Residential Property Investment Course

Day 91 - 909 days to go

Today I attended the above one day course and learned through a unique method. Normally, courses are only conducted indoor but this course included walk around the area to apply what we learned and further coaching by Dr. Yee. I would say practical application is a much more superior teaching method as we convert academic theory to practical application.

Similar to other seminars, one of the biggest value in attending courses is to build network. I am glad that despite a small class size, I am able to know a few friends who are very positive and successful in their respective fields.

Happy Events:

1. Learned some new skills in the property workshop
2. Get to know some investment minded friends from the class.

Day 90 - Master Mind Group

Day 90 - 910 days to go

Today is a very fruitful day. Wake up about 5:15am to write my blog and then when to office to train for Rat Race at 7am. After the training work a bit in the office till 9am before heading home. Then rush to Kota Damansara to join a newly formed group - Master Mind Group. After the meeting, I rushed back to KL to meet another friend who I met in the same seminar attended by the MMG members. We talked about a few business ideas and I gained a lot again.

After the meeting, I rushed to visit my wife's colleagues who just delivered the second baby. We had a good time before leaving for my Chinese Medicine course. I had my supper after the course at a night market before heading home at 11am. What a busy but happy day.

The MMG was formed by Vivian Chia, a very dynamic and result oriented person. She is a speaker and coach for small and medium enterprise. We met for the first time and many things achieved. We schedule a few talk to help the group members to grow and also some sharing of database for the same objective.

Well, I would say I am very lucky to know her and other group members to create synergy to leverage on each other strength to be more successful individually.

Happy Events:

1. Attended the MMG and achieve a lot from the meeting.
2. Met another friend Nathan and learned quite a bit too. It will be another business venture.
3. Learned more from the Chinese medicine course that will be helpful to me, my family member, my friends and also my business in future.

Leadership

Day 89 - 911 days to go

I am a bit hurt today as I became a sandwich between my subordinate and my superior over an issue. Due to lack of communication, my subordinate complain about the lack of involvement of me and another peer over a decision. I think it is a bit unfair to me as I was not given the chance to help or to be involved in the first place as he did not come to seek my help. From the various email, I thought he was waiting for my supervisor decision only.

As a result, myself and my peer were dragged into the issues as not involved enough in the issue. However, from the email communication, we or at least I thought that he was waiting for my superior decision only and nothing much I should do unless he come to me and seek help to get the decision. He did not come to me but immediately send the email out to the whole department including the intern.

There are a few areas he could have managed the issue better:

1. If he had followed up (just ask)the request for decision (2 days waiting) either from my superior or me, he could have obtained the decision. I told him before that he should follow up if decision is not made by me or my superior within a few days. In this case, he is not fair to my superior as the email sent for follow up immediately include expression of frustration.
2. I told him a few times (he joined for less than 7 months) that if he needs help, he can come to me as I will not be able to know if I am not alerted.
3. Based on his email, my superior thought that I hardly involved in running the event. However, the fact is that I checked with my staff on and off if he needs any help and I help him to fill in the gap. For organising event, from knowing nothing he knows how to go about the whole process including getting the approval from group CEO through CFO after getting internal approval, whether should prepare breakfast or not, order for how many pax rather than merely order the number of participants registered, what are the options for venue, getting to know administration department for event preparation, prepare flat rate parking tickets for participants, and so on.
4. The more direct involvement for me is to show him and discuss on various options on the above items. I also personally invited other market participants from my contact whenever he needs to fill up the empty seats.
5. In other words, I follow up, work with him, guide him, provide assistance whenever he needs in various issue even though I have delegated the event to him to manage. I could have be more hand-on or more micro manage the event but I do not like to be micro manged in the first place. Hence, I do not do what I dont like other to do upon me.
6. One thing I think he did wrongly is that he should not have cc the email to an intern. This whole issue is about our event and our department. I do not know if the intern shares this incident to other people and what will be other people's perception on the teamwork and the 3 heads in the department. The issue could have been solved amicably just by asking for decision as a follow up action after waiting for two days.

I will check with him on the incident and of course I will adjust my management style accordingly to improve our team work and communication. I conclude that we should improve our communication for better teamwork, group performance, and less miscommunication.

