Health | Finance | Relationship

New Job

2008-04-22T21:05:00.003+08:00

I have change to another post within my company.

The reason. To make sure my career path does not quickly comes to an abrupt end. So I requested for a transfer.

This time it involve talking to many people. Asking them to do something for a different set of people. It is some sort like becoming a computer speaker. Making sure the other side really hear what another side is saying.

Sometime I would wonder why couldn't just the other person by-pass me and talk direct to the next person to do their job...?

And my wondering became heightened when today the person heading the division I'm in announce that recently an award was presented us due to the good job done.

Maybe our job is important in the sense that we will discuss, ask, e-mails, follow-up, push, find ways and etc to make sure things keeps moving even in the most complicated situation.

Also I've seen things get delayed if I stay tight.

Using My Newly GMS Acquired Skills

2007-12-20T09:48:00.000+08:00

Last week I was summoned by my superior to explain on something. I was particularly happy with my ability to answer most of the questions coming from her.

Before that meeting I actually practised memorizing a few topics relating to something new that I was working on (I'm in the IP technology world). It is not unexpected someone would want to know more from me about it and I am just trying to prepare for that kind situation.

For those who are interested, I'm listing down what I have memorized. They may not make sense to you.

1st group - SDP, BPM, Portal, SCE, BRAS, Metro-E, Video Server, DSL Router, LAN Switch

2nd group - BPS, Subscribers, Content, Service Provider, Deliver Content, Qos Profile, Network Interface, Activate/Deactivate Qos Profile

3rd group - Qos Profile, Definition, Classes, Web Traffic, Network Administrator, Input, Minimum Bandwidth, Maximum Bandwidth, Priority, Buffer

4th group - CDR, usage, source, destination, duration, amount

5th group - SDP, End Customer, capability, freedom, application, services, service providers, IP network

I used Giordano Memorizing System (GMS) which is taught by Ruslans from Phenomenal Memory School. I combined the Free Association Technique and also the Chain Method for each group.

So every day for 5 days (actually I should be able to memorize all the groups in lesser time, but the problem is I have to spend more time choosing the right items for memorizing) I will memorize one group and the next day recalled back what I have memorized previously.

I also found out that it helps to excercise weaving a full story or full explanation for each group. People wouldn't want to hear me uttering individual memorized items.

They would sure want to hear things like (using items from group 4);

"OK now, CDR is actually Call Data Record and it contains information related to the usage of a resource in the network for a call which includes source, then the destination of the call, how long is the call duration and also how much amount should be charged to that call."

So GMS gives me a foundation to remember individual items which I can recall anywhere reasonable and at anytime reasonable to be weaved into full explanation and to make it stick into my memory that may be of some use to me.

My only complain about GMS is that it is hard work. I have to set time everyday and practise it to make it part of me.

Phenomenal Memory School and Others

2007-10-28T08:22:00.000+08:00

I am still busy reading news, articles, reports on stock investment. It seems that everyday I would be spending hours to sift through all the datas and information.

Luckily, reading and analysing is something that I like to do. I come to realised this when I saw my wife getting sleepy during reading a book that I find really interesting. I asked her how can she go to sleep with all those interesting facts in the book, then we got into a discussion which concluded that each human is different (as we all have already known, nothing sort of a breakthrough here).

She loves to cook which I do not find indulging but actually her passion is to the family advantage. Sometimes I think I should be the one cooking because she said my cooking taste better. But then again she is suppose to say that when eating my cooking and vice-versa.

Better Cooking
OK now, I will give out the secret to better cooking. Use your nose intensively. When you came across a delicious gourmet remember its smell, next, you will never go wrong when the correct smell emanates from the sizzling hot ingredients your conjure in the cooking pan or pot. You don't even have to taste it. It will be so right. But before dishing it out take a small bit to ensure the amount of sweetness, sourness and saltiness makes the dish pleasurable to the taste buds.

KLSE
In my last post on 3rd August I mentioned of stock markets across the world are becoming jittery and may drop more in the weeks to come, on 17 August the KLSE really tanked and what did I do. Jump into the market and bought some shares. A few days after that the market recovers bringing along the shares I bought.

Next, about my latest indulgement.

Phenomenal Memory School
Early this month I joined School of Phenomenal Memory School which was founded by Ruslan M. Here he sought to teach GMS (Giordano Memorizing System) which I believed based on the method used by Giordano Bruno. It is long distance learning class and students receive the materials by e-mails.

The lessons are well thought and three weeks later after going finishing 3 out of 59 lessons I find it has improved my memorization skill. Somehow my time is strecthed thin because I'm spending something like 2 to 3hours daily reading business news and now I need to slot in another 1 to 2 hours of memory training. So I just go slow on the training and some of the skills I've gathered I put to immediate use in work or at home. One of the skill I use extensively is the Chain Method technique which is very adaptable and expandable.

If you are interested to know more visit Phenomenal Memory School.

Before I stumbled upon Ruslan's School I tried learning O'Brien method but it lacked interaction as I'm learning from book, so there is no coach/teacher and people to ask from when I'm stuck with something. Phenomenal Memory School is better because I can learn from other students and post any questions to them and also Ruslan.

Why KLSE Dropped?

2007-08-03T22:34:00.000+08:00

That is too drastic. A company that reported it is making money in the first quarter of this year is now closing doors and it is not even giving out subprime loan.

The latest bad news is that American Home Mortgage will file for bankruptcy and will no longer give out loan to applicants. The surprising news is that it only deals with high credit borrower.

Well, actually I'm not that surprised because from this March some people with insight into loan giving practise in the US speculated Alt-A loan may become the next crisis story. The people taking this loan don't have back-up their income with prove. So just fill on the dotted line what you number want to put. One can only wonder how many more will spill their beans in the coming 1st half reporting season

Seems to me the situation which happened during the internet crunch in 2000 is happening again, but now in a different sector.

All over the world, stock markets are becoming jittery and may drop more in the weeks to come and tagging along with them a small market named KLSE.

That's nearly happening even without factoring the Yen carry trade unwinding.

More Bad News On Subprime

2007-07-30T21:00:00.000+08:00

Today, news about subprime is getting grimmer.

For example I saw these headlines, "Signs of US subprime crisis spreading" reported by Financial Times, "HSBC hit by sharp rise in bad debts in US" from Guardian, "Corporate Bond Risk Surges by Record as Subprime Losses Spread" reported by Bloomberg.

As far as I know and have experienced problem related to debt don't go away quickly, it will stay there for a few years and you have to really, really hope it can be contained and not spread out, which I don't see happenning, it has spread to UK, Australia, Japan and recently I saw a story about a Germany's based bank taking the hit.

Why? Because the subprime loan gets packaged and sold of to, who knows whom from anywhere in the world.

Next Week KLSE and Global Market Sell-Off

2007-07-28T07:43:00.000+08:00

My prediction is this, we are going to see another deep drop next week.

As of yesterday, KLSE reduced by 26.12points. The day before, Dow Jones dropped by 311.50 points and this morning I saw closed lower by another 207.53.

Both combined, the total drop is more than this year 416points February sell-off.

So expect another global sell-off next Monday.

It seems that US stocks sell-off came after a mix of bad news from Commerce Department's report that new home sales fell 6.6 percent last month and a weak result from two of the largest US homebuilders including the delay of a leveraged buyout of Chrysler from DaimlerChrysler AG's for US$7.4bil by Cerberus Capital Management due to difficulty in getting financing.

So the next big negative trigger can also be anything that comes with the word "failure to issue" + "bond" or "loan" or "debts".

Well for KLSE in Malaysia, I would say select the companies to be bought carefully and you will come out as a winner.

What is your strategy? Is it long-term, and what investment technique you have learned and used, I hope it is based on fundamental studies and not something related to Technical Analysis.

So, lets wait at the sideline next week or for the next few weeks and see any bargain, buy if you see one and stash the stock for a few years.

I'm sure you won't regret it.

But a letter of caution, check first how much those company are exporting their goods to US, and be wary when buying electronics based companies shares, they usually have substantial export to the US which will eventually effect their revenue.

But there could still be bargain in those export oriented companies if you know how to find it.

Oil Shale May Affect Oil & Gas Investment

2007-07-21T09:12:00.000+08:00

Oil shale, what is that thing?

Here is the definition of Oil Shale.

I think it will have a big impact on the price of oil in the next few years.

I read articles yesterday claiming that US has the biggest reserve of oil shale and is in the process of commerciallising it. It size is five more times than the stated oil reserve in Saudi Arabia.

Previously it was not viable to extract and process oil from oil shale but maybe now.

The figure I got is that crude oil price must be between $30 to $100 to make it viable depending who is saying. And as of yesterday crude oil price is hovering around $75.

Shell has been studying the method for extracting oil from oil shale for about 23years. Recently it has been able to produce 1400barrels of oil from a testing site in Colorada.

So the question in my mind now, when is the time to exit from oil & gas companies investment.

I'm not sure. I have to think more about that.

You may find it interesting to read this report.

How to Make Money From The Next Market Crash

2007-07-21T08:59:00.001+08:00

It is really easy. I have done it various time. You can also do it.

1. Learn the technique of value & growth investing
2. Be comfortable when reading companies financial report
3. Read articles on the companies that interest you
4. Wait for the price to dive down
5. Check if the fundamental is still intact and start buying
6. Wait for the price to move up again

Happy investing and money making.

But if you only focus on buying during market crash you may miss the next boom.

The Maxis Twist

2007-06-28T18:36:00.000+08:00

Not long after Ananda bought from Maxis investor RM15.60 per piece, part off it's share was sold off to Saudi Arabian investor for RM16.40 per share, a cool 5% profit.

In the transaction 25% of Maxis was sold off by Usaha Tegas Bhd, which is a company controlled by him.

But I guess everybody is happy. The minority shareholder, the majority share holder even the Prime Minister whom I guess has no shareholding in the company.

I'm also happy, why, because I like money, and in this type of market I've made money and maybe more to be made if the stock market keeps on inching up.

Anyhow money can also be made from descending market. Well, a friend of mine is afraid of the market crushing down. I told him, if he studied well enough of a company, and confident of his analysis, he should be buying more when the share price is cheaper. Surely, not the other way around.

For example, you'll make more money from buying, tidying up and selling a foreclose property than a fully valued one.

I have to apologise to my reader because I'm not updating my blog frequently.

Why, because I am spending time reading and reading and reading to educate and understand deeper about a sector and company for investing. Thereby I can make the right decision and in the process make a little bit of money.

Now I'm studying the shipping sector, specifically the oil tanker sector.

A little bit on that, as some of you may know there are 4 main segments in shipping industry, namely the oil tanker, bulk carrier, containership and gas tanker. Then we have the VLCC, Aframax, Panamax and etc which refer to the size of ships.

Thats all for now and see you all later.

The Positiveness of the Situation and Someting On Maxis

2007-05-04T23:57:00.000+08:00

It's hard not to buy shares in this season. I believe most people have started to pour in money into the stock market and kept pushing the prices higher and higher everyday.

A few companies shares prices that I am following are a bit nearer to the edge. What would it need to just step a litte bit more to the empty space beyond the edge?

A fall in Shanghai stock exchange or a drop in Dow Jones Index or a slip of tongue from someone revered in Malaysian economy that he or she is 100% selling.

Now about Maxis. From its published financial report the EPS is 83.90cents for the year ended 2006 and for 2005 it is for 67.30cents while for 2004 it is 64.80. The trend is going up but cash flow trend is a different story.

The operating cashflow is stagnating at around RM3-3.3billion from 2004 to 2006, it is going to be hard to increase it to higher figure if only focusing to saturated Malaysian Market, currently the marketing tactics is reduce product price. Thus the solution is to go abroad.

Starting in 2006 Maxis invested nearly RM2.7billion to acquire subsidiary and still opt to pay dividend of nearly RM1billion to its shareholder in the same year.

Although it already have RM3.4billion in cash it took on loan amounting to RM2.7billion. The cash mainly went to investing activities.

Unfortunately its investment in Indonesia is not making money fast. The subsidiary may need more money to grow before becoming profitable. Thus the next reasonable action is to reduce giving dividend and citing the reason. I've seen this being done by a company.

But Maxis majority shareholder chose to take Maxis private.

From what I can infer it could be that they don't want to pay dividend anymore and wanted to use it for growing the susidiary while at the same time they don't have to show to the public that a subsidiary is making a loss.

Actually what is happening to Maxis is boggling my mind. The unfolding story is not something that usually happens.

