Stay Focus To Fight Negativity!

Life is so bleak...

Assuming you are now out of job and you have a nagging spouse who does not seem to understand what is going on. (If you are not married, assuming that you have a nagging parent.) If you are facing this situation, read on...

Let's face it, job hunting is not easy once you hit 40, least to say over 45. You know you will be discriminated against. You spouse doesn't seem to get it inside her/his thick scull. Frustrating, isn't it? It is as though you are lazing around and not willing to look for job. You are angry at your spouse for the lack of understanding and ignorant about the job market. You feel like you should have a divorce and be free from it. If you start to feel so, you are in danger of falling into negativity. Believe it or not, you are only one of many middle age mid-level management staff who had gone through exactly the same path before you. History repeats itself, doesn't it?

Danger Signs...

You start to blame everybody. You start to believe that you are not going to be able to find a job. Your savings are depleting and will be finished one day. You will have to sell away your belongings to live on. You are going to be left out of this society... STOP!

You are falling into Negativity Cycle! You must get out of it right now!

Look, there are so many negative elements around you. You must stay focus on what you want to achieve so that you will not be dragged into the black hole.

PROVEN FORMULA OF SUCCESS
To put yourself back on track, try this proven formula:

1. Define Your Target for next 12 months in clear detail and write it down.
2. Read it to yourself every morning and night.
3. Each time you read, imagine that you have achieved it.
4. Truly believe that you will achieve it. Tell yourself what you want to give away in order to achieve it. Example, 10 hours of work everyday, Give up holidays etc.
5. Do this everyday for at least 3 months. You will start to see things improving.
6. Whatever other people may say, you must keep your faith and belief that you will achieve your target.

This is a proven formula that has been used by many people to achieve what they wanted and planned for. Give it a try for 3 months. You have nothing to lose.

“You have to settle into the uncertainty of things and be comfortable with it. Never voice negativity even if things are not going well. Your world is changing, there’s always tomorrow, all will work out fine in the end…Powerful consciousness about life and money is only habit. Agree to change your habits if that’s what it takes.” -Stuart Wilde

Fighting the Ghost Within!

What is really making you unhappy? Is it your boss? Your colleagues? Your job? Your spouse? Your children? Your neighbour? If the answer is one of these, you need not be unhappy. Why? You can resolve all of these issues. You can change company so that you have new boss and new colleagues and new job. You can talk to your spouse, your children, your neighbour about how you feel and seek their understanding.

But, in most cases, external factors are not real cause for unhappiness. The fear within you is the major culprit. Let me tell you that the fear within is the ghost within and it is the most hidden cause of all unhappiness. It is so hidden that very few people in this world ever realised it. It is so hidden that most of the people take the blame on others. Most people, without realising the real reason for their unhappiness, make excuses for it. Some will blame it on their jobs. Some blame it on the lack of financial achievements.

When you examine deeper into it, you should start to ask these questions. Are you really short of money to spend? What is it that you are not able to do? What is stopping you to make more money since you need more money? Did you ever try to take on another job? Did you really think hard enough to generate more money? Have taken a stock of your skills that you can sell your service to make some extra money? I make $2000 extra by writing some programs for a few customers during the night. There is opportunities everywhere if you care to find them.

The key thing is to find out the ghost within you and kill it, overcome it. Do not live in blame.

Success Requires No Explanations and Failure Permits No Alibis

Take ownership of your unhappiness and address it now. Kill the ghost withn, kill the beast within. Live life with greatest faith in believing that you will achieve ultimate happiness! Do question yourself anymore. You are born to be happy. Leave the worries and fear behind you and move ahead.

Positioning Yourself Toward Your Goal

Do you really want to be rich? If your answer is yes. Then, next question to ask yourself is what are you doing now? Are you an employee or self-employed? If you are an employee, then, ask more question? How much can an employee make? How to become rich as an employee? Of course there are people who become rich as an employee like to top managements of fortune 500 companies. If you think you want to be an employee and become rich, then, ask yourself how to get into the top management of the fortune 500 companies.

If you are not in the USA, then, look at the to 100 companies in your own country and ask yourself how to be at the top management of these companies.

What I am talking about is positioning. If you want to achieve something, you need to position yourself towards it. If your aim is to earn $10,000 per month, you can live a decent life but you will be in the middle class or upper side of the middle class. You are unlikely to be able to become rich.

If you are serious to become rich, then, you need to be operating a business. You need to be able to make more money than just standard salary. Otherwise, whatever your dream is will remain as a dream. You need to start to take some risk and do it.

Give some thought to it and decide what you really want to do. If you are in the middle of Sahara desert, you don't get seaview. You get sandview. Does that sound simple? Common sense?

Getting Rich Skill: Position Yourself to be Rich!

Just Do It!

There was a financial crisis some years ago and it affected many people. Two men were severely affected. The invested heavily in stock markets and the prices of their stocks was down by as much as 80% on average. 5 years later, one of them was back again with even more fortune while the other is still living in misery. What makes them different?

Both had equal paper qualifications, almost equal skills and they both had gone through nearly same process of wealth building in the past. They were both equally capable of doing similar things. They both had the ability to build almost equal amount of wealth within the equal amount of time. Why one could rebound from the setbacks while the other could not? Are you interested to know? You would be, wouldn't you?

The answer was simple. One of them use back the same skill that he built his fortune and immediately start re-building again. While the other man spend all his time grieving about his losses. One man sees that he cans till come back even stronger because he has now gain even more experiences and he can do it much faster because he now knows how to avoid the costly mistakes he made in the past. The other man spends most of his time seeking sympathy and self pity. He has forgotten about how he used to build his fortune. He spent his time in
blaming and frustration.

See the difference? What is gone is gone. If you can salvage, you do it fast. If you can't salvage, you move on. Build on your past experience and do it faster this time round.

There are better things to do than to self pity.

OK. You have heard this hundred times. Now just do it.

What do you want from holidays?

What can holiday do for you?

What is it that you want to gain from holiday? That is my question. Sometimes, you can get a good break by just going to some nearby places and have total relaxation and re-charge. Or it could just be staying in a hotel in your own town and away from friends and have time by yourself and thinking through. What is best for you? Some people prefers some packaged tour where you jump from one tourist attraction to another in great hurry. Look, take picture, go to bus, next location, take picture go again.... Hmm... That is not my kind of holiday. I would rather take it easy and have my own time...

Well, to me, if you are looking for a break, you do not need to pay through your nose. Go to a nearby hotel. Have some good meals, relax, swim, relax, watch TV, think, relax again... All these is when you need to rest and relax. To travel out of your country to experience different thing is a good thing to do. But I think we should set out goal and take our time. So, I prefer free and easy time of holiday. I would wake up late and take slow breakfast and only visit one or to locations each day slowly.

These are just me only.... Depending on what kind of person you are, what kind of things you enjoy, I can say too much... Do whatever suits you....

Conquer Your Fear!

What is the number one obstacle to your success? You know it now. It is your fear.

Hard to believe? Maybe not. How frequent you have an idea and you do not have the courage to act on it? Not having courage means fear. I am not saying you have no guts. Fear is different from not having guts. It is difficult to explain but you must feel it yourself. Maybe, I am not too good with words. One of the common symptoms of fear is procrastination and hesitation. You thought you wanted to act on some plan and it sits there for months and never ever got done. Some many times that you were about to get started and then just think that you will do it tomorrow or next time. That, is the first symptom of fear.

Another symptom is giving up too easily or finding excuses to support the notion that it will not work. You only give it one and only one try and then to confirm that it will not work. Worst, your that try was not even half-hearted. It was touch-and-go kind of try. There was no commitment and conviction. It was simply meant to confirm the negative, that's all. Yes, I have seen it all. I have done that too many times. Hey, does that sound familiar? If so, then, you better watch out. You have the perfect formula for failure if you don't change that.

Learn to conquer these negative attitudes or habits. These are Self Limiting Beliefs that ought to get rid off immediately. Do some soul searching and surface them. You must surface them so that you can face them. Counter each of the excuses with a postive reason and habit. Put faith in yourself and move on.

Success is only another 3 feet below. Why are you stopping digging now?

