My Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) for 2018

Telling the world my BHAG 

I'm taking a leaf from Mr. Sim Wong Hoo, Creative Technology boss who in his book declared that when you have goals, make them Big, Hairy (I think it means a little over the top), audacious (which is Hairy x 2) and a Goal for a lifetime.

So for 2018, I would like to declare this as my BHAG. I have already bitten the bullet and signed up for the Paris Marathon on 8th April ; I have roughly 6 months to train.

Second BHAG : To record a 4 hour 15 time ; for the full 42 km, this means an awesome (to me of course) average time of 6 minutes 7 seconds PER KILOMETER for the entire 42.195 km !!! 

Third BHAG : To lose like 3 - 5 kg (from a 76 kg), my target is to be a trim 71 kg by then. Yes, I will have baggy and loopy looking pants, but the SACRIFICE is worth it.

1. Clarity of mind (objective) : its clear what I need to accomplish ; I then need to break down the objective to bite sized daily, weekly and monthly objectives for a) exercise, b) diet intake and c) sleep sufficiency.  Its the adherence to the package that makes the whole goal realistic.  

2. Purity of Spirit : I want to do this with a pure heart and tell myself that I am doing it for the best intentions ; I will start looking for a charity to support to raise money. Details will follow.

3. Relentless pursuit of the objective : This will be the most challenging and painful. Time will be short. There is business to attend to, bills to pay, appointments to be met, customer visits local and overseas, a year end holiday, new customers, old customers, meeting and managing new staff and overseeing operations, as well as 1 major project with 2 more in the pipeline.

   Tough ; management of time and energy is critical.   

4. Sacrifice : As mentioned, I will need to sacrifice my love of white wine, chocolates and excess foods and drink with the friends to lose that weight. Its an ascetic lifestyle for the next 6 months. 

5. Focus : the goal is the end result ; the process is the training, cross training and the dieting, plus following up on weekly logging of the kms.

6. Discipline :  This is the further manifestation of the previous 2 process factors above. 

    Achieving or finishing the marathon is 1 thing ; achieving it in a Personal Best time is something out of the ordinary. At 55 years of age. 

   I must be crazy. 

The Purposeful Journey

Bringing my time down bit by bit ; target : 54 minutes by October 

During my long and sometimes hard run today I thought deeply about life and the journey which each of us must take. To me, life is about taking that purposeful journey full of goals set for you either by yourself, or other significant people in your life, it could be your school (exams), spouse or partner (living together, starting a family), office (objectives, KPIs), friends and business associates, principals and most importantly,yourself.

If you set you goal in life, you will just go with the flow and don't be surprised how fast time flies and before you know it, voila, you are middle aged, the kids have grown, and your nest egg isn't almost there (where had all the money gone), friends, acquaintences business partners have passed on and you are facing challenges in health, work, family, business and even the foriegners are coming in to 'steal your lunch !'.

Let me state, that this is my opinion of life, to make it your success, take the purposeful journey.    Only you be the judge of how successful you will be at the end of it. The end is when you take your last breath and close your eyes and you are no more. So I would state that the following values are absolutely necessary for you to bring along the purposeful journey :

1. Clarity of the mind 

2. Purity of the spirit

3. Set clear goals and Relentlessly Pursue these goals 

4. Focus on the process to reach those goals and work to continually improve the process    

5. Discipline yourself in mind and body

6. Sacrifice time, energy and sweat to reach in within a set deadline. 

It will never be easy, I have picked up bad habits along the way, so I need to shed these if I truly want to achieve what I set out to do. 

There are no short cuts - especially in life.

Seize the Day      

Wolves go marching on to the 4th round of Carabao (League) Cup

           There is a certain spring in the play of the team,  the head coach Santos can make changes to the first team and still win, luck is with them and Wolves have a great reserve keeper in Howard. With the new Chinese owners, they now have Wolves TV for every match which they participate in. 

          I will say it, if Wolves make it to the final, I will want to watch them at Wembley !!! Of course there are 3 more very tough matches ahead, the 4th round (last 16), quaterfinals, semi-finals to contend with. They will be most likely facing the likes of any of the big 6 along the way, I am sure. The big 6 I am referring to are : Man. United, Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal,Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur. 

