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.

How to Keep Skin Looking Young?

I read a newspaper article 2 days ago about 3 sisters and their parents all look at least 10+ years younger than their actual age. The article topic immediately drew my attention.

The sisters age 36, 40 and 41, namely Sharon, Fay and Lure, but most of them look like late 20s. On top of that, all the 3 sisters look pretty and maintaining slim body. I personally prefer Lure, the eldest yet she has the most attractive face and attractive line. What shock me further is, their mother 63, but only look like 40+. That's amazing!

Lure (41), Fayfay (40) & Sharon (36)
Source: https://nextshark.com 

What could be their secret when asked by the journalist? It turns out the family works their magic with hydration and proper diet. Lure said that the key is to drink water and eat vegetables. She added that moisturizing helps so - “you don’t even need to worry about aging and wrinkles”.

Do you believe what she said? Or we just give it a try?

For the entire news URL, you can read it here.
https://nextshark.com/mom-63-daughters-41-40-36-stuns-internet-youthful-looks/

3 Things You Should Do Every Day If You Want to be Successful

When it comes to money, it's easy to understand how daily habits add up. There are simple equations you can use and routines you can set up to make sure you stay within your budget.

But optimizing how we spend time is more difficult, psychologists say. Spending the odd hour scrolling through social media doesn't seem like such a bad thing until we realize what that time could have been used to accomplish.

Business titans like Bill Gates, Tony Robbins and Warren Buffett know that over time, daily habits can amount to big achievements. That's why they make a point of adhering to a few specific ones.

Here are three things to do every day to become more successful:

1. Take time to process

Every morning, Tony Robbins starts his day with 10 minutes of meditation that involves a specific breathing technique, prayer and a pep talk.

Source: www.pinterest.com

It sets him up for success, he says, because he primes himself to be grateful and calm. Having quiet time to analyze your thoughts is associated with stress reduction, studies show.

Meditation is also shown to boost activity in areas of the brain related to paying attention, indicating it could help you focus better throughout the day.

If you're interested in starting a meditation practice, entrepreneur and author Tim Ferriss has some great advice.

"Start small, rig the game so you can win it, get in five sessions before you get too ambitious with length," Ferriss says on his podcast. "You have to win those early sessions so you establish it as a habit, so you don't have the cognitive fatigue of that practice."

Begin with a two-minute routine a Harvard-trained psychologist recommends to help you relax.

2. Go on a daily walk or to the gym 

Spending even just a few minutes every day exercising will clear your head and make you feel more motivated, studies show. That's one of the reasons many successful business leaders make sure to work out.

Twitter co-founder and Square CEO Jack Dorsey likes to run six miles every morning. Oprah Winfrey practices yoga and makes sure to log over 10,000 steps each day on her fitness tracker.

Billionaire Richard Branson says his morning routine of waking up at 5 a.m. to play tennis or bike has doubled his productivity.

"I definitely can achieve twice as much by keeping fit," Branson tells FourYourBodyPress. "It keeps the brain functioning well."

Source: www.slideshare.net

If you don't have time to go to the gym, take five minutes to go on a walk. Stanford researchers found that the very act of walking boosted a person's creativity by an average of 60 percent.

"TO ENJOY LIFE, YOU DON'T NEED FANCY NONSENSE, BUT YOU DO NEED TO CONTROL YOUR TIME."
-Tim Ferriss, entrepreneur and author of "Tools of Titans"

3. Pick up a book

Both Gates and Buffett make a point to read every day, a habit that research shows reduces stress and boosts intelligence.

"Reading books is my favorite way to learn about a new topic," Gates writes on his blog. "I've been reading about a book a week on average since I was a kid. Even when my schedule is out of control, I carve out a lot of time for reading."

Source: www.quora.com

Every evening before bed, he reads for one hour. By making time every day, he reads a whopping 50 books each year.

Buffett too credits much of his prowess to reading. He says he starts every morning by poring over several newspapers and estimates he spends as much as 80 percent of his day reading.

When asked once about the key to success, the Berkshire Hathaway CEO pointed to a stack of books and said, "Read 500 pages like this every day. That's how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it."

As Ferriss writes in his popular book "Tools of Titans," habits are more important than we think.

"To enjoy life, you don't need fancy nonsense," Ferris writes, "but you do need to control your time."

