Connecting The Dots

Hi friends,

This past few days, I've been travelling to places. I realized that the part I enjoy the most is talking to Grab drivers. I have to say that it is very exciting to be able to talk to people with vastly different backgrounds. Different ways that we were brought up has shaped the mind that we have today. 

One interesting outcome from a conversation that I had was about connecting the dots. This person that I was talking to had a lot of odd jobs that he has been doing. From manufacturing jeans, welding advertisement sign boards, selling insurance and doing Grab. What's interesting is that all of his profession has no clear link to one another but he still managed to arrive there after all his effort of scouting the scattering opportunities he could find. I'm starting to think that maybe the approach that he took wasn't so bad after all; Coming in into the workforce without any clear plans instead he just followed the flow of opportunity. At the end of the day, he said that he is certain that good days will come if he just continue to search for it. 

I admire his attitude. I truly think that he will be at the top one day. Because that's the story of how most successful people became successful. They follow the flow of opportunity. One of the prominent figure that I admire is Andrew Carnegie. He himself had a kinda similar path that the Grab driver had. Working odd jobs and hopping from one thing to another. But that perseverance of moving forward is what truly define a success. This experience had reminded me on why I wrote this blog. It's to remind myself to hold on to that positive attitude and to keep moving forward no matter what happens. At the end of the day, I'll only have myself to arrive at where I want to be, giving a huge pat on my back. That is why I called this blog compliment success.

I hope that one day, I will be able to connect all the experience I have collected in life and turn in into something that I can live with forever as my passion, source of income and source of tranquility. Hope you find yours too, my friends.

Thank you!

Compare, Complain, Condemn

Hi friends,

Part of my journey of life optimization is to avoid the 3C's. They are:

1. Compare

Stop comparing yourself to others. The beauty of life optimization journey is finding your own path and setting your own milestones. Everything that you do, it should be only for yourself. This beauty will quickly vanish the moment you start to compare your journey with others. What benefit will that brings to you, right? So stop comparing to others and start charting your own journey. 

Here's a quote that I tell myself whenever I got caught in the void:

"To be good, you have to start. To start, you don't have to be good."

2. Complain

The moment you complain about something, your mind is already focusing on the negative side of things. The more you do this, the more negativity that your mind will perceive. Eventually, your mind will block all the positive and only focus on the negative. What is life optimization if you only see the negative and not doing anything about it? So instead of complaining, try to look for the good in everything. Maybe you'll be inspired to get more of the goods.

3. Condemn

This centers mainly on reacting to ideas. Essentially, I believe that all ideas are great ideas until proven otherwise. So the next time you hear an idea that you don't agree on, find a better solution to contest the idea. If not then, condemning others will never bring a better solution compared to the idea. The beauty of life optimization is discussing polarizing ideas, going back and forth about it, learning things along the way and finding what is the most optimized approach for you. 

If you manage to avoid the 3C's and focus on improving yourself one step at a time, you'll be well on your way to optimizing your life.

I got the inspiration for this post when someone asked me, "Do you have any better ideas?" when I expressed my disapproval to their suggestions and I didn't have any solution for them. That experience has taught me to always think of a solution to improve one's condition.

Thanks for reading my friends. Hope all of you are doing well to improve your life. 

Night Running Event Update

Hi friends,

Quick update about yesterday's 10K event. My official time was 1 hour 13 minutes 24 seconds. It wasn't a new personal best but I'm still proud of myself considering the hilly route. Anyway, I hope to be able to join 21K half marathon by August 2020.

Stay tuned on this journey! Thanks for reading, friends!

Taking A Break From Writing Lessons

Hi friends,

I have stopped jotting down the 1 day 1 lesson notes. I have no excuse for stopping them. The easiest way to explain this is that I'm just lazy to continue them. I could already predict this day would come so I've already lined up the things that I could do to improve my laziness, one step at a time. I plan to:

• Give some rest for myself.
• Take a peak at the book summaries without reading them in any order to get myself accustomed to opening the website.
• Read through the lessons I've jotted down again and again to see my progress and appreciate them.

