London had better get its act together ; Businesses are taking flight

London Bridge will stand but will the UK ? 

Siege mentality I am afraid 

The latest news since PM Theresa May got her mandate to go ahead to negotiate with EU leaders for the upteenth time with 'no deal' thrust upon her has started making numerous businesses shaky.

Dyson has decided to relocate its HQ to Singapore from London with the prospect of making electric cars a mouth watering one for us here. Bad news for the British people I am afraid.  

Today it was announced Barclays Bank will be pulling out of London and relocating the HQ to Dublin Republic of Ireland. The news from the British auto makers is also bleak, so what does Ms. May have from now till end March (31st) ?

This is the siege mentality which is pervasive in certain sectors of the population and when they decided to Leave Europe, they were probably thinking with their hearts, whereas in good governance, many a times it must be based on cold hard numbers and the head must always rule the heart.

We watch with bated breath.  

My Wish for this Chinese New Year ?

With business associates at the Corniche area in downtown Doha, Qatar.

Here is my sincere wish for this Chinese New Year :

a) Good Health for myself, my family, friends, business associates and the world at large

b) Peace and Goodwill amongst all of us, so that at the end of the day, we will find a way to stop the major risks facing the world at large :

- climate change
- overpopulation
- genetic modified foods causing unheard and yet unrecorded diseases
- world economic stagnation

c) Family cohesion and closeness with the ones that truly matter to me.

d) Giving back to society whenevr and  in whatever form I can afford with my limited 
    abilities and skills

e) Wealth in the form of a stable income stream and being able to be money smart and grow     the nest egg. I am not young anymore and the retirement planning of funds looms ever         and ever larger. 

Having a nice  Chinese seafood lunch at the Rocks in Sydney Australia. 

Wolves 3 West Ham 0

Just a match which I missed as it was being shown at the unearthly hour of 3.45 am in the morning ; so I put up the match highlights to 'catchup'.

The Wolves are playing a very disciplined, compact and skilful football. All kudos to them as they surge towards the best ever finish since the 1980s !

Players who are in the 'sweet spot' ie. on form, no injury and first choice clicking well with the rest of the team :

a) Diogo Jota

b) Raul Jiminez

c) Matt Doherty

d) Leon Dedonker

e) Joao Mouthino

f) Reuben Neves

g) Ryan Bennett

h) Romain Saiss

i) Conor Coady.

Wow, thats almost all the members of the current first 11 !  

Alzheimer's Disease is very crippling ; and robs us of our very dignity as a human being

Some time recently I went to a wake of a close relative, and when I was there I met with some of my mother's relatives. Very surprisingly one of my relatives had a stroke of the brain and her memory was wiped clean. 

Dementia and Alzheimer's are becoming something which we must deal with as we live longer lives. The quality of life and the memories of our past are most precious which anybody can ever wish to have.Losing that and you become a shell without knowing it. 

I wonder what are the treatments for alzheimer's as well as other afflications of the brain  commonly classifed as 'dementia'. Parkinson's is another debilitating disease. 

With my late father, my brother John, son Andrew

It was very painful to watch a once vibrant and happy person being reduced to someone who doesn't even know her closest and most loved ones.

While we strive ever onward for excellence in business and career, I am reminded of the harshness of life, that we MUST show care and concern for all those around us.  

Life is indeed unpredictable and fleeting and we must literally use each day as if it were our last day on earth.

The things I had in 1990 ; so analog and bricks and mortar !

This (in my opinion anyways) is a fascinating video, a throwback some 28 odd years where I randomly videoed what was inside my bedroom. There was nothing  to be censored ! It was just what a young man then would keep in his room, also laying out the things I felt were important to me at that time, like the photos in their frames - so last century !   

I am amazed at how technology has changed the products which we used then and now. As I panned the Sony Camcorder 7 around room, I am amazed ad how many things are gone with the wind and how some things still remain the same. More of that later.

I recall I purchased this gem of a 'toy' in  June 1990 when I visited Japan in the Akihabara electronics products district and the salesman promised me then something - he said, product made in Japan, for Japanese market is 100% better in quality than that made outside of Japan ; he was absolutely correct. The camcorder lasted me almost 10 wonderful years and I had many good experiences playing with it and taking (then) numerous meaningful videos and storing them in first cassettes and then I converted them to DVDs.All of this before the age of Youtube and file sharing generation of today.

This video starts with the cellphone, also Sony. With its antenna and a receiving range of maybe 10 meters, it was widely used then. It has now gone the way of the dinosaur. Behind the cellphone was the traditional handset phone. Does any youngster really know how to use such an ancient technology ? 