          But with the team brimming with confidence,players going for goal and not being selfish or greedy, this is a team which is on its way up to the Premier League. They must not let the past govern their attitude, remain grounded, focus on their passing, counterattack and defend strongly. 


          Full-time score, Wolves 1 ; Bristol Rovers : 0.  

Reunion of the Saints Sept 2012 - 5 years ago !

My, time does fly. This was some of the 'jam' session we had when about 60 of us 'old boys' from the class of 1978 met in 2012 at Joan Bowen Cafe at St Andrew's School to celebrate our 50th year of existence. In 1978, all of us were 16 (go figure) and that year was the GCE 'O' (General Certificate of Education) Levels which was mandantory for all students at Secondary 4 level.

Most of us went our separate ways to the then 7 junior colleges, polytechnics and ITEs and we never saw each other for practically 34 years until 2012.We realised that "time was running fast away" and now (2012) was the best time to meet up and reminisce old times.



Playing the School Hymn for our 'Boys' 


This last year 2016 had been an eventful year and we lost 4 of our 'brothers' ; it was heartbreaking to hear of each of their passing, and I was familiar with at least 2 of them.

So this video of 'Hey Jude' with the boys singing in the background was our (mine and Paul Ezekiel) way of giving back some time to reflect and 'go back' to when life was about singing the Beatles songs, playing football in the hot afternoon sun, sweating buckets and stinking the classrooms as a result, playing truant, coming late, detention class and all manner of shenanigans 16 year olds get into. 

Did I mention we also had to study for our 'O" levels ?    LOL. 

Wolves have self belief and a strong attack this 2017 - 18 season

The boyhood team of mine, Wolverhampton Wanderers are finally living up to their founder club status of over 100 years ago.  After a home defeat by then top club Cardiff City 2 weeks ago, Wolves sputtered to 2 draws, first a 0 - 0 away to Brentford and a 3 - 3 draw at home to Bristol City.

Yesterday, 16th Sept 2017, Wolves pulled off another great away win over Nottingham Forest at City Ground winning 2- 1 and all the fans left for home happy. I was following the live streaming coverage from the comfort of my home, but boy, was I transported back to a 16 year old fan once again.  Diogo Jota scored two opportunistic goals which were world class. The goal by Nottingham Forest Carayol struck me as a 'kelong' or 'fix' where the goalkeeper just stood and stared as the ball flew into the net from 25 metres out. Caught like a deer in the middle of the road staring at the car's oncoming headlights. Goalkeeper John Ruddy needs to focus and wake up !!!  

Diogo Jota is proving to be a wunderkid on loan from Athletico Madrid ; to Fosun the owners of the club we, the fans owe you a debt of gratitude that finally, with money, a brilliant visionary Head Coach in Nuno Esperito Santos, enlightened players, finally we long suffering fans of Wolves can get some pride that we can and will be back at the Premier League with the best of the best.





My mid term goal is to watch at least 3 Wolves games 'live' in England. 

I will follow the Wolves this season, through all their ups and downs (there will be for sure).

This season, 2017-18 will be exceptional and eventful. 

FART your way to organized thinking process

I can see clearly now the rain has gone

I will be the first to admit it again, I do not have a very organized mind. Clarity of thought is well developed over the years, but organization of the mind and your thought process is the way forward - for me at least - to doing things systematically. On top of organized thought process, I need to also have a persistence to see through the goals which I have set for myself however small or large they may be. The thought process MUST be organized and many decisions made decisively to ensure that the day passes by successfully. 

So here is the way to organizing, say, paperwork in terms of letters, or emails or information which is coming fast and furious through the smart phone and the internet. Lets keep it simple and just stick with paperwork and email through the snail mail and the mail server respectively.   

Say you receive letters / email everyday, bills, notifications, customer enquiries, appointments or dates fixed,smses, whatsapp chats to buy or do things etc. 

So use the FART Method, as best as you can :

a) F ile (and Review) -  this is an invoice from your vendor, you scan through it, ensuring that the goods and services have been rendered to your satisfaction, and you note that you have some funds coming in before the end of the month. Hence, you make a note (mental or written) to make payment by end of the month.  