I stopped updating the lessons here on my blog on October 11th. You can see it on this post. So I will write down all the updates I've done from then until when I stopped updating it completely.

14 Oct - Grateful is learning to want what you already have.

15 Oct - Don't overthink things. Be like a duck.

16 Oct - The universe was created in 3 minutes.

17 Oct - The biggest enablers of transcontinental trade is the invention of refrigerator.

18 Oct - Don't major in the minor.

21 Oct - Innovation is working with the things we got to create something better.

22 Oct - Freewriting is not about being perfect, it's about stimulating the thoughts.

23 Oct - Compassionate is caring for people and wanting them to strive.

24 Oct - Always bundle your energy and resources directly to one specific thing.

25 Oct - Moore's algorithm: Skip the longest task to have a shot of getting everything else done.

29 Oct - Don't create a goal that sets an artificial limit for you and always focus on the long run.

30 Oct - Successful marketeers tell stories that people want to believe in.

31 Oct - To improve mental ability and focus, stop multi-tasking and start meditating.

1 Nov - The medium is the message. For a TV, what being said is not as important as the visuals, tune and stories. Everything needs to be entertaining to capture our attention to the point it dilutes the original message.

5 Nov - To create something to the best of my ability for myself.

6 Nov - Put yourself in a position where the more shocks you receive, the better you become.

11 Nov - A good idea is an idea that grows on people by itself.

13 Nov - Happiness is not something you chase, it's something you create through living a meaningul life that is internally motivated.

I just want to highlight that some of my previous post were inspired by these lessons. Although the post isn't exactly about the lesson itself but I can kinda slide in some of the positive facts in my writings. I will continue to give myself some time before getting back up again with this 1 day 1 lesson activity. I hope that at least one of the lessons I've learned and shared here has helped you in any shape or form. I think that one of the easiest way to help others is to spread positivity. So I hope you guys benefit from this!

Also, today I will join my first ever 10K running event. I have completed 10K runs on my own countless times but I still feel a bit nervous knowing that this time, it will be with other participants. I can predict that the competitive side of me will get the better of me and somehow I feel afraid if I couldn't create a new personal best. 

My personal best for a 10K is 1 hour 13 minutes. Lets see if I can beat that time.

Wish me luck friends.

Don't Let Them Get Into Your Mind

Hi friends,

Recently I've been getting some sarcastic remarks from a person I've been conducting business with. In this business dynamic, it is generally perceived as his needs have higher priorities. As such, there is this unspoken leverage that he has over me.

This post is to remind myself that to never let those words get into my head. To be a better man in this interaction, I must stick to the plan that have been made. Despite some hurtful sarcastic remarks that have been spew out from the other party, I have to act according to plan. Never to deviate into a situation that plans to bring harm or any downside to the other side. Remember that your credibility from successful actions rise higher than momentary glory of overpowering others. No reason at all could be an excuse to plot against the people who you disapprove of.

Get the deeds done, look at the opposite way and move on.

Message for myself.

Securities Analysis

Hello friends,

Today, I want to share with you about my investment activities.

Lets start with my principles:

1. Wonderful business at a fair price is better than a fair business at a wonderful price.
2. You don't follow Mr. Market, Mr. Market follows you.
3. Dollar. Cost. Averaging!

These are the principles that I tell myself everyday to ensure that I have clear guidance in mind before proceeding with any investment opportunities. I derived these principles after following closely to what Warren Buffet has been preaching. I understand his approach to investing is known as value investing.

Value investing preaches a set of quantifiable indicators to measure if a certain security has a higher intrinsic value that what its price is listed. As such, here are some of the indicators that I take into consideration before determining if a security is indeed worth investing in.

1. Price to book ratio (PBR)
2. Dividend yield
3. Price to earnings ratio (PER)
4. Current ratio
5. Piotroski score
6. Graham number ratio (GNR)
7. Market capitalization
8. Payout ratio

The exact definition and mathematical expression for all of the listed indicators will not be explained here. To be honest, I don't fully understand the exact concept of it to be able to teach them to others. But I do know the key ideas that these indicators could function as.