The past cases I've known for a buyout is that the company is healthy, the shares is undervalued, someone figured out what the should be value and oferred to buyout all the outstanding shares to keep all future profit to himself.

Old Habit Die Hard

2007-04-11T20:22:00.000+08:00

I was introduced to share investment by my mother ages ago.

Unfortunately she depended on her share dealer to give her tips on what to buy. So she lost a big amount.

Then in the year 2000 I get to know about Warren Bufet and Fool.com through the internet and my journey to educate my stock picking abilities started.

From the year 2000 until 2006 the KLSE index went up the down then side ways. Nevertheless I still made money and tried to influence her to invest some in the stock market by telling my new experience to her.

She refused and kept saying she lost big amount in the stock market.

A few time she told me,"You should be wary of investing in the stcok market, do you know one of your relative lost a million ringgit from buying shares?"

Fast forward and early March this year, she asked me, do I still buy shares and how much did I profit.

So I told her and then I asked why she is interested now.

She said," from the television, I heard those people were saying that the KLSE index is surging up and up and up.'

Then she asked me is it time to enter the market and can I recommend stocks, after thinking awhile I mentioned,"concentrate on the companies and we can enter anytime we wanted if our study support our action."

Next I recommended to her a few companies in Oil & Gas sectors listed on the stock market.

I told her, "buy using the money as much as you are willing to part with."

So my mum went back to hometown and last week I met her while visiting my grandmother.

She told me she already bought some stocks.

Yeah... got the tips from her dealer. The thing will sure will go up.

The Reasons

2007-04-02T19:03:00.000+08:00

After the KLSE having gone through two major drops I decided to find out what prompted the fall.

So I read and read and read and I concluded that the factors are external.

The first reason seemed to be due to Yen carry trade, the second reason seemed to be the softening housing market in US (i.e. the subprime and Alt-A issues).

But it is really annoying when I realised that there are diverging opinions of whether those two factors will continue to have big influence on the market direction going down.

Anyhow my prediction is that those two will kick-start another fall. The sources from the internet that I trusted are voting for a down turn of the stock market in the near future.

Why trust them, because the year 2000 tech bust was predicted months earlier and being analyse using facts and figure which were done exactly the same currently.

It is hard not to believe when it is presented in such a way.

It Is Free Diving!

2007-03-06T07:36:00.000+08:00

I'm estatic. The KLSE index droppped some more. Hunting season is coming near (i.e. the time to invest some more in KLSE is just around the corner).

Let me give you hints what to look for.

Go for Gas & Oil sector and Construction or its support industry (e.g. companies supplying vessels, oil drilling services, cements, concrete poles, etc.)

Not all companies are made or ran equal, so some studies is neccessy here.

The best place to start is at bursa malaysia annoucement webpage. Read through and analyse the past Annual Report and the quarterly financial results, then relate the current price to the information from there.

By then you should be able to decide whether a share price is cheap or not.

Never buy anything from the KLSE unless you have done that first.

And it is better if you do some market intellingece gathering, the least you can do is to scan through any news on those interesting companies for the past few years.

You will definately gain a broad idea who will excel and surge in the coming years.

Finally, It Dropped !

2007-03-04T07:30:00.000+08:00

Yes, at last it happened. A few minutes into trading, the KLSE index on 27 February shot down nearly 95points, which is really spectacular, before inching up again. It hasn't recovered the total lost yet.

Actually the fall precipitated a day earlier but in a much somber pace.

I knew about it (i.e. the 95 points drop) and saw the index in it's low but did nothing of it. I was thinking to myself, let it fall some more.

This situation doesn't come often where every shares prices was hauled down (for some it was about 30% price dropped) and what more it doesn't last long.

Now, I wish, I had been buying when I saw the plunge, because most of the prices of the shares were really ridiculously low at that moment.

It lasted for a few minutes. Then the KLSE index recovered and along with it the prices of stocks that I really love to put into my portfortlio.

Some of them dived down for a ringgit and today already recovered by 0.8 to 1Ringgits higher. So giving a return of that much (about 30%) for a few minutes of decision making for those who have the hindsight to buy.

I only started buying shares after the prices have recovered about 50% from the dropped. That was after deciding not to wait anymore.

But who knows the opportunity may come again in the coming weeks.

So just be patient, wait for another round of knock down.

For now just keep studying companies' fundamentals to make sure they are worth picking up when the bear retreats again.

Defying Gravity and The Stock Market

2007-02-10T07:59:00.000+08:00

The stock market in Malaysia has been defying gravity for the past few months. As I remember it from the start of October 2006 until know, February 2007, the share index kept on surging upward from about 980points to 1240 as of yesterday.

Whether it is going to continue upwards is yet to be seen but in the end anything that goes up must come down. Have you ever seen aeroplane that continue flying around without landing?

But it is hard to predict when the surging will finally lose it steam. It may take years and by the look of it as long as people feels the situation is positive they will keep buying.

My feeeling is that everyone are collaborating to ensure the situation stays positive.

Comments from foreign research houses, local research houses and politicians simply gave the underlying message there is only one direction for the stock market and it is up, up and away.

From my view as long as one study the fundamental of a company and buys base on fundamental analysis then you can buy companies shares without being afraid of getting burnt.

Else you will have to keep your eye on the stock prices every second to make sure you are also selling when the selling stampede happens.

Well in that case I have to assume that you are not working and have lots of free time or your job is following the stock market.

Learning and Practising Dominic O'Brien Technique

2007-02-07T20:31:00.000+08:00

Somewhere in past posting I mentioned that I am teaching my daughter how to memorize.

I did this, well, because "they said they wanted to test your understanding but actually your memorizing skill is get tested during exam," someone wrote that in the internet, couldn't remember whom the person is and my daughter is going through lots of exams in the coming years.

To get you to the the point, during one important year in my schooling years I memorized 10 past years exam exam sets and just guess what I got for one paper where all the questions was picked from past years exam by the teacher preparing the questions. I don't even have to understand what the question is asking about. Just find the right answer and mark it. It is an objective exam by the way.

Now, when I taught my daughter fortunately or unfortunately I also have to memorize words I said to her which I listed on a list.

Why? You would ask.

Put it like this, if she cannot remember some of the words then I wouldn't be feeling guilty repremanding her to do it right and she wouldn't be able to say it is really hard to memorize those words when I can rapidly said out what are those words after I handed her the list. So the fact is that I was also learning how to memorize.

It was put to practice one day when I attended a course. I memorize all the important points that were highlighted by the trainer. Unfortunately I couldn't memorize all points because my journey is only limited to 23 pegs.

So now after getting the "first kick out" of memorizing points said in a training session I am going to commit to my memory more journey and pegs so I can memorize more.

O'Brien has 100 journeys of 52 pegs each in his head ready for use and half are used for short term memory whilst the other half is used for long term memory. He told about it in his book how to pass exams.

So theoritically he can memorize 5200 of anything said to him in one go.

Hmnn... a very long way to go for me and my daughter.

Dealing With MPH (Malayan Publishing House)

2007-01-23T04:35:00.000+08:00

In the last post I did mentioned about Warren Buffet and Dominic O'Brien.

The earlier amassed unmaginable wealth through buying companies whilst the later changed the landscape of modern normal human capabilities in memorizing.

After some investigation I decided to learn more about O'Brien techniques and a few others. Bought additional books from MPH, which is alright if the books are available in stores around KL but got more cumbersome when asking someone from the stores to order for me from the publishers. They call it special order.

I mainly used e-mails to get in touch with MPH and sometimes using phones and going to the stores. As expected when using emails I will get the responses although it might takes a few days for the responses to come, but for face-to-face encounters and through the phone, in my opinion they need to buck-up the procedures.

I made around 10 calls and in 2 calls the person talking to me said I will be contacted later. Nevertheless nobody called back. Hmnn...

I felt it is better if I said,"I will call back later." Then, I won't be worrying if I'm going to ever get return calls from them.

The first enquiry e-mail was sent on 26 December last year, only yesterday after 7 e-mails I became confident enough to make the booking deposit.

As a comparison, visiting and ordering through Amazon.com takes less than 30 minutes and it is ready to deliver the books to me. I need only to press something like the order button.

Amazon.com promised to deliver the books in about 1 month whilst MPH promised to deliver them in 2 months at RM20.00 cheaper.

Fortunately I don't need the books urgently or MPH will definately lose orders from me.

Stock Picking and Memorizing

2006-12-14T04:23:00.000+08:00

I have not been updating my blog for a few months. I was busy doing other things and in the mean time I have decided to stop promoting Success University because of a few reasons, well, maybe in future I will decide to start again.

One of the reasons which kept bugging me is cost or specifically Return On Investment (ROI). Then I realise I can use the money for other things such as increasing knowledge in a certain pursuits that I have been doing for the past decade.

So I kept thinking and thinking and finally I decided to keep my SU subscription because I like the lessons offered and to stop altogether any type of SU advertising and promotion requiring cash.

Currently, I'm back at spending my free time studying companies that are listed on the KLSE and sometimes until wee hours in the morning.

In all aspects of life when you are involved in something and when you seek to search and study the right methods and schemes and improve on it, at last you will get it right after countless reflecting, tweaking, adding and pruning.

Just like what Bob Burg said, if it has been done by someone, it can be done by anyone else, just find it and emulate how it is done. You will definately see the result.

My objective is really simple, that is, how I can have 100% probability that my overall portfolio will increased in value for at least 3 years from now and while at the same time I still can sleep well at night and during the day I'm not glued to the jiggling of stock prices.

In October this year, I started fine tuning my technique after getting an insight, my beloved wife was also fundamental in realising the insight, but somehow at the same time the Composite Index rose from 960 and now it is 1080. It was sheer luck that I started buying at that time. It is not uncommon now to see stocks prices already increased by 30%. 30% is very high if you read book about Warren Buffet, his yearly target for stock price increase is only 15% but he has been able to compound his wealth for about 20% each year for 40 years. He started with about USD100k in the sixties and now ends with around USD60Billion or so.

Anyhow, stock market trend is not something I'm looking into, it doesn't matter, whether the market is up or down if it is the right time then I will acquire or start selling stocks.

Another pursuit that I have taken on is teaching my 7 years old daughter of how to memorize more efficiently. I want her to have easier time when learning. Using memorizing techniques taught by Ron White, she already knows the meanings to these words, look up, point to the door, pick up the can, write your name, stand up, read the book, able, change, methods, schemes, no one, knows, intentions, war, vital, state, matter, live, death.

The best part is that she remembers all this in three sessions of 30 minutes each. Usually it will take days to remember all these. My coming target is to coach her until she can memorize 20 items within one 30 minutes session.

During the first time, I used Ron White methods and able to memorize 20 US presidents and I can repeat it from the first to the last and vice versa. Later I started with my daughter.

I'm now thinking to learn Dominic O'Brien methods, he won the World Memory Championship 8 times. As a child he was diagnosed as having Dyslexia and Attention Deficiency Disorder (ADD), just imagine that.

"Learn from the Master," I've heard that so many times. His audio book is available for about USD25 and I read really positive reviews about them. Maybe I'll get them. :-)

The First Step ..... Just Do It !

2006-09-30T08:41:00.000+08:00

I cannot claim that I am financially free yet and can start enjoying watching the sun setting in the evening everyday while I'm sipping fresh, cool pineapple juice on a ship on a cruise to somewhere.

But I'm working on it and believe it will happen one day in my life (I mean the financially free part, I have no intention to become a sailor yet.)

A few months back, a friend asked something about money and investment.

I said to him, you may think it is impossible, but the reality is that if you save and invest the saving wisely you'll be able to be financially free as early as 10 years.

Then, you will ask, how can that be?

First, you have to know that there is a relationship between saving and becoming wealthy and financially free, but in life, saving hard for most people to do.

Why?

- Saving is hard when your neighbour bought a new car
- Saving is hard when your siblings is driving their newly bought car
- Saving is hard when your in-laws kept repeating when you are going to change to a newer car.
- Saving is hard when your father casually said, don't you want to buy that Mercedes.
- Saving is hard when there are so many fine things and they made it seem a privilege to have it.

The latest model of Mercedes, BMW, Honda, and all the fashionable labels - Gucci, Ralph Laurent, Estee Lauder and Nike, got to have them all.

Finally these leads to unnecessary debt and things that you find you may not need after all.

While, in the mean time helping to enrich, first those must have (personally I would prefer them as nice to have) things manufacturer, its associates, next the sellers and lest I forget the ever willing credit card pusher.

