Day 30 - Kind Boss Bad Boss

Days 30 - 970 days to go

Today is a special day. In addition to the full moon milestone of this blog, it is also the official last day of my intern's attachment or internship in this company. She has been with us for 5 months. Well, I would like to do a self assessment as a first time mentor to an intern. I would say I have done a lot more special and practical training to her but I wish I have done more and better in certain areas:

1. Project - I should have given her more projects and monitor more closely through regular discussion and review.
2. Exposure - I think I scored flying colors in this area as I brought her to almost every meetings to have first hand experience which include meeting with CME, SC, BNM, internal and inter department meeting and so on.
3. Mentoring - I talked to her from time to time on work, personal development, and even on personal issues. This is to provide mentoring in a wholistic approach and not merely on work.
4. Exercise and fitness - I strongly believe that performance of a person in career and personal life has high correlation with the level of health and fitness. As such I always encourage her to do exercise and even bring her into my trekking and running group to join my activities.
5. Networking - I introduce many people and colleagues to her from time to time to expand her network quickly and also to help her to do a better job when she needs help.
6. Job hunting - I may be one of the few supervisors who will look for a job for intern. I talked to quite a number of friends and colleagues on her availability for job and of course, I recommended her to them.
7. Happiness Secrets - I shared my ebook on Happiness with her and hope that the book will help her to be more happy in life by applying my happiness philosophy for both office and personal life.
8. Technical Knowhow - from time to time, either she will ask or I will teach on certain technical issues or aspects on derivatives. I wish I have done more often.

I realized that when you are too kind to your staff and children, you are actually a bad supervisor or parent as you do not give them enough challenge for them to learn and grow at their full potencial.

Funeral Service Package

Day 29 - 971 days to go

All industries are getting more competitive and even funeral service provider are having intense competition. Discount and price war which is a Red Ocean strategy is considered Promotion 1.0. Since there is "no end" to price drop, innovative merchants are launching many types of packages that combine attractive long term investment scheme (actually the floor is free of charge but this is only Promotion 1.5).

I just bought a Funeral Service Package for the early preparation for my mom as there is a 20% discount now. (hopefully she will only use it many many years later). Well, buying any funeral service related package which include the so-called land/property has been promoted as a form of investment. Price will be increase gradually overtime. The decision needs to be make is that "Do you that the investment in whatever form is as good as or higher that the increase in price for the package? (similar to inflation impact). If the answer is yes, then you should not buy the package now as it may only be used in many years later i.e. instead of buying a call option with no maturity, one may want to buy on spot i.e. immediate when needed.

The package that I bought came with two options: 1) 20% discount; 2) no discount but free with a 35 years swiftlet Farming investment plan. The selling point purchaser is given a free investment scheme with up to 4 x of your invested amount. Too good to be true buy many investors buy the idea due to it potentially high returns and also it is tight up with a very well- known trustee.

From my analysis, the so-called free investment plan is actually about 50% funded by the package seller. The the other 50% is actually paid by buyers. All the investment returns is mainly based on projection. As the ex Treasury trader, I think that the expected return is just too good to be true. There are many risk element in this type of swiftlet farming such as natural disaster, illness to the swiftlet, birdnest production and also whatever happens in the 35 years that will yield much lower results than projected.

I took the 20% package rather than facing all kind of uncertainties for the next 35 years for the swiftlet farming investment scheme. Of course high risk high returns just that I dont want to worry about investment returns for the next 35 years. I would rather keep the 20% discount now and make my own decision for investment. Another point is than RM5,000 35 years later may only worth RM500 due to inflation impact.

Singapore Sundown Marathon 2011

Day 28 - 972 days to go

No blog post for days 27 as I went to Singapore yesterday to take part in the Sundown Marathon which started from 10pm at night. Based on my few years domestic and international experiences, I would say by far it was a very well organized events (actually from what I heard, Standard Chartered Marathon held in Singapore has been the best but I have yet to take part).