Happy events:

1. Went to register myself to take part in the one month slimming challenge. My goal is to reduce 5 kg again this year but will use a more healthy way to do it i.e. more exercise.
2. Learned quite a bit of islamic finance knowledge from the 3rd or last half-day workshop conducted by my colleague. I also highlighted a few proposal and they will think about them from the islamic capital market aspects and get back to me later. Feel happy that my thinking cap is still intact.
3. I bought a total of 15 boxes of dates for my muslim friends and many of them like it. Feel happy that they like it and feel happy that they appreciate my friendship.

RTS Realtime Systems Group

Day 88 - 912 days to go

Today my department organised a system demo of RTS to trading participants of derivatives market. The meeting was very fruitful and they are very impressed with the system. Of course to use a good system, premium price may need to be paid. However, for business decision, it is not the price but the value of a system or tool that should be considered. In other words, how much revenue or profits I can make by using the new system or tool relative to others by paying the price. It is not about the price or cost, it is about how much margin relative to whatever price or cost. So it is cost-plus earnings computation.

GARP - Financial Risk Managers Malaysia Chapter Meeting

Day 87 - 913 days to go

I attended this meeting at Mandarin Oriental Hotel at 7pm. This was my first time attend the local chapter after passing the exam in 2003. It was great to meet up with a group of professional risk managers.

Mr. Choo Yee Kwan, the country chief risk officer of OCBC bank (Malaysia) Berhad presented a briefing on "What Makes A Bank Successful?" In may 2011, Bloomberg announced that OCBC Bank is the Strongest Bank in the World based on Bloomberg's selection criteria. 80% of the selection criteria made up of capital and reserves to weather NPL, etc. Profits ratio and earning power or other business ratio are not in the selection criteria at all. In other words, it is not how much or how good you can make money that make you a strongest company but how much you are prepared to face risk exposure will make you a strong company.

I agreed with the selection criteria as many companies bankrupt not because they do not make money but they are not prepared to face that may bring down the whole company. To build a legacy with take generation but to bring down a company may take months or weeks only.

Happy Events:

1. Today was the second day of the creative problem solving workshop and continued to learn new problem solving methodology
2. Happy to make some new friends from FRM chapter meeting.

Applied Creative Problem Solving & Proactive Thinking

Day 86 - 914 days to go

Today is the first day of the above 3 days course. I attended a project management course conducted by the same speaker - Raymond Koong few years back. This course is more on problem solving. After the first day, I learned quite a bit already.

I always feel excited attending course especially in-house course as I can always catch up with my colleagues. Despite only a 600+ staff company, we hardly see each other within the same building. Every time after attending a course, my relationship or friendship with certain colleagues will enhance further. That alone made me happy.

Happy Events:

1. My department completed the first round of 4 days option training. It was a total of 5 days training including the one conducted by CME staff on 28 June 2011. Mixed response from market participants but I believe with more training, things will get better.
2. Learned some problem solving skills from the above course which will be useful for me in future.
3. Had drink with a friend who just resigned from her company. Discussed various job options and hopefully I can help her to get a good job.
4. Bought 5 boxes of dates for my muslim colleagues.
5. Attended the graduation lunch for the NLP workshop that I attended. The instructor Kiki Ng likes the Happiness ebook that I sent to her. I am also glad that I attended her Neuro Linguistic Programing (NLP) coaching for the last few months. Life will be different to me.

OKLI Option Training

Day 85 - 915 days to go

Today is the 3rd session of Options training to market participants. Due to some changes in original registration and actual attendance, more participants than seat provided. However, nobody complained about the sitting arrangement.

Continue to learn from the speaker. Not only that I learned the technical aspect of Options but also how to deliver a point with example. In August, we plan to conduct a "train the trainer" course in order to train product development and business development teams to conduct option briefing in future. I told the speaker that I am 15 years late as I have been conducting briefing but have never attended a proper training to learn how to present briefing, handle question, prepare slides and so on.

Happy events:

1. Happy to know a dealer from RHB Futures. He shared with me some market development in the FKB3 contracts. Will work together to revive the contract.
2. Glad to know that my good friend Shirley is going to deliver her baby in these few days. All the best to both of them and I am sure she will enjoy the arrival of the angel.