Article Source: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/06/3-things-you-should-do-every-day-if-you-want-be-successful.html

Money Game's Joke

As you know Money Game is really a hot topic in Malaysia for the past 2 weeks. There's a joke about how it works.

Source: www.stomp.com.sg

"One day, the vegetable market comes a beggar. Some people donate him some money, but most people don't.

The beggar asked and recorded all the people's address who donated him some money. After few days, a Bentley stopped in front of him. He rides on the car and visited each of the person in the address list to pay back the money, but pay back in 10 times of what they offered earlier. $1 he gave $10 back, and $5 he gave $50 back. The news was spread widely and most people in the vege market were shocked.

The next day, he came to the market again. The mass started to rush and gave him money. Within an hours, more than hundreds have passed the money to him. As usual, he records all the people address properly. The next few days, he brought assistants and more and more people gave him money. He also promised he will return they money to them in few days time.

After one week, the people started to stop giving money to him. And hence, the beggar collected a lot of money, then he left for good and did not return anyone's money.

The name of the beggar is called ......... Money game."

Source: www.stomp.com.sg

I have involved in money game once, and of course, I was very unlucky as I joined during the last stage, where the fund has already grew up to $200M. After joined for less than 3 months, it collapsed and the rest is history. I paid $8,000 for this lesson. ;(

Hyundai or Toyota?

Last few days ago, I saw a local e-newspaper article reporting about the Chinese citizens trying to smash a KOREAN car due to the built of missile shield in South Korea from Korea and USA.

But if you pay attention to the car model in the photo, is it a Toyota or Hyundai?

2016 Top 10 Richest Men in Malaysia

I noticed the newspaper is featuring the latest top 10 richest men in Malaysia these few days. I would like to share with you the summary and my thinking here.

As expected, no. 1 is still belongs to Robert Kuok, with accumulated RM36.7 billion, with listed companies over Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong (China). He has been in the top 1 position for many years, where his businesses covering palm oil, hotel and logistics.

Robert Kuok is a very low profile and humble person, perhaps the most low profile among all top 10 wealthiest businessmen.When he was young, he has already felt in love with those outstanding people who is very low profile.

I still kept his interview session video clip with me, which recorded about 4 years ago. He advice whoever do business must be daring. He gave suggestions that the one must be (1) focus, (2) patient, and (3) dare to fail. At the same time, he urged not to forget about charity and social responsibility.

Robert is 94 this year, who is the oldest among the top 10 billionaires.

The second chair goes to Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay, accumulated RM22.3 billion. The most well known businesses are entertainment and gaming business namely Genting and resort worlds operating in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, US, UK. They also operates cruise for gaming purpose worldwide.

Lim is 66 years old this year, the 2nd youngest in the top 10 (thought we considered he is old man). I seldom hear about Lim's sharing in public, but more to his company's business expansion news. But we can see he is very aggressively expanding the gaming business. And that is why his accumulated wealth is also growing aggressively, rising from 3rd to 2nd richest man this year.

The 3rd richest man is Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow, with accumulation of RM20.3 billion, rising from 4th place last year. His businesses are pretty straight forward and simple, Public Bank and LPI insurance company. Public Bank is still the best ROI and money making bank in Malaysia today. It's share price always growing steadily and healthy, in tandem with it's revenue and profit.

I do think that Public Bank is always play safe and take minimal risk, but some how it's result still very convincing. I would say it's efficiency and cost control are at a very good level.

Teh is 87 years old but up to today he has not appoint successor yet to take over his empire.

Top 4 - Ananda Krishnan with RM19.9 billion - telco, O&G and satellite business
Top 5 - Tan Sri Lee Shin Cheng with RM19 billion - palm oil and property development
Top 6 - Tan Sri Lau Cho Kun with RM16.4 billion - property dev, car agent, palm oil, finance, etc.
Top 7 - Tan Sri Quek Leng Chan with RM13.5 billion - banks, steel, cement, property dev, etc.
Top 8 - Tan Sri Yeoh Tiong Lay with RM10.3 billion - utilities, property dev, cement, IT, etc.
Top 9 - Tan Sri G. Gnanalingam with RM6.7 billion - port operators
Top 10 - Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-bukhary with RM4.9 billion - Flour, rice, mining, O&G, port operators, logistics, car manufacturer, utilities, construction,etc. (mostly govt link companies)

Overall, the top 10 richest men encompass 7 Chinese including the top three, 2 Indians and 1 Malay. The youngest is 65 years old, Syed Mokthar in 10th place, and oldest is Robert, 94. With Malaysia's politics and current situation, I do not see the young generation can come up so soon. But there's always a chance, we will see.