You see, when I say helping to enrich its associate, you can become one. Which was discussed more in detail by Peter Lynch in his book One Up On Wall Street.

Saving needs strong will power. You need to find and know why you must save.

If you save, that will be the first step towards controlling your finance and will lead you to your financial freedom.

You can check this yourself. Ask those people who became wealthy and continue to be one, and then read books on personal finance.

That is the wisdom from the past and will continue long to be, after you and I are mere dust.

Why? Simply because if you want to be wealthy, you must have the money to invest and it is much, much healthy to invest with your own money that you saved.

Two books that helped to mold my my perspective and paradigm of saving are these two books, The Millionaire Next Door written by Stanley and Danko and The Richest Man In Babylon by George S. Clason.

You will gain much, if you read and promise to yourself to follow the advices sprinkle through out those three books.

Categories: Saving, Wealthy, Finance, Investing, Life

Learning To Win

2006-09-22T15:10:00.000+08:00

I am thanking these people which I learnt much from - Warren Buffet, Benjamin Graham, Peter Lynch, John Neff, Philip A. Fisher and a few others.

Actually from readings articles and books about them and devising ways to use their advices I've made some money for the past 6 years from the stock market. By the way that is much, much better than the 6 years before that.

While most people around me were talking about stock tips, if the market is going up, or whether the market is going down, chasing counters or declaring Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) is the place to lose big money.

I slowly and steadily accumulate stocks which through my study, I believe has a good business potential. Definately I also sold some of them when the time arrive.

In 2000 when I started to use good investment techniques I was not that much knowledgeable compared to now, so I still haven't made it very good yet.

But when the market is good, my total stock investment value is reasonably good, and when the stock market is down. I'm not that worried, I still sleep soundly at night, because of the way I choose my stock, I'm not so worried about their price.

Just think like this, if you are living in tornado prone area, you can sleep well if you're inside an underground basement, but not if you are staying on the ground and only protected by layers of nailed together wood planks. You would be looking and looking and looking outside if the twisters is coming your way.

So, invest using those techniques told by the proven experts. I think in a few years after I have clear all the dogs in my portfolio I might be able to enjoy better return.

Last week I sold Air Asia shares and got some small profit. It is the most profitable and the biggest LCC in Asia, which models itself according to Ryanair in Europe.

In Malaysia we can either choose MAS (the national airline) or Air Asia. In my opinion, Air Asia future is better than MAS.

When you want to get a good company, look also into it's cost cutting efforts. It is one of the important yardsticks that must be use to become a well informed investor. Air Asia cut cost vigorously. Another company that comes to my mind is IOI Corp, the lowest cost palm oil producer in Malaysia. Yet another one is YTL Corp, it's CEO claimed to have built ERL (Express Rail Link) tracks connceting KLIA (one of Malaysia's International Airport)to KL Sentral (ERL's last station in Kuala Lumpur) in record time and at a record cost (lowest.)

Now back to those investment experts, when I go through the books about those men, their advises is simple and not hard to follow. Except for Philip Fisher "Scutlebutt" method which is not that easy to imitate.

Currently doing online business is a bit different, so many advices from so many expert and non-expert alike.

After a few months now, I realise that making lots of money through the net is not meant to be easy. It is hard work.

It is like saving money, you do it bit by bit, small amount at one time. When people talk about making tons of money in a short of time, gambler, gambling and those illegal money lender comes to my mind. In Malaysia we have a problem with illegal money lender.

They are called "Along" here. Meaning the oldest brother.

Don't get involve with Along, that is what I concluded after reading some of the stories about them and their borrower.

They are called the oldest brother, but they are not born in the same family with the borrower and have less mercy.

Categories: Malaysia, Investment, Stock, Klse, Tips

Challenging Moments (1)

2006-09-10T15:02:00.000+08:00

In the journey of our lifetime. Deemed to be those moments when we stood in silence. Dreams are still dim. Themes we hold loosen their gleams. Hence we look back to the past distance. Concerned if we are heading to the right end.

Times gone look different. Surrounding now is uncommon. Strange emotions, crashing in waves and swollen. Remained incessant until you fixate your aim.

Categories: poetry, words, verse, motivation

The Once In A Blue Moon PC Fair

2006-08-26T07:34:00.000+08:00

Finally,... yes.... finally I did it, I finally bought a PDA at a price which is a few hundred ringgit cheaper.

Bought it a few weeks ago at The PC fair which was held at Kuala Lumpur City Center.

In Malaysia, PC Fair is an event you wouldn't want to miss out if you're looking for computer related gadgets, because the sellers there really drove down their price at PC Fair.

The whole family just arrived from Ipoh to KL one night, and we went to straight to KLCC because I couldn't wait for another year or so for the next PC Fair.

I simply have to go to KLCC then.

Unfortunately my daughter who was 7 years old was sick with fever (she was OK the next two days)and I felt obliged to carry her as she was looking at me in the eyes in a pitiful way, complaining to me she is going to black-out if I don't carry her. So I have to carry a full 20kg weight most of the time there. Sometimes, I have to asked her, if I can put her down and take a rest when her weight seems so unbearable.

A few days after that, I felt like I'm having a fever myself. All my joints and muscle felt hurt.

Categories: PDA, Malaysia, KLCC, PC FAIR

Opppsss...The Not So Perfect PDA

2006-08-15T22:41:00.000+08:00

Doug from http://www.underdoug.ca/ post a comment in my previous posting. Later I was intrigued after reading his blog posting. I did more research and lucky me.

I came across a review when reading through CNET suggesting to visit here, which was started by g00nerz.

He or she started the forum posting, with the comments I pasted below;

Got a brand spanking new Axim x51(v)? Are YOU experiencing these problems?
-Axim Will not power on after standby?
-White Screen Of Death (WSOD)
-Losing CF or SD cards?
-Battery losing charge while on standby?
-Axim overheating when left in standby mode?
-If Leaving WiFi on when putting into standby, it's light starts flashing for no reason?

....and some more description at Wikipedia , I'm not sure if it will be available when you look for it there now.

Most probably I won't be buying Dell AximX51 anymore after reading both of them. Looks like Dell Axim X51 is not stable which is due to Windows Mobile 2005 bug. In the thread it was speculated that the instability is caused by Active Sync, which launched itself automatically and brings myriads of problems.

The proposed solution is to disable the Active Sync.Actually I'm at the verge of divulging my credit card number to Dell online website. Axim X51 is so cheap compared to its competitors model, it is giving a big discount for the gadget, which nearly got me hooked.

Categories: Malaysia, Personal, PDA, PocketPC, Windows, Dell, Axim

Searching for the Perfect PDA

2006-08-05T09:32:00.000+08:00

I'm looking for a PDA. If you haven't knew about it, there are two types that is available in the market.

Palm which is using Palm OS and Pocket PC which is using Windows Mobile OS.

I'm swaying toward the Windows OS, while that said, I couldn't really point the fault with Palm, from all the palm vs pocketpc articles and discussions, actually palm is cheaper, but I guess for me when I heard Windows it makes me feel secure because of the familiarity.

All this while I have been using Windows and feel comfortable using it.

There are many of Pocket PC brand out there including Toshiba, Fujitsu, Acer and etc.

Now I have zoom down to either HP, Dell or maybe HTC.

HP and Dell may well be familiar to anyone who knows something about PC and notebook, but what the heck is HTC.

What surprised me and I think you also, is that HTC is the number one contract manufacturer for Pocket PC from Taiwan and ehem,ehem,....Dell also contracted out the manufaturing to HTC to produce their line of AXIM Pocket PC, although I'm not quite sure which models.

Have you all heard about the ever famous O2 XDA....,well at least here in Malaysia it is famous. This gadget model is also manufactured by HTC.

So, small world isn't it.

It goes round and round.You start from point A and then after a long journey you arrive back to point A.

Guess. whose microprocesser they are using in most Dell, HP, Acer and IBM PCs and notebooks?

You see, what I meant?

So the Pocket PC I'm interested in are HP IPAQ rx1950, Dell Axim X51. I'm also considering whether to buy second hand or new item.

But I need to check whether I can get a reasonable priced second hand Pocket PC which runs on Windows Mobile 2005 (WM 2005).

All the new one launch to the market at end of last year comes with WM 2005 which has better features compared to WM 2003. Well, that is expected.

Categories: Malaysia, Personal, PDA, Pocket PC, Palm, Windows

Life for the Past Few Days

2006-07-29T05:50:00.000+08:00

I have been busy for a while. Office work is becoming heavier in the past few week, has started to bring some works back home.

Few personal things also cropped up that I need to focus on, which took lots of my time that doesn't have to do with computer and the internet.

My Blog Header

Last week I put Life Health Relationship as my blog header. A few days after that I decided to change a bit to Life Healthy Life Relationship, then I'll just concentrate on using that keywords in my blog postings.

Just trying out things that I learn when reading Brad Callen ebook.

This time, I think, using the word healthy is better, it is easier to form a sentence rather than health.

It is because I can write healthy ........(fill in the blank)which gives me more options, but health ....... (fill in the blank) gives me less options.

For example healthy food or healthy life or healthy thinking or healthy relationship or people.

But for the word health, I cannot just put something in front of health, it will sound ridiculous, although I have seen people using "health food" but never "health life" or "health thinking" or "health relationship" or "health people".

So I need to be creative there which I can easily do without, when using the word healthy.

I'm also thinking back to change my blog layout. Maybe I'll do it somewhere next month.

Question On Success-University

I have also been corresponding with one of my free-trial downline from Philipine. He claimed he is a business man and wanted to know how long will he get his money back if he continue to invest in Success University.

I told him I estimated in 3 years time. Although usually, 3 years payback time is quite OK. But, I'm not sure whether that is a good answer to a business man.

Returns Expected from Success-University

Considering the knowlege that he'll get, it may be worth it, if he continue with Success University as a paying member.

Anyhow if he is thinking in accounting terms, which I think he is, from the way he wrote his e-mail. He will not continue. There is no asset that he can flip, by buying Success University membership. He cannot mortgage his SU website to the bank.

But the same applies when you pay your fees while taking your degree or diploma. You cannot go to the bank and put it up, as a collateral.

But don't you think, your life and future will be much better if you have a degree. You can apply for better job. And in some years you are presented with vast opportunities, you'll be busy selecting and picking what you want.

For example, one of my working collegue just came back a few months from Japan, after finishing his Master Degree there. Now he is no more with us and has joined another company who is in awed of both his experiences studying in Japan and working in Malaysia.

Categories: Life, Malaysia, Success-University

Healthy Life

2006-07-28T21:23:00.000+08:00

What makes you healthy?

What will make you feel healthy?

What will make you full of energy?

What is the most important thing that will keep you healthy?

Will you believe me, if I said for the first part of my life, headache is part and parcel of my life. I have come to accept it. Most of the time it is a daily occasion, something like, OK now I have to go the bathroom, need to throw away few things, no big deal about it, you have one of it, I also got one.

But now for the past few years, I cannot even remember when was the last time I experience headache. Even when I was down with fever, and whenever I got one, I can easily make it go away.

Nope, it's cure is not a magical drug or even a black magic. It is never a panadol or ponstant. It is a very simple thing in life that I get adjusted to.

I think, if I tell the cure, those pharmaceutical giant will get very angry.

Why I am Changing My Blog Header ?....Again

2006-07-18T19:26:00.000+08:00

I did it again !

Yes....for the ummmphteenth time I changed again my blog header. I don't think this is the last though.

Before this it was Life Health Love.

Now it is Life Health Relationship.

What is the reason?

It is part of my experimentation with SEO and to get better result with Google.

For Life Health Love I used Google Trends to find the keywords and later for Life Health Relationship I use Good Keyword software. Furthermore I think it is much easier to make a sentence using relationship than love.

Another consideration is that, I believe in the cyberworld the "love" word is also an important keyword for those people running adult and dating websites which I don't want to be associated with.

OK, the idea came after I read an eBook by authored by Brad Callen by the title Search Engine Optimization MADE EASY.

Yeah everything in the internet is soooo.. easy.

He is teaching how to optimize a website and I'm trying to optimize a blog, but the reality is that I'm having problem to implement his tactics on my blog, now not so easy.... ehh.

According to the book, the most important factor is the keyword for the website and then try to sprinkle it throughout the website.

There is a marked differences between those two. The most important being, blog has a dynamic interface while a website is usually static.