Invest Fair Malaysia 2011

Day 84 - 916 days to go

Today was the second day of the Invest Fair Malaysia 2011 organised by Shareinvestor. I believe the organizer achieved the intended objectives. As a participant for day 2, I would like to propose the following improvement:

1. Distribute more paid seminar tickets to event sponsors so that more participants attend the so-called paid seminars. I attended two and only less than 20 participants in the room that has 100+ seats. (I think not many participants paid for the tickets when there are free seminars were held at the same time and the speakers are equally or more popular than the paid seminars)
2. Another option is to make all seminars free of charge so that more participants in each session. Otherwise, it will discourage speakers to come for briefing as they may get insulted or at least not very happy with the low level of attendance. I think the market or promotion unit should have done a better job to fill up the seats.
3. If the above tow options are not feasible, they should reduce the size of the seminar room for paid seminars.
4. In terms of the quality of speakers, the organiser should request sponsors or exhibitors to send their senior staff to conduct briefing. What I experienced in one of the seminar was a not so senior staff who just read from slides. The quality of slides was equally poor as the font size was too small to see from the back and also the color used did not help at all. It was very discouraging for anyone who paid for it and may result in request for refund.
5. The larger damage was chased away potential investors who attended as the speaker failed to do a good job of explaining the various investment vehicle and may lose the potential investors for life.
6. More variety of investment companies should be invited to participate. I think they have done quite a good one but more will be better. Another aspect is to invite non regular exhibitors so that it will provide more exposure for new exhibitors as well as providing new information to participants.
7. The few talks I attended use mostly overseas stocks and stock markets as examples. It mat not be good for the development of the local capital markets.

Happy events:

1. By chance passed by another event organized by Happy Science. Attracted by the subject and attended the briefing conducted by a Japanese. It was mostly about how to be happy spiritually. Eventually bought 4 happiness related books authored by Mr. Ryuno Okawa who was reported to have written 700 books. Just wonder how he managed to produce at least 2 books per month.
2. Bought 3 books authored by Adam Khoo - the millionaire stock investor, writer and coach for developing successful teenagers in the Invest Fair Malaysia 2011, for RM80 which was 50% cheaper than the retail prices sold in book shop. Happy for buying good books and buying them with 50% discount.
3. Met with a newly known friend who is an insurance agent from AIA. I bought my first life insurance policy in 1994 and added a few policies since then. Learned a few new development in the insurance industry such as life time unlimited claim for hospital plan (my knowledge stopped at yearly limit and 3x lifetime limit for hospital bill claim), guaranteed renewal up to 100 years and coverage up to 100 years old. Another one is the flat/level rate for critical illness up to 85 years old versus step up rate every 5 years to 75 years old and increase on a yearly basis up to 85 years old. The trick is to charge up front by predicting the possible increase in insurance costs and make the policy holder to pay for it upfront. It is similar to quoting the fixed side of a swap to a swap buyer by assuming the floating rate risk.

Rexona Men Challenge Malaysia 2011

Days 83 - 917 day to go

Today I took part in the above challenge. It was a 8km run with 7 obstacles. It was an interesting run despite more easy than most participants had expected.

I think the run achieved its intended purpose i.e. publicity of the company's products. At least I know the products now. However, how many participants will actually use the product eventually is unknown.

It was a good idea to organise such a unique run at the park. Now I know the park fairly well as the run covered 8 km of the distance. However, the run may not have gained much for the company publicity for the following reasons:

1. It is a small event with only less than a thousand runners participated. Not sure if the name "challenge" is too challenging to many not so hard-cored runners
2. There is a much popular run one day after this run and hence maybe many runners have actually registered for the Sunday run
3. It is a man only run and as such almost 50% of the runners community cannot take part. Actually the impact is more than 50% as some male runners will not take part if their spouses or girl friends cannot take part
4. The location is a bit far from KL which is the regular race site for most of the popular runs.
5. The site is not convenient to those who rely on public transport
6. The few celebrity invited by the company maybe a little new and hence not many runners knew them and hence did not create the expected results

Therefore, they may have to make changes to draw a bigger crowd so that money spent will generate more potential returns by getting a much larger number of participants.

Islamic Capital Market

Days 82 - 918 days to go

Today I attended the second out of three days workshop provided by my colleagues from the Islamic Capital market division. Lots of information, conventions, principles and process are very different from the conventional capital market. The class was very interesting if you like to learn new knowledge but will be very boring if you have no interest.

