The Office Middleman & Running Progress October 2019

Hi friends,

Today is the last day of October so here's my running progress for this month. I downloaded this running summary from the Runtastic app which I believe is now called Adidas Running.

Overall, I'm happy that I hit my monthly target of 100 km per month. Feels so good to be able to keep up with my target again after failing for two consecutive months on August and September.

Here are some other stats that I calculated myself based on the summary.

Average distance per session: 5.19 km

Average pace: 8.24 min/km

Though I could see my pace improving compared to last month, it is still slightly above the sub 8 minutes mark which is the cut-off time for an average 10K running event. But I think I could beat the cut-off time if I keep this routine up. 

I was thinking of increasing the intensity of my routine but still can't decided between clocking-in a higher mileage or doing more speed training. I guess I just have to try which one I like more.

Here's an overall progress of my running journey.

Alright, with my running summary out of the way, I would like to write about the office middleman.

As far as my working experience goes, I noticed that the people at the higher ups don't necessarily have more merits than the people who works under them. Sometimes it surprises me that something as minuscule as knowing the facts related to their job could be something that they have no knowledge about. Stuff that are widely agreed as common sense in the workspace of their field isn't so common to them at all.

When I'm seeing this infront of me, I would imprint this negative image of them being at their higher ranks just because they have their charms in the way they talk. The typical, "talking their way to the top" scenario.

Then after a few days of thinking about this, I think it's not necessarily a bad thing to have mediocre merits but sitting at the higher rank. While these people are mediocre at best at what they're suppose to do, they do have an added advantage of making their superiors feels reassured. Afterall, at the end of the day, everyone needs to feel reassured and want hear the things that they want to hear. In fact, I would go far as to say that the higher the rank of someone, the more reassurance that they want to hear from their workers. Hence, why the ones who knows how to communicate rises above the ranks even though having mediocre merits.

I believe that these people act as the middleman between the bosses and the workers. I've noticed that most workers prefer to only focus on the things that they are good at doing. Often, the work that they are good at doesn't involve establishing good communication with others. So here's the entry point for the middleman. Middleman would use their charm in providing reassurance to the boss about work while giving space to the actual workers to complete their work without any interruption of constant pressure in communication. These middleman establishes the important underlying coherence between command and action of work to be done.

Thus, this dawned on me. If you were to be a good leader, it would also make sense to focus on being the middleman. The goal is to find someone who is an expert in what they are doing. Get their expertise in delivering good results while "alleviating" their burden of having to make constant communication with bosses. By doing so, the image of hard work and importance will be embedded in you for appearing as the savior in the eyes of the superiors while managing the morale of the ones who actually do the work. Less merit people rises above the rank because they know what people around them wants. If you can identify and deliver that wants, you’ll be in good stance in the office dynamic in no time.

So be the person in the middle.

Cheers friends.

Luxury Of Choice

Hi friends,

Whenever I dig into any personal finance material, they would always urge us to start with an emergency fund before we proceed with any investments. Though the reasons for having such a fund will help you feel more secure, I still have some unsettling thoughts about this.

Personally, I think that to save for an emergency fund takes forever, at least for me. At this point of time, my savings rate doesn't really allow me to stash my money fast enough. To think that the suggested emergency fund should be within the vicinity of 6 months of wages or more is too far out of reach for me. Based on my rough calculations, it would take me about two years just to save up about 6 months of wages. And I don't think I could be patient enough for that.

So after thinking about this, I decided to abandon the emergency fund phase and immediately start to invest. This is certainly not the most ideal case but after thinking this through, I am grateful to be able to proceed with this plan because I do have the luxury of choice in this matter. Knowing that I do have this luxury and this luxury won't last forever, I decided to leverage on it and proceed.

In essence, I'm very grateful to have a supportive family that I could lean on should there be any inconvenience that comes my way. At times I do feel like I'm taking advantage (with negative connotation here) of my family but all things considered, the benefits do outweigh the risks. Should things go well, the benefits will undeniable trickle down within my circle of family as well.

After all this, it got me thinking. Having a luxury of choice is the most underrated luxury of all. I've often hear about having the luxury of time and wealth. But luxury of choice also gives you wider options to work with in life. It gives more flexibility and it lessens the barrier to start on something. I'm grateful that I have this and I will leverage it to the best of my ability for now.

What are your luxury of choice? Have you leverage on it? 

Cheers friends. 

Aquaponics Mini Project

Hi friends,

I've been working on a small aquaponics project because I love the idea of sustainability that it brings. In theory, it's a self-sustaining perpetual system that provides green plants and fishes for my consumption. If you want to know more about aquaponics, I think this website gives a good explanation on it which you can find here.

I found a secondhand system in the market and it came in with the complete set albeit with a few quirks. Overall, still happy that I got them for only RM250 compared to brand new set being RM380.

One major drawback from this purchase is that the system's siphon tube doesn't work. I still don't know the cause of it but I suspect that it's because that the siphon tube is slightly slanted. As a result, it doesn't drain as it should when the water level reaches the targeted height. Instead, the system just continuously overflows the water out from the growbed. Not exactly ideal but it still works.