And then there is the h2 tag which should help in getting a better point in SEO, but what I understand in blogger, it is used as date and time tag for each post.

But to be fair, he wrote a useful book and it is interesting for me and for those who needs to really follow through the steps how to optimize a website. He also discussed two optimization techniques, which are Onpage Optimization and Offpage Optimization.

So after learning his tactics I started to look for how to optimize blog. Been reading Yaro Starak and also Darren Rowse on this theme.

And up until now, still learning.

I'm also trying to juggle my time, because of a new project that I'm working on. It was suggested by Zamri two weeks ago.

I made a promised to finish it by end of August this year.

Categories: Blog-Improvement, Internet, SEO, Google

Family Relationship: Why it's That Way (2)

2006-07-16T09:40:00.000+08:00

Continuing the previous posting here are more reasons.

Asset or money, yes, its a big reason in our life;

6) We have to support him, you know, (who is more than 21 years old, not studying and like to loiter around) until he gets a steady job.

7) My love, your money is my money and my money is .....

8) That person acted as if we were money printing machine.

9) He keeps boasting about how well-off he is, but told me there is simply not enough money when I ask for his help.

10) I loaned him the money and he spent it all on .... (fill in the blank), then he came back asking for more money.

The health of a marriage to a certain extent also depend on how much money is available for the family. According to a study, in US, one of the major reason of divorce is due to money problem.

And if you can recall, most disputes in a family that went to the Courts were about asset or wealth allocation which has a direct relationship with money.

One of the famous dispute in Malaysia between family members is the Tan Chong Bhd Saga. It is a public listed company which holds the franchise of Nissan and Datsun cars distribution in Malaysia.

The disagreement is between an uncle and a nephew on the company's ownership. Both of them have their own camp, and this is detrimental to having a cordial family relationship.

You can read here the Malaysian Courts Judgements High Court Judgement, Appeal Court Judgement, and Federal Court.

See you in next post.

Categories: Malaysia, Life, Family, Relationship

Family Relationship: Why it's That Way (1)

2006-07-14T06:12:00.000+08:00

Everyone has a family. A mum, a papa, sisters, brothers, relatives and if married, a wife or husband and maybe children.

Today, in this posting I'm going to talk about us who regularly came across those people we loved.

If you haven't realize it yet, we tend to feel tense when interacting with some of those close people.

Why it's that way?

From my actual experience it is because of:

1) There is this one great idea how you should do it. Listen here... I don't need your idea how to go about it.
2) Actually you don't have the experience, you see...you don't know what you are talking about.
3) I'm better than you... look what I have, my expensive car, my clever kids, my sophisticated friends and etc.
4) Whatever it is, you must realize that person is never wrong.
5) You are already successful, don't nag, let that person be.

That's for now, I'll post some more later.

So what is my point?

Think what I meant and try to avoid doing those things which makes you regret later. Retaliation is sweet but if not done subtly, you may regret it later.

I know, I have gone through it.

Reflect back your encounter with your family. Ponder upon how certain aspects can be improved. Conjure your response in your mind. This needs constant exercise.

That will make your life and theirs also much better.

Categories: Family, Relationship, Life

Advice to Those Who Wants to Break A Relationship Cordially --- By Someone Who Did it

2006-07-10T19:10:00.000+08:00

Here is a good advice to ponder upon.

One of my friends owns a factory and supplied products to MNCs in Malaysia.

This year he has started to supply to overseas market.

In the early year the factory was jointly own by another two partners.

During the 1997 Asian crisis, there was not enough money to pay all of them. Didn't really asked what he meant by the statement. I guess their salaries or perks being the owner.

So before the company goes bankrupt and they started blaming each other and became enemies for life, he suggested for the other two friends to sell their shares to him.

In other word, break their business partner relationship.

The other two owners agreed to his proposal. So my friend borrowed from his relatives some money and buy off their portions.

He told me, now they are still good friends.

So his advice is, if in your life you have to break relationship, do it before situations get heated up and give concessions if possible.

Categories: Malaysia, Relationship, Life

Success University, Malaysian CEO and Small Talk

2006-07-06T20:05:00.000+08:00

Amongst the course that I really like from Success University is about small talk and striking a conversation to start a relationship.

On this topic, there are two instructors from Success University whom I’ve listen to many times. Bob Burg, he teaches a method that is more suitable for formal functions, when you're talking to the captain of industries, the community leaders or people who tend to value themselves highly and I feel that, Debra Fine techniques is more relax and can be used with anybody.

Both of them tell how to start a conversation and the techniques to maintain it going on.

So, last Sunday's evening on 2nd July 2006, I initiated a small talk with a company's CEO and his father.

He heads one of the biggest organisation in Malaysia which has a yearly revenue of more than RM1billion.

From the small talk I got to know the information below;
- How many siblings he has
- Among his siblings, which number he is
- He watched England vs Portugal match earlier that morning but didn't continue to watch Brazil against France because of sleepiness.
- Where he lives
- What car he drives
- His parents are still alive
- Why did he came to that place

He also asked why I came to that place, where do I live and did I watch the football/soccer games early that morning.

And before parting he shook my hand and said, “See you."

Well, when those words came from someone like him it felt nice, although I realised it is a good etiquette and the probability is that he was trained to say it to anyone.

See, we didn't touch on golf, expensive indulgence or his company's business. Only life simple things.

My vote is that what Bob Burg and Debra Fine teach worked, it really, really worked.

So, Success University, a small success from your lessons.

Categories: Malaysia, Relationship, Success-University

Streamyx's Mystery

2006-07-04T21:36:00.000+08:00

Why mystery?

Because suddenly it is working fine.

Two week ago I cannot use Streamyx but last week it is usable.

I didn't even lodge a complain with TMNET.

There must be an unseen force working behind the scene.

Categories: Malaysia

Life's Quotations.....For What?

2006-06-28T23:30:00.000+08:00

This is among one of the quotation that I like;
"Time and tide waits for no one."

Which means that in whatever situation, the clock will be ticking off and the ocean waves will rise and fall.

Another quotation that I find useful is;
"This too will pass."

What that is implying is, whether you're in great happiness or in deep sorrow it won't last forever. Definitely not in this world.

Now if you're in a horrible situation, just remind yourself that, this too will pass,

...and better still if you add, by saying to yourself, nothing matters, nothing matters and nothing matters.

Why would you want to say that? Because that will make you more sane and in control. Sometimes thinking about things that are out of your control can make you lost your mind and good judgement and you may hurt someone(yourself included) or damage something.

Categories: Life

My Father In-Law Passed Away

2006-06-28T16:59:00.000+08:00

It was very hectic for me and the family for the past few days.

My father in-law passed away last Saturday, 24th June 2006. My wife got the message around 10:30pm while I was working on my blog, after hearing the news through my wife, we packed everything up, luckily we have a live-in maid who helped packing.

By 12midnight we're ready and drove all the way back to Ipoh which is my wife hometown.

Huh it was very tiring and I was sleepy, I'm not used to travelling during early morning.

We reached there around 3:30am, couldn't really sleep by then, and waited until 9:00am when things started to get faster and the same day by 12noon or so his body was buried after prayer.

Only after that, I felt the need to get a good rest.

Categories: Malaysia

What is Wrong With My Streamyx Line?

2006-06-24T07:31:00.000+08:00

Last night when I tried to access the Internet through my Streamyx line, it hanged.

I got the message my browser cannot display the website I'm pointing at.

I changed to dial-up 1515 and then things became fine.

There must be something wrong with my Streamyx line.

Today is Satuday in Malaysia and I'm not sure anyone from TMNET or TM will be keen enough to come and have a look at my problem.

Maybe I'll take a look at TMNET Website
and see what can I do to let them help me.

Categories: Malaysia, Internet

Stop! Don't Wreck Your Precious Life

2006-06-22T20:50:00.000+08:00

It is a fact of life. All around us there will be people that lashed out negative imaginations that are lingering in their mind through their mouth.

Then there are people that say out positive words through their mouth.

The funny thing is that the people with negative imagination is in abundance and tend to get audience to agree with them when they are talking.

These people will find fault with almost everything, their work, their bosses, their colleagues, their wives, kids, even themselves and just anything else.

The much funnier thing is that, negative words are always free and it never comes with a price. But if you want to hear positive expressions being said, and moreover the best ones, you have to pay a price, sometimes a hefty one.

Try going to any motivational talks or to any classes that make your learn new skills.

But mind you, we will still pay the price for listening to negative things. We will pay the price by having bleak future if we let our self succumb to negative thoughts being sowed by people with unhealthy attitude and negative habits. We will feel more hopeless, helpless and bad about our self and about everything else.

And actually, it takes the same kind of effort and energy whether to talk about negative things or positive things.

It is like driving a car, it doesn't matter whether you are reversing or going forward, you're still using gas or in Malaysia we call it petrol.

It makes more sense, don't you think so? If you wanted to go somewhere quicker, go forward, not backward.

Having that said, I would advise others and myself to listen to positive words, think positively, say positive things and act positively.

It is a waste of time for you to tell negative things to others who cannot help you, themselves or anyone else. If you have a problem, talk to someone who can give you good advice.

For example if you're sick, see your doctor, ask for medicine, and find out how you can get better.

Don't overindulge in your sickness and the symptoms you're experiencing, don't feel sorry for yourself; think how to get better quickly.

That is better for you and for everyone else.

When you absorbed good habits and attitudes, the world will start paying you in ways you never imagine. Your relationship becomes meaningful, your work become easier and enjoyable, you family loves you more, you felt healthier and many better things will greet you in future.

The least is that, you will immediately feel better about yourself rather than being depressed.

Now, if you want to feel depress go ahead. You can do that to yourself. But I remember that depression is a mental sickness that may need medical attention and you want to keep it in control.

It has been associated with low appetite, migraine, suicidal tendency and etc. When you reach that state, people will also try to be out of your way.

On the other hand, I have never heard the medical community ever did research on how not to make you feel good about yourself, feel positive, and expectant of this life.

You will definitely get a surprise stare if you visit your doctor and asked for a pill that will not allow you to feel good about yourself, that will make you feel depress and put an end to this great life so that you don't have to put up with another good stuff in your life, ever again.

Categories: Life

10 Reasons Why You Will Want to Build Relationship With Others

2006-06-21T06:21:00.000+08:00

ROI from Building Relationships;

1. You will feel better about yourself
2. You will be more confident
3. You will be more satisfied
4. You will be more expectant of life
5. You will get more opportunities
6. You will get to spend time with people who likes you
7. You will find it easier to get someone to help you
8. You will get to know special information
9. You will project better image to other people
10. You will be skillful to develop more relationships

As a bonus, I add another one.
11. You will be hand picked for promotion, considering all things being equal.....
or maybe... all things being unequal you will still be picked for promotion.

Categories: Relationship, Life

Daegan's Team Coop Opened and Closed

2006-06-21T06:12:00.000+08:00

Actually I should be writing about this topic last week, but I was busy with something else.

For the few weeks I've been finding ways to optimize my blog. I've read, searched, downloaded and read tens of articles on SEO.

So here, just to tell you that Daegan's team coop opened on June, 12 2006 which is last Monday and already closed on this week Monday on 19th June.

This time I bought on share on the day the coop is opened.

I already got bonuses from Zamri who has promised to give free articles and article sender software to anyone from his team who paticipated in the coop.

My past participations in the coop has given me a good number of leads and also a few people who became Success University member under me.

This time I'm sure I'll get great results.

Categories: Success-University

What is the Cost of Building Relationship?

2006-06-17T10:07:00.000+08:00

Very small if you do it rightly and you only have to be creative.

Yes, be creative, building relationship is going to challenge your creativity.

Why? Because everyone is different, you have to reinvent ways to approach, to spur the interest and make the relationship alive with that other person.

Next we will talk about the ROI you are going to get when you invest in Building Relationship.

Categories: Relationship, Life

A Few Traits of Successful People

2006-06-13T22:19:00.000+08:00

That said, I'm going to be more successful one day. I love this internet business that I am part of. I'm also putting effort into building it. No night pass by, without me working on this whole dream that has become my passion.

I intent on giving life to it, so that one day it will breathe on its own. Keeps on turning round and round perpetually after reaching critical mass.

There are plenty of work to be done. Sometimes I just wondered how others manage their time. That’s why they are successful bloggers and internet marketers.

This evening one of my friends called me. He wanted to have a chat. After he arrived, we went to the cafeteria and settled for soft-drinks.

So here we are, and as usual he has the insider scoop of Malaysian Business.