Some of the major differences are on interest calculation, profit sharing principle, operational process, penalty and so on. Technically, it offers more benefits to borrower in terms of monetary expect but of course the trade of is many things which are allowed in the conventional capital market are not allowed in the Islamic capital market. Well, I think it is fair to have trade-off if there is any additional gain.

There are many things that we can learn from both conventions and both both should look at each other to better serve their customer with improved business processes. A better capital will be the one that adopt the best of both convention within their constraints.

Karaoke and Personality

Day 81 -919 days to go

Today I went to sing karaoke with my colleagues. It was about a year since my last karaoke session. We had a good time and I am sure our team spirit will be much stronger.

Not sure if I did not go to karaoke for too long or due to generation gap, I found many new songs and singers. However for oldies and goodies, many gen-Y are still familiar with them. It was the first time that I witnessed a great variety of songs chose by different singers and hence some songs are only sang by an individual as others don't know how to sing the songs.

Nevertheless, we had a great time for a cross department team building activity.

A few things can be improved for this event:

1. Invite more staff from different departments
2. Arrange it slightly earlier so that more staff are ready to take part with advance notice
3. Friday night is a better choice as next day is a non working day
4. Membership card should be brought to get discount
5. Invite more female staff so that they can sing more song together and more couples song can be chosen

Day 80 - Model Employee

Day 80 - 920 days to go

Laila Awang is a model employee. She is committed, hardworking, friendly and helpful. She has been working in my company for 18 years in Human Resources Department. This Friday will be her last work day and we had a farewell lunch with her.

Well, she worked very hard to achieve what she has now from the level of a clerk to a Manager level. She is the model to most people and hence she is very popular. She won 3/5 prizes in the company core value contest last year. She won it mainly as a result of her hard works all this while. However, the email blast campaign I made for her may also help her in many aspects and won the prize. Many people who were not aware that she contributed so much in the company, voted for her after other people shared her experience with other staff. Over a few days, she become our number one celebrity. At the same time, she was promoted to assume greater role to help more staff.

I wish her all the best in her nasi lemak stall and all other future undertakings.

Education and Training

Day 79 - 921 days to go

Today is a wonderful day. There were at least 6 workshops or seminars run concurrently in my company. Some are for staff development and the rest are for market development. I am glad that the company recognized the importance of staff development which is the foundation of business development.

Today is the 2nd session of the Options training to market participants. There are very different comments on the training. Some found it too simple and too theoretical which others found it too complex. This was expected as some participants are experience traders while some have never heard of Options trading at all.

Education is a long term program and hence we do not expect immediate results. Nevertheless, lots of information and article about Option trading can be downloaded free from the internet. Therefore, I believe lots and lots of people will know the benefits of option trading

Politics and Economy

Day 78 - 922 days to go

Was chit-chating with my friend this afternoon when I suddenly talked about politics is the input or building block of the prosperity of many industries. I even joked that I want to create a blog on politiconomy.com but just checked and it was taken....haha. Even though I am not able to own the website domain name, I am happy that what I thought was correct and shared by another person.

My observation was that maybe more than 20% of the world economy are created and support as a result of politics, especially office politics. Book, courses, consultant, police, hospital, lawyer, courts, restaurants, hotel, airlines, cruise, stock market etc are as a results of politically activities.

Without office politics, lots of merchants will be facing closed down risk. Therefore, we should be grateful that we have politicians in the office and we should view it positively. They looked over our shoulders, step us on our toes, and so on in order to discourage and demotivate us to achieve their personal goals. They made us work harder, talk better, think cleverer, communicated clearer.

Multiple Streams of Investments

Day 77 - 923 days to freedom

Today is the last day of Multiple Streams of Millions workshop. Very happy to meetup with Robert Allen and the inner circle members but sad that 3 days workshop has come to an end. Well, every ending is a new beginning. I always love to attend courses as I always learned new knowledge and made new friends.

This round I learned a bit more on physical Gold investment from a Singapore friend. It is a hot investment alternative in Singapore and also Malaysia now. I am surprised to learn that the yield is different in these two countries even though it is sold by the same country. In addition, I learned that the gain or yield will be treated as capital gain in Singapore and hence no tax but may not be the same for Malaysia. I think this will definitely affect the sales in Malaysia if it has more benefits to invest the same thing in Singapore. Similar to many other forms of investment which include shares and derivatives. Investors will choose the one with the lowest fees or tax rate between Singapore and Malaysia as there is no distance barrier to invest in any countries now due to online trading etc as investors can even buy property in overseas though internet.