Trying once is not trying. Trying twice is onlythe touching the surface. Trying 10 more times and each time come back with an improved strategy and you will really learn something even if you have gotten what you want.

Have more faith in yourself and keep the hope alive!

Self Limiting Beliefs

Being afraid and success and being afraid of failure can act together and destroy your life.

These are the 2 most damaging fears human have that can paralyse you completely. They can make you fail in anything you want to do and they can make you stop at where you are and not moving forward. Both of them are different but yet they originated from the same source. That is self limiting beliefs. And I say: Self Limiting Beliefs is the Mother of All Failures!

If you look at any failures deep enough, all of them boils down to only one thing. That is Self Limiting Beliefs. You must always remember that this is your greatest enemy. You must fight it with all your mights. You must destroy it as fast as you can. You must not let any of these destroy you. The more important thing is to able to catch it early. Early Detection is the key to curing any diseases. You must look at self limiting beliefs as diseases. There is a cure for it. But you need to first detect it. Once you know about it you will be able to fight it and win it.

Make it your aim in life: To fight against my own Self Limiting Beliefs!

Dealing with set backs and failures

Do you remember who built Taj Mahal? Oh, maybe you don't even remember what Taj Mahal is. Never mind, let's try this. What about the only apparatus on earth that can be seen from the moon? OK, never mind. That was supposed to be the Great Wall of China. Who was the architect? The ancient emporer Shi Huang Di.

Why am I asking these silly questions? No, I am not trying to tease your memory. I just want to make a point and all great things maybe forgotten one day. Nothing will last in your memory forever. And that is precisely how you should be dealing with your set backs and failures. Don't leave and set back live in your memory for too long. The shorter the better. Pick yourself up as quickly as possible. As much as you want to learn to improve your memory, you should also learn to forget.

Somehow, human being tends to forget good times and remember bad times. If you want to be happy and seccessful, you must learn to forget your set backs and remember your achievements. Let your mind be associated with success and success will come to you. And one more point, what ever good thing you have done, don't expect people to remember you forever. It will be forgotten over time. Don't get upset over it. Just move on with your life. Looking forward is more important than looking backward.

Remember, when you delete a file in your computer, you need to empty your trash bin.

Let's start new today and practise to Forget Our Set Backs and Failures...

To our happiness!

Fear of Failure & Success

Why am I touching on this subject (again)?

I mentioned before that Fear Can Kill You. And that was an experiment done some 50 - 60 years ago. But, I feel that I can't talk enough of this topic. This is such a huge topic that I can write a whole book about it. Maybe, one book is not enough to cover all. I should be doing a PhD on this subject.

Seriously, there are so many things to be afraid of today. There are so many thing to fear. You will never know when disaster will strike. You will never know when you will get fired from your job. How well are your children doing? Are they going to make it in their future.

We must conquer fear in order to achieve success. There are 2 types of fear interacting with you and hold you back from the success you had ever wanted. The strange thing about fear is that you can be both fear of failure and yet fear of success. Human is such a paradox.

To conqure fear, you need to have faith. That was one of the survival skills I mentioned.

Are you afraid of success?

You must be kidding! How can anyone be afraid of being successful? So, you said.

Look, I am not kidding. Many people failed to achieve what they set out to be because they are afraid of being successful. This fear of success is the number one self limiting belief and self sabotage of the world. I had never believe it until recently. Why would people be afraid of success? There can be a lot of reason. It maybe linked to afraid of failure. See, when you are successful, don't you expect that your friends and relatives expect you to be always be successful? Won't they be expecting you to be successful in everything you do? Maybe you got lucky this time. Can you really maintain it always? Aren't you going to worry that you can keep up the expectation?

Wow, there are so many reasons that you should be afraid of. There are so many things that can go wrong. Don't you think that you are going to lose some of your best friends after you achieve success? Don't you worry that they are going to stay away from you?

See, I told you so. There are thousand and one thing that you can worry about. How can you just ignore them and try pretend nothing happened?

The fact is: You are what you think you are!

Get to know yourself and have less wory. In this world you can never have enough worries. I would rather stay away from the negative thoughts and concentrate on what I have on hand.

Acres of Diamond

Have you ever heard of this story? Have ever read of this book? As this is an old classic, Acres of Diamond has been read thousound times or million times. But, how many people had really learn from the teachings? If they had done so, they should be living a decent life.

Why are we not rich? How do I know that you are not rich? Very simple. If you are rich enough, you would not have mid life crisis. You would not be looking at this blog. You would not be seeking for survival tips. You would not have enjoy reading this column. You would have been giving away tips on how to be rich. Anyway, these are not my main concerns. As long as someone is seeking for hints, I will be there to provide one.

The simple theory of getting rich is firstly, you need to be able to leverage. By selling your time to earn a living will not get you rich. Next, you want to be in business. To do that you need to first find a product or service that people want. Then, you need to secure the product and you need to let people know about it. That means market survey, obtain rights to resell and advertising. Selling things that people want. This the universal truth.

Do you want to get rich?

Commit this into your memory:

"There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe.

A thought, in this substance, produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.

Man can form things in his thought, and, by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks about to be created."

The above quote is taken from "The Science of Getting Rich".

If you think that I am too "materialistic", think again. Without money, what can you really do? How can Bill Gates help the poor if he does not have the money. He even accepted Warren Buffet's money to be able to help the poor better. Money is not the problem. Not having money is the problem. Without money, how much can you help the world?

I admire people who goes into poor country to help them to build things and educate them. All these are extremely admirable spirit, but, I am sorry to say that the impact is limited. Only scales like what Bill Gates do, with certain long term plan and strategy can create a greater impact.

My point is, don't be shy of wanting to be rich. I want to be rich also.

Survival Skill #23: Don't be shy of wanting to be rich. Be proud of it instead.

Living in the Real World?

Ever thought of committing suicide?

I had a couple of friends who always told me the same thing. Something when they travel on a business trip, one funny thing cross their mind. How nice if the plane suddenly crash down and everything is over. No more worries.

Strange thing for me is that I never really think of that. I am the so called "kia-si" (in Singapore it means "scared of dying" or "no guts") type of person, I believe. What is this world all about? Has this been just a dream after all? What is real and what is unreal? Is it all in our mind only? Who can be sure of that? Eveything you see, you feel, your hear, your smell could just be imaginations only. All may just be in the mind only. What is really REAL?

But then, just thinking back. Is it important that we need to know all these? So what if we are living in a dream? So what if what we see, feel, smell, hear are just illusions? So what? Life goes on. How is it going to change your life? I don't know. Is it something we should be worried about? Maybe, maybe not.

Whatever you thought and thinking of doing, you are still here reading this blog. Just live and let die. OK. It time to go back to work...

Survival Skill #22: Leave the worries to other poeple...

Learn to Leverage

If you are working in a large multi-national company chances are you will have to deal with contract staffs. There is a new belief that your permenant staff colleagues are your enemies and your contractors are your friends. Why? It seems that these days, the so-called permenant staff's job is to do coordination and management only. Management for them are mainly managing the bosses' expectation. The actual job is mostly done by the contractors.

This is not new phenomena but it is becoming more evident recently. Many large companies do not want to hire permenant staff so that they do not have to fire people often. This has lead to a new strategy that office workers must adopt in order to survive. The skill to develop is to be able to manage upwards and be good to the contractors so that they will do the work for you.

If you have not acquired this skill, you better start looking into it. With such skills, you will be able to move smoothly in your career and make lots of money. You can call this Leverage. Since you are not into business, you can't do the leverage that businessman do. You can still apply the same theory as a salaried man (woman).

Survival Skill #22: Manage upwards and Leverage downwards

Symptoms of Career Crisis

If you have been working for over 10 years and hardly taken any vacations or long breaks to reflect on your future, it might be good that you find an opportunity to do so. It need not be an expensive vacation. Just take your mind off your current job and reflect upon yourself. There are some important things you want to know about yourself and sometimes you do not have the opportunity to do so because you are so engrossed into your job. By the way, someone said that the word "JOB" stands for "Just-Over-Broke". It is not my intention to argue about that because there are people who made millions on their "JOB".