Each of the indicators has a threshold value which I personally determined in order to define if a company is good enough. If the company's financial sheet shows a reading above the threshold value, I would reward a point. Thus, the best valued company would, at the end of the analysis, receive a score of 8/8.

Lets look at one of the stocks that I have analysed back in 2018 as an example.

Company Name: Malakoff Corporation

Share price: RM0.87

PBR: 0.66

Dividend Yield: 6.62%

PER: 15.51

Current ratio: 2.42

Piotroski score: 8/9

GNR: 0.71

Market cap: RM4.38 billion

Payout ratio: 35.78%

All the details above I got them online either from:

https://www.shareinvestor.com/my or https://www.isaham.my/

Sometimes the facts aren't the same but I would choose the worst-case scenario.

I'll try to explain the analysis behind this company.

PBR gives you the ratio between the current listed price and the book price of the company. If the ratio is less than 1, it means that the company is undervalued because the listed price is lower than the book value. The exact way how to get the book value is something I'm not certain of but I would guess that it has something to do with finding the difference between assets and liabilities and getting its prices relative to all the existing shares. 

Since 0.66 is less than 1, so I can give 1 point for meeting the threshold. Score count, 1/8.

Dividend yield is the percentage of return that investors receive. So if you invested RM1000 with a dividend yield of 6.62%, you will get RM66.2 by the end of the year. Essentially, the higher the the dividend yield the better. I set the threshold to be higher than 5% because as long as it is higher than putting in fixed deposit, it's good enough. Score count, 2/8.

PER tells you how fast it takes for a company to earn as much as its current evaluation. In this case, it takes about 15 years for Malakoff to accumulate money that is as much as to what it is evaluated now. In general, the faster the better. The threshold I set was 10 years and looking at its PER, this company didn't match the threshold. Thus, no point is awarded. Score count remains 2/8.

Current ratio tells you how much current asset the company have relative to its current liability. So in the case where the company goes under, we can know how much assets the company have to liquidate to cover back the liabilities. As long as the assets are worth twice as much as the liabilities, it's good enough for me. So score count, 3/8.

Piotroski score is my way of cheating to gather all the nitty gritty details of other financial strengths of a company. The Piotroski score itself is another set of score within my own score. You can Google the criteria of getting scores in this one. It is graded out of 9 so as long as it is higher than 5, it is good enough. Score count, 4/8.

GNR is a lot similar as PBR. The only difference is, it tells an exact fair value of a company. The calculations were introduced by Benjamin Graham. He is the father of value investing and the mentor for Warren Buffet. A GNR of less than 1 means that the current listed price is lower than its fair value. So that means it is cheap to buy. Score count, 5/8.

Market capitalization tells you the monopoly that this company has in its sector and relative to its peers. A larger market cap gives a good idea that the company can weather the storm if there's a downturn in the market. So for company in the energy sector that is worth more than a billion is good enough for me. Score count, 6/8.

Payout ratio is the ratio of dividend being payed out to investors relative to its earnings. It tells you if the dividend you're getting is sustainable in the long term or not. Here, you need to find the balance between high returns and long term returns. A payout ratio of 100% means high dividends for that year but it hinders growth for the company in the long run. A low payout ratio means great opportunity for expansion for the company but unsatisfactory returns for investors. Personally, payout ratio that is about 1/3 is a good balance for me. Thus, score count, 7/8.

So overall, the score I gave for this company is 7/8. An almost perfect score! However, I decided not to invest in this one. Why? Just because the score only gives a good guideline on which company is great to consider. The scoring system I made is also not a perfect system because my personal bias holds more weight on certain criteria over the others. So here's the bottom line, there is no perfect analysis for all out there. There's only analysis that's perfect for you. This is just one of many approaches available out there and you just have to find one that is personal and works for yourself.