I think it is a very well planned and organised event from many aspects as follow:

1. Internet registration for both local and overseas runners
2. A few goodies bag and runners bid date and sites
3. Very good and informative website
4. Transportation arrangement both before and after the race (include free shutter bus)
5. Lots of assistants and staff to help runners
6. On the road safety measures
7. Plenty of water stations
8. Lots of supporters and cheerleaders along the route
9. Entertainment for runners and supporters all night long which include life entertainment and a big screen for football match
10. Shower and changing facilities
11. Snack and food outlet
12. Free photo shot with immediate print out for runners
13. Large wait areas
14. Organised luggage deposits area
15. Lots of first aid along the road
16. Distance markers almost every kilometer
17. Clear signboard for direction and hydration stations
18. Provider power gel and banana
19. Good running route that pass by restaurants, parks, roads, campsite to make it interesting
20. Lots of toilets along the roads
21. Good finisher T shirts and medals
22. Good goodies bags
23. Good traffic controls
24. Publicity
25. and so on

New World or Quantum Leap

Days 26 - 974 days to go

I attended an urgent meeting for rate race. Our new CEO want to have a Fun and "new" Rat Race that is much better than previous year. In the meeting, I mentioned that if we really want to have a new rat race, we should not be constrained by any factors that hold us back. In this regards, it is our building as we always want to ensure that the race is held in our building or at least runners have to pass by the building.

If we decided that we can change to a new venue, there is a lot of changes that we can do. We will have a much larges space to create a fun-filled, carnival-like event. We can add more categories to the normal route, add a relay category for short distance, have hot-air balloon, create a "slam-dunk" management staff to raise fund, engage a clown to cheers the participants, have a mascot race, and the like. Another main constrain is our partner in the race. Due to various considerations, some of the proposals were rejected by our partner. As a result, we are not able to make big changes or improvement to the race.

Therefore, in order to have a quantum leap to create a 'brand new" race, I propose to challenge each of the major items for the race such as to change the venue, postpone the date as we need time to make a major change, bring in more participants from different areas of the capital market such as fund management, insurance, will writing, banking and so on. We always focus on public listed companies from different industries but did not really promote rat race as a race for the capital market.

Of course we have been making improvement to the race in the last decade which include changing the registration fees to have a big jump in fund raised, creating more categories, having cash and non cash sponsorship system, bringing in celebrities, expanding the venue to the open parking to house beneficiaries booth, added cheerleaders competition, creating photography contest, moving the dinner venue from indoor to outdoor and so on.

Rat Race is only an example to illustrate that if we always lock ourself to a wall or frame, we will never have a major breakthrough. In other words, if we do not let go something, we will not be able to get more thing. Imaging you close your fist and try to grab more things. It is almost impossible or yield very little results. Only when we let go what we are having, then only we will see a new perspective in life or in our action plan. As long as we are working within an old frame, we will not be able to expand our horizon to a new perspective and hence will not be able to find a new world like Christopher Columbus.

Human

Days 25 - 975 days to go

Today is a happy and lucky day as I just met 3 senior management staff from The Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand (AFET). I met them during lunch and dinner. We went to Spring Garden Restaurant and it was the best Halal dimsum lunch that I have ever had. I used to say that the most tasty Halal dimsum in KL is Tai Thong Restaurant in Bukit Kiara Club but the sibling in KLCC apparently is a new winner due to a few reasons. Firstly, the food is hot. Secondly there are more varieties in KLCC. Of course the atmosphere in KLCC which is better than Kiara Club will definitely help to enhance the appetite of customers.

There are many reasons or factors for the success of a company, event, person and so on. For a company, I think that the most important one is the utilization of assets in the company. Among all tangible and intangible assets, human asset is the most important and valuable one. Regardless how good a company's product or service is, without good decision making and action taken by human, there will be limited success of the company performance.

For many companies, the success or even the reputation of a company is closely tight with the main driver of the company. For instance, Jack Welch of General Electric, Bill Gate of Microsoft, Steve Job of Apple and so on. They are the soul of the company. On the contrary, many companies failed to performance despite having great products or competitive advantage such as monopoly, are also due to human factor. Therefore, human factor is the most critical one that will either make or break a company's performance.

Product Launching

Days 24 - 976 days to go

Today I went to trek/jog in the Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve just opposite my company. So near yet so far as many people who have been working around this are not aware there is such a place in the heart of KL. Maybe the authorities do not want too many visitors to visit this forest so that it will be least disturbed and hence preserved. Maybe there are other reasons.

However, it is a common phenomenal in many industries that many good products and services are not used widely due to many reasons. One of the most common reasons is that people are not aware of their existence. Similar to a good man or woman stays single for life unnoticed. In other words, no matter how good a product or service is, without good publicity activities, the success rate is almost equal to zero. In sum, create awareness is a very important step in a product launching campaign.