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.

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.

Do You Possess Multi-Millionaires Traits?

I will stay at home to study public listed company (stock investment) and read Internet articles on Sunday noon and night normally. Some how I have great interest in doing this, and I feel very relax by doing it. ;) Of course, the ultimate purpose is to make me stronger, more knowledgeable, obtain higher return on business and investment.

I came across a simple article about the usual traits of the multi-millionaires, which I think it is quite true from what I noticed over multi-millionaires around me. I would like to share with you here.

There's a research center spent 5 years time to study 177 multi-millionaires, and they discovered the following 12 traits from these successful people. For those multi-millionaires climbing all the way up from the ground, they have their success reasons behind, and these are the traits.

1. They read frequently, and relentlessly upgrade their knowledge and mindset.
2. They exercise regularly and stay healthy.
3. They get to know other successful people and expand their networks.
4. They relentlessly seek for their own goals, they are persistence.
5. They wake up early.
6. They have multiple income sources, including business and investment.
7. They have mentor/s.
8. They have positive and aggressive attitude.
9. They do not follow the crowd.
10. They help others to be succeeded (so they can ride on others to earn more?).
11. They spend time to think and ponder over problems and future trend, daily.
12. They seek for feedback from others.

Sounds simple? Out of these 12 traits, how many of them you think you are currently possessing them? I think item 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 and 12 are not that difficult, most of us can try to achieve them. But from what I noticed, we might not become millionaire even we possess all these 12 traits. Why is that?

Well, these are just common traits from these 177 multi-millionaires, or more. But doesn't mean the study proved that possess these 12 traits then you will become millionaires. We still need ideas, courage, resources and support to achieve it.

Being an entrepreneur, I realized what it takes to be successful. If we able to possess 12 traits above, it does help us a lot to be successful.

Some of us chose to be mediocre, that's fine. But some of us still have dreams and want to be rich. Anyhow, it's good to try to do business at least once and last it at least 1-2 years when you are young and single, then you will experience something you'll never get to experience in your life!

Live Again But Even Worse?

Have you ever think of back to the future and live again?

Sometimes, or most of the times, we made wrong decisions and bad things happened on us. How we wish to go back to the future and do the right things and make us rich!

I watched a China local made comedy movie last night, named 'Goodbye Mr. Loser'. That's reminds me of a Hollywood movie 'Click' act by Adam Sandler which I watched about 10 years ago. The story line depicts about a useless man where he doesn't work since graduated and fully relying on his wife for a living. His wife was his school mate and they grew up together. But he is not happy about his current situation.

One day, he attended his first love (campus belle) wedding luncheon, he was humiliated by his wife and he falls asleep in the wash room. When he wake up, he is back to the secondary school time. This time, he is trying to avoid his wife and go after his campus belle. The interesting part is, he thought of create and sing back those songs that the 'future' celebrities have sang, including Jay Chow's songs, etc. So he got rich very easily after that and get everything he wants physically.

However, he doesn't feel happy as he was before. His new wife, campus belle married to him because of his money and fame. They do not really have love in between. One of his ex-classmates sticks with him because of the same things as well. And he is also sick and under pressure of those celebrities keep pressing him for composing new songs. So he started to spend money to have relationships with many other women.

One day, he bumps into an ex-classmate and he told him about his ex-wife sacrificed her body for him in an incident. He was so touched and he started to think back the beauty of his ex-wife, and what did he did for him. He regrets what he did and he is trying to give up everything and retrieve back his ex-wife. But it's too late, his ex-wife has married to his ex-classmate. He tried to exchange all his wealth with his ex-classmate for his ex-wife, but he was hit by his ex-classmate and admitted to hospital.

After that, the doctor found out he is infected with HIV. At the same time, his mother falls in love with his ex-classmate who loves his money. He feel that he was in disaster and a lot worse than his previous life. He decided to give up his life by declining to accept HIV treatment.

After all the disasters, he wake up and realized he just fall asleep in the wash room. He happily rush out and look for his wife. They got back and live happily together after that. That's more or less the same story line with 'Click' isn't it?