Some of the things you want to look out for in your mid career are symptons of crisis. Here are some of them:

1. Motivation - Are you motivated to do your job? If you are not, that is a negative point.
2. Negativity - You are always not confident that your companies program will work.
3. Interest Level - You don't feel excited about the job assignments. It is boring. But you just do it anyway.
4. Initiative - You never try to think of anything to improve your job. Just wait for instructions.
5. Concentration - You can't concentrate. You always think about other things and always forget to do something.
6. You get tired easily.
7. You dragged yourself to work. Always late. You try to find excuses to absent from work.
   
8. You are very sensitive to rumours. You are always trying to find out more about gossips.
9. You avoid seeing your clients, business partners, suppliers. You don't join your colleagues for lunch etc.
   

If you have more than 5 of any of the above symptoms, you may want to re-think carefully what exactly you want to do. If you really think that your current work place is not right for you, you really need to start to be more active to get in touch with recruitment agencies (secretly). You may also want to actively acquire the skills and knowledge for your next job. Pro-actively preparing your resume and set at least one-hour per day at home to search newspapers or Internet for job openings. Be more active to contact any friends you know and indirectly testing the market. It is easier to switch when you are still holding on to a job.

There is no point to hang around if you have lose interest.

Survival Skill #21: Always Seek Out New Opportunities

Life Long Learning - inch-by-inch

The theory of becoming rich quickly is to be able to leverage on something that
generates income. That has been said thousands times or millions times. But,
how do you actually do it? Best Seller author can give you hundreds of
examples. All these are nothing more than hindsight. But, wait a minute... I am
not saying they are wrong. They are absolutely right and I agree with them
totally. What I am driving at is that knowing the facts is not enough.
Developing the skill to do it is the key.

That leads to the theory of life long learning. Knowingly or unknowingly, we
are learning everyday. Sometimes we learn things subconsciously. That is bad
because we may learn things that are bad for us! Don't you think so? In my
opinion, we must be more self conscious of what we learn everyday. One
suggestion is to have 10-15 minutes every night before you close your eyes to
sleep, reflect on what you have learned during the day. Make a decision to do
better tomorrow. Inch-by-inch, we will get closer to acquiring the skill we
want. Whether it is for making lots of money or becoming a better person to our
family, friends, the society and the world as a whole.

Survival Skill #20: Self Reflection

Surviving the Challenging Time

This is a very busy holiday for me. Juggling 2 jobs is certainly not easy, not
to mention 3. While trying to build an Internet based business for my long term
future, I have a day job and another adhoc part-time "business".

I am trying to complete the day job, a project, as soon as possible because it
is a full-time assignment and takes about 11-12 hours (minimum) of my day time
everyday. That actually does not leave with much time for other things. After
spending another 1-2 hours of the time for other chores and children, there is
only about 2 hours left for my other businesses.

Weekend and public holidays are extremely precious for me. This is the time to
catch up with my other businesses. Weekends however, is not totally available
for me. I still have to spend time to bring my children to ballet class, music
class and art classes. Apart from that, I will have to spend some time with
them. That actually leaves quite little time for me.

My current day job is a project that brings me my bread and butter. I am
grateful to my friend who engaged me into his customer. Having tough time
juggling many things, I am very tempted to give up the day job. But, for the
sake of the income and my commitment to my friend, I soldier on. The reason
that I wanted to give up the day job is basically that this is not a long term
solution. It is a stop-gap solution with no future. I believe the long term
future for me is to be able to build a successful Internet Based business. But
my commitment to my friend will not allow me to give up. I intend to finished
the first phase that I promised and complete the delivery. As fot he second
phase, I am still thinking about it.

I considered myself very lucky that I have many choices in front of me. Even
though I may not be making lots of money, I think I can keep myself fully
occupied and be able to build something for the future.

Now, I just need to concentrate on what I am doing and get it done. In summary,
I need to invoke the Concentration Power to survive this stage of my life.

Survival Skill: Concentration Power

Do Your Read Newspapers?

Wow! This must be the silliest question you have ever heard. Well, you may think that I am nuts. But, I am not. Here is the reason for bringing up this issue. I had read quite a number of books about how our behaviours are affected by the things we see or hear. There is a belief that you mind, your subconscious mind can be affected by constant brainwashing to do certain things. That is the reason many psychologist are so strongly fighting against violence in TV, Movie etc. People, especially children who watches these TV or movies many subconsciously accepting the various thing shown and starting to do what is done in the TV or movies.

Now, come back to the question about reading newspaper. If the newspaper is always filled negative news, your subconscious mind will be influenced by it and you will become negative. When I told my friend about this. He was surprised that I said that because his pastor said the same thing to his church. I am not a Christain but my friend is. Not trying to talk about religion here, but, I just want to say that I am not the only person who thinks likewise.

So, the point really is that we must be careful to Prevent Negative Thoughts Controlling Our Mind. I am not telling you not to read newspaper. The media industry is going to hate me. But, I want to make the point that we don't get too engrossed into reading the news. We need to keep our minds clear and not to be influenced.

Remember, we are facing challenging time and we need to keep our spirit up. We cannot afford to be negative. So, one of the key survival skill that I am talking about is to Fend Off Negative Thoughts.

Survival Skill #19 Fend Off Negative Thoughts

Should I Sell My Car?

I am taking a train to work nowadays. The cost of driving is too high for me. The parking will cost me about $21. The Electronic Road Pricing (ERP - First in the world) will cost me about $5-6 (depending on the time I go home), and the gasoline will cost me about $9-10 depending on traffic condition. That is about $36 per day. My train fare is about $3 per day. I figure that if I can save $33 per day, I can have extra $660 per month. The main reason is that I don't save much time driving. The train ride is about 35 minutes. Walking is about 25 minutes. If I drive, I still have to walk about 5-10 minutes (up and down the office & home). Journey time is about 35 minutes, total time is about 40-45 minutes. So, I save 10-15 minutes per trip. So, in one day I may save 25-30 minutes which will cost me $33. That will convert to $66-80 per hour. Do I earn that much now? Ops! I have a PDA that I loaded with some e-Books that I purchased. I can read them on the train.

My car cost me $101,000 when I purchased it. In Singapore, you can use the car for 10 years. After which you will get be about 15% of the purchase price. That will be about $85,000 over 10 years. That is about $700 per month. Road Tax, Insurance, parking etc will cost around $300 per month. So, the car cost me about $1000 whether I drive it or not. Since I am not driving it to work, I think I should sell my car. It makes a lot of business sense. I guess I have to live with the inconveniences of weekends.

Saving $1,600 a month is quite a lot of money even if you are earning $10,000 per month. I think I will go a put an ad to sell it.

Survival Skill #18: Do Your Sums Right!

Do You Have Self Doubt?

Sometimes, things just hit us without us knowing it. One such thing is the feeling of self doubt. This is specially true when you are faced with some challenges and not able to find any solution quickly. For example, you are in a new job and this is some area of work that you had never attempted. You are at a lost of what to do. You search for various place to find some hints. Nothing! You start to have some self doubt as to whether you are able to handle this job.

This is most crucial time of your life. You had been retrenched for nearly one year and you finally found a job. You want to make it successful. You have no choice. Remember, you are over 45 and it is extremely difficult to land you another job. I am talking about average 45ers. Not those high flyers who are in the top management league. I am talking about people who had been in the mid level management. As you know that the current market is flooded with mid level management, the late babyboomers (those who were born between 1955-1965). The
early babyboomers (1945-1955) are mostly luckier. They had mostly escape the great squeeze and ran off with sufficient amount to retire.

Now, there is no other time that is worse than now to have self-doubt. My dear friend, this is certainly not the time for this. But we always get hit at the worst time. This always happens. Take a break and start thinking, not panicking. This is the worst time to panic. This is the time that calls for great concentration and calmness. Learn to do deep and slow breathing. Do it at
least 3 times a day. Each time, lasting for 3-5 minutes. Try to practise that 5 times a day and after each practice, start to think about solutions. If you can force yourself to do this, you will get great results. I had been through this before. It takes a lot of nerves to stay focus and quit panicking. Learning deep breathing really helps.

Stay calm and survive the most difficult period in your life.

Lookig forward to your success.

Survival Skill #17 Taking Deep and Slow Breathings

Big Challenges ahead...