Of course, create awareness is the first step. There are many other important steps that need to be taken such as educating potential users about the benefits of using the products or the losses or risks of not using the products.

One of the best ways to promote something to somebody is to show how much he can gain from using the products for his immediate or foreseeable benefits. People will pay whatever price to buy something as long as the perceived value is greater than the price. Therefore, it is not how cheap or expensive is the price asked but it is how much value can be derived by paying the price that counts.

AirAsia 650,000 Tickets Sold in 24 hours

Day 23 - 977 days to go

https://www.facebook.com/tonyfernandes. "

We just broke a world record. 650 thousand flights sold in 24 hrs."

Wow, what a world record...it is a brilliant idea to sell tickets forward but collect the full amount now. The value earned is the present value of the future ticket price and the discount factor is borrowing rate rather then interest savings rate.

The killer is when you make changes for your ticket. RM50 and the new and existing ticket price difference will be charged. The all-in costs after the changes may cost more than MAS ticket.

There are a lot of business ideas or strategies waiting for the right person to implement it at the right time. In the trading industry especially, it is not how good you know the bull or bear market is coming, it is when you implement the entry and exit strategy that make you a winner. Trading derivatives such as futures required a reasonably accurate timing for entry and exit. Otherwise, interim volatility of the contract will wipe out your margin deposit before it reaches your targeted price.

Despite the fact that people with high I.Q. may have certain degree of advantage in doing business due to the high I.Q. and thus should make less mistake. However, I believe that many of the very successful people are not Mensa members. Instead, they are mostly very ordinary people. Their success proved one thing i.e. high I.Q. need not be a prerequisite for success in life. However, we should dream big, draw a good plan, focus, and just do it.

Meeting management

Day 22 - 978 days to go

I attended the 2nd Bursa Malaysia Rat Race committee meeting today. Experienced some "interesting" discussion and communication. Sometimes, it is fun to experience or observe the behavior of meeting participants as you can always learn something from them. For example, meeting management skill, how to say "NO", how to embarrass another person skillfully, how to agree with the disagreement of another person and vive versa, how to control a meeting, etc.

Of course, I did not learn the above in this meeting but just want to point out the fact that the about experiences happen in most meeting. Similar to what you may experience at a poker table, due to personal interest, most people will reveal their true identity or personality. To put it bluntly, meeting room is just like a war zone, somehow amicable solution is not an option. Thus, a fight is unavoidable. Of course, there are always happy endings most of the time.

Some of the "wonderful" skills I experienced as a victim is that people will say yes to bosses in a meeting but will not act on the task that he agreed to assume. In other words, some people are very good at getting credit upfront without any delivery. Project Manager will end up doing the job instead. The best way to manage this type of "credit thief" is through documentation in black and white such as minutes and other forms of recordings.

Residual Formula Workshop

Day 21 - 979 days to go

Just finished a two-day workshop on internet marketing. Learned a lot from my IM mentor, Patric Chan on the residual income workshop. This maybe the last workshop that I will learn from him in the near future as I have attended all his other workshops in the last 9 months. Now it is time for me to put in more time into action rather than spending more time to learn. As my inner circle member Michael put it, "It is the most practical PC's workshop so far as we are given ready made infor-product to promote and sell rather than creating them from scratch. If I still cannot make money from attending this workshop, it will be solely my own fault rather than the workshop itself.

During our lunch, we mentioned that 95% of most participants in any industry do not succeed. The 5% success stories are mainly as a result of taking action persistently. Never say die or never give is the key or key to success. I am sure if I apply my will power and passion as in running a marathon (did 3 so far), I will be able to succeed. Well it is also my NY this year to make my first USD10,000 from IM. I am sure after I put in enough efforts, I will achieve it.

After the two-day workshop, we went to have dinner at a Chinese restaurant in the hotel. Lots of intelligent conversation was exchanged among 9 of us who are all Robert Alllen's inner circle members. 3 are from Singapore, 2 from Melaka, 2 from Penang, 1 from Perak and myself is from KL. We shared lots of jokes and investment knowledge too. I think I am one of the more junior members in terms of the level of success in the corporate world as all other are either retired or running their own business.

