Its better to be feared than to be loved. - Niccolo Machiavelli.

 

Keep a strong mind and demeanour. There are wolves out there wanting your success and take pleasure in bringing you down. 

Never fear criticism, if it is well intentioned and you act on it, you become a better person.

If it is envy or jealousy, it doesn't matter, as these people are not worth your acquaintence or friendship.

Our Family in late 1960s and 1970s. Stories from those days. Story 1. Kite 'Jute' !

 

Papa and Mum with the 2 Samseng Boys 

This was my family picture taken sometime in the late 1960s or 1970. This is taken at the garden outside our house at 6 Adis Road Singapore 9. The postcode was single digit ! My  brother John is 3 years younger than me, and he is now a successful senior consultant for ENT and a specialist sleep apnoea surgeon at one of Singapore's largest public hospitals.

We called ourselves Samseng (Gangster) Boys as we lived practically every day after school outside our house as there was absolutely no homework to do after our half day school. Boy those days were so carefree and fun !  

We played outside with the neighbourhood kids, who were a motely bunch of Chinese and Indian families living in terraced houses beside our house. Directly next door to the left of our house was the Nan Hua secondary girls school and to the right was the Methodist Girls School (MGS). 

Our family owned 3 pariah dogs name Jippy, Scamper and Mickey.While Jippy was the mother dog, Scamper and Mickey were the dog kids of Jippy. Scamper was my pet while Mickey was John's. 

I recall we made friends with   'S', Liang Puck, 'R' (pronounced R er) and Poh San to name just a few. There was also a Jacob John who is now residing in the USA. There was also a special needs kid who lived  along  one of the terrace houses (in between 'S" house and Jacob John's house)  and he was kept always at home like a prisoner.

We played all those memorable games. Kite flying was a favourite of mine. Essentially, we learnt to line the string with powdered glass pounded by hand by us and mixing the powdered glass with some glue (which stank to high heaven). We would wind the string round the trunk of one tree, line the string (these came from sewing reels) and bring it around to the neighbouring tree. Then, we would paste the glass glue mixture on the string. This was the means to 'weaponise' the string when we flew the kites.

Most kites would cost around 5 cents to 10 cents. They were made of tracing paper, with the stem and bow made of pliable wood across. There was  fancy 'tail' which gave the kite balance and steadyness. 

                                                              2 small 'Samseng' Boys (1969)

Story 1 ;  Kite 'Jute' 

On windy days, we would then hoist our kites up, catch the updraft of the wind and up it would go !  The sky would be littered with kites of all colours and swinging all over the horizon. I had grown quite 'skillful' in flying my kite and could even fly the kite from our 2nd floor balcony which was a huge exterior like room of easily 100 ft2. 

Up and up it would go. If someone far away saw my kite, we would engage and whoever had the 'sharper' string would win and the loser would have his kite string cut. You can see the when a kite has had its string cut, it would waft down with no direction. When the kite has no 'master' controlling it, it is termed at kite 'jute' and wherever it lands, whoever is the first to pick up the kite, is now the new owner.  That was the rule of the game back then. 

There was so much joy in getting a free prize like a ' Jute' Kite.  

That's where the fun starts. Whenever a kite is 'jute', there will be hordes of boys (Malay boys from the nearby kampong, our neighbours who lived in the terraces and some from outside of our neighbourhood) who would be literally running throughout the neighbourhood to be the first to own the fallen kite. Sometimes there will be a fight as to who got to the kite first, and the kite may end up torn up.

Once, we noticed a kite wafting merrily into our big house compound. Quickly, I went and donned my karate clothes and asked my brother to come and follow me down. Outside there were the hordes of Malay boys who bravely ventured into our house compound, knowing there were 3 dogs around.

I charged head long into the mass, did some karate katas and should "Heiya" to confuse and frighten them. 

My brother John who was behind me, merrily picked the 'Jute' kite and up we went back with our prize.

True Story and a Happy Ending for us. 

   

 

Form Good Habits for Life ; then become the best version of yourself.

                                        With 2 times SEA Games Marathon winner Rui Yong 

Life has a funny way of telling you what is right and wrong. When we were young, we played catching, looking for spiders in the neighbourhood yards and trees, fought battles with the neighbourhood kids, basically every little thing, we did was outside of our house

It was such a carefree time, the 1960s and earl 1970s. I wouldn't have traded this time for anything else in the world. However, because of lack of parental minding in those days, we kids learned everything by ourselves from taking care of cuts6, scratches, dog bites so on and so forth.

They were indeed carefree days of yore, and those times, I would never have traded them for anything else, the mid 60s all the way to the mid 70s.

I developed many habits, of course, and there were many bad ones together with the good ones. Now that I have learnt the basic 3 step process, I can unlearn the bad habits and replace them with the good ones. Some of the bad habits I have learnt to control and change over the years are 

1. not wanting to snack before dinner and holding my hunger till dinner time. 

2. Having an after dinner aperitif or alcoholic drink 

3. Watching less mindless entertainment like football, or Netflix. 

4. Avoiding a nap when I reach home, as this would mess up my sleep routine and sleep hygiene. 

5. Not snacking in office. 

6. Less eating of any fried food. 

7. Sugar in my coffee 

Instead I have tried or am trying to replace the bad habits with

1. Walking or doing some light exercise to kill off the hunger before dinner

2. A drink of Vit C instead of beer.

3. Reading books

4. Have a shower and play mind games like Sudoku for 1 - 2 hours at home

5. Still trying to find a replacement to snacking in office.

6. Healthier choices of food during dining, and eating more vegetables.  

.The cues for all these habits, I need to be mindful. Once the cue sets in I need to replace the behavior pattern with a new healthier or more mindful alternative. If at the worst case,if my eyes and brain is tired, I will head to bed early or take a nap.