The expectation that I had coming into this project was that I only have to provide the food for the fishes and let nature run its course without my intervention. However, after one month going at this I quickly realize that it's not as hands-off as I hope. There are a few challenges that I'm facing and they are:

1. Clogged water pump
2. Mosquito breeding ground
3. Low germination rate

For the first challenge that I faced, I noticed that the leftover food by the fish will eventually clog the water pump that feeds the water into the growbed. This leads to two more undesired situation which are slow turnover rate for the water in the growbed and lower drain rate which causes less oxygen for the fish. These are undesirable mainly because a slower turnover rate in the growbed will suffocate the roots of the plants with no nutrients water. The most ideal case is that the roots should always receive a healthy flow of nutrient rich water for it to grow healthily. Also, since I mainly rely on the water drain from the growbed to the fish tank as the main source of oxygen for the fish, I need the drain rate to also be strong. A strong water drain into the fish tank will create more splash and thus, increasing the oxygen in the water for the fish. 

The best way I know how to overcome this challenge is to clean the pump. So far, I've cleaned it 3 times in a month. I'm guessing that this is the way to go no in order to maintain a healthy water flow in the system.

Challenge number two is to overcome a build-up of mosquito larvae in the growbed. I noticed that a slow water turnover rate kinda creates a situation where the water is stagnated in the growbed which is a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. I've yet to find solution to this but hope that I'm wrong in saying that it's a mosquito larvae. Because some sources pointed out that the larvae might belong the the midge fly. If that's the case, it'll be less of a worry for me because midge fly is harmless.

Last challenges I've faced so far is having low germination rate for some of my plants. So far, I've planted 4 plants which are cherry tomatoes, water spinach and spinach. Only the water spinach has the highest germination rate while the others are not doing so good. Probably the way to go about this is to germinate the seeds on a moist kitchen towel first before transferring them on the growbed. 

In general, there are a lot more work and attention that needs to be put in this project. Not really what I expected but I'm still loving it. At least, when the day comes, I get to harvest the plants and eat them!

Here's some progress photos on the growbed.

Day 0

Day 4

Day 10

Day 28

It takes about 60 days for tomatoes to be fully ready to harvest after germination. Can't wait for that!

Cheers friends.

5 Lessons Every Week

Hello friends,

Today is going to be an update about the lessons I've learned over the past week. This is sort of a follow up from the previous post I've made which you can read about it here.

Without further ado, here are the 5 lessons I've learned.

7 Oct - Focus on navigating data rather than getting more data.

8 Oct - Immediately execute after a eureka moment.

9 Oct - A theory is a model that correctly explains a big number of observations.

10 Oct - There are still tons left to discover. So always ask questions!

11 Oct - Being compassionate is a choice.

If you've noticed, my previous post was inspired by the lesson I've learned on October 8th. I can kinda see the benefits of writing down these lessons since they can get my mind thinking about those ideas and I'll inadvertently try to relate them back to my life. Having these lessons at the back of my head helps piecing things together about the experience I'm having.

Other than that, some other interesting thing I want to highlight is that the lesson I've learned on 7th October resonates well with what I've written before when I was making a report for my work. Probably I will share them here one day. Just to give you a teaser, the title is: Dell' Security Transformation For The Digital Era.

When I first decided on writing these lessons, I initially figured that the lessons should be random stuff that could either be sourced from online readings, my own train of thoughts or my life experience so that these lessons brings benefits from the bigger perspective. But I quickly noticed that there isn't much structure to that kind of approach and I end up thinking about the source of the lessons more than about the lessons itself. 

So I've decided on a new approach, which is to only list down one lesson I like from the list of books in the four minute books summary. With this, I already have a source for the lessons so all I have to do is to just list out which lessons from the summary I think makes the most sense to me. To be honest, I'm not giving much thought on all these but I believe that we can improve on things as we go on this journey of being 1% better everyday!

Stay curious friends!

Fin.

Immediately Execute On A Good Idea

Hi friends,

I have a couple of 'good ideas' saved in my notes that I think would make a very interesting post. However, I've been delaying on posting them because I always tell myself that, "You have to save this for last because the contents are good." As a result, it never really materialized into anything.

I guess I've learned something from this experience. In whatever that you do, always play your trump card first. By doing so, you'll always give your best in any circumstances. 

I've seen some benefits from doing this. Firstly, we all have to accept the fact that nothing is perfect in this world. So whatever ideas you have that you think are 'good', they could always be redefined into a better idea. I think that to always evolve and build on top of a good idea is the best approach that everyone should take in their life.

Second benefit I see from playing your trump card first is that you'll keep finding other ideas and solutions to fill in your mind. Imagine yourself already having this good idea in your head and you decide to hold it back until you think that the idea is ready for the world. Your mind will be constantly fixated on the same thing and it's hard to expand your mind out from there. But, if you've already written down whatever idea you want to say, even if it's a half-baked idea, you'll already cleared out your mind from that backlog of the same idea and you can thus proceed with finding the next best thing.