Disclaimer: There's probably a lot of mistakes in terms of definition or understanding to what I described in this post. If there's anything I've understood wrongly, please turn me to the right direction and I will be eternally grateful. 

How does your analysis looks like?

Thanks for reading, friends!

Mitigating Wasted Time In The Future

Hi friends,

The right frame of mind when thinking about time management is to do anything necessary today to prevent overwhelming yourself in the future. If you could carry out all the necessary steps to anticipate, prepare and take actions for a better future, then your time will be managed well. 

So in the spirit of time management, I did some up keeping on my aquaponics system. After my first experience of harvesting my water spinach, I knew that I wouldn't be happy if I have to go through the same thing again in the future. This is because harvesting them took a long time to do so. Due to the poor planning of the position of my crops on the growbed, it gets very hard to cut them for harvesting because it was all over the place. They were also entangled with each other so that might risks wounding other plants that I don't intend to harvest.

So I decided to get rid of almost all of the water spinach and to make a more proper planting layout for the plants on my growbed. Here are the things that I know I had to do when approaching this activity.

• I know that I have to pluck the water spinach out from the roots to prevent any of them growing back again.
• I should only clean just the general upper layer of the beads so that the bottom layers where all the useful bacteria that converts the necessary nutrients remains.
• I also know to rearrange the plants according to the direction of sunlight. Smaller plants face towards the sunrise while bigger plant like my cherry tomato should face the sunset. This is because germinating plants doesn't require intense sunlight.
• Put a support net to help indeterminate type plants to crawl upwards.

Essentially, those are the things that I did and having firsthand experience doing so is so satisfying. Here some bullet points on the things that I've learned.

• I understand now why people put a septic tank in between the fish tank and growbed. There is A LOT of fish waste accumulated in the growbed since the water from the fish tank is directly introduced into it. As a result, when I dig deeper into the clay beads, I could see murky water at the bottom. Having a septic tank helps segregate the solid waste substance and nutrient rich water before they are introduced into the growbed.
• Just like planning to buy a real estate, the most important thing is location. The next important thing is location. And the third most important thing is location. To be specific, the location of sunlight and planting germinating seeds are important to ensure proper organization. Part of the reason why the overflow to the fish tank was very slow was because the roots from the water spinach was blocking the direct water flow to the overflow tube. After removing all the water spinach and its roots, the flow into the fish tank is better now.
• Ornaments is unnecessary. I put a burger ornament on the growbed just to add some personality to the system but it disintegrated after receiving lots of splashes of water. As a result, small bits and pieces of it might cause some inconvenience in the future as it might cut my fingers when cleaning the clay beads or it could also clog pipes.

After all this, the positive outcome from this activity is that I know I will save more time in the future. I will no longer spend a lot of time harvesting my plants because they are all separated into their own designated areas. Thanks for reading friends! Here's some photos of the latest update on my aquaponics.

What's left of the water spinach that I decided to keep.

Cherry tomato will have proper support leaning on the nets.

Chili plant isn't growing too well but at least there are some to be harvested.

Baby salad that in its youngling phase. 

Updated look of the system!

Aquaponics Update

Hi friends,

It has been about 20 days since the last post about my aquaponics mini project and a lot has happen since then. If you guys want to check out the previous post, you could do so here.

Lets go straight to the point. I want to update you on how I managed to solve the 3 challenges I had previously. As a recap, here are the 3 challenges:

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

So if you've read my previous post, my two concerns with a clogged water pump is that it causes a slow water turnover rate in the growbed and low oxygen content for the fish and plants. I solved this by buying an air pump to increase the oxygen content in the fish tank. Also, by having an air pump, it kinda creates an artificial water convection whereby the water in the fish tank continuously cycles around the tank and creates a current that disperse the food leftovers all over the tank. Though this may sound bad, but it actually helps reduce the clog that is happening in the water pump. Before the air pump was in the system, all the water and food leftovers in the tank are sucked towards the water pump and that has been the cause for the clog. But since the air pump has created this artificial current, that problem no longer arises. However, I still need to clean the water pump probably once a month now because it still gets clogged overtime. But at least it is better than having to clean it three times a month.