Therefore, I learned a lot from each of them. I am so glad that I am part of the inner circle and PC's workshop as not only did I learned about IM but also many lessons in corporate work.

Day 20 - One Is Good Enough

Day 20 - 980 days to go

Today I created another blog - One is good enough. In life, we need only one compelling reason to do something, one step to start a journey, one word to change our decision, one trigger point to change out life, and so on.

We need only one core vision in life and everything we do will or should evolve around this core objective. For instance, if we have a noble goal in life to help people, then we should equip ourselves with whatever tools and capability that we need in order to achieve this goal in life. For instance, we should improve our financial standing to help people as no matter what, without money we can only achieve very little results no matter what we want to do. Then our charity should sustain forever which means that we should put our money into a trust fund and to be managed by professional just like all the famous and big foundations.

If we want to mange it ourselves, we should make sure we are healthy. hence, healthy lifestyle is a prerequisite to have a long life so that we can manage the foundation as long as possible. we should also build network to raise fund and utilise fund. Besides, it is good to be knowledgeable about different groups of needy people and organizations in order for us to carry out our mission more effectively.

Pirates of the Caribbean 4

Day 19 - 981 days to go

Just watched the Pirates of the Caribbean 4 - great movie and of course value for money. What has this got to do with internet marketing or any other forms of businesses? Well, what I learned from the success of this movie are:

1. A good story

2. Good actors, actress, directors... a team of great crew

3. Network i.e. worldwide cinema network

4. Built or established on prior success of POC 1 to 3

5. Aggressive marketing and publicity activities

6. Sold via a widely and cheaply available channel i.e. if only sold as an internet movie, it may or may not be so successful

7. others

Therefore, success of a movie or a new business is not by chance but rather by having a good product or business launching plan and action.

Malaysian Structured Products Forum 2011

Day 18 - 982 days to go

Best of both worlds - sometime we can have the cake and eat it.

Today I attended the above forum at Westin Hotel KL. It was hosted by Asia Risk and the Lead sponsor is RBS. It was a very informative event. many of the participants are from overseas and many are from product development department.

A new approach to protection of investors fund i.e. CPPI - Constant Proportion Portfolio Insurance. It is a trading strategy that is designed to ensure that a fixed minimum return is achieved either at all times or more typically, at a set date in the future....for more details, please refer to HSBC's website

http://www.hsbcnet.com/treasury/investor-solutions/learning-center/cppi.html

CPPI provided many benefits that a conventional structured product cannot offer.

Happy to see so many ex colleagues and friends too.

happy learning

Multiple ways to get financing

Day 17 - 983 days to go

I always face problems or rather issues come to me with positive attitude. Every issue solved is actually a lesson learned. The more problems solved, the better we are and the more creative is our problem solving skills.

For housing loan for example, if your limit is up, you may want to use your spouse name to apply. You may also want to consider MBSB which is more costly but you goal is to get financing. You may also want to consider personal loan, borrow from your life insurance's cash value, sell or pledge your asset such as share and property with much higher market value, refinance existing property, and last but not least, use you credit card for cash advance (not recommended). For investment, there is a will, there is a way to get a loan.

When you purchase a condominium especially for 3 bed rooms and above, make sure the unit comes with 2 car park as it will affect the valuation of the unit as well as the selling price when you want to sell it later. The reason is that it is very likely that both husband and wife own a car each and thus the unit will not be attractive if the unit comes with only 1 car park.

What you see is not what you get

Day 16 - 984 days to go

Happy Wesak Day.

In life or in the new computer age, what you see may not be what you get. I am not talking about only the size or quantity. I am talking about form over substance. You may pay for AAA but get AA or even B. The last lesson learned was sweet "corn" become sweet "conned". A group of us bought more than 10 bags of sweet corn from Cameron after our trekking at Gunung Irau. I did not check with any of them but I believe it will be the same experience i.e. sweet corn become sweet "conned" as a results of many rotten corns in the purchase. Why didn't we check? It is due to the fact that it is not practical to check each and every corn for the low price and high volume business on the spot. Lesson learned: check whatever you buy no matter how cheap or how inconvenient.

If you have no clue as to whether what you are getting is what you pay for, just ask yourself one question. "What is the catch, why is it so cheap?" When you cannot answer instantly, you may want to think twice if you still want to close the deal. Many a time, when an investment deal looks too good to be true, you may want to step backs and analyse again. In general, when a product is good, it will not be sold with discount, guarantee yields, and the like as demand for it is good too.

