.

Source: http://www.pmi.org

4. The final stage is doing the exam. I flew over to KL again for my PMP exam. It was a sleepless night as I was stress. I only managed to sleep a couple of hours then attend the 4 hours long rally exam! About 45 mins before time's up, I managed to finished the questions. I examined back the questions which I have doubt, and then end the exam 20 mins before ending. And kaching! it shows passed!

For those who is single, have free time at night and weekend, and on the project management path, perhaps it's time to go for PMP. It's an excited one.

Past Experience Can Causes Mistake

I learned an interesting lesson few days ago when I got a loaner car from local KIA/Mazda service center for my car issue inspection. I would like to share something with you here.

Well, I have drive a car with the located functions over the past 20 years. I would say I'm very experience in driving a car, including how to switch on a air-con, release break, etc. But, I have to admin I was wrong after this lesson.

The car service center loan a Mazda 929 to me this time, which I have never drive before but I would say it's classic and old. I'm not sure why they treat me so 'good', as previously they have loaned me Optima, Carens, Sorento, etc.

Mazda 929 vs 6
Source: www.vehiclepad.com

When I got the car at service center, I noticed it is the same breaking system with Mercedes. I try to press the break pedal to release the break. But I couldn't and it stuck there. I tried to look around alternative for a couple of minutes, but to no avail. In the end I have walk inside the service center and ask the counter service guy for assistance. He showed to me that there's a break release puller to release the break, which is located at the lower left of the steering.

I have to admit this design is sucks, as it is totally blocked by the steering. The 'break release' label on it also the same color as the puller, how am I suppose to notice it? However, when think back, I have leverage too much on my past experience. And my focus is only on using my past experience driving Mercedes to release the break. I believe that's the point where I didn't notice the puller when I look through the options over the dashboard.

And after driving for a while, I noticed the car air-con is not working! I thought my car would be fixed by the end of the day as I sent in before 8am on Thu. I need to bare with it for just 1 day.  I feel very dizzy in the late noon because the weather is very hot and I need to drive around for working. What make thing worsen is, I didn't get call to collect the car in the late noon.

The next day, I decided to call the service center to complain about the loaner car. How dare they loan me the car to drive without an air-con! I looked for the same guy and asked for my car status, unfortunately they told me they need me to leave it over the weekend to further fix the defects. I asked him about the air-con, and he said that car air-con was modified, I just need to switch it on from the right of the steering (1st switch from left) instead of the central air-con switch:

Modified aircon switch

Source: ekimkee.blogspot.com

I was speechless.

The moral of my story, try not to judge or make final decision based on past experience alone. There's always something we overlook, or beyond what we have know or seen. ;)

Personal Sales Experience Sharing

In my previous post, I shared on the common traits about top sales. Today, I would like to share a little bit on my sales experience. 

I do involving in the sales field, unfortunately I'm not the top sales in my industry in terms of numbers. Currently I'm still far away from the top sales. Nonetheless, I'm a person who is always wanting to spend effort to improve and achieve my goals. 

I noticed that extraordinary hardworking is insufficient nowadays, as most of the sales will have to do so. To stand out from the ordinary batch, my experience taught me 3 things, as follows:

1) Work differently 

If you follow the same sales strategy and methods that most salespersons are applying, then the outcome perhaps more or less the same. Yes, price always dominant the decision, but it's not 100%. That is why we have top sales. How to work differently? 

There's many strategies you can find online or from books, The advantages can be relationship i.e. make friends, sales pitch i.e. know how to convince, referrals - highly recommended by prospects' friends, etc.

2) Prepare to change

Things are changing, so do sales strategy, products and solutions. I do see some products have not make a single change over the past 5 years, and that is why their revenues are dropping. To remain on top or become a top sales, sales strategy always need to accommodate or adjust to the latest trend or market. Or we call it constantly improve. Don't strictly follow the rules. 

For example, I noticed one IT infrastructure vendor is a top sales vendor selling network hardware solution. And recently they have launched new network solution which is cloud. And the customers are buying their ideas because the cloud solution saves them a lot of CAPEX.

