Plans for Winning

I am now reading this book called Strategy of Winning. Although it focusses mainly on businesses and business people, I have my own set of plans which are based on life experiences and thoughts gleaned over 20 years of running businesses and interacting with a myriad of people that I have decided to call the book (If I do write one that is), Plans for Winning. I do not consider myself wildly successful, however, having survived 20 years in the rough and tumble world or business growth and development, I am happy to say that I can keep a decent business running with profits after doing so for this long. Here are some tried and tested steps :

a) No one owes you a living ; your never say day attitude determines whether you will       
    secure the big deals and  contracts, so work hard and smart. No amount of paper         
    qualifications, B BA, PhD or MBAs will make the banks, good friends or even your family 
    lend you money just on your name. Of course if your name was Warren Buffet, or Bill      Gates that would be a different story ! They of course have a fantastic track record great 
attitude and love  for their work which separated them from many many other failed businesses. 

b) Have a Plan and Have Passion in what you do
    People with no plans normally drift from day to day and with no goals or plans, they move 
   down slowly with the tide. Develop a plan to improve certain aspects of your life, work at it          and execute it. It takes discipline, so you need to practice it and sacrifice other aspects     of your life to achieve your goal.  

    More than 10 years ago I wanted to run a marathon,  I bought books, subscribed to Runners World Magazine (for 5 years), made a point to sleep early, forced myself to wake up early, and slowly ran, and built up mileage (or Kmage) running up to 5 - 6 times a week. All this took me a full 1 and a half years to achieve the body conditioning before I was confident of running a marathon. I sacrificed eating junk food (my wife would disagree on this somewhat :)), ate and adjusted my dietary habits to fuel up on carbohydrates and some protein plus vegetables, read up about running strides, gait analysis, what type of running vests and shorts to wear, shoes (very important to select the correct running shoe based on your foot strike). I read up on hydration techniques, how to fuel yourself during a long run (bananas or power gels ? or both), RICE (Rest, Icing, Compression, Elevation), the list of tricks and techniques is very long. All this because I loved and still love to run. 

   Now I have 7 full marathons under my belt, and I am still crazy about running. 

  Am I successful, well yeah, I am a distance runner, and a pretty decent one at that ! Most times I am pleased to say even at my age, I am roughly running around the 50th percentile of the whole group of runners although the seniors (above 40) account for at most 20% of all runners. I won't win medals, but have run pretty well to win some distance awards at my Gym (1 month Gym Run award).

c) Dream Big - then Act on them 

   For every Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg you read about, there are millions upon millions of people who day dream. However, a good 90% never act on them - me included, for many times - and the remaining 10% DO act out their dreams. Perhaps 10% of that 10% will make it ; 1%, and the media has a field day writing about their everyday life and what they ate for breakfast, where they went to school, and what not.

    Dare to Dream and then Act on it. Be prepared to Fail. For Failure is the Mother of Success. 

d) Take a Gamble

     Many of the happiest and financially free people have taken gambles in their lives, and I don't mean just dropping out of the employment mill to start his orher own business. It could be that time when you decide, you can live with less and go and pursue a PhD, helping out building half-way houses for abused children in Cambodia or advise people on their spending habits like my friend Roland, who sits on the Credit Bureau Advisory Board. He decided that he had enough of working for people, so quit and retired at 54. Of course, he made a ton of money beforehand, but one must decide for himself when enough is enough. He is happy taking the quiet route of retirement while he still has the health, so I am fortunate to witness firsthand how one can take a gamble and win in retirement.  

One cannot serve both God and Mammon. How true, render to Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar and render unto God what belongs to God.   

e) Act like a Winner

   In every thought and action carried out, act like you have already succeeded and people will automatically look up to you. OK, you can say (you or I) am faking it but the best fakers are the ones who actually make it. It takes a confident person to accept success beyond his wildest dreams and people tend to want to associate with a confident person (not cocky) rather than someone who always looks on the negative side of things. Thats why sales associates and front line staff are supposed to act happy and project a successful side to any company. 


f)  Prepare for Success  

    Before you actually reach the goal, lets say you want to scale Mt Everest, be prepared for alot of climbing up stairways and millions of steps, plus acclimatising to high altitude exercise, low oxygen etc., cold and dry conditions. Also, getting used to climbing with 20kg of gear, in extreme sunlight and many many items. Also, the simplest part is unfurling the flag of your sponsors and taking a photo. Don't forget to bring a weather proof camera ! 

What an Inspiration !

      This boy is a student in my Son's secondary school. I don't know him personally but after watching this video, I am very moved by his willingness to share brilliant mind with others less fortunate, despite his disabilities.