Next there was a slow panning of the table where I worked in my bedroom, and some of the stationery (there is a magnifying glass, some paper holders, an ink bottle (!) for a fountain pen, a nice portrait of a 27 year old me as well as the highlight of my student life, getting an Engineering degree from the NUS.

Then, there is a colour TV with antenna (Sanyo) also gone the way of the dinosaur. Along the ledge of the wall (the room was extended in the early '80s to add in the balcony so that the aircondition covered it and there was a small bar complete with small refrigerator, beer glasses and a display cabinet (IKEA no less) which I kept assorted stuff.    

The colour TV belonged to my Por Por or Grandmother who passed away in the early '80s and she had the TV for a good 8 to 10 years. I used it till perhaps the early '90s when I moved out after getting married. They don't make the TVs as reliable as those in the early 70s and 80s. That is my opinion. 

You can see the yellow wall and then a blue wall in the background. That is the extension to the room. The old bedroom extended till the yellow portion and the blue portion was the extension of the balcony becoming an add-on to the room. Below the Sanyo airconditioner (manual no remote then) stood the cassette player (!) and radio. This was just before the days of the CD, DVD, Blue Ray and Digital sound ! So I had 2 racks of cassette storage ; 

Panning over to the other side of the bed, on the mantelpiece lay the pager (!), my wallet, a Wolves sweat band, a dual fountain pen display, some analog clocks. 

At the glass display cabinet, there are the trophies (amazingly they never go out of fashion!) and finally to some nice pictures of a tiger family.

This is really a surrealistic throwback in time some 28 years ago !

Make Training Fun ; Introduce New Techniques and Flip over Old Routines

Punching a Block of Wood with a trainee

Today I had the privilege of taking the entire karate class at Tanglin CC ; there were 10 students including me and we normally would be performing the same old structured routines which are :

a) Warm Up, Stretching and Running
b) Basic Stances, Kicks and Punches
c) Idoshyigi which means stances with movement
d) Kata which means the practice of form 
e) More Physical exercises 
f)  Warm down 

Managing the growing class motivates the trainer as well as the trainees. 

With the assistance of another black belt member Ricky Ng, we did things to add in a little 'fun' element into the training. So, I introduced the Ippon Kumite or One step Sparring.

Since the group of trainees tonight were mainly senior belters, of brown 3 level and above, we practised this Ippon Kumite with several forms of defence utilising the Bunkai or Application of Kata from the Kihon Kata Dai Ichi. 

There were basically many different iterations to the blocks and parries and I can safely say that the trainees enjoyed this controlled session whereby they can use what they had learnt 

on fellow trainees and see for themselves whether their blocks, parries and kicks are effective or not in self defence.

At a recent sparring seminar organized by the Shitoryu Karate Association 

To train everyone must, however, to make the training Fun with the element of self defence as the focus is what all of us come to practice karate for.

Never Stop Trying - till the death of Time

Wolves manage to draw level at 93rd minute and they never stopped trying throughout the entire game to scrape a 2 - 2 draw against League 1 Shrewsbury. 

Even with a team with 6 channges, they never ever give up on pushing for more goals. 

The grand takeaway from all this is that we all need to push for that one strike in life to make it that everyone will remember you with, the seminal piece of work which you can and will be remembered for, good, bad or ugly.

Think deeply and tread carefully on this path of Life.   

Carpe Diem

Gather ye the rosebuds while ye may......

Spend some time just thinking about this magnificent scene from the Dead Poet's Society.

The epohcal performance of a lifetime by the mercurial late Robin Williams will always be etched in memory.

Make something out of your life......

Bob Seger - Long Live Old Time Rock and Roll !

Found this in the archives of Spotify ; a great tool to have access to millions of songs at the touch of the button.

Shito Style Karate - Jion Kata

Kata means 'form' ; hence the better your kata the better your competency in the martial art. 

Hence the application of the 'form' is called Bunkai and in the next post I will show the Bunkai for the Shito Style Kata of Jion.

Oss !  

Thoughts on a Thursday Night Jan 25th 2019

Do you Think ? 

I would like to raise a point to the Millenial Generation. With the speed of information made available through fibre optics and big data, we have in our hands or in our laptops, information which just 20 years ago, most institutions of higher learning or even some countries did not have access to.

Information is power, true or false. I think this is the 6 billion dollar question. If with the information at our fingertips, everyone theoretically has information to make decisions regarding their health, their financial status, their options to finding a companion or life partner, buying anything and everything and yes, even manipulating other people's lives.