My take on this is that, there is no such thing as a perfect idea or a perfect solution. It's just non-existent because there will be always room for improvements in everything that we do. So whatever goal, ideas and vision that you have, just commit to doing it because as you put motion on them, they will continuously be better.

Listen to your ideas and get moving friends!

Habit Stacking To Displace Bad Habit

Hi friends,

I noticed that it is significantly harder for me to get rid of bad habits than forming a new one. A bad habit feels so ingrained in my life that I sometimes don't even notice that I'm doing it. 

So I Googled for some solution on this and I found one that I highly resonate with. It's called habit stacking.

Based on the notion that creating a habit is easier than breaking a bad one, we should approach breaking bad habits by forming a better habit to displace it. That's the frame of mind that we should go about. And the way forward to this is to create a new habit that anchors onto an already good habit that you have. 

So I have a very bad habit of not cooling down after my jog. I tend to skip it because I just don't like stretching (I'm bad at it). The way for me to combat this is to tell myself to do at least 2 push-ups after a run. By doing so, I will naturally transition into any stretching form while I'm already on the ground and I tend to just follow through with the stretching before ending my routine. So far it has worked because I like doing push-ups. I also don't have any excuse for not being able to commit to at least doing 2 push-ups!

That's the habit stacking I've made thus far. How does your habit stacking looks like? 

Hope you all get some benefits from habit stacking! Cheers.

Decision Fatigue On Routine Activities

Hi friends,

I came across several interesting articles lately about how millennial entrepreneurs are sprouting everywhere from vast variety of business fields.

The interesting thing that strikes me the most is that most of them share one thing in common: They don't get decision fatigue from routine activities.

When can I do my laundry? What do I want to buy for groceries? What's for lunch and dinner today? Have I locked the door when I went to work this morning? Do I have enough cash or do I need to go to the bank later?

Those are the typical set of questions that most of us asks ourselves pretty much on a routine basis. We have to think about them because we carry these responsibilities ourselves and pretty much it will leave us in a bad way if we do not give enough attention to them. All that micro planning and decision making will eat up your decision-making-capacity and eventually make you restless by the end of the day. Leaving you with no more room for other micro decision makings let alone thinking of a creative one.

This is where I notice the difference between successes and failures. Successful people have the luxury of having their decision-making-capacity being channeled in situations that leads to greater wealth. That is the primary reason why people become successful people. 

This idea has lead me to strive for thinking of ways to reduce my decision fatigue on the routine items and put more emphasis decision making situations where it will grant me greater wealth benefits.

I'm curious to know as how do you channel your decision-making-capacity in your daily life?

Cheers friends.

Strategic Positioning

Hi friends,

I've been trying to define a set of rules in life for myself so that at the very least, I have a sense of direction in where I'm going at in life. This inspiration came from reading the summary of Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules For Life. Lately, I've been taking in a lot of advice from my dad about how to approach oneself in the working life. He's been giving me a lot of useful advice but here's the advice from him that sticks.

It essentially boils down to 3 rules.

1. Strategic positioning
2. Money now
3. Money later

In every step in life, you'll always have to ask yourself these 3 questions. The journey of finding these answer will set you off on a path of meaningful pursuit.

In order to pursue towards a goal, we have to start somewhere. Figuring out where to start will help you answer rule #1.

Rules #2 and #3 are about money. Afterall, money is certainly not everything but everything needs money. Thus, it is impeccable to always think about money in present terms and in future terms.  By doing so, it helps our brain to constantly think of ways to find opportunities to leverage on.

The separation of these two rules also gives a good sense of the power of moments in the now. To realize that all moments shall pass, it will embed a sense of urgency to do something in the moment before the later arrives.

The whole idea of these rules are about preparation. If I could summarize the rules, it would be: 

To strategically positioning oneself in the now for the future.

Where are you positioning yourself?

Cheers friends.

Decision Is Motivation

Hi friends,

I've read something a long time ago about the source of motivation. If I recall correctly, the book argues that motivation stems from your decision to act on something. It is concluded that motivation will never come if you don't decide on doing it. Essentially, people can't give you motivation. Only you can give yourself motivation.

I kinda agree with the idea. But if I could suggest any comments on the conclusion, I would add an element of mind priming into the motivation equation.

I feel like my motivation is somehow finite. So after that initial blast of decisiveness I've achieved, I could only go on so long until I'll be tired again. At certain point, my motivation needs to be replenish. Personally, I think the way for me to replenish my motivation tank is to get some priming in my mind to get things going. Once I've instilled some stimulus in my head consuming all the positive boost, the decision to take action will be its natural response. Hence, I'll be motivated.

As of current, I would start my day by watching a 4 minutes motivational video on YouTube. It's literally me going on YouTube, searching for 'motivational videos' and filter the duration to be less than 4 minutes. I'll just click on any video and watch it. Giving my undivided attention.

