Friday, November 20, 2020

20th Nov - How is the outlook of 2021

Can't believe my eyes, it has been 2 years since I last wrote here. Anyway, the question I am asking myself now, is how will 2021 be. The outlook of 2021 is dependent on the many factors I see as below

- New US President, Biden. I would expect the trade war to go on, with Biden working better with his colleagues from the European bloc and continue to put pressure on China. I don't think China will bow down and they will continue to defend and negotiate to what China thinks is OK and acceptable for them. China doesn't want to or need to be dependent, and remember, before they are open for the economic growth, they were happy and self sufficient already anyway.

- Covid, the promise of vaccine seems to be very positive, many vaccine news all with 90% success seems to be flooding the market. The question I may have is how long does it reaches the mass market and do we know the long term effects of this drugs? Well we have time to study the short term, but how about the longer term effect. I think we are concerned about saving life now then that, but it is still an important question that needs to be addressed. I'll be careful whether to take it or not, if I am not directly exposed on a frequent basis.

- Malaysia economy, we just signed a trade deal with China and 13 more countries. That sounds good, but the local SME has been much affected with the shut down of our country due to MCO. Industry such as hospitality and tourism has been much affected. I think the eateries and many other small businesses are very much affected as well. Some sources says within the past 6 months already 50000 SME has closed shop. We need SME as driver of growth and I think our GDP and employment will be affected next year

- New normal - WFH, masks anywhere and everything order online may be how we are going to be moving forward. Everyone will be online and we just might have fast forward the technology use by 5 years or more. Mobile payment will be the thing to stay now, since we have garnered a lot of people's trust in this devices rather than money.

- I have followed the study of Covid waves since March and I might have shared about the waves concept then, every country in their own way of lockdown and freedom has their way of controlling, therefore will have their own Covid waves. Some country are at 2nd wave and some are at 3rd wave. Make no mistake though, the next wave will be worse then the one before, and I have seen the evidences happening in other country. How each country balance this delicate between economy and the wave, and how they enforce the rules and physical distancing determine how many more cases/death will be, again until the vaccine is out.


2021 What I think it will be
- Cautious spending by the majority, economy tries to open up again
- Good time to buy property as developer is looking for cash
- Glove will remain to be a resilient stock due to its demand though the stock price will depends on a lot of factors since everyone is jumping on the bandwagon.
- Government instability might hinder for any major IPO or large development. Until it is decided who can lead with majority, corporation may avoid large projects.
- Before the vaccine is out for the masses, the Covid wave will continue. Every country has different waves and Malaysia is experiencing the 2nd wave now.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Friday, April 06, 2018

Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday to you...
I hope the well wishes will make you happier,
A lot has happen and will continue to happen.

Make less rules,
Don't expect so much from others, perhaps then, you would have less disappointment,
Have less expectations,
You may not know what others are going through.

Things happen for a reason, and things are happening.
Rocking your foundation to the very core.

I know if given a wish, what would you want.
You would want to give health to your father.
He is weak and he is frail. It is so hard seeing it.
I wish you could do a bit better, giving him as much comfort, in this part of his journey of life.

As I see you caring for him, don't forget the rest of family are also here.
I know you can stay strong for them, uniting and assuring them.
You need to, you have to.

I wish you can control your emotion,
Your kids need you to be calm and assuring, while loving.
Your family needs you to make decisions and be present.
Your wife needs you to communicate the feelings that is bottled up.
I wish you all the best. While I know it is hard to juggle, eventually you will succeed.

Remembering what Dad has always thought us, rightfully or wrongfully it is not for me to judge.
It is for me to make my life better, and having him always in our hearts.

I am your logic, you are the heart and soul. Happy Birthday to us!

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Pain...

I don't remember having so much pain in my life... And I am facing it now. We feel pain when we are inflicted with injury, we felt that we lost something in our lives or we feel empty. Right now, I felt that I have lost something in my life. So often, we race the rat race and rushing here and there, running up and down, without ever knowing where we are headed to.

