95% uptime

I had the privilege to visit Alam Sekitar Malaysia Sdn Bhd this morning. What impressed me was the 95% uptime criteria they promised to customers. This means if their service quality is below 95% uptime, they will not send any invoice! This will definite results in customer satifaction because customer only want to pay for something that is worth their money.

Major: Service your customers with quality product and bill them only when the product conform to specification or agreement.

Minor: Never take the money and hope your customer will forget about it when there is a defect in the product.

Better be safe than sorry

Earlier today, I attended a talk by Prof Ir. Dr. Radin Umar (Director-General of MIROS; check out www.miros.gov.my). The topic was "Real-World Crashworthiness Investigations for Evidenced-Based Intervention Strategies". Actually Dr Radin reminds me of a crime scene investigator except that he and his team investigates what causes accidents.

For now, I am convinced that we should not take road safety for granted. Statistical evidence were shown in order to push for mandatory rear seat belt usage in Malaysia.

As an engineer myself, I really need to enforce this in my own driving habits.

Major: Enforce rear seat belts usage for your passengers.

Minor: Never adopt the attitude of "never mind, no need to wear seat belts" for rear passengers. The cost in an accident is simply too high. It is not worth the risk.

Kiddy communication

Children are more apt at expressing their feeling honestly than adults. Adults tend to mask their true feelings because of conditioning. However children may lack the accuracy in communicating their feelings and hence often misunderstood as been spoilt or fussy.

My son on his 5th birthday was disappointed by the lack of birthday presents (as the previous years he had received many presents). So he was angry and told us that he wanted more presents. As parents, we obviously were not very pleased with such demanding response. Nevertheless, as we inquire and talk to him further, we discovered that he actually "expected" more. But he did not know how to explain his expectation. He only knew the word "want". After we understood his feelings and gave him lots of hugs and love, he felt better. His little tantrumic behaviour stop.

Major: In true communication, we must listen to what is being conveyed rather than what is said for often words cannot be used accurately by a child who lacks higher vocabulary.

Minor: We must keep our feeling in check when a child is trying to express his/her feeling to us in plain language. He/she may not mean the words said.

Staying young

A friend commented today that I look young when actually I am older than him. While this is a nice compliment to me but I would like to share with you my preferred lifestyle.

In today's society, we are obsessed with the need to portray a hard working demeanour. While hard workingness is a virtue much sought after by employers, it is not wrong by itself to pursue to work hard.

But working hard for the wrong reason or the wrong priority can caused a lot of stress. We know stress "kills". Actually it is a silent killer.

So, by not wanting to "kill" myself, I stay "young" because stress takes its toll on a young man.

Enjoy life to the fullest!

Major: Live life the fullest God-given potential.

Minor: Do not "kill" yourself.

Delay gratification for young children

Today I tried to teach my son the concept of delay gratification. I had promised him a toy car but I did not want to acquire it immediately for him. I told him he can have his uncle's one first before I buy him a new one. But we (together with my brother) want him (my son) to go one step further. We will want him to choose to wait another couple of days for a new one or settle for a "second-hand" one if he wants its immediately.

Major issue: Learning delay gratification will bring us a lot of benefit especially in the area of financial management.

Minor issue: It doesn't matter which toy car my son gets. The important lesson is for him to understand that by waiting a little bit longer, the reward will be more gratifying.

Appreciating Life

Today I received an SMS from our church pastor notifying us of the passing of one of our church member's brother who was admitted to the hospital for leukemia. It was sad for the fact that he was 35 years of age. One can imagine the grief-striken family. Situation like these stops us in our tracks and we are force to think about our very own lives. Are we appreciating what we have or have we taken things for granted?

Vital Profiles

Want to get some ideas of how we choose who we like to associate with and who we usually reject? And this happens I believed subconsciously.

The attractive profile (Major)

1. Achievement drive
2. Highly motivated
3. Energetic
4. Integrity

The rejection profile (Minor)

1. Lacking in motivation
2. Trouble in life
3. Health problems?
4. Weak occupational background
5. Low energy
6. Poor living habits

source, "Recruitment for Growth", Public Mutual.