The mosquito breeding ground is easily overcome by sprinkling some anti-mosquito larvae dust. It's suppose to be a compound that hinders larvae growth. I think it's working because I'm not seeing any small wiggling thing in the growbed anymore. Best to continue sprinkling them at least once a week.

Unfortunately, the low germination rate is still an issue that I've yet to overcome. Things are looking to get worse mainly because the water spinach has taken over the whole growbed entirely. As they grow bigger, their soft stems could not support its own weight, causing them to creep on the growbed like vines before the lighter shoots could grow upwards. As a result, germinating seeds are suffocated by the water spinach, causing lower germination rate. In this case, even germinating the seeds on a wet kitchen towel won't help because the sprout won't survive in the dense growbed after the media transfer. The way to go about this is, is to harvest the water spinach from the roots on the next cycle to clear up some spaces in the growbed. However, by doing so it will cause me to no longer have a perpetual cycle of water spinach harvesting. I need to plant a new seed if I wish to grow them again. This is yet to be determined but this is the solution I see so far.

On that note, here is some photos of my plants.

Water spinach is taking most of the spaces in the growbed.

Harvested water spinach.

Some chilies

Stay tuned for more updates! Thanks for reading friends.

Illusion Of Free Will

Hi friends,

Today's post was inspired by open world games told by an enthusiast.

The game design for open world games are very interesting because of it's complexity. Usually it starts with a story where you're on a journey to achieve a certain goal. The ways you could go about achieving those goals could be a plethora of ways. Some of the more typical approaches are brute force, strategic stealth, secret passageways and any combination among those three. The reason why it is very addictive is because having more options make us feel like we have more power. As we dictate which approach we want to proceed with, it gives us a sense of control and satisfaction. The game was designed to give us the illusion of free will.

As I hear about this, it has got me thinking about the real open world adventure that we are living right now. If everything is already written for us, are we living in an illusion of free will as well? Is that a fair way of looking at it? Or a fairer way of looking at life is that everything is written but with the infinite possibility of realities that branch out indefinitely whereby they twist, cross, tangle and grow into any realities based on our free will?

Anyway, no matter how we want to look at it, I believe that the choices we make in life is the driving force behind the realitities we arrive at. Though everything is written, we could still choose which writings to be included in our book of life.

How would you design your life?

Thanks friends!

Discipline

Hi friends,

Today's motivational video that I watched was about discipline. They define discipline as having the ability to do things when you don't want to do them.

I definitely agree on this because having discipline will always keep your progress going, no matter how much you hate doing it. After that initial boost of motivation you have when starting on your routines, they were easy because your motivation is still at the peak. But as time goes on, that excitement of carrying out those routines start to fade. It is at this moment when your discipline is being tested. 

But no matter how repulsive you feel about carrying out the routines, you just have to go through them. What's important is to just keep moving and clock in those hours through your motions.

If things aren't getting easier, just remember that it's because you're getting better.

Stay disciplined my friends!

Running Burnout

Hi friends,

Time passes by very slowly today. Probably because I've been skipping all my usual routines and just decided to lay in bed all day. If I could describe one word for today, it would be burnout.

I've been falling off from my routines lately and today was the final straw. I skipped my usual morning run.

I have one rule that I tell to myself every morning: No matter what happens, never skip your runs. 

The morning run is important to get my daily dose of positive emotions. It gets me throughout the day feeling more alive and energetic. But today I didn't get those injection of D.O.S.E. (Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphin)

As I reflect on the reason for this, I know it's because of my new running schedule. I've been increasing my mileage and also increasing the intensity for my speed training by a significant amount. It's not even the middle of the month yet, but I've already progressed more than 55% of my monthly goal. To put into perspective, if I keep this up, by the end of the month I will run 165 km. That is 65 km more than my regular target of 100 km. According to the general rule of thumb, a steady mileage growth should only be about 10%. So that means it should only be 110 km by the end of the month instead of 165 km.