One of the earlier internet companies is not healthy and looks like going to fold-up. It hasn't been paying salaries for many months now.

He was wondering why, it has the management, contracts, contacts and the experience. Maybe mismanagement of cash-flow.

Ohh...he got the news from one of top management of the company who is a friend of him and now looking for other job.

Huh...what the title of this posting has to do with a company that is sinking...so you got me there and the things that will come after this explains it.

I’ve written down here things that came out from our conversation that I felt matters much.

1. Don't buy liabilities (which I freely follow Robert T. Kiyosaki definition)
2. Save and save and save, spend only for those things which brings in return
3. Giving award to young people may make them feel indestructible
4. Aligned yourself with people who wants to become better
5. Keep on learning new things that makes you a better person
6. To help yourself, then train other people through MLM (opss...he said that)

Then he introduced his MLM products and company to me. He said it was started by an ex-Malaysian AMWAY employee. It is an internet based MLM.

I listened, saying to myself, there must be something magical about MLM. Here a person who owns a gas station that is doing well and having interest in a few companies, wanted to try out with MLM.

But he is the type of person who cannot sit still; currently he is also trying to build a business in Indonesia.

Good luck to him!

He has been lucky all this while. The first time he got his break was when he made a tidy sum from the stock market and that helped him to come out with initial capital to start business.

But, I really believe luck is only 1% of the whole equation, the other 99% is hard work and perseverance.

Categories: Personal

Success University is Becoming More Successful

2006-06-08T18:08:00.000+08:00

Today, Matt Morris announced changes to Success University compensation scheme for its affiliates.

It will be easier now, for a member to get monthly cheque from Success University HQ in Dallas. This is a free residual income received without any effort of Success University member, which is really great.

Don't you just love it. Not many organisations are as nice as Success University when giving out cash. Most of the time corporate organisations will prefer to look after their own health and wealth, sometimes not even bothering the welfare of their own employees, who are working hard for them.

Many will benefit from this change and I believe many lifes will change and becoming more hopeful of their success with Success University.

It was also announced that Daegan Smith, one of my team leader is now in the advisory board of Success University because of his success in using internet marketing to build his business.

To The Top!

Categories: Success-University

New Tools from Google

2006-06-03T21:52:00.000+08:00

Google Inc. released four new tools on may, 10 2006 that is going to help internet internet users better. They are Google Co-op Beta, Google Desktop 4 Beta, Google Trends and Google Notebook.

I took some time to check out one of the tools and it was fun.

Here it is Google Trends.

This tool is suppose to help users find a search term. So I tested a few combination and guess what the result looked like for this keywords.

life, health, general, how to, buy

then select Malaysia in place of All Regions.

It would seems that a surge of people looking to buy health insurance during those months in Malaysia in 2006. This is interesting to those insurance companies. Those people who can get the keywords combination can sell them to those advertisers if it is not against Google policy.

Now lets put another keywords.

dead, sick, unique, let, sell

Same trends. The insurance companies have to be cautious.

Just to check further. Lets put in:

cat, door, window, ice, spoon

Extraordinary, same trends.

Select Singapore and now see what happens.

So don't fully trust Google Trends graph yet and the people at Google have also put a disclaimer asking users not take Google Trends seriously.

Categories: Internet

Mike Filsaimer of Butterfly Marketing

2006-05-29T13:36:00.000+08:00

I listened to Mike Filsaimer who branded his product as Butterfly Marketing which is a website building tool for membership and affiliate management last Friday. He was interviewed by Matt Morris during a faculty call and turns out to be, he is a Success University member.

Yaro Starak commented that Butterfly Marketing is one of this year big Internet Marketing product. I better tell you that he is also an affiliate to the product. In simple word he gets money if anyone buys it from his link.

Another successful person using the Butterfly Marketing is Keith Welmann who was personally mentored by Mike. Well from his posting I can see that many people become successful from using Butterfly Marketing, that is if you consider receiving a lot of money as successful.

I concurred with Yaro that every year there will be big products released into the market, but not everyone can profit from them. Most of the time if you're ready, then when opportunity sail in front of you,you just know it and quickly you grab it. The likelihood is, you will profit massively.

But if you're are not ready and your knowledge and experience is minimal,you'll look silly hugging the opportunity and you'll have to take into account the amount of money that you may lose when chasing the success promised by the opportunity.

That one I gladly learn after listening to Earl Nightingale in my Success University course.

Categories: Success-University

The Last Habit of Highly Effective People

2006-05-28T22:16:00.000+08:00

When I was younger once my father said,"When you're feeling exhausted, take a rest, look at the trees and green scenery outside your study place."

Now, I'm not sure if he can remember words that he said.

Looking at nature can be very calming and soothing to the mind and body.

The final habit from Dr. Stephen Covey teaching is to Sharpen the Saw. This body of ours including the mind needs occasional rest to be refreshed.

Exercising, sleeping, meditating, enjoying the natural scenery all qualified as the methods that will keep ourself rejuvenated.

Categories: Tips

Some thoughts On 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

2006-05-27T07:19:00.000+08:00

Finished attending the training last two days.

Overall I felt the message from the trainer has been well dessiminated.

Frankly I've known about the 7 habits of Highly Effective People for many years. I even bought a book by Dr. Stephen Covey and have finished reading it years ago.

So are there anything more that I can learn.

Sure, there are, I never really understood some of the concept from just reading the book. Those confusion gets answered during the session.

We the participants also gets to exchange ideas and sometimes we can see how others has a different way of thinking and look at things from a different perspective.

One of the moment that I felt overwhelming was when we were going through the exercise of coming out with our mission statement. Some eyes looks red and gleaming with tears after that.

We are asked to do continous writing for five minutes. I started with things that being troubling me and, WOW! the feeling is very strong. I wished I wouldn't have to stop.

Later I volunteered a comment. I said that, when the problems are inside my mind they gets convoluted, twirling like tornadoes, and most of the time, lost and hidden somewhere in my head, and then surfaced unexpectedly, but when they gets written on a piece of paper I felt more calmer.

So from now on, I will write any problem on paper and keep looking and thinking about them and will do things until I've come to an acceptable solution.

Categories: Personally
Categories: Tips

Continued: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Training

2006-05-25T06:15:00.000+08:00

Yesterday is the 2nd day of training and today will be the last day.

The first thing to do today is called 3 person teaching. Anytime when we teach other people about something who becomes more knowledgeable? We ourself will be. We need to understand first before we can teach others.

Actually the teaching can be carry out with more than three people. So each of us selected a topic and will be presenting our topic to the group.

Everyone is given one and a half minutes to talk about the topic and another one and a half minutes to tell a story that has a relation to the topic.

To me, attending the training is like enforcing what I already knew. Because I have attended many self improvement seminars and also listen to tapes and audio. They are all about the same on the basics.

Sometimes during the training I get new insight or starts to think how to do those things that I haven't practise yet or keep me back on track.

One of the important matter in this training is how we want to live our life, do we want to build our character or concentrate on personality?

Building character is hard work and takes time or maybe a life time but personality can be imitated and acquired quickly. Building character is like planting an oak tree and building personality is like planting mushroom.

The oak tree slowly grows and overtime it becomes bigger and strong with root deep into the earth and no big wind or rain (I'm not sure about tornadoes) can uproot it but mushroom, it has a short life and you cannot get cover from the rain or sunshine under a mushroom.

Categories: Personally
Categories: Tips

Attending Motivational Course

2006-05-23T18:48:00.000+08:00

Today I attended a motivational course at Holiday Villa, Subang Jaya. The courses title is "7 Habits of Highly Effective People for Executive". The courses was developed by the famous Dr. Stephen R. Covey.

It was conducted by Leadership Resources (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. and will take three days to finish from today.

So lets call the trainer as Nuri who is a Malaysian, and tonight the 20 of the trainees were asked to dream about what we wanted to be when we are 80 years old.

What do each of us want our spouse to remember as?
What do each of us want friend to remember as?
What do each of us want our childeren to remember as?
What do each of us wanted nephew and nieces to remember as?
What do each of us wanted our boss to remember as?

The answer is obvious enough, to be remembered as somebody good, nurturing, understanding, helpful, honest and etc, all the good things.

Categories: Personally

My Car's Engine Number Changed

2006-05-22T17:52:00.000+08:00

Finished doing it by about 3:00pm. Then I SMSed to my wife, telling her how relief I felt.

I started in the morning about 8:00am. Went to Puspakom, Bangi. While I was waiting for the inspection I saw my friend name with his contact number somewhere in front of the reception counter - below his name - said if you have any complaint please call this officer. Maybe I just tell him later I went to one of the inspection center and see his response.

After getting the inspection result which is "PASS" I went to RTD Padang Jawa. Filled in the forms and took my number to be called. Then at the counter the RTD officer entertaining me, asked me to get insurance endorsement of engine number changed from my car insurance company.

Fortunately the insurance HQ is quite near at Shah Alam town. I got the information after asking a Tahan Insurance agent. She was willing to try to get the endorsement at first but then said there is no menu to do it at her PC after a while. Currently all insurance is done online in Malaysia. That is one of the eGoverment benefit.

Tahan Insurance HQ is located in MRCB building, behind PKNS Complex in Shah Alam. Then I had mamak's fried mee at Khalifah Restaurant at Section 3 Shah Alam. It's delicious.

After that back went to RTD Padang Jawa. I arrived about 1:30pm and the counter is closed and I have to wait until 2:00pm. Then took my number and after a few minutes I was called.

Submitted my forms and documents to the officer. After that waited again for about another half an hour before getting back my Registration Card.

Thats all to do and I was smiling. :-)

Now let me see how I felt.

1) At Puspakom I was treated nicely but the I felt tensed.
2) At RTD Padang Jawa I was also treated nicely and no tension, the officer also talk nicely to me.
3) At Tahan Insurance I felt like been in a wrong place. The lady who is doing it looks surprised when I first spoke to her. I don't know why. Her place was very office liked. No fancy stuff or colorful advertisement because I went to underwriting department and not the counter where they entertain customer.

So why I'm telling all this. Actually I've never brought my car for inspection before this, and my mechanic told me a secret I have to do to my car to make sure I'll passed the inspection...actually its not a secret, you just need to ask someone more experience before doing something. So if you want to get what you want. Simple, find out what you need to do or have, after that just do or get it, and give yourself ample time to do and recorrect any mistake. So that you won't have a fast beating heart beat with adrenaline pouring into your blood system and you'll become incoherent when you realized time is not on your side.

I remember last year, when I was at a Imigration Department counter to renew my Indonesian maid's work permit and the person before me wanted to renew his foreign worker. His worker will need to renew his permit by the next day, else he'll be considered as illegal and mind you all the process will take 1 month. And all employers will get a reminder letter two month earlier, so don't blame the department!

Doesn't that situation makes you very tense.

Categories: Personal

My Car Needs New Engine

2006-05-20T17:08:00.000+08:00

In one point of your life you will own a car or a motorcycle. And as a proud owner of an engined driven machine you will join the "Club of Workshop Visitor".

I've been using my car for quite a few years. Last year its engine started to give problem. So early this year, I discussed with my mechanic and he suggested I changed the whole engine block to another one.

Why don't do a major overhaul of the engine? From what I get to understand, the cost is about the same if replacing the engine or doing an overhaul.

There are a few disadvantages of doing overhaul, the first one is that an engine overhauled will not have the performance of a new engine. You got to have new engine to get new engine performance.

It will also suck up more fuel and then I'll have to drive the car moderately until the new pistons rings and the pistons holes have settled with each other or else I'll brushing with the possibillities of having pistons jamming in my engine which will make me more poorer if that happens.

Anyhow, I've already changed the engine last month and I wished I had changed the engine somewhere last year because the price has gone up substantial this year due to the rise in fuel and metal.

Next I have to sent my car for inspection at Puspakom, an agency trusted to do the inspection and after that Road and Transport Department to change the engine registration.

If I do it it'll cost me RM40 (about $10). If I let the workshop do it on my behalf they'll charge me RM140 (about $35).

So what should I do?

Categories: Personal

Blog Layout Change

2006-05-20T00:04:00.000+08:00

Before I changed my blog layout I did some study. I visited a few sites where I know the blogger who owns the blog is an establish internet marketer and proven by their sales figure and high traffic volume.

What are my findings?

1. Most of them are using light blue background for their blog. Then they will have a white sheet which appear in the middle of the computer. Maybe it look more serious and professional.