With the latest lost in my life, I felt that a lot of things does not have the same meaning any more. For a few days now, I felt that I have lost the energy and the will to wake up, and whatever I do, the same memory of  the lost' haunts me. Even when I am doing my favorite things or watching my favorite series. Perhaps time is my best friend to help me heal, to help me dilute the pain that is inside.

Kind of thinking back, school teaches us a lot of things, but there are lots more that didn't come with the school system. I remember one was financial literacy, the other I supposed is how to manage loss or emotion. We have to really loss something to learn this though. When something inevitable coming my way, the memory of Aidan suddenly pops into my mind again, and it is fresh again of what has happened. Life at this point seems a culmination of loss, sorrow and pain. It will probably need to take a long time again for me to to somewhere where pain is less.

I can only thing of moving forward, for my family. My mind is exhausted, body seems weary and the thought that I cannot sustain another day seems very real. Prayers, that God somehow grant me strength to stay on and stay the course, seems to be able to make me feel relieve. As I sip the last of my chamomile tea, I hope that too will calm me, but the restlessness and the feeling that 'something is not right' is felt throughout the day. And when I start to feel better, my mind reminds me that all is not right. All indeed is not right, and pray that I can really struggle through this time with some miraculous help.


5 things to do, to change your life

Be warned, it is not shortcut! Found reading the following (which I was reading off Facebook) very true and can't find the original owner to link it with, but, I am putting the content here just to really remind myself we cannot waste any time. If it is 2 or 3 hours of productive time in a very tired evening, I'll have to utilize that to make myself better. Funnily enough the use of word cultivation and yes, it is so true. And keeping the momentum and motivation is important as well. Without further delay, here is the long interesting passage that will inspire you....
You finish work at 6 pm, go to bed at 12 midnight. Within these six hours, how do you spend them? Watching TV? In fact, the activities you do between 6 am and 12 midnight, the importance of it is beyond your imagination.
Too many people believe that, your career is determined by the 8 hours of hard work and effort you put at work, and your future and career progression depend on the boss and the company. But the reality is that for most people, the company is leveraging your effort to make big money and you could be on your own, depending on the work you do and the value you provide. “Cultivation”, is our personal responsibility. If you found yourself not progressing in life, you cannot blame and put the responsibility on your company for not spoon feeding you.
  1. What you do every night is important
  2. Read more, anything will do!
  3. Do some projects
  4. Actively build your connections (contact smart friends, and learn their opinions, get information and knowledge that are difficult to obtain, help the company look for more potential partners, or income generating opportunities)
  5. The CHANGE of your LIFE starts TONIGHT