So this post serves as a reminder for my future self to always listen to your body and have a realistic plan. Focus on the long term instead of trying to chase that performance spike that only happens rarely. 

I'm only allowing myself for 1 more day of rest before continuing with my runs. According to my realistic schedule, I have a float of 2 days so I could start with some short and easy runs to gain some momentum again.

Wish me luck friends!

10,000 Hours To Greatness

Hi friends,

I remember in one of Malcolm Gladwell's books, he suggests that to become the grandmaster in one thing, you need to spend about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice on doing that one thing. Gladwell gave examples of a grandsmaster chess player and a pro hockey player. He follows the development of both of these professionals in order to chart their journey becoming the best in their field. It is concluded that in essence, the journey to greatness is a lifelong journey and not something to be attained in the short run.

So this has got me thinking, what greatness do I want to achieve? I have a finite amount of time and I have to allocate my time accordingly on my journey to attain greatness. If I choose to be great in many areas, it would incur a lot of my time to be great in all of them. But if I choose to be great in only a specific area, I'll feel like I'm cornering myself in something I'm not even sure I'll be interested in down the line. These are the things that have been lingering in my mind recently.

I don't have any answers for that at the moment. But whatever it is, I'm ready to spend my 10,000 hours to achieve greatness.

On what would you spend your 10,000 hours?

Cheers friends.

Image Of Success

Hi friends,

I've been imagining how I want my life to look in 10 years from now. Typically, this mental exercise would try to portray my ideal image of a successful life. Here's what has been playing in my thoughts so far.

In 10 years from now, I see myself going about my day without worrying about adjusting my time for others. In this image, people pay high respect for my time in which they come to me instead of the other way around. No more scheduling appointments, no more waiting for a bus to go places, no more being in line for groceries, no more lines for a haircut and etc. Essentially, I don't have to wait in line for any goods and services. 

Time is a concept that I'm starting to understand the importance of. It's invisible to all of our senses yet we can still feel it. We feel it the most only after we've lost it. Unlike other precious commodities, you can't get it back no matter how hard you work for it.

So I guess my idea of success is anything that has to do with me having more of time. If I could just automate the routine, delegate the work, finding better alternatives in everything to make life more efficient in order to have more time to do the things that I want to do, then that is the image of success that I aspire to be in.

The inspiration for today's post came from countless hours wasted waiting for people to reply my email inquiries.

End. Thanks for reading, friends.

The Little Things In Life

Hi friends,

I want to write about finding happiness.

When I came back to Malaysia during my second year break, I had no internships. So pretty much I had all the time in world. But since it was during the mid year, all of my friends were busy with their studies because it wasn't a holiday for them. At that time, I had no work to do, no friends to hang out with and all I had was myself.

I came to a realization back then that I can't rely on others when it comes to doing something. I had to find activities to do on my own, making sure I'm always on the move by having small goals to achieve every single day. That summer break turned into the start of my journey of understanding how to find my own purpose and happiness. 

Fast forward to now, a year and a half after graduation already, that situation still rings true. But this time, most of my friends are already building their own families, some are focusing on their career development, some are pursuing studies and others are venturing into business. I find that it is getting harder and harder to rely on others to fill-in my happiness.

So right now, as I'm taking a step back and re-evaluating my current circumstances, I know now that I have to create my own happiness. And so far, the thing that works for me is to enjoy the little things in life. Something as simple as watching my plants grow, looking at the shine on the rims of my car, dusting my books, hanging my clothes, drinking some tea, smelling the rain and etc. The thought that traverses in my mind is that small things like this are what make my day a little better. It doesn't hugely impact me in terms of happiness but it does make the moment a little worth while.

As I go through my days nowadays, I'll always look for something ordinary and cherish it while it lasts. Finding my own small happiness with every step. The best thing about this is, these little things are free.

What are your little things in life?

Cheers friends.

Rules For Life

Hello friends,

I have a dream that one day I'll publish my own book that outlines a set of life's principle. I got this inspiration from Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules For Life. I like the idea of a book that is able to give a general guidance through life.

