The Black Swan Event

         The renowned thinker, Nassim Taleb has written a fantastic book called the Black Swan. In it he elaborates the concept that things that have never happened before, or Black Swan events will never ever happen. The Black Swan is based on historical observations by the British who had always assumed that swans were white in colour and were taken aback when one of their early explorers who visited Australia recorded that he witnessed a black swan.

        Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defence for George H Bush as well as George W Bush once put it very eloquently. There are 3 things people are aware of :

1. The known knowns ('facts') - or what we deem (perceive) to be true

2. The known unknowns (The universe out there is largely visible, other life forms may exist not 
     yet found ; where does the Universe end ? Does it sit on a table ? )

3. The unknown unknowns (What we do not know or even cannot fathom)

      The dot com boom, the Facebook phenomenon, even the Fukushima accident can be described as Black Swan events. 

My ski experience

 I am by  no means an expert skier, having skied a total of 5 times, but 4 of these times, were at ski holidays and camps organised by the YMCA (2 x in Korea) and Hokkaido Japan. This was taken in 2011 in Tomamu Resort Hokkaido, one of my family's most enjoyable and memorable holiday.

 

At breakfast before hitting the slopes

Ski extreme

I Won't Give Up

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.