My major in college was marketing, but I expect to become a designer. So I practiced day and night, picking up some freelance work to improve my design skills. It took me a long time. When I became a boss, I no longer need to involve myself in design work, So I went back to the Marketing field.
Every day, when my children are sleeping, I began learning to gain more knowledge, this again took me a long time, But I begin to realize my returns. If I rely on my working hours to gain skills, then I will never have become a creative director and a product manager, or like today, teaching MBA students on Marketing. What I rely on, is myself giving myself “lessons”. And the most successful people I knew, walked the same path as I am.
I have a friend who is a History graduate, but he is interested in technical sales, In the day, he does telemarketing, at night he learns how to code, Finally, he became the vice president of sales in a startup company. Now, he’s a CTO. 
I have another friend, he received a degree in political science. But he’s very interested in entrepreneurship. he learnt a lot of knowledge on how to start up a company, eventually, he founded a company and sold it, Now he has reaped the rewards.
 For them, what they do between 6 pm till 12 midnight, is what determined their future. Clearly, we need to balance life and work. If you have a wife and children, every night, you have to stay with them. Even if you are single, you also need a reasonable allocation of time to go to the gym, to meet with friends, or be alone to meditate and so on.
Of course, watching movies, playing games is good. But there are things you do not need to do. For example, watching the new season of a Netflix drama, 14 hours per week watching television (This is the average amount of time watching television). The time spent playing the game Candy Crush.Or spending time stalking your high school alumni on Facebook, it does not seem to be good. So what should you do?
 My college mentor was born in Alabama, A poor African family. He was admitted to West Point Military Academy, and he became the first person in the family to go college. Before going to Harvard for his MBA, he’s a trained officer. When I met him, he has already developed his career in the city of Colorado Springs. I asked him, what’s his biggest success? He replied, because he kept the habit of reading, and he never stopped. He believed that if you want to get what you want in life, knowledge is the key. He often asked his interviewees what book are they reading now, the excellent ones can give an answer immediately. Reading can give you a good headstart, this is often what your peers cannot obtain. Compared to others, you are more likely to know other industries strategies and tactics, and that may be helpful to your company.
 You can transfer your knowledge within the organization, create new possibilities for your company. Moreover, your conversation topics will become more interesting. Anthony Robbins said: “If you spend one hour a day to learn about a topic, a year later, in this regard, the knowledge you gain will be more than 99.999% of the world’s people.”Even if you have 30 minutes every night, each week you can easily read a book. You may not be an expert, but I promise, you’ll know more than what your peers know.
You can apply the knowledge learnt to real work scenario, this is only an ideal state. If your company did not give you this opportunity, create opportunities for yourself. You can do some volunteer projects. They can bring you fame. Working with a team, you’ll understand how things work. In the practical application of the industry, and how it ultimately affect actual customers. You’ll learn how to perform the task and meet deadlines, and get feedbacks on what you are doing, and benefit from it.
 When you are not strong enough, these experience may not have any value to you. But you are still a novice. these experiences are far more valuable than the miserable pay you are getting. If you can really convince others of your pockets of fruits of labour, Then go try it. But do not let these private jobs affect your work.
In your career path, a strong network of connections will make everything accelerate. If you have not set up your own personal connections, you’ll need to divide a portion of your time to do this. A strong network of relationships, can enable you: Go get to know your work colleague or boss….. If you are an entrepreneur, your network connections will be your early customers, your staffs are a source of capital rather than go home, or going to a bar, you should find some inner circles. There are many small groups which are highly relevant to your career. You should try to integrate into these circles. Every week, you can drink coffee together with new friends, go drinking or have breakfast.
 You can also look into everyone’s career developments on LinkedIn. And establish a network with mentors in those professional industries. They may be your next job employer, who knows? Your connections will be your most powerful asset in the workplace. Since you have time to watch “The Voice of China”, you have time to build a social network.
 6 pm to 12 am, you go home, though physically and mentally tired, you are free to do anything and do not have to take orders from others. During this time, you can switch off like switching off your computer at your workplace, switch off your brain. But you can also do something, make you smarter, stronger, have a wider network of people. From the start tonight, take an hour a day to do these things, I guarantee that after a year, your career, and life will change.
~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Saturday, March 17, 2018

17th March 18- Emotional Roller Coaster (Part 1)



Our family knew what was coming, but didn't know in what form and how it would come. Eventually it starts to happen, he complains about dizziness and loss of appetite. He was saying that it is some normal stuff, perhaps wrong food, side effect or simply some viral attack. Seen a GP, had pressure checked, sugar level check, physical examination done, nothing. GP starts us off with some medicine to take care of nausea and vomit.

He took it but it wasn't useful at all. The dizziness got worse, the appetite didn't return and a bit of slur speech got him. It didn't look too normal now. After discussing with a couple of family member who's from the medical profession, we decided to bring him to the Emergency.

At the Emergency, things escalated quickly, from blood test and x-ray, and finally decision to had a CT scan. It all happen within the day itself and it was found that some stuff went to the head/brain. There's no way to decide of what is the next course of action and the head Dr wanted to have a better scan on the head before we do anything else. Unfortunately it does not open over the weekend, so the fastest arrangement for the scan is on Monday. Perhaps with the results on Monday, we will know what the prognosis is and what would be the next course of treatment.