3) Efficiency

With the advent of the technology, communications make easier, and things get done faster nowadays. So do our efficiency. We all like to be serve in priority. For example, an ordinary salesperson spent about 3 days to handle 1 case, we tried to spend 1 day instead. I'm always practicing it, and believe me, it always works and the customer might return if the price is right. 

Cheers.  

Property vs Stock Investment – Part 3

I started to 'invest' in KLSE stock market in the mid of year 2009, where the market started to recover from bottom. At that time it was a very good timing, majority of the counters shooting up like rockets due to general market recovery. 

I found that it is very interesting as stock market can makes money without doing anything physically. So I started to read a lot of stock investment related books and online articles. I made some money from it from year 2009 to 2012, with return ranging from 12% to 34%. Unfortunately, I'm not investing, but more like speculation. That is why my return is not consistent, even though I increase my investment capital. 

When the market turns bad in 2013, I started to lose money till 2015, ranging from +3% (worse than FD) to -2%. I'm very fade up with stock market and turn back to property investment. But I believe it is worse with the long term financial commitment I committed. So I decided to focus my remaining very small investment capital on local stock market again by end of last year. So far I feel that it is one of the only ways to get good return, if I got the right one by using my past experience and lessons.

Back to stock market investment itself, is it risky? Yes, used to be higher than property investment, because the counter you bought sometimes unable to generate income for you, if the share price goes down or they are not distributing dividend. Property investment used to have very low risk as it brings positive cash flow to investors. But most of them not anymore, due to the huge appreciation on the property price and rental rate cannot pick up in tandem. 

Imagine you have to pay property loan of $3,000 monthly and yet your rental is only $2,200. People may say it is a bad investment because you are losing monthly cash flow of $800. It is very risky by hoping for capital appreciation especially in this bad situation. What if both your tenant and you have cash flow issue and having issue to pay the monthly property loan? That's the risk. 

What about stock investment risk? In fact, the risk is not high as well considering the investment choice you have now, only if you know how to play the game. 

To be continued...

Chinese New Year Catch-up

I’m having vacation in my hometown for Chinese New Year for the past 10 days. I have plenty of time to catch up with relatives, ex-classmates and friends. Time flies, it comes to an end for my long break and will need to go back to work by tomorrow.

I have attended more than 10 catch-up sessions, and mostly talked about the following topics, repeatedly:

1.       How’s other ex-classmates doing

2.       Where is pretty / handsome ex-classmate now and who are they married to?

3.       Who is the most successful person among the ex-classmates?

4.       How to make more money? What to invest in this difficult situation?

5.       Are you married? How many kids to you have?

6.       Have you bought a house? Where?

7.       Who divorced? Involved into accident, in newspapers?

8.       What’s the near future plan?

In fact, most of us did not change much, except the body shape and the faces are getting more matured.

There’s one thing I found interesting. Most of the ex-classmates who were good in studies, they are working for others and under multi-national companies. Some of the notorious ex-classmates, they started their own businesses, and it seems they are now makes more money than those had outstanding exam results. It’s worth to think about why.

Another interesting thing I found out. Those having good looking / pretty, most of them got married. But those not so competitive (not from financial perspective), some of them still available right now.

And finally, about 20-30% of ex-classmates have settled down in other cities, majority staying in Australia, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Perhaps they can make a lot more money there, and found their spouses there as well.

It is interesting to catch up with ex-classmates and old friends at least once a year, to get to know what, how and where are we doing. Life is short, human are born to be communicated, if you are able to speak and listen.

Property vs Stock Investment – Part 2

Property investment indeed brought up a lot of millionaires or even tens of millionaires from 2009 to 2015. The property price in Malaysia and Singapore has skyrocketed, at least doubled if you bought before 2009. Thanks to Asia economy booming.

I bought my first house in my hometown back in year 2009. And I couldn’t stop seeing house price going up every day. I want to buy my second house between 2011 and 2013, but I unable to make decision due to the skyrocket price. Similar to many people mindset, IF I KNOW and IF I DARE to refinance to buy 2 or 3 more houses / shophouses during this booming period, perhaps I can have a more comfortable life right now.