      With an iron will, a strong heart, one can achieve the impossible. 

Social Bias Behavior

           There is this great book which I am reading at the moment, by Rolf Dobelli. Titled, the art of thinking clearly. It has easily 150 small chapters detailing how our brains are wired and unconciously we layer upon each layer actions based on how our brain works. One of the chapters details " Social Bias Behavior" and it states several in depth studies about how people subconciously want to conform to the accepted norms and beliefs. He cited this study by a psychologist who put the subject (say you or I) into a room. In the room was a piece of string on one side of the table, and on the other side were 3 pieces or string, say A, B, and C.
          
           String B is exactly the same length while A and C were slightly longer and shorter respectively. When alone, the subject was asked by the interviewer which string A B or C was exactly the same length as the one on the left. 100% of them said B and were correct.

          He changed the scenario whereby there were 5 other people in the room. Unknown to the subject, these 5 people were paid actors who were tasked to point out the strings A or C as the 'right' one. When all 5 were done, he asked the subject which was the correct length ; a full 33% or one third followed the 'actors', stating A or C, even though they thought B looked like the correct answer.   

          People easily succumb to social bias. Its a survival instinct.

                                                
                                                                 Truly an Exception

                                                             a) Felix Baumgartner
                                                             b) Jesus 

          If you came out of a shop in Orchard Road, and suddenly, the whole crowd of people started to look up and start running, you would start running too. Maybe you wouldn't even look up too. Was it the sky falling down, was a ton of bricks coming crashing down ?

          People have had this behavior for centuries, as one can safely guess that during the prehistoric days, when Man was out hunting, when the hunter group he was with, started to run, the blur guy who looked up and saw what was coming, was probably eaten by the lion or dinosaur. 

         

         

           

Time crawls when you are young,walks when you are an adult,runs when you are middle aged, and flies when you are old

With Andrew in 2008. 

       It seems that time is a much limited resource, with money, any enterprising person can work out a novel business idea, flesh it out, attract investors and 'Voila', the game is on. With time, unfortunately, once the time has passed, that is the end of it. No going back to the day, where you could just lace up your shoes, on a hot afternoon, head out the door, and run 10K just for the fun of it.  That is an activity only for the young and fit. For many of us, we never see the day coming, when, for example, our backs will not ache from stiffness, or lower back pain is a daily occurence, joint pain and aches are a daily affair.  Age is but a number, some may say, but tell that to my middle aged body !

         I remember in my very young days in primary school, when I became aware of time, around 5 years or so, it passed by so slowly, in the 60s, it was days upon days of just playing catching spiders, flying kites, making new friends, practising kungfu fighting (Bruce Lee was BIG in those days) and watching the Malay boys at the neighbourhood kampungs run out and jump into then canals and drains whenever a heavy downpour occurred, and the drains were overflowing with brown rainwater running off from the hill we lived in. My family lived comfortably in a house in Adis Road, off Wilkie Terrace and we had 2 girls schools as next door neighbours. 

          My father kept 3 'pariah' (no breed) dogs called Jippy, Mickey and Scamper. They were our constant companions and we played with our neighbours like there was no tomorrow ! The neighbourhood kids were of many races, and nobody really cared if you were of a different colour. For us, it was just enjoying being young and carefree. Day after day was nothing more than coming home from school, changing up to our home clothes and out the door. I did not recall doing any major homework (not of the volume and deadlines of today), and it was a no-brainer to pass the year end exams.  It was a real joy and experience living in those uncomplicated times where the only concern I had was whether my PSLE scores would be 4 As or something like that. 

         Studying for any subjects at my primary school was almost unheard of, we were taught by teachers and teaching was more for imparting knowledge of the subject rather than being competent in answering questions for the exams. Definately not the high pressure and ultra-competitive environment of today  ! 

      Two or Three particular incidents stand out in my mind, 1. was during primary 2, I and another friend Jin Kiat, came back late from our tuckshop, and we rushed back to class to see our entire class squatting outside the classroom next to the open drain and brushing their teeth. This was during the 'oral hygiene' period   whereby the Ministry of Education was emphasising the importance of brushing teeth as a means of oral hygiene and givign away free toothbrushes and toothpaste.

Andrew in 2008

2. Was in Primary 3, I had failed my 'Ting Xie' and Mrs. Pang, the Chinese teacher would call me up in front of class and gave my ear a hard twist. The sound of the soft tendons cracking still resonate today. Corporal punishment was rife in those days and we lived in fear of the 'fierce' teachers such as Mrs. Pang.