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One Quote for the Weekend.

 

There has never been a more true statement than the one above by David Goggins. Many a times, leaders, and especially people like myself have to do things which I do not like to do at all in the interests of meeting team objectives, assisting the less capable and giving back when I could have taken the easy route and slack off.

At this age, I want to be remembered for the right things and not to be just a digit in the page of history.

We are blessed that we have 2 Laboratories which are full to capacity and we have potential orders coming our way to maximise till the end of the year.

Rather than stay chill and cruise till the next phase, I am pushing my team hard to get up to the next peak, we must, in order to be better than last year and the year before.

1. Dilligence

2. Working Smart

3. Staying Focussed

4. Being Humble

5. Seizing Opportunities

There is no time like the Present.

Carpe Diem.   

Replace Old Habits with New Better Ones

 

I am currently reading a fascinating book by Charles Duhigg entitled Why we do what we Do in Life and Business.  Charles is an award winning reporter with an American newspaper and his book gives a fascinating insight to the workings of our brains.

Some 50 years ago, scientists wired the brain receptors of mice (whose DNA resemble human DNA by some 80%) to see which brain activity fires up and when. What they found most fascinating is that when they do a certain task for the first time, their brain activity is piqued and remains at high levels all throughout that activity.

Similarly for humans, we are creatures of 'habit' and are brains essentially lazy. Large or small, with high IQ, emotional intelligence et al, if we do not form good habits, and keep learning new things, we will slowly forget to 

a) rationalise

b) apply logic

c) memorise and internalise

d) deduce

e) intuit

Above is the Habit Loop. It is a simple 3 step process. 

Cue 

This is the trigger. It either occurs naturally, such as hunger it is induced (for example the ringing of the school bell) 

We then follow a routine  which has been evolved over the million of years, we go looking for food.

Once we  satisfy our hunger, we are satiated and have received our reward.  

This simple 3 step process has been  studied, analysed, adapted and refined by the smartest brains in diverse industries such as consumer marketing, food science,  high fashion marketing and even in oil companies (!). 

The basal ganglia internalization concept is so novel that 99.99% of our population are internalizing our routes from home to office and return without even recognizing the triggers.

Case in point ; 

Have you ever been drunk and still managed to make it home, without even understanding how you reached home ? I hear a chorus of 'yesses' in the cyberspace background.

See, if you are out at, say your favourite watering hole. You have been there (say) 5 or 6 times. Most days you are lucid and clear when you make your way back (I hope you are not driving as DUI can get you a big fine or even a short jail sentence ; get a drink valet).

So, the first trigger is this. Gosh its 11 pm, time to go home, I got work tomorrow. Go Home

So you make your way home, after a glass of beer. You decide to take the MRT or subway home, and you are in Chinatown, so, you are aware that you go to the subway station and subconciously your eyes pick up cues as to where to turn left or right, cross the street and which entrance is the subway and so on. This is the Routine which you are internalizing for the first time.

You also have your Passion Card (EZLink card for public transport) and proceed to the correct line.In time your train arrives, you stroll, or stumble, slouch into the train seat, have a slight nap, and get off at your station, walk up, turn left, cross 2 street intersections and you reach your HDB flat or condominium.

This is when you make your way home for the first time and are only slightly 'high'. 

You reach home, and you feel so relieved. You can undress, unwind, have a hot shower, maybe take a good dump before you hit the sack, slightly inebrieated, and all is well with the world. That is your Reward.  

So, your brain receptors have been at heightened levels all this while. In will be internalized.

The more the number of times you repeat this process, you will get more and more familair that going and returning home from your favorite pub becomes a habit. 

In the end, the habit develops into a craving for you, so much so that  you set fixed dates and times just to go to the pub say every Friday night from 6pm till 11 pm.

So, the pubs advertise the fact that there are Happy Hours, Friday Night Madness, World Cup, EPL, F1 and any excuse to get of the house night for a drink or two.

Your craving is so well developed that you subconsciously do it and get rewarded even before there is any marketing or media promotion adviertising (for today) - say - Mid Autumn Festival Night at Che Suzette and all drinks are 1 for 1 form 5 pm to 8pm.

You ultimately develop a drinking habit and it may ultimately develop into an unhealthy addiction. You will then have a serious problem.

Now, coming back to the times you end up drunk. How do you still reach home, hit the sack and the next day, miraculously wonder how you made it home in one piece ??

Its the Basal Ganglia Internalization which kicks in. In your drunken state, you still mutter OMG, I need to go home after you have had, say, 7 - 8 beers.

Subconsciously, your eyes detect visual cues and landmarks when you were sober, and you slowly make your way, turn in the correct direction, cross the correct street intersections, and all the way to your block. 

You manage to go home with the minimum of brain activity being activated. Your basal cognitive functions sight, visual cues and some spatial awareness are activated. The higher level functioning such as deduction, logic, rationalization and memory are temporarily non usable and non functioning.

You reach home, fumble for your house key, go in, tip toe past the wife's side of the bed and slide into bed.

The next day you have no recollection of how you got home safely.

Thanks to the Force of Habit (Process repeated a few times, it becomes internalized).  

 

 

A Post for the week ahead.

 

I have ascribed to the fact that to achieve anything of value, one has to have discipline and endure hardship both mental and physical.

The next 12 - 18 months will be challenging as my company will attempt to scale the Everest of its 21 year existence.

Goals  (2024 / 25) 

1. Revenue                 : S$ 5 Million (2024 / 25)

2. Profit  EBITDA        : S$ 1 Milllion

It is very easy to take a cruise, but extremely difficult to scale Mt Everest.

I intend to scale the Mt Everest of my business this 12 - 18 months.