Therefore, we should think twice and act wise when come to making big decision on investment.

Feng Shui

Day 15 - 985 days to go

Just read TheEdge newspaper this morning and learned that Singapore rental price is the 5th highest in the world. In order to earn this position, lots of right things and policy need to be in place and not many bad issues around.

A country, a city or even a specific location is no different. The value of property in a particular location is directly proportionate to many variables of factors. People always say choose a good location but this one word actually encompass many other elements such as the neighborhood, distance from town, public transport, highway, and sometime the name of a location will have a bearing on the demand......if I may say overall "feng shui" despite the fact that I have only limited knowledge in feng shui.

Well, Feng Shui is a 5,000 year-old sciences or arts? in the two oldest civilization i.e. China and India. I strongly believe that if something can exist and relevant for 5,000 years, there must be something good about it. So, please start learning the basic feng shui knowledge.

Trekking at Gunung Irau, Cameron Highland

Day 14 - 986 days to go

I was not able to put new post on day 11 and 12 due to problem that I was not able to connect to blogger website for some reason. For day 13, I went trekking to Gunung Irau (6,923 meters) in Cameron Highland.

It was the tougher trekking experience for me so far, even more challenging than KK Climbathon. The jungle is like a Mossy Forest....so beautiful and cooling too. It was more like an adventure challenge rather than a trekking event.

Our schedule was to reach the peak at 1:30pm and I was glad that I was able to reach the peak around 1:30pm after almost 3.5 hours of non-stop trekking journey. Along the way, we were challenged by so many variation of trail conditions and our shoes were even stuck into the mud and not able to pull out. I even left my trekking stick in the jungle after it was broken while I was using it to climb the mountain.

Well, our life and investment journey is similar to trekking, lots of ups and downs and challenges. Even our trusted tools may breakdown (like the trekking stick and this Dell with I7 that I am using which turnoff suddenly just now) anytime. Despite losing the trekking stick, I continued the journey with more efforts without the stick. My only concern in my mind then was whether I can reach the top by 1:30pm which was our cut-off time for the group. By applying a buddy system i.e. trekking with my friend, TSP, we were able to reach the top. We encouraged and pushed so that we did not give up.

I have been using buddy system in many activities in my life and I found that it has been working well for me. Buddy system or partnership is very critical for any form of investment or program as we will have mutual support in terms of action and decision. More heads is always better than one only as it will reduce the chance of errors and hence higher chance of success. Therefore, if you are not successful in investment, it may be time to create your buddy system i.e. look for a buddy to be your partner in investment so that you can leverage on everything (e.g. financial, knowledge, strategy etc) that your partner can contribute in your investment journey.

Day 10 - Housing Loan Packages

Day 10 - 990 days to go

Today many banks increase their BLR by 30 basis points from 6.30% to 6.60% after BNM announced the increase in the overnite policy rate to 3.00%. As a result, some banks offer housing loan at BLR - 2.45% and margin of financing at 90 + 5% i.e. to capitalise MRTA and legal fees up to 5% extra.

Market is very competitive with maybank offer no locking-in period for residential house loans with market value of more than RM500,000. Besides so many innovative credit cards packages offered by bank. Some main benefits offered include 8.88% interest rate, free for live membership fees, free waiver for government tax after a few swipes, free overseas trips (almost everything but the air ticket), up to 15% cash rebate, and so on.

Health and Wealth

Day 9 - 991 days to go

Many people spent a good part of their lives from teenage to retirement to build their wealth but without realizing that the price to pay is actually their health. Only upon triggered by not so favorable medical or blood test report then only their start to worry about their health condition. It may not be too late to start taking good care of their health and fitness but the price to pay is actually the wealth they accumulated over the earlier part of their life. In financial term, it is like a "zero-sum" game of life i.e. the later part of the unhealthy life lose the wealth of the earlier part of the healthy life. Of course, zero-sum seems to be bad but the worse one is deficit i.e. losing life due to poor financial condition or too bad health condition. Therefore, while we are busy working for a wealthier future, we should also maintain a healthy life style so that we can build health and wealth at the same time as they are not and should not be mutually exclusive.