The extent to which how effective this is, is still uncertain. But the idea of taking action to prime myself to take action on something, is an idea I find solace in doing. It's all about taking it one step at a time and keep on moving. Afterall, it's a lifestyle I'm building here.

I'm curious to know as to what ways do you replenish your motivation tank?

PS: Got myself to do this after a friend suggested me to do so. Thanks friend.

Cheers.

Tools That The Rich Are Using To Get Richer

Hi friends,

I think I've figured out the one of the ways how the rich are getting richer.

And it's through credit card. The essence in all this is that, the more you could spend, the more you're rewarded. But to spend more, you'll have to earn more.

We all know what a credit card is. We all know that with every purchase you made using a credit card, you'll get reward points. And that reward points are redeemable for selected goods and services. At this point, almost everyone has fairly easy access to it. Most if not all adults can have a credit card. But, where it makes a difference is, who could afford the higher tier cards.

These higher tier cards come with a lot more benefits compared to the general credit card. The benefits could even be several fold! The amount of cashbacks or bonus points collected could increase by two or three times more than the lower tier cards. And here's where bulk of the hacks that happen. If you could afford to overcome the threshold that the credit card company sets for you to own the higher tier cards, you'll be able to enjoy the higher benefits and hence, be richer.

The typical way that the rich are getting richer is by getting the bonus points or cashbacks on credit card signups. They usually comes with some caveats such as, you need to spend at least RM6K within the span of 2 months to get that bonus points. Or some even put stipulations like the expenses need to be more than RM80K per annum to avoid any fees and to continue using the credit card. 

With such high of a standard to meet in order to retain the credit usage, it's no wonder that only the rich could afford it. But the benefits would definitely outweigh the bad especially if the stipulations being set is already a fixed expenses you'll have to make regardless.

With this realization, at least now I know one of the tools that the rich are using to get richer.

Lets all strive to be wealthy together! Cheers friends.

Your Network Is Your Net Worth

Hi friends,

I've been thinking about the quote I've heard during my graduation. The quote rings something like this, "Your network is your net-worth".

I didn't really understand it then. But it makes sooo much sense now. 

In every business, making profit is the number 1 priority. If you were to conduct business like usual, your customer is just another customer. Chances are, you'll treat them just like any other customers. However, the moment your customer is someone you know. The whole dynamic could change. Think of this situation, if you could give some leeway during a business, to whom would you extend that to? Some stranger or someone that you know? If you'd ask me, I'll definitely give the benefit to someone that I know. That is because at least at the grand scheme of things, if I were to ever interact with that person again, and the chances of this occurring is very high, we would be in good standings with each other. Maintaining a harmonious relationship contributes greatly to the overall pleasure and quality of life.

So where am I going at here? Well, imagine that you are at the opposite end of the bargain where you receive the benefits from those around you. Wouldn't that be amazing? Wouldn't that elevate your overall quality of your life too? 

Ofcourse there are plenty of caveats to this whole idea but the main idea stays. Who you know, could determine the overall quality of your life.

The lesson from this post here is that, to always look at someone with the intent of benefiting from them. Be it in terms of knowledge, work ethics, attitude or maybe even their connections. This may sound selfish but I think if we were to go at it with good intentions, it'll inadvertently make you see the good in people. And suddenly, the whole world is a better place.

What have you learned from those around you?

Fin.

The Philosophy Of Life: Gratitude

Hi friend,

I've been reading a lot of self-motivational articles on the internet over the past years and I notice that there is a general theme that has been repeated time and time again. This is my conclusion so far. Note that my conclusion here will likely change from time to time. So lets just say that this is the current observation I had from all the reading materials I've come across.

The thing that we sought after most in this world is all the positive emotions in life. Some major examples would include happiness, contentment and tranquility. 

And the best way to achieve that is through gratitude. 

Most of the reading materials I've found outlined the granular approach on gratitude. The approach stems from teaching how one could instill gratification in life and how gratification could lead onto an overall feeling of positive emotions. That is it! That is the secret to a better life. Feeling grateful.

Two ways for us to increase the feeling of gratitude in our life is:

• To learn to want the things that we already have.
• To accept the things in your life. Good or bad. Make peace with acceptance.

I look at this as a very good rule to live by. I would even make this as my life philosophy. I view life philosophy as an umbrella guide that I could implement in many circumstances. I'm sure gratitude fits in somewhere in our daily life. 

Everyday you just have to ask yourself, "What am I grateful for today?"

That is all my friends. Have a good one.

Random Thoughts

Hi friends,

Ever since I tried deep diving into a habit of mindfulness, I noticed that my mind is constantly thinking about random things. It usually starts with a simple question, then it leads to another question, and then another, then another and so on. Before I knew it, it snowballed into a massive jumble of thoughts that I forgot where it started and don't know where it's going. Not really an ideal version of mindfulness I had in my mind but I think I'm improving. At least in terms of noticing what's going on in my head.

