Financial Freedom

Day 98 - 902 days to go

Today is another great learning day. I continued to learn from a few property investment gurus in the Wealth Mastery Academy workshop. By chance sit next to a personal finance author and expert. I attended his seminar 4 - 5 years ago and bought one of his books. He told me that he authored 6 books since then. He is also a regular speaker in various personal finance and investment seminar.

I am not sure if he is from Seremban or he just chose to stay in the small town which is about 1.5 hours drive from KL. What I learned from him and my another colleague who has been staying in the same town is that they paid only 20 to 30% of the price for a house with the similar land size in KL. Of course, the property is not expected to increase in price to the extend that is close to the KL counterpart. however, they really enjoy quality of a big house with much lower investment cost.

The speaker is better off compared to my colleague in a sense that he only needs to travel to KL whenever he conduct seminar in KL which is normally during weekend with less traffic. However, my colleague needs to travel two hours for one way every workday. Nevertheless, his whole family enjoy the bungalow with big piece of land with the hard work of the husband and father.

Met my ex colleague and learned that she sold a piece of property which appreciated by more than 200% within 5 years. Of course, in terms of capital outlay which is the down payment, her gains could be more than 2000%. It is only commercial property that will has such a high yield in so short a period. Therefore, it is quality and not quantity that counts.

My sifu Milan challenges participants to invest in at least a piece of commercial property for good gain. Base on his estimation, 3 to 5 million bank loan on good quality property is what it takes to have a good retirement. It takes 10 to 12 years to achieve financial freedom. I agree with his calculation and will work hard towards the goal.

One more common strategies used by speakers for promoting their course is that they will jointly promote their respective course i.e. if you sign up one, you will get the second one free of charge. another one is that internet is used more often for any type of investment even for property investment.

Happy events:

1. Met the speaker again after many years and learned some money savings tips from him.
2. Learned quite a bit for the property investment talk.
3. Met my ex colleague and happy for her for her success in property investment.

Passive Income Workshops

Day 97 - 903 days to go

Today is a great day. Attended two of my most important and favorite workshops in life i.e. property investment and internet marketing. It is always great to learn new information as it served as vitamin to my mind and soul. It enriched my mental and hence a healthier physical. A happy mind will result in healthy body.

Met two ex colleagues and chatted for a while and shared some fun historical information about office matters. Also shared some latest development in the market for mutual benefits.

Happy Events:

1. Very happy to meet many old friends at the Wealth Mastery Academy held in the Gardens Hotel at mid valley mega mall. Param and Alice were in the same workshop, Heng was with family, Gerald was with Angeline before heading back to France for a two weeks break, and ex participants from other property investment seminar.
2. Learned more property investment knowledge to be a smarter investor in future.
3. Made some new friends at the two seminars.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Day 96 - 904 days to go

Weta Digital, kudos to your team. Another excellent movie produced by your team after the Avatar. I really enjoy the computer effects as well as the story line. Computer is getting more and more high tech and make the movie more and more real. Eventually, we can hardly identify if a character is a real object or just a computer effect.

To some, computer effect is just a small part of the entire movie however for another group, it may be the most important part of the entire movie. To me personally, I think it is fun to watch all the computer effects as long as the underlying is a very interesting and touching story.

Happy Events:

1. Watched another great movie with excellent computer effect and story line.
2. Looking forward to attend two days property investment seminar start tomorrow.

Business Development and Innovation

Day 95 - 905 days to go

Today had a meeting with market participants and some observation:

1. Need more vision and mindset change for market development. Our participants need to be more sensitive to danger as if we are not able to expand our business pie from the local and overseas market, sooner or later some of the weaker ones will be forced out of the market.
2. Some of the proposal is extension of trading hours, investment in better technology, learn new skills to sell new products, take part in overseas and local roadshow and other marketing initiatives, etc.
3. Initiative. We have to take more initiative to innovate and expand business and do not subject ourselves to any local constraints such as number of products, pool of funds, technology, local market, skill-set and so on. Instead, we should have find ways to expand our business by looking out for new ways of doing things and looking for new opportunity.