I like running, trekking and yoga. To be, they develop the health and fitness of my outer and inner body. Of course, reading, writing and soul searching are the exercises to develop our mental and spiritual well-being. There are many benefits to do exercise. Besides more healthy and fit, benefits include more focused, disciplined, innovative and do on. Furthermore, doing exercise with a group of people will allow one to build network at the same time too. to me, the best formula of method is to build both naturally and concurrently.

Simpleology

Day 8 - 992 days to go

Well, lots of people like to invest in tangible assets with the goal of getting capital appreciation and passive income. For instance, investment in property. However, many people do not realise that the most valuable asset they own is themselves. Hence, they do not invest or add value to their own physical and mental wellbeing that have an multiplying effect wither on revenue or/and cost. A healthy and fit body and mind will help one to generate income. On the contrary, if a person is ill either mentally or physically, cost will be incur in order to restore the ill mental or physical to a more healthy state.

My internet marketing guru, Patric Chan always talk about the Simpleology book that has an big impact on him. Therefore, I check out the book and realise that there is a website on it. Therefore I registered as a free Simpleology 101 member to enjoy the free daily simpleology coaching in the form of daily email and exercises. After receiving the daily simpleology for more than a month, finally I start working on it. I know I should have started on the first day I received the day 1 exercise. However, due to many other types of activities, I have been putting aside the exercise for a few weeks. Well, better late than never. This simpleology is supposed to help me to be a better achiever towards reaching my goal in life, etc. I am looking forward to learning and sharing the simpleology with all my friends. After completing the Simpleology 101, I may register as a paid member for 102 and 103 in order to further improve myself. Actually, I just registered a 3-days property investment seminar to invest in investment knowledge so that I can be a more prepared investment in property.

Furthermore, my number one hobby is reading and learning. My passion is to be successful in the field of investment so that I can teach other people to be a better investors too. To me, personal success is just the beginning to a greater achievement journey i.e. to be able to lead or coach others to be successful as well. Therefore, I constantly look for something to learn in order to equip myself to be full-fledged learner and instructor. Soft and hard skills are equally important in order to be more prepared and outstanding than others. But the main thing is, are you interested in doing what you are going to do or rather do it for the sake of doing?

Property Investment and preview course

Day 7 - 993 days to go

Today's is Mother's Day and also Hari Mak in Bahasa Malaysia. I think it also means Mak's Day (my surname is Mak) as I attended two critical events that will help me to achieve the goal of personal freedom in 993 days to come.

At 10 am, I was at the LG of a completed property in Brickfield i.e. 633 Residence marketed by YNH. I asked the sales staff why YNH's project always named after number like 163, 1883 and so on. She said the number is actually the land title number. Luckily all with 3,6, and 8 which are considered prosperous numbers. It is a completed project that obtained CF in 2009 and is now 50% occupied (180 units).

Pros of the project is strategic location (brickfield/KL Sentral) which is only less than 10 KM from KLCC, it is a completed unit with CF i.e. no risk of completion, guaranteed return of 24 months, price is RM560 psf before discount which is much lower than the new project nearby such at Scott Sentral and the Loft are priced at Rm700 psf, 2 minutes walk from monorail, easy access to Federal Highway towards KL, plan to connect the monorail to KL Sentral shopping mall, Nu Sentral shopping mall will be built, a new CIMB building will be built, new MRT line, 348 sentral which will house all the Shell office will be built, and so on. Look like the value of the location will be getting better and better.

Cons are basically the old perception of Brickfield which is not of 4 or 5 stars rating for investment relative to Bangsar and KLCC which are only a few KM away. However, with the efforts put in by the government and private to transform the image and infrastructure of the "Little India", value of the location will be enhanced with more expatriate choose to live there due to its strategic location and convenience for Indian expatriate, for instance. Some face-lift of the surrounding building and the environment as a whole need to be done in order to boost the image and value of the area.

I went to attend Dr. Peter Yee's property investment course review at his office near Selayang Stadium. Learned some interesting property investment knowledge. have signed up his 3 seminars i.e. on residential, commercial and auction property investment. I also checked with him about the feasibility of investing in a property. He gave me a head-start by showing me some calculation and the gist of it is whether I got a positive cashflow from the investment compare my loan installment and the rental, whether it is a completed property, and so on.