Therefore, it is a critical issue to look into the tax rate, tax treatment, fees and so on in order to attract foreign investors to invest in Malaysia. Otherwise, whatever marketing and business development efforts will be a waste of time or only achieve minimum results.

Chinese Acupuncture

Day 76 - 924 days to go

Today is yet another fruitful day. Woke up before 6am to prepare myself to go to the office to train for Rat Race with colleagues. Had a good run but know that I did not have good endurance to run a personal best. Well, more training is the only answer.

Attend another half day of Multiple Streams of Millions before leaving for acupuncture course. Today Robert focused on teaching us by referring to his book - Cash in a Flash. It is a very good book and a must read book for achieving financial freedom. So are the other 10 books authored by him.

I was very excited about learning acupuncture as not only that I love to learn but it will allow me to use it to help my friends and family eventually. Chinese medical field has more than 2000 years of history officially but I think it is not wrong to say it has more than 5000 years of history based on the same period for the history of Chinese history. I would say it is very advanced as many of the Chinese medical methods have been proven effective and accepted by more and more countries and cultures. There are many more to be proven and accepted by the current advancement of science. Therefore, the limitation is not in the Chinese medical medicine but rather the tools and equipment that are not able to prove its effectiveness.

The ones not able to prove not so much on the medicine but the philosophy behind a lot of Chinese medicine methodology such as acupuncture and many more. Just like Indian Yoga, the existence of it last more than a few thousand year and it is accepted by more and more people similar to Chinese Medicine. I always say, "When something can last for a few thousand years, there must be something great about it."

Multiple Streams of Millions

Day 75 - 925 days to go

Today is another fruitful day. In the morning, I attended a half day briefing in Islamic Finance. In the afternoon, I went to attend Patric Chan and Robert Allen's workshop on the above. Both are my mentors and also catalyst for my eventual success in the early retirement plan. It is also because of them that I am doing this daily blog of 1000 days to freedom.

In order to achieve financial and personal freedom, we must have residual and passive income. In other words, our wealth will continue to increase or at least keep on coming to support our desired lifestyle. They are very successful in creating passive income. Robert is the author for the best-selling book - multiple stream of income and hence he is the expert in teaching other people how to make money from multiple sources.

At night, I went to watch the last movie of Harry Porter - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. I think I still enjoy watching HP but not as excited as when I watched the first two. Maybe it was due to the fact that there were too much computer effect and it was just not enough of excited when you watch the same movie series for the 8 episode. However, we have to admit that 8 episode is a very difficult to beat record.

The success of Harry Porter was not merely due to the story, the casts and the crew only but also contribution from other sources such as social media, forum, movie critics, publicity and so on. In other words, promotion is very critical to ensure the success of a movie. Goods and services as well as human being, it is not so much of how good is the quality of the product or services but how well you can promote it. It is one of the most critical success factors for anyone aims to be very successful in the career life.

Credit Cards - Smart Consumer

Day 74 - 926 days to go

Today is a happy day as I spent a few hours with my high school friends for dinner. Very sad to say that we only meet each others once a year. The main reason is that my one of my friends has been staying in US for many years. The other two are successful people who are too busy for more regular meeting. We shared a lot of notes and talk about many issues.

After taken our dinner, we went to drink coffee at Starbucks. I used American Express to pay for the coffee as the current offer is buy one get one free. I told my friend that Citibank enable holder to enjoy free access to lounge at airport, CIMB Bank card holder enjoy 15% discount on duty free goods at airport and so on.

Government charges RM50 per card as tax but some cards will pay for the holders after the holder swipe credit cards for more than certain number of times. Therefore, card holders will enjoy different benefits for holding different credit cards.

Notebook LCD Screen Replacement

Day 73 - 927 days to go

Finally, my LCD screen is replaced after more than a month. Luckily I bought a 24 inches LCD monitor to work as an external screen long time ago. Hence, the damage to the LCD screen did not really cause much problem to me except that I cannot bring my notebook to write memo or minutes during meetings.