2. Non of them have flashy and heavy graphics which suit me well, I don't have the time to wait until the graphic finish showing. That should apply to others I feel.

3. Their blog title or domain name has something to do with money which my blog is focusing at.

So I decided to put to test what I observed and change the outlay of my blog.:-)

Categories: Blog-Improvement

My Blog Template Revamped

2006-05-17T23:18:00.000+08:00

After a few months using the old template I decided to change to a new layout. The new layout will be more refreshing to the eyes.

Its like after you have being working for too long in front of the PC and someone said let get some cold drinks.

Ahh.. the feel of cold water running down your body on a hot sunny day.

Categories: Blog-Improvement

My First Posting to be Categorized

2006-05-13T23:56:00.000+08:00

Categories: Category

This posting will be categorized under Category.

3 ways to use del.icio.us for categories in blogger - Freshblog

2006-05-13T13:48:00.000+08:00

Categories: Category

3 ways to use del.icio.us for categories in blogger - Freshblog

I was looking for ways to put my postings into category and stumble upon Freshblog which gives suggestions how to do it.

It uses del.icio.us. and del.icio.us is like your favourite folder and it is kept somewhere on the Internet.

Pretty handy isn't it. You can do away with having to update the link in many PC's browser.

For example at home I have a PC which I don't carry to my office. So I have to remember to update both favourite in the browsers.

How To Become An Expert?

2006-05-12T14:21:00.000+08:00

Categories: Tips

You are an expert when people start asking you question about something which cannot be answered by anyone else and your answer is correct. When you speak and argue, other people start listening. You talk with an air of confidence that others wouldn't dare to be in your way.

Another thing is that your name will frequently crop up when people are having discussion about a certain matter.

I've had the opportunity to be labelled as an expert in a few fields, well, other people call me so, maybe its a complement to get me to help or be nice to them. Or it could be true.

Here I want to share what are the things that you have to go through if your target is to become an expert in any field that you want to focus.

So I've listed them below in no particular order:

1. Read all the information that you can find on the subject. Make notes and anything that help you remember the information.

2. Check with other people who is more knowledgeable if your understanding on something is correct, of course this is only possible when you are not the expert yet.

3. Be involved in any aspect of the subject when you get the opportunity, never reject any of the opportunities.

4. Write down what you understand of the matter when it is still fresh in your mind and it is better if you have a book or a system that will make sure what you've written will not go missing.

Writing on a piece of tissue is a bad idea in this case.

And the more that you write the better it is. Usually one month from now we will forget what is meant by a very simple sentence or statement that nobody else can understand.

4. To make your knowledge stick to your mind, also never miss the opportunity the help answering other people's question regarding the subject.

5. You have to go through most processes many times until you remember it. Some said its at the tip of their tongue or I can do it blind folded.

For example if 10 people asking the same question, the ten times that you talk about the matter will make you remember more rather than when only one person asking that question and you answered only once.

6. Come out with a documentation and submit them for others to comment and use, but usually when you are the expert, they won't know what to comment. They just keep quiet or comment on the cosmetic.

7. Be persistent because it will take time. From my experience it will take at least 3 to 4 years to attain the knowledge that qualifies you as an expert subject matter. That is considering you're on the subject daily.

I think there are a few others that I did not put down here. Maybe next time I'll list them.

And my final advise is, even though you think you have achieved the status of an expert at something, some knowledge become obsolete quickly. So enhance your knowledge now and then.

For example if you're an expert in rearing ornamental fish or cows, most probably the knowledge will last for years or maybe decades and you can passed the knowledge down even to your grandchildren.

But if you're an expert in Intel processor 8088, get busy updating your knowledge.

Have you heard about the Pentium your children will ask?

Question From an Argentinian

2006-05-08T15:05:00.000+08:00

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Julio Eduardo Avila from Argentina emailed to me
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

necesito la informacion en castellano, y no puedo hacer el pago porque no
tengo targeta de credito ni chuequera. notengo cuenta en el banco.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then I replied back to him
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Julio,

Usted necesita la tarjeta de crédito.

Y este negocio está en inglés. Estoy utilizando el http://babelfish.altavista.com para

traducir de inglés al español.

Gracias por su interés.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can use http://babelfish.altavista.com to translate the words, use Spanish to English translator
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Conversation With Ex-Fisherman

2006-05-04T22:52:00.000+08:00

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to talk to an ex-fisherman who is quite senior. He used to be part of a fishing crew traversing from Kuala Selangor to Langkawi and back. That was decades ago according to him.

Now he just relax at his house with his wife.

What was interesting is something that he told me regarding his ability to tell the type of fish swimming in school in the water just by looking at the bubles forming at the sea surface.

Wonderful isn't it, this extraordinary human capability. We can learn and recognise things if given enough time.

The same great mechanism works when we recognise different types of flowers. We wouldn't have problem telling a rose or an orchid or a lily.

I'm even remembering the smell of those flowers now. Lily has the strongest smell to me.

Interesting Success University Courses

2006-05-02T22:00:00.000+08:00

I like to hear Earl Nightigale audio from Success University. Sometimes I can listen to him talking the same thing for 3 or four times in a day.

What Earl Nightingale said in Lead the Field, "....if you stay and get rid of your problem by working your way through them, your're a successful citizen...", has prompted me to look back and helped me how to solve one of my biggest problem.

And other instructors that I love to hear is Bob Burg talks in his lesson Endless Referrals and Debra Fine in her course The Fine Art of Small Talk.

Do you know why some people climb the career ladder quicker than others? Two academicians that I knew said its due to their people or communication skills.

Its not about golf, its not about partying, its not about giving gifts, its not about being around the right people, its bigger than those things.

It's about how you treat and handle people. Let say you are avid golfer and always making fun of people who missed their putt. I don't think the next time you'll be invited unless you're the boss.

Who would you prefer, a person who laugh everytime you missed or someone who offers to teach and show you how you may hit the ball during the next putt.

And there are some people who felt communication is anything at all that comes out from the mouth. Have you ever been around someone whom you really dread when they start to say something?

So before you start holding the golf club or going to party or giving gifts or starting to be around the right people, polished you communication skills first.

Its not hard, but needs training, old habit die hard. The most important things in communication skills is knowing what to say and when to say it.

You should be able to get into the flow of conversation and unless you're defence lawyer at a court, in a debating team or any such wonderful situation. It would be better for you not to be antagonistic. And mind you its hard to change people's opinion.

When did you ever change other people's opinion using just logical argument?

So put on your nicest smile and go on. Do it after learning the basic, you'll master the subtle skills later.

Better still, find someone who has the same interest as you and then motivate each other to carry out the exercise.

Categories: Relationship, Life

Number of Opt-In Really Increased

2006-05-02T21:42:00.000+08:00

I guess our team is getting smarter as times goes. It's that now, everytime I open my e-mail, I got messages from Success University stating a few people have visited my Success University Webpage.

This could be due to the new campaign techniques that Daegan are using which he mentioned in his blog.

That is great, we cannot always be relying on current method.

It is also part of Success University lessons, to always learn and doing things that will increase our quality of life or in this case business.

Categories: Success-University

Why I Moved My Side Bar?

2006-04-29T13:20:00.000+08:00

On the 12th of this month, I mentioned, I'm going to tell why I moved this blog sidebar from right to the left.

According to a study Eyetools, Enquiro, and Did-it uncover Search's Golden Triangle, most people will start looking from the left and then move their eyes to the right when they use Google search.

So that's my reason. That's long overdue.

Mine to Decide or Is it?

2006-04-27T21:19:00.000+08:00

Sometimes in life you are at a cross-road, you have to make a decision. But what if the decision you made, are not for you to carry-out and the execution depend on others.

I meant after thinking and discussing about it, I wanted to turn right, but there's someone else saying I should go left. Then steered my direction to the other way.

You are also not in power to move to the right even though you felt that it is the best decision.

Secondly, there are people that I knew who will ask for my opinion on something but actually have already made up their mind and when they come to ask for my opinion, its just that, nothing more, whatever I said never really matters.

And it hurts when what I'm afraid off will happen.....happen as I predict it would be when they acted based on their decision.

Just Came Back From Johor

2006-04-27T14:49:00.000+08:00

Tuesday this week I went to Muar and yesterday to Batu Pahat. Both this towns are in Johor.

This is the second time I went to Muar and the first time I went to Batu Pahat.

So what’s so special about those two towns. Food, yes the food there.

If you go to Muar ask for the best Mee Bandung and if you go to Batu Pahat you should
search for the best Nasi Beriani.

Those foods tasted different from what I used to eat in Kuala Lumpur and they're more
delicious there.

Categories: Malaysia

Bonus Gifts for Co-op Participants

2006-04-25T05:48:00.000+08:00

This month I participated in the co-op with the help from Zamri.

Thanks to him.

I couldn't pay Daegan using my credit card until I verified it. As the verification code will only appear in my next statement, technically I will only be able to pay and participate next month.

Luckily Zamri proposed an arrangement and I manage to pay the $80 to Daegan.

Apart from that he is also offering to help anybody from his team interested in moving forward his or her SU business by:

1. Giving out 20 royalty free articles for article marketing;
Personally I prefer to do research and come out with my own article, but it takes time. If I don't have the time this will really help.

2. Helping to setup a blog at blogger.com;
If you don't know how to start a blog, then here is the opportunity to start one. Getting someone more knowledgeable to help you set up a blog cuts down your blog construction time.

3. Telling two places to submit those articles;
Of course in business you need to get people attention. I've use an article submitter service and saw my articles picked up by some article directories and saw click coming from the article.

I've got all the gifts and going to use them.

Daegan's Team Co-op is Opened

2006-04-19T08:23:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I’ve received e-mail from Zamri saying that Success University co-op is opened for participation and it’s limited to only 150 people from Daegan’s team.

I’m going to invest another 80dollars and buy myself a share in the coop. I’ve got reasonable lead response and even got one signed-up from my previous co-op participation.

This Co-op is Daegan's brain child, so far no other SU team do it. Because he feels that many of the his downline members are not comfortable to do advertising on the internet he came out with this idea. After getting enough participants and cash, he and a few other leaders who have the expertise will scout for place that’s great for advertisement.

Anyone who clicks on the advertisement will be sent to a participant's Success University promotional web page and will need to give their name and e-mail address to get more information.

Leads will be distributed evenly using URL rotator to every participant via URL rotator. In that way each one will get their fair of share. It’s up to the participant to take the next action, either to make a prospecting call or mail.

As I see that majority of my lead come from other countries, I use Aweber auto responder to e-mail to them.

This is my second participation, yesterday I tried to make the payment to Success University Co-op but unfortunately I have to wait for about another 4 days. I need to be verified by PayPal first before making the payment.

If I miss this month Co-op then I’ll join next month.

Why You Must Build Your Own Business?

2006-04-19T05:52:00.000+08:00

Categories: Tips

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I submitted this article to article sender on Monday and yesterday saw it appearing at GoArticle.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These are some of the things that I've heard when I talk to a few of my friends:

-I've have been working for quite a few years and felt that I'm getting nowhere.

-I've have been working for quite a few years and I decided I want to do something else.

-I've have been working for quite a few years and then I've heard they're going to do the downsizing exercise.

-I've have been working for quite a few years and suddenly realize that I never knew much about my wife or husband and the kids.

-Etc...

Sometimes last week I had an interesting talk with one of my friends. I wanted to see him. So I called him and asked if he has the time to see me during lunch.

He said, "No problem, we'll have lunch together."

He has been a weekend husband for more than a year now and wished that he can go back to his hometown and work somewhere near his family. He is also tinkering with the idea that he should make a living by doing something that he likes.

My Friend's Vision

He mentioned to me he likes cooking and is thinking going into baking and selling cakes. His idea is to open an outlet back home, where he can do the business of baking and selling cakes.

I challenged him, why don't you open one here. His reply was, "I wanted to be near my family and relatives." Well sometime we wanted to be far from our relatives. But there are benefits to be near them as what he told me. No need to explain on that. It's the usual things.

The other problem is that the cost of opening a store is much higher here and bringing his family to this bigger town also will increase his expenditure.

He described a bit on his plan:

1) Attend bakery class with his relatives
2) Buy or rent a small lot
3) Buy the equipment for baking cakes
4) Sell the cakes

I asked some other things including workers. His answer is that he is going to partner with his relative, so maybe they don't need staff. Although I'm skeptical if such a business can be easily ran, without any workers, he has the vision and if he starts it he'll learn and can tweak his business operation. If the business needs staff or anything else, it will show and he'll have to consider it.