It all happened so fast. My memory of him is a strong, hardworking and objective person. He is to me, perhaps the move efficient and effective person, having very clear objective what to do and he'll have it all plan out much earlier. He doesn't give me a hug but he is a very assuring father that deep down you know he cares deeply for whatever that's happening around me.

I remember at every juncture of major events in my life, he is there to listen. And he doesn't have all the solutions, but a day or two later, he'll always come back with some ideas and what he thinks he can help me with. He's always there for me, though his work sometimes takes him away from me for many months, at times near to a year.

My prayer is to make this weekend fast, God preserve him and let him be well. Let Monday come so that Dr can continue the diagnosis and treatment. We knew about his decision, we knew about the eventuality but to be this fast is mind boggling. Frankly I am unsure how I am going to take this, this really doesn't look real. I want to go to bed and wake up from this nightmare, I am thinking if I convince myself enough this is a dream, perhaps it would be, bringing me back to another timeline in another dimension where perhaps, the outcome would have been somewhat different. Multiverse could be something real, that I can somehow switch over, to a more desirable reality.




~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Random Rants - Basketball Weekend Warrior's experience

I play basketball every Sunday over the past 22 years and I started to miss some of the weekend as I am either down with injury, personal home commitment or some other issues. I certainly love the sport and enjoy the game with a group of guys who (like me) frequent the same court every weekend. Over the years some people come and some go, but the main core of the group is still around, and when the group become really small, we combine with some other groups and continue with the sport.

As I am not tall, and not really gifted in any way, my only weapon, so to say, is being fast and try to be faster. That is the key to my games. I remembered on one occasion probably like when I was in my late 20s, being full of energy, I hassled one of the boys that played until he was so frustrated that he called me 'monkey boy'. He was really upset, but again, I wasn't aiming at him, I was aiming to snatch the ball. I did that on and off and it happened to me as well, when someone tried to snatch the ball from me. Give and take I do it on others, others do it on me. And that was one incident that got a bit out of hand until recently...

I was playing last weekend, and I was marking a guy I don't think I am familiar with. And so it happened he turned on his back to me and I hassled him for the ball. He made a mistake and the ball went out of play. So I won the ball back. I didn't give much thought on it. And when I start the game, he said to me that his hand was injured and don't play so rough. I don't know how I looked at that time, well to me I thought I would have responded with a 'well, sure' expression.

That next start of the ball, he got a bit heated and he told me more, he said he got injured, he just got back and he wanted to have a good fun game. I can't see my face in the mirror, but I thought to myself, ok sure, no problem. But as the game got on, he seems to get more and more pissed. Honestly, I do not know what seems to piss him off, really. To me, what is done is done. Don't like it, call a foul. So the next shot, he tried to block, and I call a foul. And he was arguing with me that isn't a foul. Which is fine, I think it is not, but I have called it and no one else was disputing that except him.

His friend ask him to cool down, and the game went on, he got pretty pissed by now he started speaking loudly and then jump around me and check me with his chest to my chest. As the attention starts to make people gather around, I told another team mate to shift marking opponent with me. That still piss him off until the game ends I think.

He talked some stuff, but later when his friend was talking to him, I went over and apologize and share my view, so he says I am arguing with him and he doesn't like argument. He just asked me to sod off and he said he needed to be quiet. Sure, no problem. And then he got cooled down and starting talking to me again, and he said that why I am doing this to him, and not doing it on others, and he's just trying to have a good game etc... and I told him he was elbowing me and stepped on my foot. So I just responded with being a bit more physicality (not even thinking of fouling him actually). So he just said I am wrong, and I told him you can think what you want to think and call a foul if you think it is a foul. So that ends our conversation.