Well, the long replacement period was due to a few factors:

1. First of all, I need to lodge a report to IT help desk.
2. After assessment, they will call the notebook vendor for another assessment.
3. Then the vendor will take a few days to revert with their assessment and reply if the screen damage is covered by warranty.
4. For my case, the damage was not covered and hence need to be replaced.
5. Then I need to get approval for replacement.
6. After getting the approval, I need to raise a purchase order.
7. The PO needs to be approved by the administration department.
8. After that it needs to be sent to IT for further action.
9. Then IT will send the PO to buy a new one from the vendor.
10. The vendor will attend to the PO and arrangement for the replacement.
11. Finally, the screen was replaced.

Well, I am not saying that the whole issue should not go through so many steps for a proper control but the turnaround time should be much faster. To me, the whole process should not last for more than two weeks.

Bloomberg Training

Day 72 -928 days to go

I attended a two hours Bloomberg Equity Derivatives - Options training session today. I attended a few Bloomberg training sessions at least 5 years ago and I noticed some improvement have been made by Bloomberg for the past few years.

First of all, instead of conducting the training from 12 noon to 2pm, the training was conducted from 4 to 6pm today. The benefits are no needs to rush back to work after the training and also longer training hour as participants can stay for the full two hours rather than have to arrive and leave slightly before and after.

More variety of snack and drink are provided but no pizza and freshly made food is provided. This is a better way to ensure no food wastage as pizza not eaten will be thrown away. However for those who are hungry, instant cup noodles and biscuits are provided.

More and better functionality of the system compared to few years back. I think continuous development of any computer system is a must to stay competitive in any industry. Bloomberg lives up to competition, so are the good quality of their instructor who conducted various briefing sessions. bravo and keep it up.

Of course, the session is also a good event to build network with other Bloomberg users.

The 7 Disciplinary Myths About managing People in Malaysia

Day 71 - 929 days to go

Today I attended the above half day course. Two years ago the speaker - Shawn Shers also conducted a similar course but was for 1.5 days long which covered a lot more stuff and slightly different format. Well the half day course is still go especially for the first timer.

3 key concepts are 1) Rehabilitate, NOT terminate, 2) Burden of proof and 3) Court of equity. He presented the idea, philosophy and the technical aspect of the principles very well and hence we understand clearly. He also used real cases to help us to understand the labor law further.

I learned that Malaysia ranked No 2 in the world in terms of the most friendly to employees labor law while the first one is South Africa. Technically Indonesia is even better as they compensate you in 4 different ways when you resign. We beat Indonesia and ranked No 2 for the reason that we are 9 times lower number of population and hence relatively high in terms of number of court cases for human resource issue, we were much higher. In other words, we are lucky to have a much smaller population and hence won the 2nd place.

It is learned that USD250,000 is the average cost to dismiss an employee in silicon valley. However, it only cost 1.5 times the yearly salary in Malaysia. It was a fruitful workshop for everyone of us as it taught us how to protect the company when dealing with problem employees but at the same time also taught us how to protect ourselves in the event we face problem in our employment. One thing for sure is that it is not easy to terminate an employee unless he or she violated serious company code of employee or committed fraud.

Day 70 - Traditional Chinese Medicine Course

Day 70 - 930 days to go

Today was the first day I attended the TCM course. It was not the normal course that I planned to attend but was more like a short term introductory course that will last 12 weeks of 3 hours each. However, I learned quite a bit of Chinese medicine knowledge and the principles and philosophy of Chinese medicine.

One very important aspect I learned is that TCM made up of science, astronomy, arts of war, mathematics, biology, and many other fields. In other words, if you want to master the art or science of TCM, you need to know at least ten different disciplines. Another distinction of TCM versus western medicine is that Yin and Yan play a core role in the overall discipline of TCM. For instance, hot and cold, yin and yan, wet and dry, up and down, in and out, and so on. Traditionally, TCM were categorized into 3 grades. Highest grade is for health enhancement, 2nd grade is for enhancement and cure and the last one is actually "poison' that can be used as medicine.

TCM was the thousand years of studies that was made up of 4 different major medical books or rather compilation of medical studies and it is still evolving and improving on a daily basis. One of the major developments is the combination of western and chinese medical technology for prevention and cure of illness. We hope by combining the medical development of the two major groups of medicine, more break through in the scientific field can be achieved.

