NLP Workshop

Last evening, I attended a workshop on “Roadmap to Success” with a friend. My ex-manager Cayden Chang that I had shared before in my blog, conducted the workshop. He is the founder of the company Mind Kinesis. Today, I would like to share with all what the workshop is all about and highlight something important that we all should take note of.

Firstly, the training programme that Mind Kinesis offering is a NLP tools - Neuro-linguistic Programming. In layman’s term, it’s about giving you tools such that you will achieve your intended results. This is nothing new to me as I had been trained by Cayden in someway when he was my manager. I benefited from his training while working under him. Ever since being trained/influenced by Cayden, including reading books on positive mindset, I becomes demanding on myself and somewhat affecting (or pissing off) people around me. For myself, I set targets and I will “cheong” to get it. Although I’ve yet to reach Cayden’s level of mind focusing, I do behave in that manner. Let me illustrate. Again, if you are my colleague and you are reading my blog, please keep it to yourself. Nonetheless, I’ll still try to “restrain” myself on my sharing.

I was posted to a new job in mid-2007. For that new post, I had zero experience although the manager (not Cayden) was willing to give me a chance to try. This is because he knows me as a colleague and also my experience in our company’s operations is an added advantage. It was a huge challenge because the new post required totally different set of skills. But I never doubt that I will make it. I set targets for myself - within half a year, I will learn and complete everything that the new post required me to do; and I’ll take another half a year to learn my peer’s area of responsibility. This means to say that in one year’s time, I will learn EVERYTHING there is to learn in that (new) office. If you feel that I’m bragging, then I’m sorry. But like it or not, I met my targets although there is still room for improvement.

Well, since I behave in this manner, I becomes…. somewhat demanding.... to others. I will not elaborate on this since some colleagues may be reading my blog. Now back to Cayden’s workshop. He is offering something rather different as compared to his competitors. For example, he gave attractive discount and guarantees 100% satisfactory, i.e. if you don’t get your intended result after the programme, you’ll get full refund! This is what I want to talk about today. My friend who attended the workshop with me was thinking about the programme fee. I thought he was contemplating whether if the programme is expensive.

In my opinion, offering a lower fees was unnecessary other than encouraging more people to try it. Or perhaps there may be other reasons that I’m not aware of. I told my friend that I felt sorry for those who signed up or didn’t sign up merely because of the fee. This is because he/she had been myopic and failed to see the bigger picture. Think again. If your intended result is to earn a passive income of at least $2,000 a month, or to move up the corporate ladder to be Assistant Vice-President and the programme guarantees to help you to reach it otherwise money back, then it doesn’t matter whether the programme costs $2,000 or $5,000. Your target or objective worth many times more than that.

During my recent ICT, many ex-colleagues asked for my help in portfolio management and they are willing to entrust their money with me. I told them that I charge a 2% commission on the gains and only when there is a gain. Straight away they responded, “no problem, 5% also can”. Do you know why they are so generous? This is because they only pay when there is a positive result or else I will do it for free. The only difference here between these two situations is that for Cayden’s training, you need to pay first and he will help you to get your intended result. For my fund management service, you only pay after I produced the result. The sequence is different but the idea is the same. You only incurred a cost when you get your intended result. And this applies even when you are buying self-enrichment books. I said in my blog before, don’t buy self-enrichment books so that you “feel better”. Whenever you pay for a book, you’re helping the author to reach financial freedom – passive income. You should only help him if the author is going to help you in return. For example, if you buy a book written about Warren Buffett, then you must expect better investment returns. And if your learning curves taper off, you should stop buying these kind of books.

So my friend, do not be shortsighted and focused on the returns. You must expect results. In this case, you achieve win-win situation.

“You walk and talk but did you sign up for the programme?”

I did not! I didn’t not because of the fee but because I don’t have a “desperate” target currently. If I attend the training now it will be a waste. Once my desperate and difficult target arises, I will sign up and seek Cayden’s help. His programme is supposed to help me to get what I want. And I want to make it challenging for him.

My Weight Reduction Secret

Today I will not talk about investment or economy but a topic that interest all women – slimming (瘦身男女). I started to put on weight while I was in the Army. Funny isn’t it, putting on weight while in the military organization! Don’t laugh, it least I still physically fit and I passed my physical fitness test.

And my weight has been maintained at 72kg (with std deviation of 1kg) for a decade. I tried many methods to reduce it but was unsuccessful. Methods I tried previously includes:

1) Regular exercise
2) Products that increase metabolism rate.
3) Products that prevent food from breaking down completely for body to absorb.
4) Any of the above combination.

They all never work. Go on diet? I also know that lah, don’t need you to teach! But to go on hunger strike might as well ask me to die. Somewhere in Jul this year, during our usual lunch gathering, one of the senior colleagues shared with me a cheap-and-easy method to slim down. He witnessed how it works on his Pastor. That is:

Eat fruit lunch (even without strenuous exercise)

His Pastor used to be quite fat but after fruit lunch plus regular exercise, he slims down completely. Actually we all know about eating more fruits and vege but my question is, does it really work. In fact, one of my ex-colleagues Ms Jenny mentioned this method before. Now let’s stay focus; we want to see result, don’t we? Everybody tries to come up with his/her own monkey secret that will help a person to reduce weight. You just get disappointed many times. But my colleague’s statement is very strong – fruit lunch, don’t need exercise (though his Pastor exercise regularly). And he GUARANTEES that it will work and I will see result in 3 months time.