There is fake news, all kinds of news sites which in the past we suspected there was 'spinning of the facts'  and facts which are given to placate, push an agenda and motivate.

How does a person who has suddenly been teleported from the 16th century make of all this information overload ?

Will he go "Woah ! " and spend time catching up on all the history (be careful, history is written by the victors of the wars and even history can be framed according to which side it was written and to which audience !)

Or will he just dumb down and just be placated that 'everything is out there' so there is no need to search because "The Truth is Out There".

If everyone takes the docile approach and just "Go with the flow", like water, then we know where water flows ?? It goes downhill FAST.

Think about our very existence in our part of the world. What are we contributing (or not) to this sick Earth which is by the minute getting more and more polluted, populated and hotter   due to climate change, the extinction of many wild animals forever as the rapid deforestation of the tropical rainforests in the name of development and need for more timber, housing and collectivised farming for our ever expllding population.

We are becoming mindless, just going through the motions. The main collective dumbing down of the masses of people has begun in earnest. The majority of us will soon be the minions doing menial tasks for a basic wage.  

Scary thought !    

A Paradigm Shift - what exactly is it ?

My dream holiday,Nice along the Cote Azur, Dec 2 2018 

The Blue Coast or Cote Azur in all its Glory Dec 2, 2018 

Antibes, a fishing village in all its glory, Dec 3 2018

The boats docked in the small marina, Dec 2 2018 

Last December, for 13 days,  we took the holiday of a lifetime and travelled to firstly Nice, then Florence and finally Turin. We are very fortunate to be able to manage this trip in winter which was uncharacteristically splendid in winter with temperatures of the low to mid teens.

Nice was our first stop and we stayed 4 nights enjoying the nice cool weather, the holiday feel, the fine French cuisine and spent several lovely trips to see the quaint and picturesque St Paul et Vence (artists love to stay there, reflect and do their thing), the beautiful Antibes fishing village about 45 minutes from Nice. 

In addition, we also took trips to Cannes of the famous film festival and the neighbouring principality of Monaco with the world famous Monte Carlo district of F1 and James Bond fame. 

When I was a young man, all of 24, I had the good fortune of being able to travel thanks to my wonderful parents who funded me on an all expenses paid trip to Europe for 35 days back in the June of 1987. I some some very valuable memories then of us all in our salad youth and springy walks and we were then told that Nice was the Fame Capital of the World, with Cannes being the place where film stars go every May for the Cannes Film Festival and get their photos taken on the Red Carpet.

During that 1987 trip, we only passed by Nice, as we were poor students and our Singapore dollar was a pittance compared then to the French Franc, (I believe the EURO currency came into existence in 1999) so we did not even stay a night and my impression then of Nice, and Monte Carlo was one of supposed 'fame', glamour and rich people all well dressed sipping champagne in their yachts with pretty girls in bikinis in their yachts and lounging by the poolside.

Fast forward 30 years later, as a middle aged man, fast going into young old age, my mental and world view has broadened very much more. I have seen my country move from the developing 3rd world into a sparkling first world country with world class marina, top end boutiques, millionaires aplenty driving their sports cars and the 2 ubiquitous casinos fronting the glitzy skyline.

The paradigm (long held perception) that Monaco was a glitzy place and Singapore the backwater has taken a major shift. 

Singapore is now the Monaco of the world. We have numerous world firsts, the F1 race for the last 11 years now and I look at Cannes and Monaco with a rather jaded look. The once glitzy places seem rather well worn now. The large glitzy casino looks rather smallish compared to our mega casinos (although we are eclipsed many times by Macau).

Our marina has huge yachts and the country is having one of the world's top 10 Universities (National University of Singapore). 

From the outside, we the country of Singapore has it good. The shoe is now on the other foot.

The Paradigm in my mind has indeed shifted.  

Wolves 4 Leicester 3 - What A Match !

The key takeaway from this game, as in all things in life. Want it bad enough, you will get it.

Do things in a smart, hardworking and driven way. Luck will find its way to you sooner or later.

Life is about always learning and growing

My 3rd Dan Certificate with my sensei Hanshi Chia Kwek Fah 

Dec 2018 ; aged 50 + something. 

As I age, I am very conscious about what I know and more often than not, I am most aware of what I don't know. There are the 3 phases of consciousness, so elegantly put by the Secretary of Defence (during George Bush Jr's time in office), Donald Rumsfeld.