My take of things, this guy is so emotionally unstable and lashes out, and feed on his own anger. Does he even have a family, and what would he be like with family? It is a basketball game and it is a game with rule. Call for a foul if you think a foul has been committed. What's the story of don't be so rough. Seriously I don't think I touched him, but I managed to make him lost the ball in his hand. He was pissed with that I think. His thinking is of another level, not sure what, but surely full of himself. I think in a court, there is only court rules and nothing else. If you can't take basketball rules, don't play.

In the final moment of the final game he played, he showed me his middle finger and probably he wanted to tell me that he hurt his finger. Funny, I don't know I hurt his finger or someone else did. He is emotional, and after the initial challenge on him, he seems to feed on anger and it all keeps adding up. He even blame another guy for hurting him last time and he has to spend RM300 on his fractured hand which he was wearing a protective gear. Well you wanted to play basketball, I'm not sure if anyone really pushed him down or something, I don't remember that or maybe I wasn't there.

This has left me a lot to ponder, but in case you are that guy whom I pissed off, no I wasn't troubled by you. I was just having time to think of the kind of reaction a person can give and the kind of emotional stability which is so important. If we don't have that, they'll be much trouble for people around you because others now have to behave in a way to make sure you are not offended. And a last note, when I was resting and he is playing, he made 2 shots (I think). And on the first shot he made, I think he looked at me, but I wasn't trying to look back at him. He wanted to tell me 'I'm good'. I was looking elsewhere and although I felt that, I didn't want to look back at him. Still thinking, why he need to prove anything? He just got to look at himself. He might have made 2 shots, but, don't think anyone there is going to want him to be there again.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Tuesday, January 03, 2017

Random Thoughts (for 2017)

LPWA - Low Power Wide Area Network seems to be the next big thing especially for IoT. Seems to be low power usage, transmit a wide range and this shall be good devices to cover a lot of area. The only issue seems then that the data transmission should be limited (something got to give, right). I haven't done a lot of research on it yet, but I will, since this is the next big thing.

People on the ground who does the work knows the problem. This is nothing new, but as manager, I think this has to be re-emphasized and sometimes it is ok to go down to low level in order to fully appreciate an issue or an opportunity. In the new world (2017), manager also needs to have a good feel and deploy 'agility' concept to team members, 'on demand' work (able to address business outcomes as business are looking at all leverage they could get to compete), prototyping (higher chances of success and customer discovery.

Think about the concept of Play > Learn > Adapt > Apply > and repeat.

The world shall be content driven adaptiveness, with focus on project delivery, on demand scheduling and critical chain shall be key to the turbulent world of 2017.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Goodbye 2016

It's time to part with 2016, time for a new beginning. I've in my hand massive projects coming my way and I'm getting all excited already. Right now, I am building a team to do that. It is something like the Bill Gates scenario, fully focused on the outcome and then take massive action to ensure its success. It is sort of do or die attitude that I would have to take for now.

It is great to come in with such a big mega project in hand, and also like to thank the folks that I worked with in my previous project. It has been a great journey but then again, it always come to an end inevitably. And my learning from my previous project (or lesson learned/retrospective) are

1. Business priority changes all the time, so when it changes, it sends waves of changes throughout the organization. Sometime it is in our favor and sometimes it isn't. Whether it is or it is not, learn to be grateful and thankful for whatever it is.

2. Be flexible with change, always try to be agile to changes as the new constant are the changes. And changes are the very essence of survival for organization.

3. Play team, and they'll always be people who doesn't. But we play team. It is an attitude of life, and one may win by benefiting from others, you might never know what the real outcome is. Play team gives us truly genuine friendship that will last a lifetime.

4. Accept the outcome that is not within our grasp. Don't worry about things that we cannot change, because it is useless. Instead focus on everything that is within our grasp so that we can change the outcome no matter how small it is.

Thanks 2016, you truly humbled me. I have learned to be more grateful and more conscious of others.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

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