My Personal Blog

Mindset change has to happen first. Firstly, we have to realise that we are behind the curve and are willing to want to change, to reinvent oneself. For me, it was the realization that the old banking economy I was in for the last 26 years was dying big time, that the new economy is going to make old dogs like myself redundant. The cutting of expenses was more important than preserving experienced talent. What next?

As a first step, I am approaching this from the perspective that I require help to upgrade myself. I need to learn new skills in order to compete with the Millenials. I have had some online training experience in my previous jobs, so this was not completely new to me. The timing was also ripe that the government is encouraging this trend with subsidies for an individual to sign up for online courses to pick up new skills.

As I dig deeper into the area, I discovered the Coursera and Udemy websites. There are so many free online courses there for you to get a taste of each new subject first. This is not as easy as I thought.  The most difficult part is to narrow down the ones you think you are interested in and then giving it a shot. Meanwhile, before I left my old job, I had mentally committed to myself that I will do at least 10 of them in the next 6 months.

Currently, I am in the midst of the following free online courses : (1) Entrepreneurship – from Idea to Launch and (2) Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python). Having taken computer science during my junior college days, I was interested to see what new computer languages are out there. The name Python came up. As I run through this course, it reminded me of Basic Plus which I studied more than 30 years ago! Being an entrepreneur was also something I wanted to explore, besides attending the numerous fintech seminars that are being held nowadays.

Indeed, there are tools out there to teach an old dog like me some new tricks in this new age economy. Need to consistently push on to improve myself.

 

It all started when I was an 18 years old kid. I was servicing my army time in national service. At that time, I was just posted to a team within an air force base after my 6 months of basic military and signalmen specialist training . During my first day there (I remember vividly that it was a Saturday. It was a half day working session and we knocked off work at 12 noon), a jeep collided with the motorbike our sergeant was riding within the camp. He was badly injured and was on medical leave thereafter for a number of years. After the accident, our team decided to do our part. The group of us organized a trip to the general hospital blood bank department to donate our blood for his numerous operations. I continued to donate every 3 months after that first time whenever I can, till I left the army.

A few years back, I started this process again as there was a blood donation center near my office. I could simply drop by during lunch time to do it. To date, I think I have contributed a total of 25 times.

As I run half marathons every 3 months, I try to time the blood donation a week before the run. Psychologically, I feel that this gives me a boost before the run as the body replaces its lost blood with a new supply after the donation. I remember reading about Russian athletes extracting their own blood during off-peak season and then pumping it back to their body just before a crucial run to get better results…. 🙂

Actually, the main reason for me to donate : To provide a history of my contributions to the blood bank. This comes in handy in the future if a friend or a loved one may require it. The blood bank requires the patient to replace the blood used for these operations to ensure that supplies are replenished. So I can theoretically “volunteer” my donated reserves to the patient.

 

 

 

 

Met an old friend I’ve known since uni days for lunch today. Last caught up with her about 3 years ago when I was going through a tough patch in my career life and she provided so many words of encouragement then.

How she has blossomed even more since then! In life, she has been through many trials, anguish and failures. Yet she is still perpetually bubbly and her zest for life as strong as ever. Hearing her tell her story is such an inspiration for all.  Walking away from a successful career and a failed marriage, she has transformed herself into such a super role model for all of us. Certified Yoga instructor, president of the country’s charity association for women, being chosen to be one of the representatives for  Asia in a global event hosted by POTUS Obama next month, starting a number of initiatives/companies to help the underprivileged and also constantly mentoring young adults. Her unlimited positive energy totally invigorates everyone around her.

Some learnings from this amazing woman :

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

Always count your blessings.

Look to the future, never dwell in the past.

 

Planned my little adventure today. Travelled to a little island in the north that I read about recently and have always wanted to visit.

After dropping the kids at school this morning, I drove to the jetty and took a boat taxi to the island. Spent the whole morning exploring the various parts of the island using my rented bike (only $5 for a full day rental of a well-worn bicycle). This place is really frozen in time. It is like I have taken a time machine and moved back in history by 50 years, to where the rest of the country was a long, long time ago. Life was simpler and the pace much slower.