I'd like to write down my ideas here so that at least I have a sense of concrete plan of what I want to do. I'm planning to make it into 3 parts/sections. I'm still not sure whether it's going to be 3 separate books or just one book with 3 sections. But I want it to be in 3 sections because I believe that these 3 sections cover most of the aspect of our life. These sections are: Career experience, personal finance and life optimization.

Also, breaking my writings into these 3 sections will kinda give me a sense of structure to the book. At least I know which section to look for when I'm looking for specific reminder for myself based on my current situation in life.

Roughly speaking, the contents for those sections could be,

1. Career experience
• I want to explore all four quadrants of Robert Kiyosaki's source of income: Employee, self-employed, business and investor.
• Specifically speaking, I want to understand how to thrive in: Corporate organizational environment, startups and being a investor/trader.
2. Personal finance
• In this section I want to explore the management of finance living on both side: Living below your means and leading an extravagant lifestyle.
• The part I'm keen in exploring is how my philosophy of attaching value to anything changes with the financial environment I'm in.
3. Life optimization
• In this section, I hope to explore the idea of living life efficiently given the constraints in life. With everything in life is understood to be finite, how can I make the best out of whatever I have in the current time and what could be changed or improved if I were in a different circumstances. 
• At this point that I wish to tie the career experience part and personal finance part to create an idea of life's bubble. Everyone needs to have their own life's bubble where they decide themselves on thriving in that bubble through life's optimization.
4. Future section
• I'm going to leave a blank on this extra section because I'm sure that there are a lot more life's bubble that we could extend on. Some other aspects of life that works on more granular level such as hobbies, relationships, autobiography and etc. 

After reading many categories of books, I believe that there's always interesting things worth talking about. If I find happiness talking about them, I will surely be more than happy to write about them.

I'm just putting down all the ideas I have for now with hopes that this will guide me and remind myself to stick to what I have in mind.

Wish me luck friends!

Looking Beyond The Marketers By Feeling Content

Hello again my compilation of inner thoughts,

I grew up understanding that contentment is correlated to the amount of stuff that I have. Having more stuff in life would make me feel more full.

I think social media has played a role deeply in shaping this view. Every time I scroll through them I see a lot of marketeers showcasing the next best thing to have in life. The story of their marketing emphasizes on solving our craving for wanting to feel more content by having more stuff.

I received a call from Astro yesterday about a free decoder upgrade that also comes with an optional new bundle of entertainment channels that is equipped with the latest and greatest TV shows and movies. As the marketer is promoting a plethora of TV channels, trying to make sense of the cost being offered for this limited time promo, I noticed that I no longer have this sense of urgency to follow closely with whatever he is offering. All I was thinking about was just one thing, how will this provide value for me?

I feel like everyone is looking for something to solve their craving of becoming satisfied. Often the solution of feeling satisfied comes from having some thing. And I could clearly see what the marketer is selling; He is selling a once in a lifetime opportunity to solve your craving for contentment by offering this decoder upgrade and bundled TV programs. By doing so, it would fill in your yearning for satisfaction by feeding you with the entertainment that you think you need.

I think, I'm in a position where I do not need help from anyone to fill in that need for contentment for me. I don't necessarily know what could fill my cravings for something but what I do know is that having more TV programs will not solve anything. As I see myself as someone who doesn't need to be saved, I can look at things more clearly because I won't be in a position of loss if I don't agree with the offer. If the offer doesn't add any value to my life, I could easily take a step back and say no. Because in my current situation, I'm already content with what I have.

I think that being able to see clearly at what is being offered is a cool perspective to have. It helps the mind to look into things a little bit better when it comes to the decision making process. This is definitely a strong trait for everyone to nurture.

PS. If Astro has retention plan like Fido, maybe I'll consider looking into things. If not then, I'll pass.

Have a good day friends.

Eliminate Excuses

Hi friends,

A wise man once told me that the #1 most easiest way to stop making excuses is to eliminate the word "but" in your vocabulary. The word "but" is the precursor to all excuses that you may have in life. 