The world economy is at its peak now. What makes me say that? My observation is based on how the major stock markets are performing. With major stock exchanges indices at it peak now, I am little concern that in the next few months, things will start to change direction.

So, what so you be doing? If you are not into the stock market, you have nothing to worry about. However, if you are heavily invested in stock market, you need to be more alert. The reason being these are very fragile times of stock market. With some economic indicators showing weak signs, the market players are most sensitive now. Any small event may trigger major panic.

My advice is to try to cash out of the market now. Build up more cash and wait for the right time to move in. With interest rate getting higher, it may be more prudent to have a better cash position.

It Is All About Common Sense!

What I had been talking about are mostly common sense, some people said. Well, sometimes, common sense can be quite uncommon.

If you think that these are common sense, then, ask yourself how "common" you apply your "common sense"? If you don't constantly applying those tactics in your life, you can qualify to call them common sense. The key is to implement. The Key is Taking Action. In life, everything is about taking action. Not taking any action itself is also taking an action. What am I talking about? What I mean is that you are making a decision by taking an action call WAIT! Waiting itself is an action. Sometimes in life, we need to be patient. That is different from Procrastination. Procrastination is bad taking quick action is good. But again, it is not always the case.

We all need to learn to make mistake. Learn to act fast and change fast and move fast. Knowing what we are doing and what we really want to do helps us to chart our course and stay in control of our own life.

Are You Concentrating Enough?

Here is the top secret of success. What makes people success is concentration power. Majority of us, including myself, lack concentration power. Most of us are easily distracted by any slightest noice. Ever heard of the story of a greedy tiger who caught a rabbit. Then he saw a deer which is bigger, he put down his rabbit and chase after the deer. In the end he ended up nothing. This is precisely what happens to most of us.

Most of us are Greedy. Short-sighted. We can't focus on something for too long. These are all killer bad habbits. We must change it in order to achieve something. Most successful people are able to keep their focus on the goal for a long time until they hit their goal. Nothing comes with luck.

Try this new strategy:
Choose a target. Keep focusing and staring on the Target. Keep hiting at the target until you finally reach it.

This is a simple strategy that was mentioned here can bring you life long benefits.

Survival Skill #16 : Concentration

Are You Near The End of The Road?

When you are really down, have you ever thought that you are nearing the end of the road? Sometimes, you think that the perfect solution for you is to just jump down (assuming you are staying in a high apartment).

Hold it. It cannot be that bad. Maybe, the opportunity is just round the corner. Have you heard of a story about a man who was searching for gold? He got money from his relatives and friends to purchase equipments etc exploring gold. After digging and digging, at the end, he has no more funding to carry on. He sold all his equipment to another person at very cheap price. This other person is no fool. He actually engaged a geologist to do some investigation before he bought over from the first man. Guess what, he hit gold after digging another 3 feet!

The moral of the story is: when you are about to give up, the real opportunity maybe just 3 feet away!

While we should constantly take a step back and look at the big picture. We should also evaluate our opportunities more objectively. Sometimes, we should even get expert's view of certain subject. It may be worthwhile to consult someone else. By simply giving up without carefully examining the opportunity maybe mssing the gold 3 feet away!

Moral of the Story: Don't Miss Your Pot of Gold 3 Feet Away!

Is Franchising For You?

One of my favourite topic is franchising. I read about and heard about many people who got retrenched in their 40s or 50s went into franchising business and ended up losing their life savings. Frachising is like any other businesses. The difference is that in franchising, you are buying a "working system". However, you also must remember that you are paying for it (usually at a very high cost.)

I had spent about 6 months exploring various franchising opportunities. I spend 6 months talking to 5 franchisors and surveyed no less than 30 sites in Singapore. What I found was that to find a good location is very difficult. I was exploring F&B retail business. This kind of business is heavily dependent on location. There three key words to success: Location, Location & Location. Nothing else.

In Singapore context, typical F&B franchise cost about $200K to $250K. Because of large capital outlay for ordinary people, I never encourage people to take up franchise. I have visited many franchisees and I calculated their earnings etc. I belive only top 10% of franchisees are making good profit. Another 30% are making some profit. Yet another 40% are just above the water. The rest of them, 20% are under the water.

One of the biggest problem of franchising is that you lose the freedom to shape your business. You are not different from working for people. The difference is that you have to pay to work for people. You really need to choose very carefully in franchising. Make sure that the franchisor is of good reputation and the system really works. Go for proven systems like Subway, 7-Eleven, you will have better chance to succeed. Other good franchise maybe Kumon (children education) but all these needs good location. I can emphasise more, Location, Location & Location.

Sometimes, you'd be better off to start a small store run it on your own. In that way you can have your freedom to shape your business.

Develop Good Habbits

We pick up different habbits along the way as we grow. There are good ones and
bads. Each of them shapes our daily life. They shape our personality and
character. If you need to bring up your children, observe their habbits and
make sure they have mroe goods ones and less bad ones. Slowly change their bad
ones into good ones. In that way, your children will be able to live happier
life in future.

What about us, grown ups? Can we also shape our own habbits? I believe we can
if we will. If we can constantly reflect upon ourselves what are our good
habbits and what are our bad ones, we can act on them one-by-one. There is no
need to be too ambitious. If we can tackle one of them each week or even each
month. Starting from the worst. Imagine if you change 10-12 bad habbits into
good ones every year, how powerful would that be? This is what I learn from a
recent book that I read. I am reading that book again. There are too many
useful tips in there and I want to implement them one by one.

This One Tip Can Change Your Life Forever!

Just this tip alone, I believe will give me tremendous improvement to my life.
I am sure it is going to shape my future if I can implement it successfully.
Firstly, I need to be focus. Act on one at at time and change the bad one into
good one. For example, being late for appointment by 5 minutes. That is a bad
habbit. I must make sure I add attional 10 minutes before I head for my next
appointment. In that way, I will always be 5 minutes early. That is an easy one
to do, isn't it?

Next, instead of bursting into answering questions people ask, I should try to
listen more carefully. So, I should be breathing in and counting 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
before I answer any questions instead of shooting off immediately.

Start now, look out for your bad habbits. Listen to your spouse, friends,
children etc. Take note and start to make corrections. I am sure you will
achieve wonderful results.

Survival Skill #15: Develop Good Habbits

Are You Working Yourself to Misery?

In the recent study done my a New York TV program, it was found that people today are just too crazy about the material needs that they would rather struggle with multiple jobs just to buy things that they don't really need.

I saw on a TV program that there was this couple with only one child. They lived in the suburban of New York area. The husband is a technician and the wife juggles two jobs and taking care of a young child of about 4-5 years old. The husband leaves home quite early and travels quite far to work and reach home rather late. The wife wakes up early to deliver newspaper before she goes to a company to work as administration assistance.

The couple basically has not time to rest. They started their day at about 5.00am and end their day at about 12.00am. So basically, they have about 4-5 hours of sleep each day. Weekends are the only time for rest. When the interviewer probed further they realised that they are chasing for something that they don't really need. For example, they have 3 cars. One Ford Focus for the wife. One SUV for the husband and another family car which is 7 seater. Why do they need a 7-seater when they only have one child? Because they have 3 dogs which will follow them when they go outing. Why do you need 3 cars when you only have 2 drivers?

We really have to think carefully what is it that we really want in our life instead of blindly following whatever the media and the peer expectations impose on us. We really need to be realistic and keep those extra money for our retirement. Stop getting crazy pursuing things that we don't really need.

Survival Skill #15: Know What We Want!

What Do You Really Want To Do?

Do you really know what you really want to do for the rest of your life?

Do you have a clear answer?

Let me guess. Maybe you are not exactly sure of what you know exactly what you really want to do. Like millions of other people who are at the middle age, you are still searching for your true self and true passion. Whether you are financially successful or otherwise, I do not believe that you can 100% sure of what you REALLY want to do. The fact is, for many people, even though they are very determined to do what they are doing right now, when something happens, they will re-think. That is what I meant. This always happens. You see many successful people who made changes in the mid-life like going into preaching, doing social work or other totally different things.

If you are still searching for your true passion, I hope you can find some inspiration from here. If you do, I am very happy for you and myself. Happy for you that you would be living a happier life. Happy for me that I have indirectly contributed to someone else happiness.