However, I noticed that whenever I try to recall back all the thoughts that I had a mere second ago, I find it really difficult to pull it out from the back of my head. I knew I had a brilliant idea/thought just now but it just slips through my mind in an instant! This has got me thinking, what is this whole situation of not recalling a thought I had seconds ago called? If no one has ever put a name on this, I probably want to name it as "the quantum properties of the mind". Tacky name, I know. It's a work in progress. But what I want to highlight here is that I noticed that my mind do not behave as I expect it to whenever I start to "observe" what it's doing. As soon as I uplift my focus from it however, my mind starts to go wild and I will notice what it is doing without fully absorbing what's happening because it is happening too fast.

So in the effort of further understanding what's going on in my mind, I'll write snippets of what I remember in my phone's notes. And maybe later, whenever I look back at it, it'll trigger any memories of that thought. This post was inspired by one of the points in the notes which I wrote:

Inspiration and thoughts act like the quantum world. They don't come when you expect them.

This is just some interesting observation I'm having. There's probably a whole field of psychology study in regards to this that I don't know about. I'm just putting it here so that I would remember that this is one of the experience I had after taking an internal look at myself.

I wonder if you ever had this kind of experience? Cheers guys.

Ideas That Transcends Reality

Hi friends,

Today's post is going to be a reminder for myself that no matter how rudimentary a lesson that I've learned, I've always to remember that the benefits of it is not going to be something that I'm going to experience in the next few moments. Best advice are felt when you turn it into habits. 

A recently new concept I've been reading is the aggregation of marginal gains which in essence says that overall positive impact starts with 1% improvement in the smallest of aspects. In theory, if you work on to improve even 1% of the daily task that you're doing and to do it continuously everyday, eventually the full benefit of it can be felt.

So that is what I'm doing right now. I'm nurturing a habit to always jot down 1 lesson that I've learned throughout the day. The lesson could be sourced from online readings, my own thought process or even an experience that I once had. Whatever it is, the goal from this lesson learnt is so that I could take action on those lessons and create a more positive environment for my life. This is definitely not something that I will be hard on to myself. I should already aspect that things may not go my way in terms of probably putting the lesson into actions but if I get to maintain this discipline of learning 1 lesson per day, that is good enough. In the grand scale of things, at least by doing this, I will be 1% better than me from a month ago. 

With that said, here are 5 lessons I've learned last week.

30 Sep - Ask yourself "why" before reading anything.

1 Oct - To observe without judging.

2 Oct - To pursue what is meaningful, not what is convenient.

3 Oct - Mentally strong people don't blame the things they can't control.

4 Oct - Think like a kid to be creative.

There are tons of stories and elaborations that could be made to further explain the lessons listed there. But I like writing just the general ideas there so that all the other explanation changes, adapts and improves every time I give my thoughts looking back at the list.

If I could give a one sentence summary of this whole idea is that, you have to alleviate all constraint and let your mind roam free to find ideas that transcends reality. 

Stay wild my friends.

Finding Tenants Experience

Hello friends,

I would like to share about one of my failures recently.

So I am very grateful to have parents that are financially literate. They are very much in tune with the ideas of having a rental income. As they are slowly reaching their golden age, they are also delegating their rental income operations to me. 

I was tasked to find a tenant for their flat. A task that seems pretty simple but one that I failed miserably at. It turns out there is a lot more in finding tenants than just posting an ad online.

I started with what I would call the easiest most effective way, which is to post an add online on Mudah.my. With the experienced I had from selling my dad's car, I thought that it was going to be a good idea to reciprocate the storytelling technique to win the heart of my potential tenants. 

Now the train of though that went through my mind was, 

I have a bare unit flat which means the tenant needs to pretty much invest their own pocket money for furniture, kitchen appliances, decors and etc. Which definitely be such a nuisance if I were to be in their shoes. So the best way that I should proceed with this is, I should be honest about my unit's shortcomings but to always point out the good alternatives around it. I figured that if I could show them, through my writings, that I'm honest, maybe I could give them an incentive to go about the positive experience that they will get for staying in a flat where the landlord is kind and approachable (oh how naive I sound). Below is the excerpt that I put on at the description of the ad:

Hello everyone!

It's [omitted] here and I'm listing this good'ol apartment that was recently given a lick of blue paint on the walls. I think the color gives a sense of comfort especially for all you blue lovers! The unit also recently received some tidy-up work so it appears crystal clean now. The exact location of this apartment is below for anyone who wishes to take some extra look at the location:

[omitted]

Tho the unit is a bit bare, meaning that it's not furnished and you pretty much just get the unit itself, but it's safe to say that the location is near many amenities. So you don't really need to worry about having to install many of them in the house. Everything is within 5 minutes drive from the apartment such as laundry, foods, supermarkets and even banks!

You can see the floor plan of the unit in the photo provided in this ad. It's not drawn to scale but at least it gives a good idea on how the apartment looks like from the inside. Pair it with the other photos attached, I think you can get a good picture of it. This unit is located on the 5th floor and unfortunately there's no elevator. It's such a bummer, I know! So, I would only suggest this for you young people out there who's willing to take the challenge of going up those 10 flights of stairs each day! Or for any of you young families that have been skipping on your routine exercises because of work! Consider the stair climbing activity as your exercise. Hehe. 

