Prepare to be financially stable earlier

I lived in my parents' home until the age of 16. My parents had difficulty financially throughout the years when I was still living with them. We belong to low income family. Till now, my brother is still not too happy that my father did not make plans for our education and even squandered all his (very little) money in the stock market due to his ignorance in investment. Thankfully, all 3 of my siblings could finish our tertiary education by self-funding. But I still think it is amazing that my parents could support us at least until we were independent enough to leave home. For that, I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

However it is only natural that I often wonder - Could I have achieved more than just successfully graduated at a certain age? The answer is yes, and the result would have depended on the initial conditions I was exposed to as a child.


Effect of initial condition when we were little
After I graduated from postgraduate school, I joined a company as a design engineer. After one year, a young girl (her initial is RT) also joined the same team. Our age gap was at least 3 years because I entered work force after completing 2 years of Masters program while she started to work in our company right after completing the Bachelor's degree. What surprised me though was that she was more confident, more knowledgeable, more exposed, more composed and had more capacity to help others than any peers her age or even people more senior than her. As a fresh graduate, she was already drawing steady income from her investment and planning to fund her MBA course all by herself from her investment income alone! In other words, she actually did not need the small salary from the job at our company, she was there only to gain work experience. She already had her future mapped out.

Have you heard of Robert Kiyosaki, or his book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"?

So here was what I found out. The background of RT was that since little, her parents had already introduced her to the world of investing instead of saving money in the bank. I bet for the most of us, our parents advocated saving money and avoid buying shares because they would say that is too risky, was that the same case for you too? I bet! That is not wrong actually, but that is not the whole truth out there. Now please do not blame our parents for not having the whole truth. Of course parents want their children to be free of financial troubles, and that was why they encouraged saving money and not risk losing money when we were growing up (on stock market), because that was all that they knew was the best for their children. And most unrefuted of all, it was because they themselves did not have the whole truth to begin with since they were also not being educated about the power of investing money and the strategy of diversification as opposed to saving money in the bank.


The right education is the fast-track to reaching your goal*
*Goal can be many things, in this post, we refer to financial stability

In the case of Robert Kiyosaki, he had a Rich Dad as his mentor. In the case of RT, her parents were her mentors. In my case, I did not have THIS mentor.

I am now in my 40s. I have met many people. There are a handful of people I know who were fortunate to have similar initial condition given to them as children as in the case of RT.  Believe it or not, these people all look more composed and in control of their life compared to peers of their age or even those more senior than them. To me, it is not surprising since at the same age as us, they are already far ahead in terms of financial stability having been equipped with the right education on wealth creation and personal financial planning since they were at a younger age. While they are executing their strategy towards gaining higher financial status, many of us without the same education on wealth creation could still be struggling to figure out the ways of growing wealth. It could be a lot of stress juggling time among different life priorities/ activities right after graduation. I struggled between doing all I could to meet expectations from my job and finding the little time after that for learning the ways available for growing wealth. I think you agree with me that financial stability has a big role to play in the subsequent development of a person. One aspect is that the more financially stable a person is, the calmer the person is, and the more focused the person can be in further development of oneself.

To prepare your children for a earlier start, it is like preparing them from losing out. I just feel so strongly that the initial condition we provide to our children is very important. So, we should provide the right education as early as possible.


Start wealth creation education today

How can one pass on the right education on wealth creation to their children? First, we need to self-educate. Then, we educate children.

There are 3 paths you can take to increase your wealth further, no matter what state of wealth you are in today.

1. Start exposing yourself to knowledge about wealth creation. Read articles and books, and then experiment what you learn from those sources and start the baby steps. You can do that at your spare time, from the comfort of your home. The experimentation will have total privacy.

2. Attend seminars and talks. Many financial institutions regularly hold seminars to increase the public awareness of their financial products. You can make use of that as your vehicle to learning wealth creation in a much faster way because the seminars are basically lectures with Q&A sessions! Singapore Exchange (SGX), a leading trading platform headquartered in Singapore, for example, has an SGX Academy which provides education programmes to teach public about investment. Some of their programmes are free of charge!

3. Find a mentor. Talk to people you know who have been there, done that. Anyone who has experimented wealth creation with some degree of success can be your reference point. Or anyone who has been trained and making their living out of wealth creation can be who you approach for your opportunity to learn. Do not avoid financial consultants from the banks or insurance companies. Arrange meeting with them and hear about how they can plan for you. You will be surprised how much we do not know can be done to diversify our wealth creation portfolio than financial consultants know.


After that, there are also 3 options to prepare children for an early start in life:

1. Educate our children ourselves. If you believe you are a good educator, and you have patience with your own children, this should be the most economical way to give your children a great initial condition or a great start. Draw illustrations to simplify the concepts. Use books and online articles as reference materials.

2. Have someone else educate our children. This will be the choice when we cannot confidently teach our own children. Find an education center which teaches wealth management to kids. They may have some more fun ways to illustrate the concepts. If you cannot find one locally, find it online. Nowadays the idea of home-school is encouraging learning stuff outside of regular curriculum. So wealth creation can be one such topic.

3. Have a financial plan executed for our children. Have we ensured that our children will have a small sum of money as a head start when they are going to start living independently from home? If yes, great. If no, you may want to consider a savings scheme that can grow your savings with time at an interest rate that is higher than traditional saving in a bank. For example in Singapore, the interest rate for traditional saving in a bank is 0.05%, but there are savings scheme out there that provide at least 3% interest rate for saving the same amount of money over a fixed number of years. It will be good to engage a financial consultant to explore the best scheme. From there, you can learn and explain that scheme to your child, although for me I prefer not to inform my child that I have bought this scheme for her but instead, encourage her to participate in it. The reason is that I don't like to give my child the feeling that she does not need to work for wealth herself, but that is me, you can decide to do it differently.