What if you don't really figure out what you really want to do? To me, there is nothing to worry about. We live our life one step at at time. If we don't have it now, we will have it later. Provide that we keep on finding and never give up or never forget. We will hit the right one. It is a matter of time. Remember one strategy I talk about? Keep focusing on the target until you reach it. For this case, we keep focusing on our search until we find it.

My point is: If you are not sure of what to do with your future, you don't have to worry. It will come to you if you set aside 10 minutes everyday without fail to think about it. Do what you are doing now and do it well. It will come to you.

Faith is everything!

This maybe Controversial!

A friend believe that we should NOT be planning for our life. When we plan for our life, it means that we do not trust God (I am not preaching here. Just keep your spiritual orientation to yourself.) Human wisdom is limited, so, just live life happily. If you plan too much, you are worrying. Worrying is wrong.

I am sort of half agree with what he is saying. I believe that we must have faith. I believe that we must not be too worried. As I said yesterday. Worry means Fear, Fear can kill! But, I believe we need to do something to create our own destiny. I don't want to mix spiritual orientation with my topic here but yet it is difficult not to.

When you plan and execute your plan, you must have Faith in it. That is something I believe. How successful you are going to be depends on how strong your faith is. How strong you faith is determines how strong your WILL POWER will be.

Does that sound logical?

To Your Success!

Fear Can Kill You!

Today, I want to talk about FEAR!

I heard about this cruel experiment done on a prisoner who was condemned to die. He was told if he would consent to an experiment and lived through it, he would be freed. He consented. They wanted to see how much blood a person could lose and still live. They arranged that blood would apparently drop from a cut made in his leg. The cut made was very slight, from which practically no blood escaped. The room was darkened, and the prisoner thought the dropping he heard was really coming from his leg. The next morning he was dead through mental fear.

Don't let Fear Kill You!

Today, our biggest challenge is to conquer our own Fear. We almost Fear Everything. We Fear of Losing our Job! We fear of not able to make our family happy! We fear of not having enough money to retire! We fear of our children not being able to coupe with their future! We fear our investment will go wrong! We fear our parents will fall sick! We fear we may fall sick! We fear of the sky will fall down! What else we can't fear?

We must make our choice: Stop Living In Fear!

When you feel Fear is your inner self. You need to overcome it consciously. Don't be worried if you have stress. Some experts said stress is good. It keeps you going. Have faith in yourself.

Survival Skill #14: Stop Living In Fear!

Reality & Positive Thinking

What is really Positive Thinking? How do you differentiate it from Fantasy?

For example, if you are jobless and you dream of making $5,000,000 in one year. Is this Positive Thinking or just Fantasy? Is this realistic? Compared to hoping to make $50,000 in one year, which is more realistic? Well making $50,000 in one year is something not too difficult to achieve. It is realistic. It is not a Fantasy. You said. Basically, nobody will laugh at you when you said that.

But, human need to be Pushed to achieve more. We need some Pressure to move us ahead. Small amount of stress is healthy for us. That's what many health experts said.

So, what really is Positive Thinking? Is it about denying that there are rubbish on the floor even if you physically seeing them all over your living room? I don't think so. To me, Positive Thinking is about knowing that there are rubbish over the floor and Thinking that you can clean them up in an hour and you actually start cleaning them up. I belive by Taking Action and cleaning them and thinking that you will be able to finish the work in an hour (not afraid of failure) is Positive Thinking.

It is all about setting Realistic Goal, Taking Action and Not Afraid of Failure. These are the 3 components of Positive Thinking. While you set Realistic Goal, you can stress them a little bit. For example, instead of targeting $50,000 in one year, maybe you can stretch it to making $350,000 in 3 years. This is also Realistic since it gives you more time to achieve a much higher goal. You can take on multiple jobs to do that. You can find a few contracts and engage someone else to help you to achieve it. Stretch your imagination and make consistent effort towards achieving it.

I am going to make at least $50,000 in next 6 months. I already have leads and potential contracts at hand. I just need to execute them.

Survival Skill #13: 3 Components of Positive Thinking

What is your plan B?

As you can see that this blog is primarily targeting at employees after 45 rather than self-employed to business owners. I guess, this is the majority of the group now but, it is fast shrinking for people above 45. The reason is obvious.

You need to make a choice. One is to fight on by improving yourself, stay relevant, stay young (behaviourally) and be more competitive (maybe slight ruthless). Another option is to execute plan B. Phase yourself towards self-employed or owning businesses.

Recently there are many people choose options like full-time stock trading, currency trading, real-estate agent, insurance or financial planning, franchisees and some small services outfits.

All those are viable businesses and are exceptionally good for middle-age people who wants to have more control over their time and paying more attention to the family's non-financial needs.

Ask yourself, what is your plan B?

If you are thinking of doing it after working hours, you can consider Internet based Home Business. Selling on eBay, Google Adsense etc may be a good start to make yourself acquinted with the new way of doing businesses in this New Era.

Survival Skill # 12: Execute Plan B

My First $5,000 in 10 months

No Big Deal, you said!

Of course! That was what I used to earn in half a month.

Life is such, my friend. You can look at your own life basically in 2 ways. One is to feel bad about whatever happens and curse them along the way. Or you can enjoy every bit of it and look to improve it inch by inch.

I think, I adopt the second approach. You must look at every inch of progress and celebrate along the way. When the times are bad, every little bit counts. As you enjoy your journey in life, you look at your next nearest target. For example, what is next? Maybe another $15,000 in next 2 month! Patience will pay off. There are so many things in life needs time to develop. You choose the right strategy. The problem comes when you have only one thing to work on and no other alternatives. You will feel the pressure the push it to make it happen faster then it should.


Survival Skill #11: PATIENCE

More Positive Thinking

To add on to the topic that I talked about yesterday, I've also realised from many books that I read that success is all about POSITIVE THINKING. If you think you will be successful, you will. The key is the will power. It is very important to keep your spirits up and influence people around you to stay positive. You should do this to your family, especially.

When my wife was retrenched, she told me of her colleague's plight. This colleague of hers (let's call him Mr. B) is a man of late 40's. His wife is not working and his eldest daughter has just entered the local university 3 months ago. He has another younger daughter. The company gave them one month notice for the retrenchment. When he broke the news to his family, his wife and his daughters all cried. My wife was telling me that she could not understand why they need to cry. For his daughter is old enough to go and make some money. Do some part-time work like giving tuition (this is a popular part-time job for undergrads in Singapore) can make quite a fair bit of money. I did that when I was in my undergrad days too.

Well, I think it is OK to cry and let out and get over with it. The only problem comes when you cannot move on. This AGAIN calls for POSITIVE THINKING. Both my wife & I came from very humble background we did not feel that bad when we were both retrenched together (with 10 days). We both worked in different companies. Her retrenchment, as I said, was known 3 months ahead. The bosses were talking to them of various options. That was very kind of them. I was given 4 days to hand-over and go. I guess we had both been through difficult times before, another setback does not count much to us??

Anyway, with the help of his colleagues, Mr. B quickly found another job and settled down. Do you know that if you are sincere, you can get help easily. Mr. B is a very sincere and simple person. Most of his colleagues are more than willing to help him even though they themselves are not in any better situation. Look, your friends are not that selfish, after all.

My point is that we should not be overcome by these kind of short term setbacks. There are many ways to make a living in life. If times are really hard, you can always manage your expenses.

But if you stay POSITIVE, you will pull through.

Survival Skill # 6 (I emphasise again): POSITIVE THINKING

You are what you think you are!

Don't lower yourself. Do you believe that the Almighty created you just want to see you suffer? That cannot be! Whichever your spiritual orientation, believe that you are not created to be miserable. Your parent did not want you to come and suffer. They still do not. Unless you have been very unkind to them, of course! I hope that is not the case for you!

I had mentioned before that you must know your self-worth. Your mission in life. Maybe it is to make a million bucks in next 5 years? If so, starting thinking about how to make that million bucks. Stop self-pity and move forward. One thing we must learn, especially after 45, is that we need to know how to ignore negative forces. There are positive forces all over but unfortunately negative forces are more pervasive. It is very easy to get negative, when you don't watch yourself carefully.