I was crying like hell when I watched towards the end of 'Click'. And I watched it few times! So for this one, I did drop my tears, but not as bad as Click as it is more or less the same story line.

Well, what's the similar moral of the 2 stories?
1. Don't upset about your current situation or problem. If you are given a chance and live again, it might be worse of making other decisions. Be happy, face and enjoy it, because you only live once!
2. Get rich or pretty girl friend doesn't means you can handle it, there's too many things you need to sacrifice!
3. Treat your girl friend or wife better, because she may be the best candidate among all!

On the other hand, the story doesn't ask you not to work hard to create your own wealth. Just that we try not to look back anymore, but move forward!

Have a nice weekend, folks.

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. :)

Movie Review: Train to Busan

It is a public holiday today, so we drove to neighbor city to buy something and watched Train to Busan at the same time.

I would say the movie ticket price has been shot up a lot followed by the inflation. About 16-20 years ago, I remember it was only $4 to $5 during weekend. The movie ticket we bought yesterday was $16 including 6% GST! That's scaring. That means if I have $5m today, It may be only worth less than $1.25m 20 years later. It seems like the people really have to earn more for future retirement, and hope that the children won't cause much financial trouble.

Back to movie review, Train to Busan is a korean action and thriller movie lasted for almost 2 hours. The main handsome actor and pretty actress reminds me of an movie, named ;Silenced; which was acted by both of the same actors. I still remembered it very much.

In fact, almost everyone knows this movie is actually a copy cat of 'World War Z' (WWZ) acted by Brad Pitt 3 years ago. From the look at it, the zombie character is almost identical - hyperactive, only know how to run and bite victim, sensitive to sound, virus spread in minutes, etc. The only difference is zombie cannot see target without sunlight. And of course, the entire excitement is also came from WWZ - Zombies attacking human.

In fact, there are too many uncommon sense, illogical scenes and actions found in the movie, especially towards the end of it which totally think the director treated the audience are stupid. This movie is not so focus on story line and logical sense, but focus more to make the audience being excited and thrilled. It's nothing wrong with that, every director has their own tactic to film it. Overall, the movie is still pretty worth to watch just like WWZ if you like action movie.

Some of the examples of illogical scenes:
1. From the beginning when all passengers have entered the train, how can the train station only has 1 guard out there and where's the rests, passengers and CCTV surveillance?
2. How come the 3 ladies and the man can closed up the toilet door when the zombie already discovered their location? And the scene is not even finished?
3. The train's glass finally break when the fat actor trying to close it. The rests are unbreakable.
4. How come the old man and the male attendance can escaped from the massacre by the zombies and managed to hide in the toilet?
5. How come suddenly there's a train on fire and crush into other train? Just because want to arrange the other actors die?
6. There's a train driver became zombie and found 'inside' the self driving train with the door closed. So who bite him inside the train?
7. The old train driver trying to rescue the old man from zombie. An old man to rescue an old man? How can he helps when the zombies run faster than both of them?
8. The old man is able to catch up the last train, but he doesn't know how to operate the train. How come the train speed is only increase when the main actors are trying to catch it up?
9. How come the old man takes so long to transform into zombie (from being bitten till the actors get on board, and still have time to talk non-sense)? Just because he wants to finish the conversation with the main actor? Why not the actor just finish him off the train before he transforms to zombie?
10. The final 5 mins part is the most ridiculous part at Busan tunnel. I think just because the director wants to make you feel excited by trying to kill the pretty actress and kid. Other than that, the whole scene is unnecessary. Remember the zombie does not walk as usual in the dark. And how come all other zombies died outside the tunnel, but the army stayed remains inside? How to spot enemy?

After all these non-senses, the moral of the movie is good. More and more humans are becoming selfish but they are unaware, due to the stress working environment and cruel reality. Someone will need to sacrifice and become the leader, the rests may follow.

Anyway, below is my personal review on Train to Busan:
Cast: 7.5/10
Plot: 3.5/10
Effect: 8.5/10
Action: 9/10
Story line: 6/10
Overall: 6.9/10

Happy Life or City Life?

I read an article about a Thai who born in a poor family in a village. His name is Jon Jin Dai.

When he grows up, he noticed most of the young people started to move to city area, to get more income and what they so called, to be a successful person. He followed the crowd and decided to try his luck in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand.

Initially he studied in a college as a student. Due to limited funding, he has to work a lot of part times to keep him survive. However, he fails no matter how hardworking he studies. He also living with over 10 people in a small house and eat 1 meal a day. He did a lot of part time jobs, except lady boy.