Happy Events:

1. Had a meeting with a system vendor and was given some good advice for new Options contract design on strike price interval and how he will conduct Options training.
2. Mindset change. Instead of avoidance and not able to leave a normal life, one should just live normally and ignore any negative external factors in order to be stronger mentally and happy.
3. Always prepared. In order not to be caught or set up by anyone in the office, one should prepare themselves in their areas of work so that no matter face any difficult situation or question unexpectedly, your coworker will not be able to bring you down. Today's performance is yesterday's preparation.
4. Be sincere. If you want to invite your coworker to be in a project, discussion or lunch/dinner, please make sure you do it at the onset and not at the eleventh hour. This last minute action will actually make people angry and have more negative impact than not invited to be part of the activities. This will also let people confirm their thoughts about you if they have known about the activities and were not invited in the first place.

Bad Mouth

Day 94 - 906 days to go

My colleague told me that many people have nothing to do and always "bad mouth" about other people. She cited a few examples to me. I told her there is a Chinese saying that"If nobody jealous about you, then you are a nobody" In other words, you much worth something so that people will spend their or life to talk about you. After listening to my positive thinking comments, she said she wants to talk to me more often in future. I felt so good that I was able to add value to her life.

Heard that one of the senior management staff resigned. I have a mixed feeling for him as he is one of the few staff who can make things happen but due to his very "unique" personality, many staff either under him or not have no good impression about him. Regardless what, I wish him all the best in his future undertakings.

Happy Events:

1. Able to console my colleague about bad remarks about her that she heard from other people.
2. I am happy to identify another market maker for the products that I want to launch later this year.

Project Management

Day 93 - 907 days to go

Today I attended the 2nd half of the Project Management refresher talk by my colleague. We have very comprehensive PM framework in place and our IT and PMO have been doing a good job on PM. I think PM is used originally for big project for IT system which costs 10 of millions but now PM has been applied in virtually any major projects in the company.

The only difference between all projects is the scope of application of PM framework. For a very major project, almost the whole framework is applicable. However, for the smaller projects, only the more or most important modules are used such as project concept paper, project charter, timeline/gantt chart, issue log and so on.

I am glad to be involved in one of the major project in the company and realised that the most important part in PM is actually People Management. It is people rather than system that will make or break a project. Therefore, selection of team members is one of the most critical decision.

Happy Events:

1. I invited some of the participants who attended the 3 days IMD workshop to attend my Option and risk management conference jointly organised with CFA. It is nice to be keeping in touch with them who are Chairman, CEO, CFO and other senior management in some of the major companies in the capital market.
2. I am happy to have many colleagues who are supportive when I helped my daughter to seek donation from them for her school'a bacathon i.e. reading marathon.
3. I bought a tin of homemade biscuit from a colleague and shared with other colleagues. All are happy to be able to enjoy free and delicious biscuit.

Blue Ocean, Red Ocean

Day 92 - 908 days to go

While I was using gmail and planned to make a call using Skype, suddenly I saw a dialing pad in the gmail itself. Then only I realise that google also offers internet phone similar to Skype. I am not sure google launch the internet phone for how long but based on the number of users for gmail, I think this will be a success.

Nowadays, all businesses are facing more and more competition. A unique idea or business model will be copied and improved easily by other companies. In this competition, google use price war to attract users. First of all, all phone called within US and Canada is free of charge. Secondly, call to other countries are mostly, if not all, cheaper than Skype charges.

Look like two giants - Microsoft Skype and google will have more business competition in future. Of course consumer like me will be happy to enjoy better service and lower rates.

Happy events:

1. I have clarified my staff's frustration and we know each other better now. I pointed out a few things that he could have done better. He accepted it with open mind. With his intelligence, good attitude, hard working and a pleasant personality, I am sure he will be successful in future. However, I hope he will apply what I taught him and continue to be guided by me for the next few years in order to excel further.
2. I learned that to be patient is one of the best solutions for many difficult situations. Sometime, when you are patient and wait for a few days, issues will be solved naturally without much efforts.