Strategies to Effective Money Management

This is an extract from Adam Khoo's Secrets Of Self-Made Millionaires:-

Before you can ever reduce your expenses and increase your savings,
you must first know where your money is going to. Many people share
the same experience of having no idea where their $5,000 salary
went. 'How did I spend so much money?' 'I thought that I should
have $1,000 left at the end of the month, but it seems to have all
disappeared!'

With a simple yet powerful system which I personally use together
with specially designed Microsoft Excel templates like the 'Monthly
Personal Income Statements' and 'Daily Expense Sheets' you just need
to invest fifteen minutes a day to manage your money.

If you want to be wealthy, do not expect it to happen
automatically. You must commit to spend time on your finances.
Earlier on in this book, I talked about the millionaire's daily
hour.

Millionaires spend an average of an hour a day on personal wealth
management, while most people spend less than an hour a month,
usually on paying bills.

So out of this one-hour a day, you've got to devote the first
fifteen minutes to do these five Money Management Steps


1) Always Ask for a Discount

If it is not a fixed price store, there is a 70% chance that you
will get a discount if you just ask for it. If you get a 10%
discount, it is equivalent to earning an immediate 10% return on
your money. Over the long term, you will save a huge amount that
will accelerate you even faster towards your targeted net worth.

2) Always Ask for a Receipt

Always get a receipt so that you can track every single expense at
the end of the day and, if possible, claim it as a business expense
and get a tax deduction.

3) At the End of the Day, Record all Expenses in your Daily Expense
Sheet

You can do this manually in the sample 'Daily Expense Sheet 'at the
end of the chapter or you can key it in electronically into a
template.

I highly recommend you key it into an excel spreadsheet, so it can
automatically add up the total each month.

4) Use a Credit Card Whenever You Can (but always pay the full
outstanding sum every month)

Again, this will allow you a convenient way of having all your
expenses recorded for you in the monthly statement.

5) At the End of the Month, Update Your Monthly Income Statement

At the end of every month, add up the total expenses from your
daily expense sheet and update your monthly income statement. At
the same time, update all your income for the month. Deduct your
total expenses from your total income to get your monthly savings.

You must use a system to track where every single dollar goes. Only
when you know where your money is going, can you take steps to
channel it to your savings and investments.

Doing this month after month may seem tedious, but it is absolutely
necessary if you want to build your wealth. Only when you develop
the habit of managing your personal finances, can you manage the
finances of your own business.

So many people financially mismanagetheir businesses into
bankruptcy because they mismanage their own finances. Don't be one
of them!

Single Pricing Regime

First of all, what is "single pricing regime". The phrase itself makes us think there is the "dual pricing scheme". Well, for those of you who are familiar in the investment line of stocks and mutual funds you know what it is.

Normally the prices of say a mutual fund is quoted in both the Buying and Selling price. The difference between the Selling price and the Buying price is commonly known as the initial service charge, hence we can understand the need for dual pricing.

The single pricing regime has a distinct advantage. It makes the cost of investing in mutual funds transparent because a single price is quoted and the service charge is separately accounted for. Immediately this implies that in the dual pricing scheme, an investor may not be aware of the service charge unless informed by the consultant. The consultant may invariably forget to mentioned the cost involve for mutual fund investment. So, the single pricing regime is better for the investing public.

The difference between million and billiion

"What's the difference between 1 million dollars and 1 billion ringgit? None, because I do not have any of them."

- relay by "Red1" (founder of www.red1.org)

Life Cost

Ever wonder if spending a little bit more on a new car rather than save the initially capital outlay by buying a cheaper new will eventually benefit you in the long term.

Here we are talking about life costing an item. Life cost simply means the total cost of an asset throughout its usable life span. Many factors are involved ranging from the interest rate on the loan taken to maintenance cost (spare parts, labour, special repairs, etc).

It is hardwork to calculate the life cost of any product but if one take sufficient effort in doing so, money save will be evident in the years to come.

Major on learning and gather tips from other so that we can estimate the optimum life cost choose preferably the lower life cost items.

Minor on impulsive decision making which will end up us to pay a higher price due to a bigger life cost.

How to reject a salesperson?

How to reject a salesperson?

1. I will let you know when I am interested.
2. I have no money.
3. Too expensive.
4. I am happy with my current supplier.
5. I am too busy to hear you out. Please refer to item 1 above.

