Jan 21
I attended the forum “NTU 37th Distinguished Alumni Forum, Drive your Online Business” 2 days ago wanting to learn how I could build more intensity into an online business. The forum focused little on how to drive an online business. However, there are a few takeaways which I feel would be essential for anyone who wants to or is starting a business, whether it’s the traditional brick and mortar or online business. These are some of the questions from the audience and the panellists’ answers.
Jan 16
A free ebook where the financial bloggers in Singapore candidly shared how they would start investing if they were newbies to investment and had a sum of $20,000 to start their investment journey.
Without any restrictions, they provided their perspective of what and how they would invest. A few others decided to not touch on what assets one should invest but deal more on knowing our own psychology, sharing their own investment journey or even recommendations for personal growth.
With wisdom gained from their experiences in investing, the financial bloggers openly shared how you as a newbie could avoid some of the pitfalls and heartache from wrong decisions, and make wiser decisions right from the start. Without the technicalities, it’s an easy read for any newbie.
I’ve gained new knowledge from this ebook and would like to give a huge thanks to the financial bloggers for sharing their wisdom with everyone freely. I hope you too would gain tremendously from this ebook.
You can download this ebook for FREE from SGYI.
Alternatively, the following link will redirect you to SGYI’s dropbox for “Investing Your First $20,000”.
Do take some time to read this book. With that, I would like to leave you with a quote by the Oracle of Omaha:
The most important investment you can make is in yourself. – Warren Buffett
Jan 08
Diversify – this is usually a word we use with regards to investments. When we invest, people always say “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify your investments”. Recently, I came upon a website by Mark Manson who wrote an article elaborating an idea he heard from Timothy Ferris (Yes, the guy who wrote “The 4-hour Work Week”) about diversifying our identities.
If we have limited identities, and identify ourselves narrowly for example with our career, when we are retrenched or are unable to do the work anymore due to an accident, we would be devastated. But when we also see our value in our other roles in life, have interests and hobbies, the perceived “failure” of one aspect of our life would not totally crush us.
For those interested in reading more about the article whereby Mark Manson shared what’s an identity and why you should invest in having multiple identities, read “Diversify Your Identity”.
Jan 07
In this fast-moving TED talk The Happy Secret to Better Work, psychologist Shawn Achor argues that, actually, happiness inspires us to be more productive (and not the other way round). When we are happy, there is a happiness advantage.
By being happy, we will perform better in our career, are more resilent and productive and are less likely to burnout.
Shawn shares 5 simple ways on how we can become happier to build this happiness advantage. He explains that we can write down three new things to be grateful for everyday and journal about one positive experience in the past 24 hrs. Exercise helps us see that our behaviour does matters. Meditation will help us focus on the task at hand since in this modern world, many suffer from the effects of short attention spans. Lastly, do good things for others randomly. Do all these for 21 days in a row and it will have a happiness effect on you.
Let’s try this and see what’s the change 21 days later.
Jan 05
While tidying some of my books and reading materials, and selecting some books to give away, I came upon this small booklet given to me many years ago by one of my superiors. The title of the booklet is “Technique of Time Management” by “A. Parthasarathy”.
In the crux, it shares that when we think we need to better manage our time, it’s because we are unable to manage ourselves well. This might be a dreadful idea for many to swallow because if we admit this, does it mean that we are failures?