My Online Business

Before this I've always been attracted to investments that will grow by itself and needing little care, so I can have more time to enjoy other interesting things. Investing in an online business is my third investment decision that I've took, and with my wife agreement.

The first two is doing alright and I think I don't really need to concentrate on them. They are those types of business once you've put in the basic it should be able to it run by themselves.

Currently, I've started this online business of mine by joining Success University. This company sells personal development products, there are audios and videos streaming that I'll listen to a few times weekly. I realized that listening to Success University instructors talks has helped me maintain my level of motivation. I also learned much on communication and conversational skills which I believed I'm lacking.

By involving myself in online business I have to be disciplined, for instance, rather than watching the tube or snoozing off, I have to read, write and learn new internet skills. The other good side effect is that I'm not tempted to spend my money on things that will not bring much benefit to me.

Starting any business is not free, and the same goes for my Success University business, I have to spend money on marketing tools and subscription. This is much better than buying furniture or adding accessories to my car.

What did I do and what skills I've learnt?

-I joined Success University

-I joined co-op where we pooled money and used it for advertising our business

-I subscribed to Aweber auto responder to assist me in my e-mail marketing campaign

-I started a blog to get presence on the internet

-I tracked my website visitor statistics to see where I stood

-I constantly keep in touch with my upline who is an established internet marketer

-I visited blogs from my Success University's uplines daily

-I read other bloggers' blogs daily to get new ideas

Start Your Business Now

You have to start something, and as early as possible. Working for your self is a theme that Robert Kiyosaki talked about in his book "Poor Dad Rich Dad".

Now, you only need to see the changes that are happening around you. Presently you think your job is secure, it might not be so next year or even next month. Businesses and factories get shifted from one region to another region because of lower cost, government regulations, saturated market, etc.

Or you wanted to have the change because of the reasons stated at the early part of my article..... and hopefully you’ll never have to end them with, "I’ve spent a good deal of time, lugging this job and I don't know what else to do."

Part Time Opportunity For Tech Savvy Blogger

2006-04-14T22:43:00.000+08:00

If anyone is interested in doing part time and also making some money, you can talk or e-mail to Kidino. He is looking for someone to blog for one of his website.

Interested, go to Kidino's Blog and read more his posting under the title "Tech-Savvy Blogger Wanted! Do You Work For Peanuts?" or go to http://moneyclicking.net/.

Have to Leave Town

2006-04-12T22:49:00.000+08:00

I will be out-station until the end of this week. Some works to be done in Johor, a state in Malaysia, located at the south.

Most probably I won't be updating my blog until this Saturday.

Before I forget again, next, I'm going to tell why I changed the position of my blog side bar from right to left. It used to be on the right if you are looking at your PC screen.

Categories: Malaysia

One Thing at A Time

2006-04-12T22:00:00.000+08:00

One of my upline, Kidino sent an e-mail to me today.

He is going to release an ebook on search engine optimization (SEO)techniques for Adsense and affiliate programs.

The price for me as his subscriber is cheaper, so shall I buy it. I thought and thought and thought and finally.... naaah... I don't think so. I couldn't do so many things at the same time. Zamri has also advised me to take one thing at a time and master it, after that start looking for other technique to try and test.

If Kidino offer me it for free, I'll take it..hehe.

Under the ebook by Daegan "Internet MLM Success", do you know how many techniques there are. There are three under the free techniques and under the paid one there are another three, I've listed them below;

Free:
Forum Marketing
Article Marketing
Blogging

Paid:
Ezine Advertising
PPC Marketing
SEO

I have only started Blogging and Article Marketing and joined Daegan's Coop where I've paid him $80. In him...I have full trust to put up advertising banners for people to opt into my SU promotional page.

The number of prospects appearing in my SU lead page are encouraging but not on the conversion. But as Daegan said this is a number game, expect to get higher conversion if more people opt in.

I guess I have to put more effort into getting more targetted traffic to my blog.

And finally I've got a personally sponsored downline member, so thanks to the team leaders and SU for supporting me.

It's Getting Better

2006-04-11T23:00:00.000+08:00

Today, I spent quite some time formatting my blog template and searching for application that can show me visitors statistics for my blog. As I've said before, if you are not able to assess your current standing compared to your goal then you will never know how much more effort to put in, or if you knew you have achieved your goal, maybe it's time to do something else, for example help others.

My task is not 100% finished but I have the basic script in the template now and can live with it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now back to Success University, the way I see it, to build your success nowadays, you can decide whether to do offline or online marketing. Not everyone is comfortable doing offline marketing which includes me and I guess not everyone is up for online marketing.

Doing online marketing is easy enough if you know all the basics and I think those people who love offline marketing will say the same about offline marketing.

One thing for sure is that both offline and online business need lots of prospects, for offline marketing your early prospects maybe you friends and family members, then after that, who?

Well my previous upline from previous MLM suggested that anyone whom I came into contact with, hmmmmn... easy spoken then done. Imagine going to the bank and whispering to the person beside you about this great business...that I'm so excited about... while filling in the deposit form.

I was told to do that. Can you do that? It takes a very strong willed person to do it.

So, can you see the beauty of online marketing, rejection free and without ever making a call to your prospect which can be anywhere on the globe. Unless they e-mailed you and ask you to call them.

My Blog is Up Again

2006-04-09T13:32:00.000+08:00

I FEEEEEL GRRRREAT - my blog is up again. And you know what, I've learned much about HTML.

If I have the time I'll go and see those question from bloggers asking help for the same problem that I've encountered. Maybe I give them a hand.

Article On Driving Traffic to a Blog or Website

2006-04-09T13:23:00.000+08:00

Categories: Tips

This posting was originally posted at 9:40AM on Sunday, April 9, 2006

Yesterday I didn't do much work. I spent time reading articles after articles and postings after postings. What I was looking for yesterday is specific on the subject of how to drive internet traffic to your website.

Some of those things that I read are simply good but some of them are so..so...
From my observation if the content is good then I would want to know more about the author and what the author has written and posted. So naturally I will go to the author's website or blog to read more postings.

Now what are the attributes that I can think of that entice me.

Here they are :

1 - Told me what they exactly did, for example there is one posting about blogads, the writer explained what they are and how he used them. He experimented with two blogs and gave a good analysis on the performance. There are others explaining in depth matter about Google Adsense which I've not known before and also fraud which
was done by irresponsible publisher.

2 - No hint of advertising something in the article, just plain saying he was using some applications to do things. Not something like "....this thing really explode my passive income....you'd want it...go become affiliate.." or something like that but in general, all the postings didn't have that kind of connotation.

3 - Will give me hints and ideas what I should do to drive more traffic coming to my blog. For example, up until now, I don't have any idea who and how many people have visited my blog. One of the article recommended to track visitors coming to your website. I also read that there are various ways traffics are tracked. You can choose to have visitor counter or web tracker or both with statistic report. In any situation, knowing where you are compared to others or your end goal is very important. That should be the basis of your next steps to achieve your target.

4 - The article is a bit different from other article, after I went through lots of reading there are a few that sounded like summary of something or simply repeating each other. I will at first glance or preview through an article to assess it's worth and if nothing intrigued me, then that's it, off to other place. Maybe they've read an article and modified it a bit or did the copy and paste thing. You can copy but add value, add value, add value. That's how the Japanese and the Korean do it.

5 - The posting is readable, this is reffering to how it is written, not on what is written. Simply rereading and rereading sentences to make out the meaning makes me dizzy. It's a waste of time. This happens in my opinion, when the writer write directly as he would speak to others or didn't do enough proofreading. If the content is heavy or technical and not easy to be comprehended, its alright, have you ever learn much when doing those easy things in life. In this situation the reader will still be able to get the basic meaning of the discussion. He should be able to come to the conclusion that the writer has explained something on the subject and
maybe he himself, the reader, need to check more on those things he is not sure about.

6 - There is a person behind that website or blog, who is not embarass to let others know a little bit about him or herself, preferably whom I can see a picture of and some personal information. I would love to know more of the person and would be wondering what do that person has to hide if I cannot find a bit on his or her personal info. It's like having this image of someone without a face or a shadow behind the PC.

There are a few more but maybe until next time....

Arghh... I still haven't finish curing the problem with my blog template...

Blogger Template Structure

2006-04-09T13:20:00.000+08:00

This posting was originally posted on Saturday, April 8, 2006

Luckily I saved the HTML codings during the first time my SU Banner and side column (About Me & the advertisements) were up. I clicked View-->Source and saved the output in Notepad. Yesterday after doing some studying and thinking, I decided to paste the old HTML coding (or is it blogger coding??? I'm not sure, don't have time to check the correct term) back into my blog template. So that's why all the postings before March 19 can be seen here, not those after. And I wished... I had saved the blogger template earlier, then it will be a breeze to get back to status quo. After studying both of the formats from my other blog at http://testthemok.blogspot.com there are major differences. The blog HTML, I would say is in a fix mode(no changes can be made using references) while the blogger template is using relative references. So the effect is that I cannot do automatic posting, and have to type my posting in the template.

Having Problem With My Blogger Template

2006-04-09T13:16:00.000+08:00

This was originally posted on Friday, April 7, 2006

This problem, missing of my blog Template contents, happened after I make minute changes and updated it last Monday. Now I'm trying to learn and comprehend HTML to solve this problem. I have to dive into and study the template structure to make this posting appear. It's quite tedious. Using posting method is more user friendly.

Blogger Problem

2006-04-05T11:56:00.000+08:00

The last time I can view all my posting was on Monday night.
After that I can only see SU Banner and some gibberish. Life
will always be like that, something bad waiting to happened.

At first I thought to wait for something to happen that
will give me back my blog but two days of waiting didn't help.
So I search through help, and finally when seeing there were so
many people having the same problem that I have I felt it's
no use asking them. Nobody seem to be able to give a good solution.

One of the recommended solution is to clear browser cache and then
restart the PC and then things should become normal. Did that multiple
time and nope, things didn't come back normal.

So I sent an email to blogger support and don't you love it when I got back automated reply advising me to look through the help pages. Well...the time have come to dig and learn something about blogger and HTML.

Categories: Blog-Improvement

Good Advices

2006-04-05T03:12:00.000+08:00

Last week I sat for a meeting. I want to share some of
the advice coming from the chairman.

1. Mix around with other nationalities
2. Keep your customers in the loop
3. Don't reject any complaint, show the way
4. Learn from your mistakes
5. Letting go is part of learning process
6. Give complement if it is due at the earliest moment
7. Don't restrict your own capabilities mentally
8. Make sure you have the supporting data when giving
recommendation.
9. Learn new things

Maybe, I'll explain on them in detail next time.

Categories: Tips

Getting My Priorities Right

2006-04-02T06:30:00.001+08:00

I've been troubleshooting my PC for the past few days.

This time the operating system (Win 2000) is unstable, although all the malwares have been removed. Finally on Thursday night I decided to get my priorities right, so on Friday I reformatted my drive and load fresh new OS and less then 3 hours I got a new clean OS running. Fortunately I had earlier partition my harddisk, so no worry of losing my personal data which are stored separately.

Yesterday, I also subscribed for broadband. Now, it will be more faster when doing my Success University project. My mind is also free from the urge of always wanting to check how long I'm on the net when using dial-up, and thinking is it time to be off the net.

In Malaysia it cost 2.5 Malaysia cents (divide that by 4 and you'll get the figure in USD) per minute through dial-up. While the cheapest broadband package is RM45 or roughly $12 per month.

After this, I think I'll set time for article writing and submit it to articlesender.

Categories: Malaysia, Personal

Shopping Without Buying Your Kids Those Unnecessary Stuffs

2006-03-29T18:00:00.000+08:00

I remembered a few years back year reading an article in a newspaper. In that article a study was done with one family.

There were three kids and the most interesting part is what happened between the parents and the oldest child. He is a teenager and a rebelious one. Well, most teenagers are like that, and I think that also apply to me when I was at that point in life. Wearing clothes and listening to music that my parents would not approved.

In this study the researcher applied one method: if you want someone to behave in certain way, then you, yourself must start treating that way to the person.

For example if you want somebody to behave trustworthily, then give that person that kind of encouragement and involved him or her in a situation where she can exhibit and apply the behaviour.

Normally parents don't really listen to what their child is saying. So, in that study the researcher asked the parents to talk to the children and listen to what they wanted to say. In their situation they were not happy of eldest son coming home late and they discussed about this with him. I couldn't remember much on gist of the conversation, but the result is that the child agreed to come home before a set time and he really kept his words to the surprise of the parents.