About the rental price, I'm listing this for RM1000/month. So if you're intereted, that means you'll have to pay upfront of two rentals months (RM2000) plus with half a month of pay for the utilities (RM500). Don't worry, you're advanced 1 month rental will be returned back should the unit is looking as clean as how you've entered it! And your utilities bill will also be returned should there are no outstanding bill at your last month of stay! I prefer tenants that plan to have a long-term stay say, at least 1 year. Because it would be easier for both of us especially when it comes to moving all those furniture around! But I'm always open to any discussion. 

So go ahead and drop me any messages and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. You can just WhatsApp me or email me. Oh, before I forgot, I'm only available on Saturday afternoon if you would like to take a look at the unit. So if you want to schedule a house-viewing, I'm available any Saturday from 2 pm to 5 pm (unless I'm busy but I'll try to make time). I'm not really that uptight about the apartment dealing, especially the pricing. So if you could give me a good bargain, I'll probably accept it. 

I think that's all. Have a good day!

End of excerpt.

After waiting for 62 days, not one gave me a rang to inquire about the rental property. 62 days is the amount of time that my ad will automatically gets pull down from Mudah.my since I'm only using a free tier plan.

Anyway, I've reflected upon this and here's some of the lesson I learned.

1. My rental price was too expensive. After some research, RM1000 a month is absurd. I found out that the most expensive rent for the 4th floor was RM700. Logically, moving up a floor, the rental should always be cheaper especially if it's a walk-up flat (no elevators). Now why didn't I think of the price before putting up the ad? Well, the story goes like this. In the previous years, my parents actually engaged with a nearby flying academy and offered up the unit for the students there. And since the flying academy is a corporate entity, my parents marked up the price to RM850. Which is well above what a 5th floor unit rental should be. Since this was the only info I got at that time, I immediately thought that I should just hike the price up if I wanted to keep up with inflation. But, oh boy was I wrong. It turns out the standard rental for 5th floor unit was about RM650 a month. Which explains why nobody even bothered to inquire about the unit on the ad. After knowing all this, I decreased the rental price to RM600. Before I knew it, I got about 2 calls per day asking about the flat. Also some other interesting thing to note, we are no longer conducting business with the flying academy because there is a newer apartment located nearer to the school. Ofcourse, it would be a wiser decision for them to search for students apartments there.
2. Know your target clients. The thing that I overlooked the most was who my potential tenant was. I've been immersing myself with figuring out the cheapest most easiest way for advertising the house to the point that I forgot who would even rent such a place. The easiest way, I thought, would be to just do it all online and hoping that the ad would find someone who would reach out to me. But the thing is, the unit is a flat. Almost nobody would search on the internet for a flat. But people who passes by that unit might be interested to know more if they saw a "For Rent" sign. I learned that I have to be aware that there are still people that values seeing the house for themselves. Some even take some time off just to drive around, looking for a "For Rent" sign while passing through the neighborhood. So that's what we eventually did. My parents bought a "For Rent" sign and we hung it on the flat's window. Before we know it, calls are getting in. 
3. Be prepared for the bad clients you interact with. Filter them and don't waste your time on lowballers. If you're unlucky, you'll find yourself having to deal with 2 types of clients that are not worth your time. The first are the lowballers and the second are the ones who tells their sad life story to get your empathy. These are the 2 types to just shrug off if you find yourself dealing with them. I've received countless calls about them making absurd lowball offers and life tragedy stories. To speak about it once or twice is alright but to always bring it up in every conversation even though you've made your decisions clear, it means that they probably don't have enough income for the rent to begin with.
4. Description might be too long or doesn't provide enough emotional punch. I realized that there are 2 camps of people in the description section. The first are the ones who prefer specs and details of the house and the second is the ones who loves beautiful descriptions of the house. Which camp to use on the description totally depends on the type of rental unit being offered. After learning it through the hard way, I know now that the obvious choice to write on the description should be all specs and points about the house. It is a flat. Nobody is looking at is as if it's a mansion or a 5 star hotel.

After all of this, the main conclusion that I could draw from this experience is that you just have to be yourself. Don't try too hard to be nice and kind. If you just be who you really are, that is as 'honest' as you can be. Just make sure to be thoughtful during interactions. Treat your clients with respect and not as your superior. I believe that if you just be yourself and treat others as how you wanted to be treated, that trait is enough to captivate people. Only then you can make real connections and meaningful relationships.

That's all the writing for today. Thank you friends.

Tunnel Vision Into My Mind

Hello friends,

Today I would like to cement the goal of this blog into words. To be able to look upon it and remind myself with every glance I lay through this post again.

The goal of this blog is to watch how I articulate my mind about the things surround me. To see its development. To nurture its growth. To improve its view of the world surround. I believe that the art of thinking is to have a clearly defined thought process. A thought process that knows when a thought has 'popped' in the mind, why it has 'popped' and why the 'popped' has stayed. Equipping myself with this, hoping that the right way of thinking could lead me to the truth of any matter that present itself.