After 7 years of suffering, he has enough of such a pity life in the city. He decided to go back to the village and start another new life. He did not expect this decision has changed his life.

After settled down in the village, he started agriculture by planting rices and fruits with 1.5 acres land. He also dig 2 ponds to seed fishes. With these foods, he has excess food supply for his family and the surplus are for sale. He felt very happy about this life compared to the previous city life.

After a while, he heard his friend bought a house in Bangkok, but comes with 30 years of long term debts. He is laughing that he can never have chance to do so with his qualification. After some thoughts, he decided to learn and build his own house with his limited funds. Within 3 months, he managed to build his first house. With his talent, he managed to build more than 10 houses over the years. And how he is headache no which house to stay every night!

Apart from building hose, he also setup farming, Pun Pun Organic Farm, organic food restaurants and organize classes to teach others how to do organic planting and foods. His students also including foreigners from Europe and US.

The good thing is, he managed to marry his wife from US.

After that, he received the invitation from TED to give a presentation. And his subject is 'Life is easy. Why do we make it so hard?'. You can find the TED video here.

The morale of the story, Jon has messed up in his city life, but he became a leader and winner in his village. What about you?

A Top Sales Real Story

I just read a local article about how a lady restarted her career from a total failure to leading a top sales team.

She mentioned that she was operating a beauty saloon for 7 years. The business was getting worse and ended up with debts from banks. She has no choice but to follow her sister who is doing well as property agent.

She was doing badly for the first 2 months as she doesn't has connection and she met a lot of problems in mutual price between sellers and buyers. Then she changed to sell new development properties.

Within 3 months, she managed to sell very well, about 70 to 80 units of condominium. And after that, she was promoted to lead a sales team of 6 people. Within 3 years and today, she is leading a sales team of over 200 people. She mentioned she is earning already 30 to 40 thousands in the first year. You can imagine she should be super success now and she is only 37 this year. She also proudly shared that she has accumulated 4 properties including 1 semi-detached worth more than 1 million dollars

Apart from very hardworking, she did share some moral of her story to us, as below:
1. "It's never too late to make a change."
2. "If you want to change your life, you have to change yourself."
3. "As long as you sacrifice, daring to take the first step to change and move forward, you already won."

From what I noticed, there's another point I really need to learn from her. If you want to get rich faster, become the top sales is just the first step, but lead the team to become the top sales and grow the team from there.

This is why the successful people always tell us need to find and absorb talented people to the team. Without that, you cannot go anywhere by just one man show.

Yellow Joke of the Day (Sep15)

Two men visit a prostitute. The first man goes into the bedroom. He comes out ten minutes later and says, ‘Heck. My wife is better than that.’


The second man goes in. He comes out ten minutes later and says, ‘Yeah, you are right! You know what, your wife is definitely better.’

Burger King vs McDonald

If I let you guess, Burger King vs McDonald in terms of delivery services, who will be the winner?

The answer is.... Burger King!

You must wondering why...

Well, a picture worths a thousand words. Burger King is more rugged and safety!

It's for fun only anyway. This incident is real where McDelivery is hit by Perodua Kancil mini car. However, the local Burger King spokesperson has clarified that the car has been edited with Burger King logo. 

Cheers!

Why Ant Won't Get Tired?

A kid asked me last few weeks ago, "Uncle, why ant does not get tired by standing / walking the entire day, but you get tired easily but standing for a while?"

I thought for a while and reply him, "That's because ant is a bug and we are human! Ant is designed to stand and walk without getting tired, but human is not design in that way." Then he also thought for a while and reply, "Oh....".

Well, I'm not sure whether my answer is logic but I'm just thinking, what will be the better answer for this question?

What Would You Do If You Given a Chance?

What would you do the first thing if you wake up one day in the morning and you are back in 10 years ago?

Back in 10 years ago, I was a IT Systems Engineer working on a huge IT project, from year 2004 to 2005. I really did not like that project because it's very tough. I almost complaint everyday during that period. But it has sharpen my skills a lot from there. When I think back, it is really a waste of time, and I should spend my time properly and do something more meaningful.