In the end of 2014, I relook into property investment again, and I bought my second unit in my hometown, not far away from my 1^st unit. In fact, I’m not sure whether I bought the right house for second unit until today. It is still under construction and time will tell.

Needless to say, the first house I bought has doubled the price in 2014. I still keep it until today. I have the intention to sell it mid of last year due to business difficulties. I couldn’t help again as I see the price gradually dropping due to oversupply. The price falls about 10% from the peak. Even though it is the worst now and I did see a little sign of market recovering, I’m still observing it whether I need to cash out anytime soon. Who know, I may want to cash out my 2^nd unit 1^st upon completion by mid of this year.

In summary, property investment is more complex than what I think. Why I said so? Because I’m not station in my hometown. I feel distance management is an issue, especially you would like to understand more about the situation, tenancy management, renovation, etc.

With this market condition, do you still hear people making money from property investment nowadays? Perhaps there are, but definitely not the people I know. Or perhaps we need extraordinary or new skills to do so. But I'm not here to offend property investors. Just that I'm looking into investment that I feel more comfortable.

I'm desperately looking for good investment return to beat inflation and for early retirement. I relook into local stock investment again end of last year.

To be continued…

2016 Year End Review

 It’s end of the year, again. Yes, 2016 finally comes to an end. How is this year doing to you? To me, it is a fantastic year with full of challenges.

Let’s review what had happened to me this year and what I’ve done:

January – My mum went under a minor eye operation. Thank God the operation went well. At the same time, my house got a new member, my sister-in-law gave birth to his 2^nd child. I have a 2^nd nephew at New Year day itself!

February – I got a girlfriend, the best ever girlfriend.

March - I started a small business amidst the oil and economy crisis. And the same time, I told my girlfriend it will be very tough for both of us.

April to October – A lot of problems, small and big happened in my new business, such as cash flow, staffing, projects, vendors, exchange rates, collection, and many others. I was trying to solve one by one. Some of them managed to solve, and some of them are not being resolved till today. Thank God that amidst the problems, the business is consider going upwards.

September – My girlfriend decided to leave me. I think I have no choice, but I can only wish her all the best. I was upset for 3 months, and now I feel good again.

October – My brother was headhunted by loan sharks. His boss managed to settle all debts for him, but he has to pay back monthly. Where did he spend the money? Nobody knows but only him. In less than a month, he was fired by the boss due to the loss of his trustworthy.

November - Some of customer friends who are expatriates being retrenched. The economy seems not getting any better till now. Perhaps I made a right decision to employ and fight for myself, at least either fail or succeed, and I do not have to worry about retrenchment from the company. On a side note, Donald Trump won the presidency of USA. That's really motivates me a lot. It's further strengthen my believe that nothing is impossible.

December – Business is slowing down tremendously for this month and I’ve a lot of free time to think about what to do for next year. It’s scaring as the local economy situation is getting worse, and most of my customers are planning to cut cost further for next year. And I also heard that a lot of my peers are cutting people and cost, just to keep surviving. I strongly believe it’s time for a change, a drastic change to survive, instead of stay there to wait for the situation to turn better. But I do not have a solution yet, all I can do is just try and error with cost.

For stock investment, it is a good year for me after made loss consecutively for 2 years. It seems I found a better way of doing stock investment.

For 2017, it will be another extremely challenging year to me, especially in my business prospect. In fact, human life itself is always full of challenges. Since I’ve started this, I’ll take the challenges and try to break them through. That’s what I plan for 2017. Succeed or fail, it will be determined by my action and luck.

I’m taking a break starting from tomorrow till New Year. I will make use of this break to restart my engine in order to walk further.

Merry Christmas, folks!

Listen to Positive or Negative Feedback?

Last week, a good friend and I were having coffee and chi chat over a coffee shop. We talked about the near term prospects of our own companies and how to overcome this low crude oil and bad economy crisis. 