Must Read Book - Cash In A Flash

Day 69 - 931 days to go

Today was one of the most fruitful days for this year and maybe was one of the most important days in my life. I was spending some time browsed through my IPad 2 for some ebooks. Then only I realised that I downloaded Cash In A Flash in Chinese version. I started to read it until I finished the last page in less than two hours. It was a very interesting read and I just did not get enough of the story. However, the ebook is not a full softcopy version of the hardcopy as it covers only 8 out of 14 chapters of the story.

Hence, I continued to read the hardcopy which was a gift sent from US by the coauthor, Robert G. Allen who is also my mentor for a year already. He is a multiple bestsellings books author, international speaker, savvy investor in property and also a great mentor who teaches how to create multiple streams of income which is also the title of one of his best-sellers. The other coauthor of this book is Mark Victor Hansen who is the coauthor of the most successful book series of all time i.e Chicken Soup for the Soul.

I am glad that I read the book by chance and it will definitely change my life. The book is split into two parts i.e. Cash In A Flash in the left section of the book and Fast Money In Slow Time in the right side of the pages. It is a right and left brain book i.e. story telling and technical teaching at the same time. To me, it is a must read book if you want to change your life to achieve financial success and freedom. I may talk about what I learned from reading the book in future.

Biggest Slimmer Challenge 2011

Day 68 - 932 days to go

Today my partner in the BSC, Zet and I attended a meeting organised by our HR colleague - Grace. The reason she used to call for the meeting was to discuss BSC members involvement in Rat Race 2011.

Well, after a few minutes of so-called discussion, she asked Zet and me to close our eyes. We were surprised when we opened our eyes as we were presented with a "Best coach of the year" trophy. The trophy is to recognise our efforts put in to organise the BSC and also all the training and coaching given to them. We were very touched as we do not expect to receive any returns at all. We organised the charity BSC solely for the objective of helping them to be healthier and fitter.

Actually the best coach to do whatever activities is the student himself. In other words, nobody else can do a better job to coach you to achieve certain target. Of course we may need to learn technical skill from someone but end of the day only the student will be able to ensure the success of progress of oneself. Only the student know that how much effort and commitment have been put into the journey of reach the destination.

Furthermore, in order to be better than the master, one has to rely on oneself to breakaway from what has been learned. In other words, it is very important to learn, relearn and unlearn in order to reach a higher level of performance.

Network is Net Worth

Day 67 - 933 days to go

Today I spent an good hour with my ex intern now office colleague. I asked her about how is her new job in the company and she said she will share after working for a month. I started to ask her about her strengths, weaknesses, passion and the like.

I shared with her how do I prepare or train myself to be part of the life enhancement process and also is the source of energy to me. I told her that every time when I learn something new be it information, tip, technical skill, I will be happy and recharged. It is one of the most effective way to be happy. I used to be very stressful and wake up at 3am in the morning due to stressful work and family environment. I shared with her that currently I do not have the same problem as I changed my mindset or philosophy in life. I learned how to 'let go".

I use myself as an example for setting goal and work towards achieving my goal. we should set 3 to 5 years personal and career goals. After setting, we should find various means to achieve goals set. I used retirement as an example. How to retire young and rich? Well there are many ways but the ultimate motives is to be financial independent and hence free ourself from working 9 to 5 job. There are many ways to do it and I cited one of the ways is by making investment in property.

How to begin making investment in property as one source of passive income? Well, there are many things that we need to do rather than merely buying investment property. What to buy, how to buy, when to buy and so on are part and parcel of working towards buying a property to achieve our goal. Among other form of preparation, I will prepare myself by doing the followings to learn property investment:

1. Attend seminars,
2. Read books and other reading materials,
3. Share notes with other investors,
4. Visit new launching of property,
5. Visit property investment fair,
6. Read property forum and news,
7. Visit property investment sites,
8. and most importantly, invest in property.

There are many other ways to enhance oneself and the most important ingredient is "Just do it".

Locals - Professional Derivatives Traders

Day 66 - 934 days to go

Today my colleagues and I met with two derivatives locals i.e. individual dealers who trade for their own derivatives position with their own money. They are attached to a trading participant (derivatives broker) in terms of using the TP's office space and facilities. They do not need to pay any rental of office and computer as well as other office equipment. Their payment is in the form of minimum trading volume per month. In other words, the TP is making money from commission earned from their trading activities.

They are palm oil traders and trade based on fundamental analysis mainly but also look at technical analysis for major change of trend. Fundamental analysis is very important for trading commodity contracts as many fundamental factors are affecting the movement of price on a daily or even intraday basis. Some of the critical factors are supply and demand in terms of production, import and export of certain countries, seasonal factors, mother nature, alternative or substitute product, government policy and so on.