I am looking forward to learn from him who will be my second property investment guru after Mr. Milan Doshi. So glad to be able to follow two savvy investors and mentors in property investment. Both have their unique investment style and strategy.

Property Survey

Day 6 - 994 days to go

Today I have a good but slow jog at the beautiful KLCC park. The park seems to be big relative to the low number of people doing exercise there.

Somehow many people forget to invest in or maintain their physical and mental which is the most valuable asset that they own. I have a colleague received his blood test end last year with some critical findings to his health condition but he has yet to do a follow up checkup on it. I asked him why he is like many people who care more about their car etc than their own body when come to maintenance. Most people remember or ensure their cars are well maintained but not their own body.

I went to check out a few properties at Jalan Ampang, Jalan Tun Razak and section 13, PJ. Learned some new tricks used by developers such as mark up price and give discount so that buyers feel good and can also help buyers to get higher amount of financing from the marked up price. Other goodies include partial furnished with electronic appliances, pay for interest during construction, free legal and S & P fees, guaranteed returns for two years and so on.

Nowadays price range for service apartment, SOHO and condo is between RM700 to RM1000 at the above location. Just wonder how fresh graduates can afford to buy a unit.

Lots of variable besides location and the reputation of the property developer need to be factored in for a good property investment decision.

Gold Investment

Day 5 - 995 days to go

Have been trying to invest in Gold all this while and finally open a Gold investment account in a bank, by chance as I intention to go to the bank is to cancel an existing credit card and to replace with another one that offer much more benefits. Just like other forms of investment, I always look out for what is new in the market and swap to one that offers better benefits as a smart consumer since there is no cost to swap it. Another benefit is to be able to use the airport lounge when I go overseas whaich I will be doing more often in future.

I always like to read information or brochure displayed in banks to find out what is interesting to me. Well, Gold investment is not something new but I am not aware this bank offers this investment account. I investment the minimum amount i.e. 10 grams for a start, reason being I like to use my personal trading skill to decide when I want to add more investment rather than "hard sell" by the bank officer. The current gold price may not be attractive enough for me to invest seriously but the main thing is I want to take action to open one gold investment account as I realise that as long as I do not open this account, I will not pay attention to this form of investment and hence gold price movement. Ideas have to be translated into action to be useful.

I also apply for a new card offered by Citibank which give "free" trip to a few countries either 3 days 2 nights or 4 days 3 nights. Then only I realise that they also include voucher for one day seminar, etc. Seems like a lot of goodies but actually are mostly sponsored by other merchants. The so-called free trip is actually not free as we need to pay for registration fee. However, it is still much cheaper than what one needs to pay. Again, I learn some marketing strategy from a merchant.

Well, actually I am not interested to get free trip as I own a few timeshares and I just give 0ne week free holiday to my ex staff, Tee for his honey moon in Switzerland. It is the 3rd time I do this. The first two times were also given to my colleagues, to Phuket for honey moon and to Los Angeles for family trip.

One hour personal mentoring call with Robert Allen

Days 4 - 996 days to go

Proven again that 4 is my lucky number.....so are number 1,2,3,5,6,7,8,9,0.

Today is my personal one hour session with my mentor, Mr. Robert G. Allen, the record holder of producing the most millionaire in America.

In the one-hour session at 10pm SGT, I learn a great deal from him and mainly is on "how to be a successful inforprenuer as he is one of the most successful inforprenuers in this century. I asked him the criteria to be able to coauthor a book with him and he told me the story of how he was able to convince Mark Victor Hansen who was the coauthor of the Mega Bestseller - Chicken Soup for the Soul, to coauthor The One Minute Millionaire with him.

I learn one lesson from the story i.e. achieve your goal by making somebody achieve the same goal. In other words, don't ask what you want but rather offer what you can provide.

I think God is by my side or borrow Bob's remarks "I was having partnership with the higher power" during the one hour conversation. He repeated a few time time he was impressed with what I said or the ideas put forth. He even said that "I made him take note." Wow wow, it is an Exponential Compliment that I received as he is the Mega bestselling author of about 10 books that sold more than tens of million worldwide for the past 30 years.

Well, there is just too many things to share after learning from him and I will share with you bit by bit over the next 996 days, at least.

Today's personal conversation with him has exponential impact on my exponential success in future. With his mentoring, I am sure I am on the right track and also the fast track to exponential success.