Well, those are my opinions. Good luck!

The meaning of life

Are you one of those people who has asked the question: what is the meaning of life?

I believe anyone who has experienced many times of ups and downs in life enough to ponder about why life is the way it is would have asked this question. I am one of them. Have you found your answer yet? This question has been in my mind for many years but it is not until most recently that my thoughts begin to crystallize on a definite answer - the meaning of life is to pursue THE purpose of providing value/s to this world. 

Let me explain why...

It begins with 5 basic levels of needs

In one training classes I took up, I learned that there are 5 basic levels of needs in human as explained in Marslow's hierachy of needs, the highest level being 'self-actualization'. This highest level of need is about a man's need to achieve his full potential to actualize what he/she wants to be, after the lower levels of needs have all been fulfilled. In our context here, self-actualization refers to the need to accomplish the ultimate best of the best ideal success one desires for himself/herself (different from esteem/respect), for instance, being top salesperson of a global company, or being renowned surgeon in a medical field, or being the most sought-after consultant in a technology field, etc. In today's developed nations where physiological needs (food/shelter etc), safety needs and social needs are more easily achieved, most people will probably be looking to satisfy their higher level needs in esteem (4th level) and self-actualization (5th level). Speaking from my life experience and what I have seen happening around me so far especially in the corporate world, I fully agree that lacking in a need in any level will cause dissatisfaction in a person's life, even for the 4th and the 5th highest level of needs. No one level of needs can be compromised. When there is dissatisfaction in any level of need, there will be discomfort and therefore unhappiness in a person. So, it is very natural that everybody is in pursuit of fulfilling all those levels of needs because the pursuit of happiness is in everyone's nature. 

Let's say many of us already have the ability to unleash our best potential in us and have become the best performer we believe we can be in our field, is it the end? Once all the 5 basic level of needs have been fulfilled, what is next? Have we then grabbed the trophy of happiness that will last permanently till the day we die? I asked myself these questions. My answer is No. 

Why fulfilling the 5 basic needs is just the foundation of the pursuit of actual happiness?

The tip is in our everyday life. Just think of these cases for example and imagine you have already unleashed your fullest potential and you are now the best performer in your field by your definition (i.e. you believe you have achieved self-actualization). When your kid is stressed over homework, do you feel like helping him/her? Yes, I think you do. When your spouse is unhappy over his current job, do you feel like you can do something to release him from that situation? Yes, I think you do. When your parent is unwell in hospital, do you feel like you can relieve him/her of suffering? Yes, I think you do. Now let's move away from anchoring on people who you love on the personal level, and let's check our conscience for group level. When your neighborhood has children who have not enough to eat because of low income parents, do you pity them and want to do something? Yes, I think you do, even when they are not directly related to you. When your hometown has been damaged by natural calamity when you are living abroad, do you immediately want to donate money and time to rebuild it? Yes, I think you do, even if none of your relative is living in the city anymore. Am I right? Just like you, my answers to all those few questions are also "Yes, I do.". Otherwise, I worry, I feel uncomfortable, my happiness will be short-lived and I cannot truly be happy.

Do you see what I am getting at?

Happiness derived from an individual's success is limited in my opinion. True happiness is derived from contributing to other people's happiness as well. Long lasting happiness can be reality only when others within our influence are also in the process of achieving happiness.

That concept was supported by Maslow because in his later year, Maslow further suggested there is one further level of need in man beyond self-actualization which is called self-transcendence. This level describes one's actualization by achieving higher goal outside of oneself, thereby attaining holistic level of human consciousness.

I conclude the meaning of life...

Since we are living in connection with people, it should be difficult to be happy when others around us are not happy due to unfulfilled needs. Doing something meaningful to help others feel happy should in turn make us feel happy too. Afterall, what is it we yearn for everyday? The feeling of being happy and secure, isn't it? Imagine a world where everybody's 5 basic needs have been fulfilled and even the 6th need is fulfilled, what kind of world will that be? That world will not have suffering anymore. I certainly will want to live in such a world. (Could it be nirvana as described in Buddhism? I do not know and cannot comment)

Therefore, I conclude that the meaning of life is to provide value to others within our influence by helping them so that the basic needs of others can be fulfilled and then together happiness can be created and multiplied.

First attempt to understand personal branding

I am now in Starbucks sipping coffee having the best time because I get paid right now by a company for the time I am not working in their office! But I don't like to waste time daydreaming so actually I have enrolled into an online course about personal branding offered by Kimberly Barker (she is funny!) of University of Virginia.

As part of being a good student, I am committed to good notes taking.

Why bother with building your personal brand?

1. It provides you a reason to spend time figuring out what's important to you, and therefore what you hope to do professionally.
2. It will differentiate you from people who do similar work, and create awareness of information that is important to your work.
3. It gives you the opportunity to put your best foot forward and build your reputation.
4. It provides a way for the right kinds of people/professional opportunities to find you.
5. Ensuring that your external professional image matches your internal values.
6. You have gifts to give this world, and building your brand provides an efficient means of gift delivery.

Glenn Llopis wrote an article in Forbes which said personal branding is a leadership requirement, is our trademark, is what others are experiencing about us and what we want others to experience about us that we want to be responsible to serve as a leader, not a self-promotion campaign.