Personal development is very critical as well such as learn to read technical and fundamental indicators, computer skills such as algo trading, charting, and other form of programming. Networking is also very important as traders can share view and information. Two heads are always better than one. Of course, our visit to them enable us to gain lots of insight in the trading world as well as the commodity industry.

AFACT (Singapore)

Day 64 and 65 - 935 days to go

I did not post a post yesterday as I was in Singapore to attend the 2nd anniversary dinner of the Association of Financial and Commodity Traders (AFACT). It was a fun filled dinners and of course, a very successful one. Many sponsors are the heavy weight of the derivatives industry such as CME, SGX, SMX, Patsystems, RTG, Philips Futures, and so on.

Besides drinking which is part of any networking activities, highlights of the dinner include lucky draw with good prizes, stand-up comedian, and also 3 Chinese artist presented their drawing, paper cutting and photo taking skills. Everybody enjoyed the night a lot.

It was a very good net working event with participants came from many front, middle and back office participants. Besides locals, many are business development department or related staff. Lots of nationality from all over the world which include Singapore, Malaysia, India, USA, European countries, Afghanistan, and so on.

These group of professional traders contributed a lot to the development and growth of the derivatives industry in Singapore and other exchanges as well. I hope that they will also trade BMD products in the near future.

Health and Wealth

Day 63 - 937 days to go

This morning I attended a half day talk on health related workshop - The Ultimate Life & Health mastery Congress 2011. 5 local and international speakers covered various topics which included laughter-workout as the first workshop and laughter exercise. I found it quite interesting and may want to recommend it to be conducted in my company.

Learned quite a fair bit on bad oil and good oil. One interesting remark is that what do you do with fat intake? The answer is either you burn it or you wear it....how true and interesting.

Another speaker talked about how to select a brand or rather any medicine or food supplement i.e. what to look food when selecting a particular type of food supplement.

The workshop also promote health magazine, water filter, health products and even fasting program.

Well, this is one of the most healthy Sunday mornings to me. I am so glad that I have decided to attend this workshop at the last minute.

Property Knowledge

Day 62 - 938 days to go

Today I learned some new knowledge from a property sales staff on property.

1. In Singapore, landlords can inspect their property anytime without having to obtain consent from tenant but the reverse is true for Malaysia.
2. In Malaysia, dont expect TNB to cut electricity if your tenant does not pay electricity bill as long as you deposit is still good enough to pay for the outstanding bill. Therefore, landlord have to write in to TNB to cut the electricity. This is also one of the best way to manage tenants who default on rental payment.
3. It is advisable to register internet access to electricity bill only to check on tenant payment history. It is learned that landlords can also register sms service to receive notification from TNB in the event tenant fills to pay their bill.
4. Build-in cabinet and plaster ceiling are good to add value for the property and also will get tenant or buyer easier.
5. Currently developer has to submit for strata title application before the developer can claim the last 5% of the payment from lawyer.
6. Based on the current rule, 20 feet of set back of land (i.e. to build property 20 feet away from the limit/border of land) for new development of property is required to allow for city planning in future.

3-in-1 Celebration

Day 61 - 939 days to go

Today I attended a 3-in-1 celebration. It was a celebration for runners who ran the sundown and standard chartered marathon as well as the sundown ultra marathon. Hence it was a gathering of fit and ultra fit people both physically and mentally.

Running a marathon and ultra marathon required tremendous amount of commitment and hardwork. It is just like setting up a company. Lots of preparation have to be completed before the start of race.

Just like the 7 habits of highly effective people, preparing for a project or a marathon have to begin with the end in mind. Barring any unforeseen circumstance, if you are well prepared, you should be able to complete the challenge. Another one is sharpen the saw. It is very critical to possess certain level of product or market knowledge. Of course there are many reasons to a successful launching of a new product. The whole eco system should be upgraded so that there is little impediment for success.

Another similarity between a long distance run and product launching is the process. As long as you take it one step at a time, sooner a later you will complete it. Of course, in order to get a finisher medal or win the race, you have to complete the race within certain number of hour. Likewise, if you launch a product too late after everybody else has launched it to the market, you may not be able to capture good market share or even stay in the market.