His plan is to expand to neighbor countries due to similar culture and business strategy, but he has the concern on limited cash flow, confidence level and know how. Basically he is doing cabling infrastructure distribution and services business. From what I noticed, he is doing very well on services over the past few years because of his public relations, reasonable price and being very flexible in doing business. Most of the customers like to deal with them. 

For their distribution business, it compliments with their projects and services, I guess may be about 15-25% of the total annual sales. A good thing about their distribution business is, all the products are self-developed and they have a lot better margins compared to the local rivals. Right now, his plan is to focus only on distribution business in neighbor country. 

I commented that I don't really look good on neighbor country even it's a much bigger cake, as the cabling infrastructure there are more mature and competitive than local market. Yes, they have their own brand and they are able to control the cost and selling price. But these cable items are very mature in the market, what makes me want to change brand or vendor? Are both solving the same problems? Unless you tell me I can make more margin by using your product? 

Well, this is traditional trading game and the price can only go lower and lower with lesser margin. With his concern in mind, it might be a waste of time and money, unless he has a out-of-the-box business strategy. I did advice him to try participate in international fair in the neighbor country and check out the response before rush in just like that. 

Unfortunately, free advice is always useless, people just don't appreciate it. He got pissed off. He scolded me for depreciating his products and he feedback that if everyone think like me, then no one is going to expand overseas. Well, it is true but that's only for those losers who stopped by the negative feedback. What I mean is he can actually leverage on those negative feedback to move forward! 

Well, I get his point why he is angry. From the way I noticed, most of the bosses or entrepreneurs do not like people provide negative feedback about their company, especially on their ideas, plans and solutions. Perhaps they were having hard time to make it over, and they think they need to be recognize badly. 

In my opinion, if one only want to listen positive feedback and fake comment, then I don't see this topic needs to be brought up and discussed anymore in the near future. When I reached home, I did apologize and text him we would not discuss about his company again and he is fine with it. 

I hope he'll ponder over my comments before he takes action. I wish him all the best for his overseas expansion.

Jobless

My mum called me yesterday evening while I was having my dinner at home.

She told me that my brother is being officially informed by his company to relocate to a suburban town (about 8 hours drive from my hometown) with pay cut of 25% and accommodation is not included. She told me my brother has no choice but to reject it and resign. She asked me if there's any vacation suitable for him over here.

In my opinion, isn't it very obvious that his boss is asking him to get the hell out of his company without any compensation. He has been working for that company for about 7 years as sales executive and that's how he being treated after all. Of course, may be he did something wrong, may be he did not hit his sales target, or the company is facing difficulty in such economy situation, I don't really know as he did not tell us about it in details.

What I want to share with you is that, you can be hardworking today, but it doesn't mean you can do so the next year same day. It's because your commitment will increase. For example, got married and having children. Or you are a top sales today, doesn't mean you will be the top sales again the next year. It's because things changed rapidly nowadays, with the advent of technology.

I have seen a 6 years consecutive top insurance salesperson suddenly shift his career to become a training / seminar coach! When being asked why, he said technology changed too fast, he cannot be continuously doing the same thing while want to get more income. So he has decided to change his career, take the big risk and try something new with a lot bigger potential income. The interesting part is, he makes use of social media to be part of his marketing tool. Well, perhaps it's very common in the developed countries. But in my hometown of only 800k population, that's rare!

In contrary, what I noticed is my brother has been doing the same thing over the past 7 years. Yes, perhaps he can easily hit the quota with his intelligence and hard work for the 1st few years and the boss should likes him. But situation and thing have changed over time. Especially with the advent of technology, thing changes very rapidly over the past few years. In addition, Malaysia economy is facing downturn since a couple of years ago. Local careers are getting tougher and complicated nowadays.

My brother is turning to 39 next year, which he falls in his mid life crisis of being jobless. He has a wife and 2 kids of 7 year old and 1 year old to feed, with the inflation rate of almost 60-80% from 7 years ago. What make him worsen is, he has no savings and rely heavily on my parents. I'm sure he is facing a lot of pressure now.

So what next for him? He told my mum he will try to look for a job. But for how confident he is, I do not know. But I need to help him. How to help? I will ask around locally and in my hometown to see if there's any job opportunity for him. That's what the best I can do for him for now.