I said this because I had experience this many times. Fortunately, I had been reading motivational books more frequently of late. If you are born with strong mind or lucky enough to be trained with strong will, you do not need much of these motivational books. I have some friends who are naturally strong and they are good and successful. However, there are many many more friends who are easily "attacked" by negativity. They will complain at the slight challenge in front of them.

I encourage you to read motivational books. There are many free ebooks on the Internet if you subscribe to some mailing lists. One of my favourite is "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. A true Classic that I only read it recently. When I saw the book title previously, I didn't want to touch it because I thought it was like a scam book. After reading it I realised that this book has been written way before I was born! This must have been the earlist motivational book around?

Remember, you are what you think you are!
My survival skill #6 Positive Thinking

Make that Decision Now!

Have you been sitting on things that you were supposed to decide? Make that Decision Right Now! Are you afraid of making the wrong decision? Tell you what! It didn't even matter a bit! What matters most is whether you made a decision. Maybe, you decision is to NOT MAKE A DECISION.

Think of it this way: Things will always turn out to be better than you'd expected. Believe me! This always happens. If you want things to be better, it will be better. As simple as that.

Let me tell you a secret, everyone has something called the subconscious mind. This subconscious mind is extremely power. It will take instruction from you and act on it. If you think you are going to be rich and you think you have determined to move forward. The subconscious mind will quietly work on it until it finallly get you there. If you always stay positive, the positive outcome will come to you.

That is the power of survival skill #6: Positive Thinking

Taking on New Challenges

If you ever dream of taking new challenges, this is the time when you have plentiful opportunities. See, the world is not lack of opportunities for you. Just that it may not come at the time when you expected for it. Just take it as it comes.

How will you really feel? You are going to have fear in you. There is no doubt about it. Now, you need to learn to concentrate of doing the work at hand and stop worrying. So what if I fail? I will try again and again until I hit the right one. That is life.

Couping with Multi-Tasking

There is no doubt that in the new world, multi-taking is common phenomena. You are going to coupe with demands from different sources that asking for your attentions.

Oh yeah, you must learn to coupe with multi-tasking. (Just wonder why this term is so common these days. I used to be only people in the IT circle using it...). What is the first thing you realised from the effect of multi-tasking? For me, it is cutting down of my sleeping hours.

Yes, I know this is bad. But, for the moment, I just have to live with that until I found my way out. Learning to multi-tasking is another powerful skill. You need to learn how to multi-task yet when you are on each task, you put your 100% focus on the task at hand. Without such sub-focusing, you will not achieve the productivity you needed to succeed in this extremely demanding world.

One thing that can help you to achieve more is also to learn how to make decision quick. Stop sitting on the issue at hand. Make a choice and move on. Make mini plan for each tasks: Collect Information, Analyse, Decide and Act. Use these simple 4 step formula and allocate time for each of the tasks. Then you will have more control over your time.

These 4 simple steps are nothing more than common sense. However, have you implemented them? How successfully have you done so? I must readily admit that I am still learning too. You can never be able to perfect these skills. Let's say we improve inch-by-inch everyday.

Survival Skill # 10: Use 4-Step Mini Plan

Wish you success & happiness!

Have you considered Internet?

You can start Building Your Internet Income and Stop looking for a job!

There are various possibilities opening up in this "NEW ERA". It is up to you to explore. When you open your mind, you will see more opportunities. Conquer your fear about "Internet Scams". Look, scams are everywhere. The fact that there are so many Internet Scam proves that Internet is a POWERFUL media to reach out to people. In some countries, the government even ban Internet campaigning for political elections. This also shows that Internet is a double-edged sword. If you use it correctly, you will harness its power to your advantage. Start exploring and do not trust everything you see. Check and verify everthing. You must learn to have your own mind. What you read from your trusted Newspaper everyday may not be exactly accurate anyway.

Survival Skill # 9: Conquer Your Fear Within!

Proven Formula for Success

After10 years of searching, I have an summarised answer for this. I come to this conclusion from reading many books, listening to audio recording and attending seminars. After analysing what they put forward, at the end of the day, it still falls back to the same formula. The standard and probably proven formula is this:

1. Define Your Goal
2. Define Your Timeline
3. Break down into smaller chunks
4. Work on the plan until you achieve your final Goal

This simple steps are all proven. You just need to follow exactly. In between, there are many other factors that will affect the plan and the process. These are called distractions.

That calls for focus, concentration and perseverence. You need to keep all your energy on this target and keep working towards the target until you really hit it. There is no other way. Practice is the only way. That means, you keep doing it until you succeed.

LEARN TO IGNORE FAILURE! Tell yourself, there is no Failure, just Learning Experiences. Believe in it and you will conquer your difficulties.

Survival Skill #8 : IGNORE FAILURE

Stock Taking

Have you ever worked in manufacturing, distribution or warehousing environment? If you had, then, you know what I mean by taking stock.

I mentioned before that you need to THINK before you lauch your next career hunt. There is no better time than now to reflect upon yourself WHO you really are, WHAT you really want to do. Once you identify your areas of interest, next thing to do is to do a stock taking for yourself. Here I mean you need to do an internal check of WHAT you really have in terms of SKILLS.

If you don't know what you have, how are you going to sell them? That could be the reason for not getting that Interview you wanted. Try to check on the market, how much your skills are WORTH. That will be your Market Price. That determines how much you should be asking for! Not your previous salary.

Once you know what you want to do, how much you want to get, you are very much in control of the situations. You know your own cards well, you can talk with a lot more confident and sure.

You are ready to take on any challenges and move on...

Survival Skill #7: Know Your Own Worth

Good, Truth & Success

When you are downsized, redundant, or whichever word your previous company uses on you. What is you first reaction? What is your state of emotion during then? Dejection, Shock, Disbelief, Worried, Angry, Dumbfolded... All these are just normal human reactions to somethign negative. No big deal. I said, NO BIG DEAL!

You disagree. Because you have mortgage to pay. You have car loan to service. You have to pay for your children's school fees, childcare fees. You have to pay for your meals, transportations. You little savings.

I KNOW! Just Listen! Didn't I told you that you need to relook at your expenses? But, let me tell you this: This is NOT THE TIME TO PANIC.This is the worst time to panic. This is not the end of the world. When you sit back and take a closer look, you will find a way out. Follow the method I told you earlier.

Now after you have settled your expenses, you started to look for jobs. You send in applications after applicaitons. Guess what? 3 months has gone past. You have not gotten any interviews! Now you are down. You mood is down,down, down... You don't think there is hope...

Let me let you this: Whether you think your life is full of hope or there is no hope, either way, you are right! What? I must be nuts to tell you that! NO! I am not. You must keep up your Hope, your spirit. Your thoughts will be reflected into everything you do. Including your application letters and your resume. More importantly, your family and friends.

In my 9 months of searching for something to do, I had kept constantly reminding myself to stay POSITIVE. My children, my friends never felt the pressure when they are with me. I want them to be hapy and I WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY!

You must only think of GOOS, TRUTH and SUCCESS at this point of time. Believe me. Nothing Else Counts.

Let me tell you the Ultimate Survival Skill #6: POSITIVE THINKING

The Power of Concentration or Focus

The Power of Concentration or Focus

To achieve you goals, you need to first identify the goal. This goal needs to
be specific and with timeline. You need to quantity the goal. For example, to
make 20 business friends within next 6 months. Another one, to be able to swim
10 x 50m laps within 12 minutes in next 3 months.

Once you have identify that, you need to have a plan. Details of the actions to
be taken to take your there.

These are easy part. Now comes the difficult part. That is to focus on the
plan. What determines success and failure is not so much of whether you have a
goal or plan. It is the determination and concentration to carry on the plan
nor matter what happens.

You must put your focus and concentrate on getting it. Keep hitting until your
get it.

If you waste your time reading sensational stories or worthless newspaper
items, you exite the impulsive and the emotional faculties, and this means you
are weakening your power of concentation. You will not be free to success.

Concentration of your mind can onle by developed by watching yourself closely.
All kind of development commence with intense concentration. If you stay on
course and keep sticking to it, you will get it.

CONCENTRATION - Survival Skill # 5
Survival Skill for everything you do... Job seeking, self employment, starting
business, selling, learning, teaching and so on.