Honestly it's going to be quite embarrassing to have someone peaking into this blog because I would argue that reading this would be the same as having a tunnel vision into my mind. Nevertheless, whatever the judgement may be, what is life if we do not risk offending ourselves in the pursuit of the truth? For every murmurs of others is a good reminder for my humility and ego to be in check.

Stay on this course as I uncover the journey through my mind.

Cheers.

Transitioning Should Be A Priority

Hello friend,

I got a eureka moment just now.

I am convinced that all the experiences that we go through right now will someday be beneficial for us in the future. If we just absorb everything that we've learned, even the minute ones, I'm sure we could apply it someplace else where the magnitude of usefulness of that experience would greatly enhance our life.

So the thing that I've learned today is to not ignore the transition of an activity. We all have our "to do" list. Often, the list consists of objectives that we aspire to finish up given a certain length of time. And then we further break down the objectives into actionable steps. Now the eureka moment that I had today was not to neglect the transition of one activity to another.

By putting equal priority to the transitioning, we are preparing ourselves to be more equipped and organized when executing a certain task.

I don't have any concrete examples as of yet to solidify this abstract idea but I know that transitioning plays an essential role in ensuring the smooth sailing of your tasks at hand. This seems rudimentary but a strong foundation could go a long way.

Got this thought bubble during my meditation today. Very interesting indeed.

That is all. Thanks for reading friends.

Mindfulness

Bonjour madame

For this post, I want to tell you about my newfound take on prayers (salah).

Ever since I was a kid, I was taught about the concept of khusyu' which I generally understood it as being fully focused on the prayer. I often thought that to achieve such state, one has to be pious to really get the benefits of praying. With this mindset, I find myself hopeless whenever it comes time for prayers. Hopeless because I would think that it is such a huge task for me to be positioning myself to attain the state of being truly khusyu'. Which eventually lead me to just braze through the motion because I know that it is so far of reach for me to attain the state of khusyu'.

But now, I'm having a new take on khusyu' and on prayers itself. I view salah as a mental exercise for my brain. I redefined the meaning of khusyu' as not to be to give full focus on prayers. But, to tell myself that it's okay to let your mind wonder around at times but just be aware of that's happening so that I will stop from wandering around and to return to the initial focus during the salah. Setting a focus point is crucial in this mental exercise and my go-to focus point would be the correctness of my pronunciation of the surah being recite. As long as I focus on the pronunciation, I feel like it is a good enough mental exercise for me to maintain the focus. And this whole exercise is so that I will be more aware of what's going through my mind; Being mindful. Being in-control. 

Your life is mostly on auto-pilot. When you've been doing the same over and over again, your minds are already accustomed to it and you just go through life without even noticing it. When things are going unintentionally, things all around you gets ignored and you'll never really appreciate the things that are happening at present. 

So here's my new take on mindfulness. I feel a slight increase in contentment right now just because I get to get my mind thinking. And the "thinking" is nothing heavy like solving problems or coming up with new ideas. It's just a mere awareness of where my mind is going and I have the power to steer it. It comes especially handy when my thoughts are going to the negative side. When that happens, by being in the state of mindfulness, I get to take a breather, consult myself about the consequences, and then move on to a, hopefully, brighter frame of mind.

Lets try and do it too! Just take 1 minute of your day everyday to focus on one thing and one thing only. Start with focusing on your breathing. Just sit and focus on your inhales and exhales for 1 whole minute without thinking about anything else. If a thought pops out, it's okay. Don't just immediately shove it away. Instead, you absorb the thought, realize that you're thinking about something else, put it aside for later, and then continue to focus on your breathing. Once you get this done, eventually this habit will trickle down into your everyday train of thoughts. Before you know it, the gap between your stimulus and response grow wider. And soon, your response tends to be the more empowering one.

Goodluck friend.

Storytelling To Close A Deal

Hi friends,

Today, I want to share about my first ever big ticket sale.

About a year ago, around August 2018, I successfully sold my dad's car. It was a 1997 Toyota Prado 2.7L Petrol. I was so proud of that sales because I sold it through storytelling.

Not long before I began advertising the car, I watch a TED Talk on YouTube about the effects of storytelling in selling items. The experiment started with them buying cheap random items online and noted down the cost price. Later, they would write a story revolving around the items. The story doesn't have to be true. It just needs to be a story worth reading. A story that is relatable and could capture a designed emotion to the readers. After that, they would sell the items for far higher price than they bought it. To their surprise, all of them were sold. Even if that expensive of a price was nowhere near justified. The talk concluded with the power of storytelling and how we could make use of it in selling. The lesson that I've learned from the video was that, when we're selling any items, the most important thing a seller should do, is to win the buyer. Only then, buyer's money will trickle down from their hands to yours. And one of the tools to win them over, is by capturing their emotions. If you can make them feel what you want them to feel, chances are, you can make them do what you want them to do, which is to buy your product!