The ice-cold fresh coconut tasted so good after 3 hours of island exploration.

I am constantly blown away at the technological innovation of mobile phones and what we have achieved in the last 20+ years.

I remember touching the first gigantic mobile phones in the late eighties. These weighed a ton and FX chief dealers proudly carried them around during early Tokyo lunchtime – great bragging rights to how big swinging D*&^ the Alpha Male you are. These fugly machines could fry your brains with the radio waves they emit. They could even be used as deadly weapons during gang fights, to shaft the antennae up your enemy’s arse or bash his head with the brick phone.

Then came Nokia and the world was overwhelmed with multiple cute phone designs of all shapes, colours and sizes. The first clamshell ones actually cost $3k each. I remember trying to do a conference call using one of them in the mid-nineties and the shitty batteries could only last 30 minutes each. Imagine carrying a pack of batteries on you and calling back every half an hour to reconnect to a business con-call after your phone died on you…

Then smartphone version 1.0 came along. We were so smitten by the pointy stylus and the amazing things you can do with it, like playing some stupid games on the bigger screen with it. The game changer arrived when Apple launched the iPhone in 2007.

All of us now have a device in our pocket that is many times more powerful that a 1960’s mini-computer. Name me one thing you cannot do with your smartphone nowadays – except maybe fetch your slippers. Your pet dog Bailey can do that. It is so indispensable that one will go cold turkey if it is out of our claws for a few hours. Heavens forbid if we misplaced our Precious…

Soon, we will probably have one embedded into our bodies as we become walking batteries for the machine. Matrix Revolutions Redux anyone?

 

While I was managing a sales team a while back, young colleagues would sometimes ask me for advice about life in general, hoping to get some words of wisdom from an old fart like me…

Of course, the first thing I would tell them is to burn into their brain our team motto : “We work hard and play hard”. Indeed, those were great times as we weather through the many financial crises while partying hard (drinks and off sites) to unburden ourselves from the unbelievable stress we were all going through.

The next thing I would ask the younglings would be to name me the top 3 things that were important to him/her. If they cannot reply to me within 10 seconds, then the individual has a serious problem. In life, it is very important for one to prioritize one’s life starting from the very top (top 3 important things could be items like happiness, kids/family, your stamp collection etc) and then work your way down the pyramid. This will provide a robust structure to your life, creating a goal-oriented focus for you to set up plans on how you can achieve them. Something like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If you are not focused, you will be all over the place and then after many years of working, ask oneself “what have I achieved?”

At this stage in my life, my aim has been simply to “Stay happy and healthy”. My goals would be to exercise more (do a half marathon every 3 months) and be influenced by other happy people while avoiding pessimistic complainers, as happiness/sadness is contagious.

Caught up with 2 good friends for a long Friday lunch today. We had already known each other for almost 20 years. They say that if you have known someone for more than 7 years, he/she is probably a close friend by now. All of us should have multiple circles of such people to preserve our sanity and to call upon whenever we encounter life’s up and downs. With the arrival of Whatsapp/WeChat/Line, we can now be connected with different groups of people at a much more intimate level than before.

On the subject of Happiness, a study has found that many small happy moments are better than an occasional big one. For example, buying a new sports car/striking lottery/getting married is a big happy moment. Doing something simple every day that makes you happy is a small one. The theory goes that if you look forward to and experience many small happy moments, it will be good for your overall well-being. To practise this, I try to visualize a possible happy moment at the start of every day. It may also be more than one, like visiting your favourite Indian curry hawker for lunch or going window shopping at your favourite mall.  Today, it was to look forward to spending time with 2 good friends.

Had a wonderful “me” time this morning at the beach, taking a walk down memory lane to the site where I first brought a girl to sit at the rocks, just to chat and watch the sunset almost 30 years ago. Rented a bike next and blasted 80’s music into my ears as I cruise along the beach, stopping at a breakfast place for a quick bite. The rest of the ride was fantastic, under a strong sun with an occasional sea breeze. Life sure feels good, with my mind blanking out everything while absorbing the intensity of Mother Nature in its full glory. I can surely get addicted to this care free lifestyle very easily…