You will need to make a discretionary call and decide to file, as well as review it when the invoice (or document) is due. This review and the adherence to the review is all important. 

b) Act - this is an urgent and important email asking you to reply to your boss with a report detailing the last months sales figures which were below expectation and give analysis as to when the key or regular customers will purchase. Decide what steps to take and take them accordingly to boost up the sales through added sales / marketing visits and ramp up promotions.

c) Throw - there is numerous junk mail from flyers of new properties (for example) whereby you don't have the funds or interest to pursue and hence you dump it in the wastebasket electronically or literally.

While this is for paperwork and electronic mail, there are numerous data and information coming into your sensory network (5 senses) which if you had a computer like brain, could process, and decide again to FART  everything and anything.

If I could have good enough sleep, well rested, have a regular exercise plan on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, with a clear vision for my life and say business to achieve some short (6 months) mid term goals (1 year) ; a lot of the day to day decision making will be much simpler provided I have the determination and endurance to see it happen.

I have set aside the beginning of each year with personal and professional goals since 2002. This goal setting has been very beneficial to me in assessing where I am on those fronts. 

Try the goal setting and FART method and see the results.

Be persistent, patient and focussed. 

What is it thinking ? 

Probitics Health Supplements

Provie G ; distributor : Freshworks Pte Ltd.

 Provie Range of all Natural Food Supplements

I have been taking food supplements for around 11  years, the upside of it is that I have been generally healthy (thank God and touch wood) so far. Many small niggling coughs, colds and the 'flu have not affected my health in general, and I am grateful and thankful for this. 

"Health is Wealth" goes the saying, I would like to add on this word, "Good Health is Wealth" because you can have bad health and all the money in the world can't buy you quality of life if you are down with a life threatening illness. 

This is not the first time I am revealing the wellness side of me, so I would like to share it with the blog readers, we tend to eat junk food once in a while, the food at the hawker centres is laden with everything from pork lard, to mono-sodium glutamate (MSG) to excessive sugar, salt and eggs.

I have been a GNC member for the last 9 years, and have bought bulk purchase for 1 years' supply from them amounting to $1, 268.  The supplements range from General Nutrition tablets, Ginko Biloba, Glucosamine Chondriotin MSM Sulphate, Vitamin E, Glutathione and now Proviva L.

I am now switching to add a mix of Provie range because its a) made in Singapore (highest safety standards compliance of non-toxicity by the Health Promotion Board), all natural food grade ingredients and the use of Pre and Probiotics (micro-organisms for gut health) which is so critical for our body's everyday digestion and well being. b) price point competitive with all natural ingredients with no chemicals 

 Interactive Microorganisms Labs, helmed by Dr Chia BT is the company involved in the creation the phytosymbiotic supplements and the manufacturing is done  in an

Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) factory which has passed Singapore's highest safety standards.

The product range is as follows :

    Illness Prevention, Disease management and control

1. Provie G     -   For people with high blood sugar levels           

                       -   Liver Protector (fatty liver, cirhossis etc.)       

  - the supplement is mainly extracts of bittergourd, and trace amounts of several other all natural ingredients. There are 'good bacteria' inside the supplements for fermentation to process thus the name 'phytosymbiotics'. 

                         

2. Proviva L  -   For people with high cholesterol (like me)                     

                                                                                                

3. Proviva U  -  For people with Gout                                        

                                                                                                      

   Lifestyle Enhancement

         

1. Living Logic   - for mental alertness, memory function      

                                                                                                     

2. Living Genesis -  anti-oxidant, general well being               

                                                                                                     

At this time of posting, I have been taking Provie U to control the amount of Uric Acid in the body, and Provie L for Cholesterol Reduction for about 3 years now.  

The effects of both on my well being are quite amazing , my wrist pain has subsided and while the Provie L  does not show great results (I have naturally existing high Total Cholesterol Levels)  my Triglyceride levels are normal. The benefits of these supplements is that they are 'all natural', and tested and made in Singapore under the most stringent of safety codes.

For sales enquiries, please contact the dsitributor, Freshworks Pte Ltd.