Now, if there is really such thing happen on me, the first thing I would go check out the stock market and property market. I remembered 1998 is market crash and 2001 is the technology bubble burst, so 2004 should be the time where both markets is under recovery. No brainer, I will dump all my savings into blue chips under stock market and let them roll, while try to get a bank loan to invest a shoplot in a prime area. Then I'll be a lot richer after 10 years, which means today. Wow, that's sound to good to be true!

On the other hand, I think I'm going to patch up those things I did wrong. Well, as the wise people said, don't repeat the same mistakes again. And if I can remember any past tragedy on myself or others, I will try to stop them and help others, try to make things more wonderful.

And finally, I will quickly change my career from engineer to sales, as it can make me more income.

Yes, that's very perfect. But well, it definitely won't happen. So if I fast forward to 10 years later from today, it's 2014. By that time, I'll be 44 years old. Perhaps wealth, health and family are the most important things during that time. Perhaps I can start to look into them for now, and build it for the future, just like what I want to do when I go back to 10 years ago.

Life is short, folks!

3 Simple Questions The Most Successful People Use To Change The World

I’ve heard it said that the most brilliant business ideas are often the simplest. From my experience, it’s true. In fact, when I am fortunate enough to receive sage advice from a famously gifted person, I’ll often ask myself, “Why didn’t I think of that?” So here I humbly share with you a winning formula that I see leaders use again and again and again…to change the world.

Use this formula the next time you feel stuck—whether you are trying to change your industry, your company or your personal life—and I promise you it will work.

Question Number 1: What’s the outcome I want?

Most people seem to get stuck in the moment, caught up in the drama of a situation they don’t like. They unwittingly wind up playing the helpless victim, and as I’ve written in the past, victims can’t innovate because they are focused on the problem—not solutions. You will hear them talk about how things aren’t fair, who has wronged them, and they look for encouragement or excuses to feel better about the status quo. While this may make them feel good, being energized by problems is a recipe for inaction.

Asking the question “what is the outcome I want?” forces the mind to focus on the final destination, not the current bumps in the road. The brilliance of this question is that it immediately puts you in the “creator” mindset. And once successful people envision the destination, they move quickly to the second, world-changing question.

Question Number 2: What stands in my way?

(Hey, I told you these were simple questions.)

The best leaders are masters at identifying and prioritizing obstacles that are between them and the outcome they want. Then they brainstorm ways to eliminate, avoid or neutralize the obstacles.

Last year I saw George Clooney on a late night talk show. He had recently lost 20-plus pounds that he’d put on for a movie role. The host was amazed at how good Clooney looked and asked him how he had managed to lose the weight so quickly. Clooney’s response sounded something like, “I ate less and exercised more.”

Too often in business, we talk about how hard it is to “lose weight” while reaching for a potato chip. But leaders using this formula move quickly from the outcome, to the plan, to the execution.

“I want to be 20 pounds lighter,” says the enlightened leader. “So what stands in my way?” Let’s see…

I don’t seem to make time for exercise.

So I will start the day with exercise or I will block time on my calendar.

So each weekend, I’ll pack my gym bag for the entire week and put it in my car.

I need to eat better because a bad diet will make this impossible.

So I will do my homework, buy healthy snacks and eat small portions throughout the day.

So I will pack my lunch and stop eating fast food.

Without a bunch of accountability, this will never happen.

So I’ll tell my friends, family and coworkers about my goal and when it will be achieved.

So I will buy a digital scale and weigh myself every day.

Question Number 3: Who has figured it out already?

So now our creators have identified the outcome they want. They have created a list of obstacles, prioritize the list and identified ways to overcome each obstacle. This is where some leaders spring into action while others pause to steal ideas. Yes, I wrote steal ideas. But since stealing is a politically incorrect term, we’ll call their strategy parallel engineering.

In the mid ’90s, our company had grown to about 25 people. We had dozens of projects happening at once and needed a more efficient way to manage the growing complexity of our business. So being the brilliant, naïve entrepreneurs that we were, we naturally decided to build a software system to help us track, manage and optimize each project.

After spending roughly $185,000 and hundreds of hours in time, we scrapped the project. Three phone calls later we bought an off-the-shelf system that did 90 percent of the things we were trying to build into our own custom solution.

Gosh, I wish we had paused to parallel engineer ideas.

Intelligence is learning from your own mistakes; wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others. It’s less painful to be wise than smart. It’s also a lot cheaper. That’s why this third question is so important.

Mike Maddock,

Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker and Idea Monkey