The Challenge

I don’t believe but I am ready for the test. On 19 Jul 08, I declared to a few close colleagues that I will start fruit lunch challenge for 3 months. And these are my plan to be followed closely:

1) Only eat 3 times a day, including the fruit lunch.
2) Ban snacks and supper completely. Actually I don’t usually eat supper.
3) No exercise (otherwise don’t know the cause of the result)
4) Target weight: 65kg

And as you know, whenever you want to try to achieve something difficult, you’ll find more friends/colleagues trying to pull you down rather than encouraging you.

“Aiya, you just had a lunch at Fish and Co. so all your effort wasted liao”
(one lunch at Fish and Co. and all the effort will be wasted, can you imagine such motherhood statement?)

“No lah, the key lies in your fruit combination. Your current combination is not good so it won’t work”
(I didn’t know that only certain fruits have fibre while the rest has zero fibre)

“no lah, without exercise no way you can reduce weight”

Remember the movie Pursuit of Happyness staring Will Smith? He said this in the movie, “when people can’t do something, they want to tell you you can’t do it”. That’s human nature. Anyway, I followed through my plan exactly for the 1st month. Come to the second month, I got a problem – I was recalled back by the Army for training. So I could not follow my plan anymore. It’s the Army, not your grandfather’s organization that you can do as you like. Also due to the stress level plus ample of tidbits from my comrades, my slimming programme was totally disrupted. After I completed my ICT, I continued with my plan, only that I changed from fruit lunch to fruit dinner. The reason:

1) It is difficult to have fruit lunch with my colleagues. They are enjoying good food and so it was very tempting.
2) It is cheaper and easier for me to eat fruit dinner than lunch.
3) If you stop taking food after lunch (other than fruits for dinner), your body has very long hours without fatty/oily foods – from lunch to next morning. Imagine the impact!

The Result

Recently I bought an electronic weighing machine but dare not try it. I dare not face the result although somehow I felt that my pants are loosened! But you know, it could be just psychological. It was only a week later that I think I must know the answer. So I jumped on the weighing machine and voila it shows my weight to be 68.8kg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I kept trying and it still shows the same result.

I am not convinced. So I went to the gym to use their machine. Their result shows that my weight is 69.7kg. Ok, so now I know that at least my weight has indeed dropped by at least 2kg. Yesterday, a few ex-colleagues from the Army called me out for a gathering. When I arrived, one of them immediately shouted out “eh, you slim down ah!”

Oh my goodness!!! Another view from someone I’ve not met for more than half a year, cannot be wrong. Thus I declare to the whole world that:

“I had tried fruit dinner method to reduce weight without strenuous exercise. It works!”

No doubt there is still a distant away from my target, but since there is initial result, I will press on. Below is my photo taken a few days back. Other then my face, still like a balloon, look at my waist or tummy. Therefore, from this day onwards, fruit dinner will stay with me till deaths do us apart!

“Whose that girl on your right?”

Well, for me to know, for you to find out…. along New Tiew road.

What's The Weather Outside

I’ve not been contributing anything to my blog for weeks due to extremely poor market sentiment. Global stock markets are in very bad shape especially the Dow Jones. The economic outlook is still as gloomy and there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. US elected its first black President but could Obama really get US out of the recession threat? If you are sensible in your analysis, you should know that the Frederal Reserve has really done a lot to avoid a recession. I mean they used people’s money to bail out banks and financial companies and dropped interest rate to 1%. What else can be done? I think Obama may protect local industries and jobs. If this happens, in my opinion, the first victim will be China – China’s cheap import. Of course, China is not going to keep quiet. They will complaint to WTO and then bilateral relation will turn soar etc etc.

The following are some worrisome headlines in Business Times this week:

- DBS chops 900 jobs.

- The US unemployment rate bolted to a 14-year high of 6.5 per cent in October as another 240,000 jobs were cut, the government said yesterday. Unemployment has now surpassed the high seen after the last recession in 2001. The jobless rate peaked at 6.3 per cent in June 2003.

- Shares of Las Vegas Sands Corp fell 29 per cent yesterday after the casino operator's auditor said in a regulatory filing that there are doubts about the company's ability to continue as a going concern.

- Planned layoffs at US firms surged to their highest in nearly five years during October, with cuts in the financial and auto sectors leading the charge as the economic outlook worsened, a report by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said on Wednesday.

- Australia's central bank cut its benchmark interest rate yesterday by a bigger-than-expected three- quarters of a percentage point as the global financial meltdown threatens to drag the country into recession.

I don’t intend to write a long story. But to my friends and colleagues reading my blog, my advice remains the same:

1) Avoid investment during this highly uncertain period. If you place your money with the bank, the value will be eroded due to inflation. Unfortunately, you don’t have a choice. If you invest it, chances are, you may make tremendous losses. I repeat again, you have to study the economy if you want to invest successfully. Monitor the US economy and its impact on Singapore. My bet, as of today, is we are heading to a global recession and hopefully not a DEPRESSION.

2) If you really want your money to work hard, you can consider our lovely CPF. CPF offers very attractive risk-free returns, which I had repeated many times in my blog. For more info, you can visit CPF website for updates.

3) As for job wise, stick to company with strong fundamental. Avoid joining company whose business has a strong correlation to the economy such the manufacturing sector and construction sector. Also avoid joining SMEs, sorry to my fellow countrymen. Let’s face it, we had heard of stories during previous economic downturn on how smaller companies “control cost” - cut in performance bonus, freeze annual increment, deferring the AWS, retrenchment etc. Also smaller companies may fold up.

Sentiment and confidence around the world is quite bad now. Employers' are holding back recruitment and now with retrenchment on the headline. And I bet that household are controlling their expenditures. Therefore you must understand that this may cause recession to become a self-fulfil prophesy. Not even Warren Buffett can stop it. Although Singapore will not be spared if US enters into recession, I strongly believe that we have great leaders governing the country, strong fundamental and solid reserve. We are certainly capable of surviving next recession.