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. :)

If you are looking for home business opportunities, you can visit this website called Biz Generator at bizgenerator.com.

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!