Anyway, jobless is not hopeless. We need to encourage him to overcome this.

Facing and Solving Problems

Everyone has problems and everyone has to face problems. If you take more responsibilities as a person, be it in your career, family or association, you will face even more problems. Expect problems? I don't think most of us like it.

Due to I'm running a new business, I'm facing problems almost everyday. Those problems can be ranging from small to big, easy to challenging, less headache to very headache. Most of the times, the problems are not able to resolve within couple of days or weeks, it takes months! Imagine how can I sleep peacefully with these problems in mind. Sometimes, I just have one thought, give up.

Anyway, no matter what, I have chose my own career path. I want to be successful in my career and to be the few % out of 100. I have no choice, but to continue to run it alone for now. I have always tried my very best to solve every problem comes. Sometimes I solved it with very lazy and stupid way, sometimes luck is with me and solve it eventually.

Along the way, facing and solving problems really provided me a lot of invaluable experience. Imagine you are trying to solve a problem for more than 6 months, and you finally solve it one day! How do you feel? Joy, excited, want to tell yourself, 'finally!'. Yes, I have this feeling. It's a pain process.

From my recent experience, there are few ways that can help relieving the pain of solving problems. When facing problems, we may:
1) Ask for help from the right candidate. For example, if you face technical issue, talk to your technical friends or ask for the right contacts from whoever know about it. This is the best way I've encountered, but somehow people tend to forget.
2) Google / Internet sourcing. Yes, it helps a lot sometimes!
3) Get a mentor or join the relevant association / forum.
4) Think and practice. Right practice makes perfect. Once you always solves relevant problems, you will definitely become better.
5) Follow your guts. When you have no choice, you may just follow your guts after listened to few comments. Remember the word AFTER, not simply follow your guy first. It works most of the time.
6) Pray. It may not completely helps, but it injects more confidence into our decision. God is with us. :)

Happy facing and solving problems.

Back from Hometown Lesson

I was back to my hometown for about 6 days 5 nights last weekend.

Well, this trip is quite busy as this time there's a ex-cell group friend also back from Singapore for vacation. I have almost 10 years did not meet her already.

I managed to catch up with some old friends for a coffee session, and one of them wedding invitation card to us. Most of them are climbing the corporate ladders, except one doing small F&B business. Compare to them, perhaps I look a little bit more successful as an entrepreneur. But unfortunately, I'm the worst among all of us as I have 7 months did not get my salary due to the company has not sufficient income.

The following night we were gathering with some of our ex-cell group members. All of them still look quite young, and not marry yet even though we are approaching 40 soon. The only married person is the lady friend who back from Singapore, who married 8 years back with 2 kids.

The following day's evening I had badminton session with ex-church fellows. A good play but it seems they are short of players.

The night before I flew back to working place, I had a coffee session with some ex-church young adult fellows. They look happy go lucky. Perhaps that's one of the ways to release stress. Similarly, most of them also not married yet.

In conclusion, what happen to the young adult in my hometown now, including myself?!

After I broke up with my girl friend last month, she let me realized my problems. I better correct them as soon as possible and I hope I'm the next one deliver the invitation card!

A Surprised Call Last Night

I was very surprised last night, where a primary & secondary school closed friend called me and told me that he is getting married by end of this year. He is asking whether I can attend his wedding ceremony.

Actually with our age, nothing to be surprised as we supposed to get married few years back. But for this friend, I must raise my salute. Along his life, he has yet to date any girl. Meaning he does not has any girl friend before this. Why? Perhaps he has no interest, as I don't think he is shy type.

When we met up during Chinese New Year, about 7 months ago, he still told me that he still has not yet find his Mrs. right.

Anyway, it is definitely a good news and congratulate to him. His family should be also very proud of him. Just that I don't even know who is his Mrs. Right. I will going back to my hometown to meet him soon to find out.

I'm not sure if I can attend his wedding due to my current financial and business situation. I only have few closed friends, he is one of the very few and keep in touch until this year. I'll definitely trying to support him whenever I can. :)

Broke Up

Most of the time, we do things according to our habit and preference. And most of the time, we did not considerate enough the love one surrounding us.