Now, that intrigued me and although my kids were 5 and 6 years at that time, I asked my wife why don't we try this with them. What problem did we face with them? Maybe we can used this to our kids.

Parents who have young children must have come across this situation.

"OK, now let's go to the shopping mall," says one of the parent to the children.

They heard what you said and they start jumping around and shouting happily. They're very excited of the prospect going somewhere interesting.

After everyone is ready the whole family get into the car, drive to the mall, park your car and walk to the store and start looking for things you need to buy.

Now there are a few places which I dreaded going, and some of them that I remember :

1. The place where they display toys
2. The place where they display cartoon VCD
3. The place where they display sweets
3. The place where they display ice-cream

Why? This is where my kids will start to be very excited/interested and they will grab/take the item and after studying it for a while, they will come to me jiggling the stuff in their hand and say, "Pa, can I have this?"

How do I react in this situation?

This is how my first experiment is done.

One afternoon before going out shopping, I sat down and said to my children, "We are going out and we are buying this things," I would say out those things one by one. "These are only the things that we will be buying, do you agree."

Then we went to the mall and look for those things listed in the list. Now, it turned out to be easier discussing with them when we stopped near those places which displayed items that were not in the list. I reminded them that they have agreed earlier that we are not going to buy other than those in the list.

OK, after doing this many times you'll find out that at times they will not be happy and will sulk. But that is better than they crying and showing tantrums or you scolding them off. Interestingly, my daughter sometimes surprised me when she replied back, "OK, I'll put it back. I'm only just looking, you know," without showing any displeasure. She's just 6 years old.

So what should you do next time:

1. List down what should be bought
2. Inform them you're going shopping with them
3. Discuss and negotiate with them to agree on what should be bought
4. Don't forget to bring the list with you or let your child which tend to be more emotional to keep it
5. Try not to stop at those spots which will give them new ideas
6. If you are unfortunate enough to get in that situation,take out the list and re-enact the session at home with them
7. Courteously ask them to put back the thing, don't scold them
8. After that just leave the spot with them
9. Next, go to those places which you know they will be very interested in and stir their joy, for instance if I listed down fruits I don't really mind buying green apple, red apple or pear, oranges or all of them. I just ask what they'd like and what color do they think looks nice, or do they like the smell.

Try it, and see what happen the next time you go out shopping with them.

Categories: Family

Viruses, Firewalls and Updates

2006-03-27T22:00:00.000+08:00

All those invaders have been eliminated. I used AVG, Avast,
Kaspersky(only for a short while before I terminated and
uninstalled it, made my PC ran like snail) and Antivir.

Then cleaned my PC from spyware and adware using Spybot
and Ad-aware.

I'm satisfied with the result and now I have the latest
version of AVG antivirus on my PC.

Firewall was different thing altogether. I've been using
ZoneAlarm for a few years and until last week I was happy
with the performance.

After finished installing antivirus and spyware/ad aware
application, I proceeded to update the latest version of
ZoneAlarm. When I tried to install it problems start coming.
This is my fourth update. The first three updating is
without hiccups. In the past it knew what to do with the
earlier version.

I searched the web and found out steps that are necessary
to overcome the problem from Zone Labs Customer Care link.

do this
do that
delete this
delete that....

After going through all the steps diligently, guess what?
I'm stuck with a file called vsmon.exe, residing at
WINNT\System32\zonelabs directory which I cannot delete,
remove or rename, even from command prompt under safe mode
after booting from floopy drive,....no nothing.

The next day I search for "delete vsmon.exe" and at Unlocker ,
got this advice. Use unlocker to delete any application that
seems to be stubborn.

So using unlocker I managed to unlock and delete vsmon.exe.
Next I installed latest version of ZoneAlarm and after
finished installing and rebooting my PC, what happened? My PC
ran like a turtle, a bit faster then when I ran Kaspersky.
Most of the time I got sleepy and slept in front of the PC
waiting for something to appear on my screen.

So I uninstalled ZoneAlarm again and have to go through the
same process all over again, yawnnnn..... time to be sleepy.

After that I looked for other firewalls, saved Jettico and
Filseclab from download.com. I've installed Jettico and still
studying it, seems quite technical. I'm still not clear on
how to use it properly, so most of the time I have to allow
all packets through the firewall. Hmnnn.....think of having
something but not using it. Well, I'll learn.

No doubt about that.

So what can be learn here, my advise to myself is to have
latest antivirus and firewall and update them regularly.

Next make sure Windows is regularly updated. It's free and
can be done automatically.

About the website that sent me the virus, I think I don't
really have any choice. I wouldn't know if a malware is
waiting to ambush, and sometime in life when you got to do
it, you gotta do it.

And if you don't want to fork out some money for cleaning the
harddisk you should be comfortable enough to know what to do if
your PC is infected. Six years ago I took computer assembly
course for a month and it is really handy when there is problem
with my PC.

But in life you don't need to know everything, you can always
pay for other people services.

Categories: Internet

Attacked !!!

2006-03-24T17:59:00.000+08:00

Last 4 night I continued doing some work with my
SU project.

Busy, registering as member at some articlesender
submission sites to start sending article. It's an
easy way to get branded on the internet and also a
great way to get constant traffic to your website -
Zamri told me. There is an automatic registration
manager but I just wanted to try and register
manually to a few of them.

Put in my info, clicked "submit", received e-mail
asking activation and clicked on a specified link
and ...hey presto... I'm already a member....

Things was running smoothly until I clicked on one
of the link, suddenly I got two pop-ups asking to be
downloaded. I don't accept unsolicited request as
a precaution and I will terminate any pop- up. While
I was strugling to select the window and to press
Alt-F4, both of them disappeared.

From my PC speaker I heard a few clicking sound,
now this should have made me cautious. But I
repeated the steps again and same incidents
happened.

After that I couldn't access my e-mail and also the
article manager. The article manager did not
recognized my password anymore.

Unfortunately when this happened, the antivirus
and firewall in my home PC were antiquated.

Actually this is the third time it happened in the
past few years. Every time it happened I had to do
some cleaning and upgrade my security application.
After that I forgot about it until it happened
again.

It's not that I don't know about computer security.
But the thing is, I'm on dial-up, and when I see the
download time for a newer version of something is
going to be soooo..............looooong, that's why I'm
happy with the current version.

Maybe I should upgrade to a higher speed internet
connection, then downloading upgrade should be
a breeze. I'm also now wishing that my connection
is much faster so that I can switch web pages more
faster.

-----

For the past few days I've already scanned my PC,
found five unwanted visitors and cleaned them.
I've installed and used 4 latest free antivirus,AVG,
Kaspersky, Avast, Antivir. And my access to e-mail
and articlesender is alright now. But I still have
problem with my firewall "zone alarm", unable to
uninstall properly the previous version. I already
got some information from Google, it seems this
problem is occuring frequently from the few postings
I saw, the problem is similar to me.

There are also steps how to overcome this
problem. I'll see if they work.

See the culprits from the picture above, reported by AVG,
it can be downloaded for free.

-----

Success University Banner Updates

2006-03-23T14:07:00.000+08:00

The SU banner at the top of my blog and my right column
(for someone looking at the PC screen) side message was
up last two days. Actually Zamri did it for me. So, a
BIG THANKS to him. I wouldn't have enough knowledge to
do it such in a short time. I'm still learning about HTML.

After this I need to change all the subscribing link to
myself. If not, if somebody happens to subscribe to any
tools put there, it can be considered as a gift to him.

Categories: Success-University

Success University Banner (Testing)

2006-03-19T23:10:00.000+08:00

I was advised by Zamri to put up SU Banner in my blog. Here goes...., I'm not sure if it is a good idea to post the banner as a posting, should put it in the blog template, but this is better than nothing. Later I'll find ways to put it in my template, somewhere at the top, just below the blog title "Better Life Opportunity".

Yes....keep learning, keep on learning my boy. At least you've tried something....

Categories: Success-University, Blog-Improvement

On Leave

2006-03-18T23:11:00.000+08:00

I took leave for two days from Thursday, 16th till Friday, 17th. Went back to my home town with the whole family,visited my parents and in-laws which was long over due. Even though access to internet is available but most of the time, condition is not conducive for me to sit down and start working with my Success University project.

Let me give some updates:

1. Joined coop
2. E-mailed to Zamri and Daegan on my participation
3. Subscribed to autoresponder (Aweber)
4. Updated follow-up e-mails
5. Manually registered people whose name appeared in my Success University back office into my autoresponder.

On Friday morning I spoke to Zamri, the overall conversation was cordial and I felt very encouraged after talking to him.

Categories: Personal

5-day/4-night Vacation

2006-03-16T01:23:00.000+08:00

Win a Free 5 Day - 4 Night Vacation This Month!

How would you like to go on a 5 day - 4 night Complimentary Vacation to Orlando and Daytona Beach Florida?

Now through March 31, when you enroll at least 5 new students in Success University who pay their first tuition, you will win a FREE 5 day - 4 night vacation to Orlando and Daytona Beach Florida!

The vacation package is valid for two adults and two children 17 years of age or younger. The package entitles the bearer to 2 nights beachside resort/hotel accomodations in Daytona Beach, Florida PLUS 2 nights hotel accomodations in the Disney area of Orlando, Florida. (available year around)

You only need to enroll 5 active students between March 1st and March 31st to Win!

Best of Luck and we hope to see you on the beaches!

- Success University Support Staff -

Categories: Success-University

Perseverence is the Key to Success

2006-03-15T18:21:00.000+08:00

In our life there are things that happened as we
wanted it and sometimes more then we expected.
Then there are those wishes that didn't happened.

When looking back through those years that
passed by, I tend to believe that those goals that
have been achieved were instances when I
persevered through. Relentless searching for
ways to achieve them. I kept charging until it's
showing result.

Believing is really powerful, when you start
believing you can do it then you'll never ever stop
to entertain failures. You must also never be stuck
in only believing, search for way or ways to
achieve the goal. Albert Einstein said that insanity
is doing the same thing over and over again
expecting a different result??? After that, study the
technique, practice it first a few times until you feel
comfortable but you don't have to get it right 100%.
You'll improvised and tweaking it all the way until
achieving mastery.

In Bob Burg ebook, he told us the success
formula, now, what are those success formula?
Head to www.burg.com and you can read it there.

One of my goal now is to have the option to retire by
2010 and from my experience it is achievable if I
put my heart into it. It is the same with you. You can
have what you want.

One of the way that I've choosen is by involving in
internet marketing. In these coming months I'm
going to give extra attention in growing my passive
income through the internet with the help of my
mentors.

Categories: Tips

Success University First Encounter

2006-03-14T13:26:00.000+08:00

I got to know Success University (SU) through one
of my upline - Kidino.

He is an internet marketer, I would say a
successful one... he already fired his boss!!!

I would frequent his blog at least once a day to
read his postings.

The thing is, I want to learn how to become a
successful internet marketer. Getting good passive
income so that I can stay at home, and
no..no..no..no, not to spent more time with my
kids... They have to go to school...you know.

Next time, I'll share stories about them.

Then, one day he posted a topic on MLM. He said
he wasn't sure if going into another MLM is the
right move after failing miserably. After checking
with a few people from SU he felt that online MLM
is not far from what he is doing now. He also like
the people over there. So he joined.

Well, I registered with SU on evening, Jan the 20th
after tinkering with the idea for a few days and
walla... next thing I know I was offered a downline
through an e-mail. Most probably from Kidino or
Zamri (Kidino's upline). It's like when my boss
give me a job and I'd ask when is the dateline.
"Yesterday," came the word, like a thunder coming
down splitting the earth. So in my frustration I
deleted the e-mail. You see the problem is that...,
the offer came after I signed up.

Frankly, after jumping on the bandwagon I didn't
really fiddle around the website. I was as usual,
doing other things. Helping my wife, I guess....

Then, about a week after, my plan is to take the
whole family back to our hometown to see my
parents and in-laws, and you see what happened.

The whole family was down with flu, so we spent
the holidays in our home from Jan 28th until Feb
the 5th.

One day while resting, and feeling sorry for the
family, I said to myself,"Why not have a look at SU
website."

....WOW was I really impressed after listening to
Johny Wimbrey Faculty Call....still in excited mood
on Feb the 7th, I e-mailed to Kidino asking for
guidance on how to start.

Categories: Success-University