There are : 1. Known knowns. What we know through learning, reading, speaking with 
                       experts and teachers/  Hence  the information is 'out there'. Knowing the 
                       information is one thing, understanding its implications or how to use it 
                       is something else. 

                   2. Known Unknowns.  An example is we know we are in this space  
                       called the Universe. How expansive, is it growing or shrinking, is still
                       debated  by the scientists. There are other worlds out there with life, 
                       intelligent or not we are still curiously finding out.
       
                   3. Unknown unknowns. This is the complete ignorance of information. 
                       We don't know or don't bother to know what we don't know. This is 
                       the mentality of the 'follower'.

Learn new things in life, make each day a learning experience from the people you come across, old, young , rich, poor and you will be wiser, and more humble about the great wonderful world we have. 

Being satisfied with one's life is far better than the transient joys, sorrows, happiness, sadness, anger, disappointments that come with life. 

Carpe Diem !!!   

Business Success - Key Factors

The road less travelled, Antibes along the Cote Azur (Blue Coast) 

I am by no means the entrepreneur who has 'made it'. I am still making a living by every day by 'scrapping  in the schoolyard'. By that I mean that I am very much going to work day in day out and doing what I do best, creating opportunities for my company by means of quotations, customer visits, meeting with overseas principals and manufacturers and a whole host of other coordination works from invoicing, delivery orders, making deliveries for parts and coordinating project works. Its facing daily challenges and trying to find solutions ever so often. 

It is what I do best and I have been in this small niche of the giant global technology industry which is still 'bricks and mortar' providing quality assurance solutions to products to enhance their reliability. By that we provide test equipment such as chambers, ovens and vibration simulation equipment to diverse industries such as automotive, aerospace, defence, sports,electronics and their subset semiconductors and now the internet of things.

The title of this post is Business Success  - Key Factors. After almost 16 years of ups and downs and ups again, I think it is a combination of 5 key factors with the percentage weighting factors added in  as shown below :

a) Luck  20%
b) Resilience 20%
c) Diligence 20%
d) Domain Knowledge 20%
e) Intellect (incorporating Vision) 20%

Although I give equal importance to each of the 5, in practice it is rarely so, and the factors will be coming in and out in varying degrees due to varying circumstances. To manage it, the boss literally needs to be 'on the ground' determining the course of the battle (I call it battle) - every single day.  

Hence, if a new entrepreneur tries his hand at, say, a restaurant, if he has luck and intellect (vision) but after surviving the first tough year without going bankrupt but is not resilient when his back of kitchen staff (eg chef) leaves and he can't find a replacement, then he is likely to close up the business.

Its a very tough world, and with the geek economy turning everybody irrelevant if we don't invest in learning new skills, trying new strategies, and moving to new markets we may all end up facing a very uncertain future.

So with world economy facing an uncertain 2019, I have decided to buckle up, push harder for more customers and lower costs to the barest minimum.   

    

   

Beautiful Song for 2019

Maroon 5's Girls Like You ; the Ultimate Power Woman Song. 

2019 Resolutions

This is the time for positive reflection of my stage in life and the situation of where I am right now.

Firstly I am thankful for the safe and clean environment of my home country, the stability of its Government and its relations with its neighbours and the standing in the World Order. 

Singapore indeed has come a long way these last 53 years and as I watch the turmoil and upheaval of the turbulent 2018 in the stock market, the global trade wars playing out between USA and its traditional allies, I am concerned that as a very small company playing in the waters of far bigger ones, we have to be very mindful of many risks known and unknown going into 2019.

My personal reflections are all about my behavior so I will humbly list these in order of importance :

1. Punctuality - this has always been my weak point, trying to please too many people or squeezing to many appointments so much so that I mess up the atmoshere of the meeting when I am late. So I resolve to brush up my time management and always ensure I give more than enough time to meet ; if it is too rushed, then, I will postpone the business or cancel the social meeting outright.

2. Decisive - again, I tend to flounder back and forth, so I need to be very hard on myself and the people I decide what to do.

3. U Turn quickly - If I have made a wrong decision, I need to U Turn and backtrack, this throws mud in my face but sometimes there is no choice in this matter if it relates to financial decisions. 

4. Saying ' No ' - I need to be more decisive in this. No Excuses. Just Do It.

5. Cutting back on Social Media - I resolve not to see Facebook or any other social network and only restricting it to maximum a couple of hours in the evening. Not even in the day over lunch. Definately not during driving or commuting. 

6. I need to be hard nosed. 



Thats it ! Happy New 2019 !