I was dumped by girl friend few days ago. She told me I'm too selfish, I always did not think in her perspective and only care about my career. She complained that her friends are even better than me as a friend. I'm so upset when I heard it.

I admitted I did it in wrongly, even though I still think there's miscommunication and I'm trying to do thing without her knowledge. But eventually it comes to a stop, where she cannot stands due to the pressure from her career and friends.

I'm regretting these few days and I've tried to salvage the relationship but she refused to give me a chance to revive.

I have pondered over it the entire night, I think I will have to solve the problem instead of keep myself upset and abandoned. I'm assured that I still like her and not afford to lose her. I need to take actions and adjust my characteristics to win her heart back.

Well, think, talk and plan are always easy. When it comes to action, it is the main challenge. It's about perseverance and courage.

Stay tune.

Be Flexible

2 days ago, I went to one of the money changers in the town to transmit some payments to few suppliers in the morning. This house is considered the largest money changer in the town (in a tiny country) and have 6 counters and more than 15 seats in the waiting area. As it is early of the month, the money changer is full of customers. My ticket number is about 30+ from the current one.

While waiting, I took a look at the exchange rate. It is terribly low compared to the Internet rate. From what I can recalled, the other money changers nearby are not as many customers as this one. I'm thinking why there's tonnes of people still want to come here to remit money? I have to come to this house because I need to remit to company instead of personal account. And according to my accountant friend, this is the house that I can do so with lower transaction fee of few dollars only.

I bumped into my ex-colleague and he told me that a lot of people like this house because it has a lower transaction fee and the recipient can receive the money within the same day.

I continue to wait. The more I'm waiting and calculate, the more I feel something is not right. I decided to call my banker and ask for today's exchange rate. The rate is about 1.5 points higher than this house. Even the bank transaction fees are 3 times higher, it seems the total amount still slightly lower than this house. I might as well go back and do online money transfer!

As it still has 20 over numbers before my turn, I decided to walk over to a mall which has my bank as I need to ask them how to do online TT to the payment country.

When I entered to the mall, I noticed a money changer which I used to do personal remittance back to my hometown and there's only 1 customer doing the transaction at that time. And the exchange rate is 2.5 points higher than the 1st house. Even the transaction fee is doubled than the 1st house, if it exceeded certain amount, it is still worth it. And most importantly, I do not have to wait at all.

Out of curiosity, I just asked them whether they do company payment, and they said yes. I immediately pass them the details, open an account and I complete the transactions within 20 mins.

What's the moral of my story?
1. Do not simply follow other's advice. There's always better alternative, to explore if you have the time or no choice.
2. Be flexible. When thing doesn't works, try to look for alternative instead of stick to the plan.
3. Ask around. Sometimes the only thing you need to do is, just asking around.

Cheers.

My 34th Birthday

Time flies. I was having my 34th year old birthday last Tuesday. 

My girl friend was kind enough to celebrate my birthday by treated me to a downtown high-end steak house, complimented with a gift that I wanted quite some times ago. I really love the blue cheese wayu steak in the restaurant, it's very delicious and unforgettable. Just that it's a little bit pricey. It's too bad that we've forgotten to take a photo for memory and show you here as we are too excited over the dinner.

To review the past 1 year, it's been a extremely challenging year for me especially the 2nd half. I'm losing a lot of momentum due to a series of mistakes caused by my impulsive and immature decisions. And there are problems accumulating and pending to be resolved. On the other hand, I thank God that I've received a lot of blessings and support from my girl friend, closed friends and mentors. Thank you for that and I hope I can return you guys the favor as much as I can.

Moving Forward, I have yet to think much about it, as I'm still a lost sheep. But I will try to sustain by learning from my past mistakes and grab as much opportunity available as possible. That's what most of us are trying to do right.

I will try to continue my current journey, as where I have chose to start it earlier. I hope I can do it even it's extremely challenging, even I just have a little bit confidence left. That's my wish for my birthday.