He has started his train towards the destination of exponential success 30 years ago and I am sure by learning from him coupled with more advanced technology now, I will be able to narrow the 30 years gap.

My exponential thanks to him and God bless him and his family. I am glad that he will be coming to Malaysia in the 2nd or 3rd week for a 3-days course on how to build a successful information marketing empire. He will talk about the creating valuable information to sell and my another mentor, Patric Chan will teach on how to promote the information via the internet to reach the world market.

Things happen for a reason

Day 3 - 997 days to go

I am a lucky guy. I always believe things happen for a reason.

I met May Ling yesterday after a few postponement. I could have given her an excuse and not to meet her yesterday but somehow I decided to meet her despite the fact that I was reminded about the meeting few hours earlier only. Among others, she told me that she just had a one-on-one conversation with our mentor - Mr. Robert G. Allen (BOB) who is the Author of the New York Times Mega-Bestsellers for Nothing Down, Creating Wealth, Multiple Streams of Income & The One Minute Millionaire. I asked her briefly what was the conversation about. She said she was asked to answer a few questions (I did not ask what were the questions) and also she asked him a few questions.

Then I realized that I did not receive any mail from Bob for my session with him on this Thursday. therefore I sent his Director of Special Projects, Nancy if I need to do any preparation before the conversation session. Within a few hours, I received a mail from her for the preparation. She sent me a mail a week ago but I did not receive for some reasons.....but it is ok as long as I receive it before the mentoring session tomorrow.

As I always mention to my intern, junior and friends, I like to interact with people as I will always learn something from the interaction. Proven again, so happy.

Will give it a serious thought to prepare for the questions asked by Bob and will prepare some questions to ask him too. Really excited to be able to have a precious one hour to learn directly from this international renowned author, speaker and mentor. I am sure the one hour will lay the seed for my future success. Since Bob is a mega-bestseller for his books, I am sure what I will learn from him personally will be able to help me to achieve Mega success as well. The only variable is that "How much efforts I am committed to put into making my future a Mega success compares to what I have now i.e. relatively successful among my peers."

Agel - Multi Level Marketing

Day 2 - 998 days to go

Multi level marketing is good and Internet marketing is great but combine both will be the best

I think I am on the right track. Finally after a few postponement due to various reasons, I met with May Ling. So interesting as I just got to know about Fabian Lim who is the seo expert in the afternoon, she talked about at few hours later.

I attended a short briefing about Agel - a very unique and successful MLM company that use gel technology for supplements.

The theme of the talk is "Live your dreams". Agel - Make what you imagine real. Happy to learn about Agelcares.org which involve in charity programs.

Good and innovative products are keys to a successful company.

How fortunes are created? - Huge proven industry + innovation = wealth
Huge industry = communication but with old delivery system ie fixed line which was the best until a superior delivery system i.e. iphone

Other example is music industry with old delivery system of tape, vcd, and dvd until there is a superior delivery system ipod

Nutritional supplements pills industry with old delivery system of pills, powder and liquid form until a superior delivery system of gel invented by Agel

Conclusion is - old formulation of success not working anymore

Learned about the top 20 MLM trainers- Randy Cage ...will learn from him later....

We used to have lots of dreams when we are young but the older we get the more we give up our dream. Hence, many settle for a life of quiet desperation

1000 days to freedom

Don't know by chance or God's will, I created this 2nd blog in May. First one was created last may but I did not put any 2nd post after the first creation.

Well, I will start blogging in this blog but will also update the first blog from time to time for different purpose.

Until I am ready, I will share the blog with others.

This blog is created to record my activities to achieve personal freedom in 1000 days start from today. Why 1,000 days? It is a wonderful number and it is a SMART goal to me i.e. specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound.

What is personal freedom? Most people wants to achieve financial freedom as financial burden seems to be most difficult to bear for most. To me, personal freedom include financial, spiritual, mental, physical, and any other types of freedom that one wants to achieve.

Am I too greedy? Well, I think it is fair for anyone to set his/her own goals in life. To some, financial goal is the key objective in life. To others, it may be any one of the above. To me, I just want to find a balancing point i.e. a bit of all of the above.

Therefore, besides putting lots of efforts to achieve financial goal which is the vehicle to reach other objectives in life, I like to spend time on other types of activities so that I will be moving towards achieving other goals in life at the same time, albeit at different pace.