Plan B - What is that?

You Can Make (or Lose) Some Money On Internet

When you are retrenched, the first thing in your mind is to find the next available job as soon as possible. But, my advise to you is not to get overly concerned. In order to get new employment, you may want to reflect upon yourself to see what are the skills you have and the experience that can sell yourself. If you had been in the sales, you should not have any problem. However, if you are technical person like Engineer, Programmer, Project Manager, Software Developer, Production Management, and other more technical or technology oriented persons, then, you really have to take a good look at yourself and assess your skill sets. While you may take your time to reflect up on yourself of what you really want to do and what you can do, you can start something simple to make some money.

The fastet way to start online business is to become an Affiliate Marketer. That means you become a sales agent and earn some commission. Just go to Clickbank.com and open an account there. Then from there market place, you can search for a product that you want to sell and get your hop link URL from there.

Then you can open an Adwords account and you can start to place your add there. Each time someone clicks on your ad, the person will be sent to the URL for the product that you are selling. If he buys, you earn. But if you pay too much for advertising, you will lose money. As simple as that. Doing business means you must take some risks. Internet Business is like normal business. There is risk of losing money.

Cheers!
http://www.bizgenerator.com

While You Are Employed

Try to Keep Your Current Job

What is the most important thing to do when you are still employed? The key thing to do is to protect your current position. Every dummy knows that.

Protecting your current position calls for some of the following common sense.

1. Constantly Upgrade your skills.

2. Keeping your eyes and ears open

3. Looking out for signposts

You need to constantly upgrade your skills for your current job but more importantly, your future job. Be aware of potential changes that may happen to your organisation that may affect your current position. Be aware of what possible future positions you may be heading towards to. If you are like what I was, without any career path for future in your organisation, you should be focusing on skills that will make you employable outside of your organisation.

Don't keep your heads down working hard. Companies don't rewards hard workers these days. Hard work may not pay. Works smart. Be conformed. In order to do well, you must conform. You must speak the same jargon as your boss. If you can't do it, you can hire contract staff to do it. Come on, there is no secret these days that only contract staff are doing the actual work. The so called “permanent” staff are just playing the politics. That is their main role. You can't blame yourself for doing that. In any case, you are rewarded more playing politics that doing actual works. Actual works are for contract staff. Don't you get it? Keep your eyes and ears open and learn quickly these skills.

Look out for signs of problems. If you have access to companies financial well being, you should have an idea when the business may become unsustainable. Make contacts to head hunters (employment agents) and explore possibilities.

Market yourself in your own company if you think it is worthwhile to stay. Whatever good things you have done must be noticed. Appear positive always, especially when you are in front of your bosses. Nobody likes negative people. Only you know what you are talking about.

Develop your plan B

If you find yourself having problem developing skills that is needed to take you into the next phase within your organistion, start to explore opportunities outside. Look out for other opportunities in other organisations. Contact friends, customers, suppliers who may be able to provide you with that opportunity.

Again and again, I want to stress, Manage Your Finance.

Start to scrutinise your expenses and calculate your real wealth. That is how many moons you can survive with your cash when you are booted. Many financial consultants would advise that you have at least 6 months of buffer. My suggestion is to have at least 12 months. If you can maintain current life style for 6 months, that is all right. If you can change your life style and stretch it to 12 months, that is even better. I have seen people (typically mid managers) taking 6-12 months before getting the next income. I am not talking about job here. If you start something of your own, your income may flow in 12-18 months later and may be in such a small quantity that is not even sufficient to support your reduced life style.

Oh, yeah, I have updated some ads in this blog. These are called Google Adsense. That is one way of making money on the Internet. If you click on these ads, I will make some money. So, you can help me to make some small changes by clicking on these ads whenever you visit my blog. :)

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Maintaining Your Life Style

You don't have to sacrifice you life style when you lose your job!

That is a BIG LIE!

You HAVE TO sacrifice your life style unless you have sufficient money to maintain your current life style for another 35 years (assuming you will die at 80).

The True Title of this Post is "Managing Your Expenses - part 2: How to go about it".

Life is a business. You need to manage your CASH FLOW. If you do not know what Cash Flow is, never mind. Simply explained, it is basically how much money comes in and how much money goes out from your pocket and bank accounts. Money comes in is income, money goes out is expense. More money coming in than going out means you have a positive Cash Flow (very good!) If you have less money coming in than going out, it means you have negative Cash Flow (problem!)

If you do not have an income, your pocket and bank account will deplete. You have negative Cash Flow (CF). You must try to reduce the rate of depleting. Since there is no income, the only way to slow down depletion is to reduce expenses.

Here are steps to reduce expenses:

1. List down in detail all the expenses and classify them into things you pay daily, monthly and yearly. You must include all expenses like food (break down into breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper, snacks), transportation (husband, wife, children, public & car loan, gasoline/petrol, taxes, services), phone bill, Internet bill, Credit Card Bills, power, water, gas, home mortgage or rental, TV, subscriptions, childcare, school fees (itemised), money to parent (in detail), donations etc.

2. Sum up all the expenses that you paid daily into monthly figures by estimating how much you would be paying every month.

3. Divide the yearly expenses by 12.

4. Now you have your itemised monthly expenses. You sort them in descending order. That is, the highest goes to the top.

With that you will be able to see clearly what to cut. The rule of thumb is to cut the nice to have items like Cable TV subscription, movie, ice cream, restaraunts, beer (alcohol), holidays, etc. Depending on which country you live in you may sell your car. In some countries, having an old car is better than public transport. If that is a big expense, you get rid of it. You can always buy back a better car when you have better income. Here is what I did. I sold off my condominium that I was paying mortgage (over $2,000 per month). The rental income is less $1,000. So, my CF improved by $1,000. The interest amount was around $1,300 per month. So, this is money losing business, no point keeping anyway. Certainly, I held back buying my digital camera (I drop the old one on the floor and not working anymore.) I may buy back the digital camera if I really need it for my Internet Business.

After going through this exercise, you may be able to cut your expenses by 20-30%. Now, if that is not enough, you may squeeze more out of it. For example, talk to your bank to re-structure your mortgage. Talk to your insurer to change the payment scheme. Cut down the nice-to-have courses for your children or hold back for awhile. Teach your children instead of sending them to tuitors.

Remember: Accept the Reality. But keep your spirit up by having FAITH! (survival skill #1)

Survival Skill Number 4: Managing Your Expenses.

Your Finances

The first thing to take control is the Financials. When you are faced with challenges in your income side of the equation, you certainly need to look at the expense side to balance if off.

The last few topics I talked about were FAITH, THINK & QUICK INCOME. Yes, you must have faith. Once you lose faith, you lose everyting. You need to really think of your next step of action. One urgent step is to control your finances. Next step is to decide to be an employee or to seek out to be self employed or start a new business.

Let focus on the finances now. While most people may not practise it. It is important that you have a Income Statement or Profit & Loss statement. In this case, if you are out of job, you Income Statement is one sided. Only expenses.

So, now you need to look into your expenses. You need to list down in detail what are you monthly expenses. All the daily and yearly payments will be summarised or pro-rated into monthly expenses for easy management. Daily expenses are summed up and average value is use. These includes housing payments, transportation, food, school fees, insurance, utilities, taxes, and all other expenses.

After summing up the monthly expenses, using the amount of cash you have, you will able to work out your wealth indicator. That is how many months you can survive with your current cash you have. With that, you will be able to know your own position.

After doing this exercise, you will be able to know what to cut when you need to.

So, the Urgent thing to do is to develop survival skill number four: MANAGING YOUR EXPENSES!

Who says being retrenched is not stressful. It certainly is stressful. But with faith and doing appropriate actions, you will get to where you are.

Survival Skill Number Four: Managing Your Expenses.

Is Your Wife Working?

Welcome to the Club!

Soon after I was laid off last year, I visited a friend who (let's call him Mr. H) was running his own Telco service company. Mr. H was laid off 2-3 years back and after thinking for a
few months, he decided to start this company. That was another story that I want to talk about in term of starting business. What I wanted to share here is only one interesting aspects of the meeting.