 

3. was in Primary 6, we were having our Art exam, and Ho Keen Fai, the class bully, was doing his exam, when my good friend Edward Ong, happened to drop a glass stink bomb accidently in the middle of the exam. The teacher, Mrs. Violet Ang stormed out of the class for a breather and Keen Fai took the stink bomb and proceeded to handcarry to all the boys he controlled to give them a whiff ! Luckily I was in his good books so he spared me ! 

         Such carefree and innocent times. I naively thought they would never end. Before I knew it, I am now middle aged and with 2 strapping teenagers worying about theur CAs, SAs, Preliminarys and now 'O' Levels. 

         We can never go back, but these memories are the balm which keep us sane and happy when times get tough. In the words of the Bob Dylan song, "Times they are a changin, ". 

Tiong Bahru Wet Market - Branded Market with the freshest stuff

                                                                       At the fish stall 

        My wife has been shopping at the same fish stall for almost 20 years at the Tiong Bahru Market. I  have been fortunate to be introduced to this market about 10 years ago, and have witnessed the development from its small and cramped past in this exact same location, to the temporary market for 2 years and this 'new' market location the last 4 years. As a testimony to it selling only the freshest foodstuffs, many die-hard supporters ranging from the elderly in wheelchairs, in walking sticks, to the middle aged in their SUVs and compact cars, to the wealthy in their Audis, Benzes, Porsches and BMWs to the young adults in their latest BMW 3 series, they come from far and wide to buy from this 'branded' of all brand wet markets.

      The elderly are most visible, and the foodstalls are properly spaced and with ample air ventilation between stalls. Lately, in the past 2 - 3 years, I have noticed many expatriate families ranging from the Japanese (they have been coming here for more than 10 years in fact), Koreans, Americans, Australians, the British, German, French and Middle Eastern families (much less as the food sold is not halal) coming here to buy their fresh meat and fish.

      Our fish stall lady, whom my wife never got to know her full name has recently decided to retire at close to 70. She is an inspiration for all older generation workers, and I believe she is very well off selling easily, more than $20,000 worth of fish per weekend. I should know, we spend, around S$ 250 per visit, and multiply that with almost 100 customers all buying fish with revenue receipts of $50 upwards, it is not difficult to calculate her gross takings. She must be happily enjoying her retirement in some landed estate, and tending to her grand-kids.  Hawkers who are successful in Singapore make BIG MONEY. Make no mistake.

     Above the wetmarket, is the food court which has stalls selling everything from Nasi Lemak, to Lor Mee (chinese noodles in black sauce), fishball noodles,Wan Tan noodles, char kuey teow, chai tau kuey, cantonese porridge, duck, chicken rice, rice dumplings, all the paus literally 30+ diffrerent kinds of chinese hawker food. Truly a food lover's paradise.

     I can go on and on about the allure of Tiong Bahru, but I am not a fan, to be honest. The place is especially crowded on weekends, getting a parking spot is difficult and there is a handicapped singer who belts out chinese tunes ad nauseum in too loud a voice. I oftentimes do give my spare change out of sympathy but it hardly lessens my misery listening to him,

    The food at the foodcout or hawker center is mediocre and although there is alot of variety, only a few stalls do serve truly tasty fare.    

    It is one of a kind place. Many true blue Singaporeans still make a beeline for it every weekend and if anything were to typify Singapore life, a visit to Tiong Bahru wet market would fit the bill.  

  

Reality Distortion

       Steve Jobs was a masterful manipulator, he was a genius in assessing a person's character, his strengths, weaknesses fears and dreams and he then was able to cajole, bully, coax,steal and even evangelise his co-workers to produce a computer based on what his exacting standards were, he chopped and changed, stole people's ideas and made it his own, pushed, fought, bullied, screamed, was screamed at and changed specifications ever so often. He asked for the impossible  many times, and his colleagues were transfigurated into some sleepless, mindnumbing work zombies creating the best and newest product which would change the world, the Macintosh.

        Once the final product was done after countless battles within the organisation, and revamps, thousands of rewrites, challenges, arguments, people leaving over personality clashes and almost 4 years of development ,the MacIntosh was born in 1984. He got the entire 43 technicians,, software engineers and engineers to sign a template for the creation of an an art piece. All of them hewere so moved they admitted that during the signing ceremony, they had indeed created something for the good of humanity.

       Jobs was so good at hypnotising or motivating the team, that most people achieved the impossible tasks with superhuman effort. Those who saw through the act called it his ability to 'distort reality' or the 'distortion reality phase'.  I  believe that at each new Computer Show in Palo Alto with each new Apple product launch, he uses the same techniques to mass hypnotise his audience through the sheer aura of his presentation.

      Such is the power of  his Reality Distortion.

      

One Republic - Something I need