The common reason we use to reject a salesperson above is actually not reflective of why we actually reject the person in the first place. Psychologist may say that we actually buy from a salesperson when we "trust" him/her. This means that we will accept the person only if we sense that there is honesty and integrity in the communication. But if you have already made up your mind on buying on a certain product then it does not matter so much who you buy from as long as the product is defect free and genuine. The salesperson just got lucky when you approach him/her and enquire about the product.

If you are a salesman reading this, you will need to major on your integrity when selling a particualr product. Are you absolutely honest with your prospects? If you need to hide information from prospects, then why are you selling it in the first place.

Watch the guys!

Do you notice that actors in the Korean drama series are so cool! I cannot help but to say that we are in serious show biz fad here. Cool actors. They will simply make the girls swoon and the guys admiring the hairstyles etc.

Major issue here: Are these guys good role models for those watching. Overall, Korean dramas portrays the guys well, so no problem here.

Dead Certain

Recent events in my life has reminded me of how fragile our life on earth can be. This blog may be rather morbid to read but one things I am certain of that is someday each one of us has to die! Has this fact sunk into you yet or maybe we are constantly avoiding this age old question, "When our life will end and how will it end?"

The last couple of weeks is rather strenous in the life of my church. We have a handlful of report of persons facing terminal illness. At this point of blog some have already passed on and others just hanging in there. Thoughts that rushed pass my minds is boggling. Why? Or is it I was simply too busy to be aware of these happenings around the world until it come closer to home which in this case news stemming from my church front. In view of these events, here is what we can major or minor in.

Major in:-

1. Eternal issues. Set in our hearts once and for all eternal matters. Get right with our creator who loves us.
2. Endeavor to live a good life of valuing life and respecting others. Celebrate life on earth together with all.
3. Be good stewards of all blessings in our lives. Share it with others.
4. Leave a legacy to glorify God.

Minor in:-

1. Sinful desires and actions.
   

Do I need a PDA?

Today many people hold a PDA in their pocket. It is more like the diary or organizer of many years ago. For the curious, PDA stands for personal digital assistant. If I mentioned the "Palm" or "Windows Mobile" or PDA phone you will know what it is.

For techie, a PDA is a must simply because it is fun to have one. For those who are more affluent perhaps owning a PDA exhibits some status and commands respect of peers.

From personal experience I can tell you that a PDA does not immediately benefit its owner. It is only after some time of usage that an owner becomes dependent on it. This is because of the build up of information collected over time.

So I would provide some checklist of the major purpose of a PDA.

1. Keeping appointments.
2. Records of contacts.
3. Things to do
4. Other peripheral applications like expense tracking, etc.
   

Are you addicted to the internet?

5 major symptoms of addiction to the internet?

1. You get depressed when unable to get connected.
2. You checked your email everytime you get back to your computer.
3. You email to your spouse even though he/she just next to you!
4. You feel that your computer is of not much use when there is no internet connection.
5. You invite almost everyone you know to Gmail.
   

Korean TV series

How to recognise a Korean TV series? (Usually love stories)

1. There will be the main character (a boy and a girl)
2. There will the unfortunate boy and girl (who would end up does not get the girl or boy he/she wants)
3. It will take almost 3 episodes to complete a sub-plot.
4. The main guy will almost always miss the girl in the first half of the series.
5. The parent or parent-in-law will always be portrayed (I guess family values are emphasized here).

Recommended series: "Love in Harvard", "Hotelier",....

Never enough

2006 is closed. Never to come back again. Whatever is done is done. I am sure many will have made the new year's resolution. Whatever it is, I am sure it is something achievable.

One of the common things the "financial controller" of the family does at end year is to do the accounts for the year. If you had already done yours, would it be not too far from wrong to guess that the expense almost equals the income. This must be so otherwise you are either in greater debt or you are rich!

So going by the maxim, it is safe to say that it does not matter how much you earn that determines whether you are better off. Somebody who earns less can actually be better off than someone else who commands a higher salary if he/she is clever in controlling the expense part of the equation.

In the realm of financial planning, one needs to major in "paying yourself" first in allocation for savings or investment before the rest of the expense come in otherwise he/she may find that it is not possible to save the intended amount.

Make "paying yourself" first or rather allocation for others before self-gratification one of your 2007 resolution. You will enjoy the benefits of this discipline in years to come.