We went to a coffee store at the ground level of this office building for a chat. Soon after, we were joined in by another couple of guys of middle age. I guess their ages around late 40s & early 50s. You can see their seasoned faces. Mr. H introduced them to me, but, I could remember their names (look, I have this problem of memorising people's names). But, one interesting introduction line Mr. H gave was worth pondering upon:

"Look," he said, "we belong to the group of people whose wifes are working! Welcome to the club!" Then we all laughed.

This is quite a strange phenomenom. It seems that, in Singapore, males of middle ages find it more difficult to land themselves jobs than the female counter part. In this case, my wife was laid off 10 days before me. She got a job within a month. Well the fact is her annualised income is now about 55% of the previous earning. For me, it seems different. I don't get any offer for any
kind of jobs like that even though I indicated my interest.

When I looked around me, I suddenly realised that many of my friends who are not working basically supported by their wifes. So, what is the reason? The fact that the wifes are working makes them less enthusiastic to land themselves jobs? Something else?

Anyway, the key point is, I call it survival skill number 3:

QUICK INCOME!

Key survival skill here is to get one of the couple to get a job as quickly as possible. Even if the income is not able to cover the expenses. One of my wife's ex-colleague who was laid off at the batch when into depression. He has five children and wife has never for the last 5 years. One of the children requires special attention (medically). Here is the issue. He is not willing to accept a job that will pay him less than what he needs to support the family. Many ex-colleagues tried to match him to jobs but not quite successful.

Here comes the key point of discussion: Why must employer pay you enough to support your family?

Listen up, guys, nobody owes you a living. Not even the government! Employer is going to pay you the PERCEPT value of the job. Your employer will pay you $10,000 per month answering phone calls if what you do will secure $100,000 of business every month. Otherwise, please expect $1,000 per month.

Mr. H is quite lucky that his wife's job seems to be stable and quite highly positioned, so no worries for him. He took his time to set up the company. Spending about 1 year to develop the software needed. Then, marketing the services. In total, about 2 years, he was not "drawing any salary" (not having income). Until about 2 year later that there of Net Income to the company and he started to give himself salary". That was a long wait but his business is improving.

Think about it.

Survival Skill Number 3: Get Quick Income for Family.

What to do when you are retrenched?

You don't have to rush!

Since I am experienced, I am here to share with you some tips I learned.

Depending on whether you are prepared or not. Some companies / manager are kind enough to give ample notice (unofficially) so that you are pschologically prepared. These are kind souls we should appreciate. Some managers are lacking in self confident and humanity. They may give you a surprise. My wife's retrenchment was planned over 3-6 months. Her department was to close down. She was initially offered to relocate to another country. There were lots of discussions and payouts were already determined well in advanced. No surprises at all. People get their money and go. No hard feelings. Some peole who were not affected even wanted to join them and asked for early retirement. But they were declined since the company thought the they were still needed. This is good. Open, frank, nothing to hide type of management style. Employees understands the rational and accepts the offer without much resentment. Of course that does not mean that they are not worried about their future.

My was a surprise. I was given one week to clear up my outstanding works and my compensation was also minimal. That is the different between companies or managements with human touch or without. It also reflects the confidence level of the management. Even though they gave me a hit, I was more or less seeing in coming 2 - 3 months before. I told my staff to look for new job because he was new (less than a year) and definitely not able to get any compensation. So, he managed to get out 2 months before I was hit.

Why I had been sitting around for 9 months?

My answer is, there are too many things to try!

Yes, once you are out there, you suddenly realised that there are so many possibilities that you can make a living. So, my advice to you is to stop and

THINK!

The biggest reason that I spent 9 months not doing anything productive (I am using making money as measurement of productivity) was that I jumped into things too quickly. There wasn't enough thinking. I tried too many things without thinking through.

You see, for me, I am not interested to get a job anymore. So, I spend 3-4 months exploring franchising opportunities. I combed various places for shop spaces. I talked to a few master franchisors. I did my spread calculations. I when to various locations to count human traffics at different hours. All these works are for me to do feasibilities study. After few months of hard work, I concluded that none of those opportunities I explored are feasible. Then, I jumped into stock trading full-time. Again that took me another 3 months to realised that it may not be something I love best. Then, I came across Internet Marketing. Something I am very confident and committed. (Please visit http://www.simplemindset.com, http://www.bizgenerator.com & http://dragonation.blogspot.com) I believe that my future is in Internet Marketing. I also started to do work on my old trade (IT Consulting). I teamed up with my University Classmate to work on IT consulting services. (Please visit http://www.probaseconsulting.com).

All these takes time. I spend 9 months of my time doing evaluations etc. See, I used to jump into things quickly. Now, I want to think first before I do anything. Now I am sharing this with you, So, listen up. You can short cut all these processes by simply taking a step back and

THINK! (survival skill number two)

Before you decide what to do next...

Gook Luck!

Survival Skill Number Two: Think Through

First Day at Work after 9 months

If you are feeling squeezed, you are not alone!

30th August 2006. First Day at work after 9 months. What a change! This is a 2-month contract to help a customer to design a new software application.

Nothing spectacular about work to talk about. I'd been in IT industry for almost 20 years. Whatever is there is nothing new. Lots of evolutionary innovations. No quantum leaps.

Over to lunch at a cafeteria at the basement, after finishing my lunch, I noticed someone appearing to be familiar. So, I approach him. True enough, my ex-colleague whom I had not met for over 10+ years. He looked haggard somewhat. So, I asked him, "how are you these day? Are you working aroud here?" "No, I am not working here," he said. "I am looking for a potential client in this building. I am doing my own training business."

We sat down and talked for a while. The outright thing he told me was, "I am struggling to make a living. Life has been very tough over the last 3 years." He is over 50 and he holds a Master in Arts degree. He was a training manager in my previous company. He teaches soft skills.

After lunch, I met yet another ex-colleague who is working in the client that I am servicing. What a small world. He was retrench before and he is accepting this lower position here. He is not in my category. He is just couple of year shy of 45. Life is not as rosy for him as well. But, he has faith. He believes that GOD created him and will not let him live in poverty. If he happy with his life? Not quite but something keeps him going and he has less stress. The conversation with him allows me to confirm one thing that I had been reading about: Have Faith in order to succeed. Regardless of your religious orientation, FAITH is an important factor that keeps people going.

What do you really need to survive after 45?

FAITH! (survival skill number one)

Have Faith, my friend, for without which, nothing is possible. The pot of gold the down there waiting for us to dig it up. We must have faith.

PS. I am not a Christain and I am not preaching Christianity here. When I said FAITH, I am talking about you believing in yourself and your dream.

Survival Skill Number One!

Life begins at 45

Or is it the end? Life actually begins at 45. Why do I say that? Silly. Well, listen out here...

Before 45, you are invincible. You can do anything you want and you can achieve it. After 45, there will be a little bit more of challenges for you. That is where the real test of life begins.

Firstly, when you read newspaper, you now have to take off your glasses if you used to have myopia. Wow, great! I don't need to read with glasses anymore! Huray!

Next, you started to get a little worried about what is going on in your office. You have been working with this company for 10 - 15 years. Well the atmosphere starts to get a little different these days. You start to pay more attention to what is going on. Have you heard that they are closing down the Australia's support operation? Oh, yeah, 20 people was let go. Well, sorry for them. Hey, what about here? You have any insider news? Are they closing down here also??? Phew!! Luckily not!

Oh, I got to start to get in touch with some "head hunters" (recruitment agencies). Hey, I'd not written a resume for last 15 years. Ghee, where do I start? Huh, no sweat, just surf the web and download some samples. Hey, don't leave your www.monster.com screen on, your boss is passing by.

Aah ha... Almost forgotten! My Uni classmate just started a recruitment firm recently. Must get in touch him soon. See if he has anything interesting... Ah, remember to call him tomorrow.

Hmm.. Oh yeah, almost forgotten to pay my daughter's ballet school fee, what about the arts lesson and piano lesson? Need to make sure that she does her home work and practice her music too later. Huh, she needs to go for a holiday science camp? Oh how much is it? Ah, $235 for 3-days?

Need to pay the mortgage and car instalment too. Let's see how much I have left for my expenses. .... Can't meet my friend for a drink this week... Maybe next month.