"I want to go for a 5K run today but it's raining"

"The museum exhibition seems fun but it's too crowded"

"I want a cat but who will take care of it when I'm not around?"

And the list goes on. From the way I see it, the word "but" is always followed by a self-imposed limiting belief that stems from irrational fear of what could give us an inconvenience should we proceed with the activity. This limiting belief is what hinders our progress.

Instead of worrying about the inconvenience, why don't we think of alternate solutions should things not really go our way when we're about to do something. By eliminating "but" from our life, we will automatically look at problems as challenges that we have to overcome. This psychological shift will greatly churn our mind to think of solutions rather than to dwell on the problems at hand.

Try and go about your day today without saying the word "but" and also look at any problems as challenges that are craving for solutions. See if there's any positive change you're feeling in life.

Goodluck friend!

Nurturing Health And Relationships To No Regrets

Hi friends,

I've been imagining myself being in my late 50s lately. I imagined the things that I want to do at that point. Obviously by that age, I'm already retired and hopefully I've accumulated enough wealth for the rest of my life. So, what do I want to do? 

I think that everyone who are in their young adult phase of life desires to be independent and to obtain at least the bottom two Maslow's hierarchy of needs which are the physiological needs and safety needs. Those are the needs that are essential to sustain life. Anything above those two needs are the needs necessary to live life.

Having said that, as I reflect upon my situation right now, I already have those two bottom needs met. I don't worry about the basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter because I have enough of them. My safety needs are also met because I'm able to carry out my routines without any fear of danger or risk on my life.

With this realization of being at the boundary of Maslow's law between sustaining life and living life, I still struggle to find that deeper meaning to venture through the boundary towards the higher needs. Thus, going back to the mental exercise of putting myself when I'm 50 years old to help go about this struggle. The more I think of the things I want to do at that age, the more it convene to two main points. Health and relationship.

As the body grows older, it becomes more frail. Simple physical activities we are able to do today like walking and running will be slowly be pulled away to the point that probably one day we are unable to even wipe our butts. It gets to a point where I get very sad thinking about this. Which is why health always comes up whenever I think about the things I need to do. Taking care of my health to prolong the days when I can't clean myself.

As for relationship, I believe that as humans we are a social being. Having meaningful relationships not only foster strong support system in life, it also creates a harmonious community that contributes to the cycle of support system for others. Achieving something great with no one to share it with isn't a pretty situation to be in.

With all that said, I'm going to leverage the position that I am in, in this phase of my life, to nurture goodness of health and positive relationships with those around me so that when I look back at life when I'm 50, I have no regrets.

Cheers friends!

Handling Information

Hi friends,

Yesterday's post was about the office middleman where I explained my take on how the middleman is important in the chain of workflow. So today I want to write about handling information which I think is a good segue to further expand on the idea of a middleman.

I believe in any organizational workplace, the person who wield the most information wins. In my experience, the whole dynamic of my workplace is such that all the workers are essentially competing for the attention of their superiors. The victor in this competition dynamic will be the first person to pop in the superior's head when deciding who will be the next person to enjoy higher importance within the organization. 

To win the their attention is to give them an image of yourself where you appear to be full of merit. And among the way to do so is through handling information and packing them in a way that leans towards the superior's interest. What I mean by this is that you have to be prepared with the right answers to an expected questions, knowing when to disclose the answer and when to keep them in your pocket.

The whole persona of a middleman is to know what to say and when to say it. A middleman doesn't need to be an expert in doing a work. They just need to know the keywords in order to explain the job progress in layman's term to the superiors. Being the person who views the worker's job from the third perspective also gives the middleman a greater sight on what are the details to be passed through to the superiors and which details to omit due to its complexity and unnecessary jargon.

When the middleman already knows the question that the superior wants to ask and are already prepared with the answers with layers of scripted backup plans, they will ensure that the ball being played is never in their court. Instead, it's at the superior's side and make them play the ball your way.

Cheers friends.