So that is exactly what I tried to do. My frame of mind when I wanted to sell the car went something like this:

My dad's car was an old car but not exactly the vintage type. So it wouldn't really appeal to any collectors. But it is still very useful as it was only a family car. Which means it is mildly use, only for occasional trips during the holiday season. The rest of the time, it is sitting idling in the front porch. Knowing how the car is an old and underutilized vehicle, I try to make that as the main selling point. I would also include some element of joyousness associated with the car to implicitly tell that it has been well taken care of throughout its years in our hands. Lastly, the car is not just a car, it is your companion.

So all and all, here's the description that I put in the ads.

About a month later, I managed to sell it. Now I am definitely aware that storytelling itself is not the only factor that contributes the success of this transaction. Other important key elements include, the positioning of price below market value and I was lucky enough to get a buyer with a positive attitude.

In short, this experience has taught me that the best way to close a deal is to win the person.

Maybe you should try to include some element of storytelling in your everyday conversations. Just to see where it could go.

Cheers!

Hitting A Plateau

Hey Hi Hello

I think I've reached a plateau in certain aspects of my life. Specifically, in terms of food satisfaction, weight loss and career progression.

Today, as I was eating my lunch bought from the same place, eating the same thing for the past few months, I realized I've hit that point where I'm tired of eating this same dull routine. I'm doing this because it's the most economical choice at hand. With every cents save from food, is a cent gain on my investment nest egg. But I'm just tired of eating the same thing and my hands are itching to splurge a little bit more on food. 

In terms of weight loss, I've been quite consistent with my running activities, but I'm not seeing it being translated into any reduction in weight. Though I am aware that my diet plays a huge part in this set back, but I did manage to keep it within a reasonable intake. I confess that my diet doesn't exactly contain any salads and brown rice. But I try to limit my calorie intake to 2100 kcal perday. Eating 3 meals a day means that my meal is about 700 kcal per meal.

Career progression is one other thing that is hitting a plateau. I'm working at a startup and my designation is the IT Executive. However, the IT part of things are slowly being pushed away as all of the core businesses is being pushed to a 3rd party contractor. All that's left is either keeping in contact with said contractors or helping around with content/media related work. I have absolutely no issue with helping around with that, but this situation calls for my immediate attention of asking myself, "Is this what I want to do?".

I don't know. This is me just pouring whatever I have jumbled up in my head down into words. Just for something to put somewhere before going back to it and arrange for a solution to this whole situation.

Later peeps.

Running Progress - September 2019

Hi friend,

This is going to be my first post about my running progress.

A quick context. I've been trying to lead a healthier lifestyle ever since I noticed that close people around me are slowly falling ill as time has caught up and engulfed their youth. Some even get caught by surprise. I would often  receive news of extended families and friends having called to the hospital due to health issues. This experience gave me some motivation to take care of myself and to invest in my health.

Being economical as I am, I started with the simplest activity there is, jogging.

My journey started back in 2016 when I realized that my weight has severely impacted my overall health. I would feel so unhealthy and fatigue all the time. Eating too much gave me heartburns to the point that I thought I might have some heart complications. So one day, I just decided to put on my shoes and to just run to the best of my abilities. There were definitely ups and downs and there were even a period where I stopped running for 4 months. But I'm very thankful that the people around me are all very supportive and kind. I would've never keep it going without the support that I get from friends and families.

Fast-forward to 2019, my goal is to run 100 km per month. I am nowhere near consistent enough with my goals but I'm still happy with the progress that I'm making. So here's my distance statistics so far, ever since I came back to Malaysia.

I came back on late August and immediately start on my running routine. The schedule were pretty straight forward. To run 6.3 km for 4 times a week on a monthly basis. That way, I will hit 100 km in a month. But as you can see from the graph above, there were several months where I didn't hit the monthly target. The journey was definitely not easy. Life happens. You fall sick, you got injured, or sometimes you just don't have the motivation for it. But no matter what happens, I always tell myself that it's going to be a lifelong journey. It's not about hitting 10 km in one session. What counts is the consistent incremental kilometers covered. Running for 1 km everyday will always be better than 10 km in one day. The goal is to build a habit. To create a lifestyle change. Not to run the furthest or the fastest in one go. Once I finally grasp the basic concept of making running a habit, then I will slowly improve myself in terms of distance and pacing. October just started and I'm ready to hit the monthly goal again now that the haze (yeap, this is my excuse for last month) is over.

Let strive for health and well-being together!

Some statistics for me to note:

Average pace: 7.86 minutes per kilometer

Average distance per activity: 7.35 km per activity

Average monthly distance: 88.3 km

Feeling Guilty About Work [Update]

An update to the previous post.

I decided to do the right thing by explaining the whole situation to my colleague. Offered him to share the paid leave. 1 day for me and another day for him. To my astonishment, he refused. Saying that we would always be more than happy to help whenever he can. 

What level of selflessness he's showing. I aspire to have that kind of attitude. You my friend, has showed me that inner peace fills in a greater sense of contentment than whatever a boss could offer.

Thank you.