An Eagle-Sparrow

If you were to read my earlier blog entry on "Which Bird Are You?" dtd 24 May 05, you'd understand the different personality traits of an Eagle & a Sparrow. However, there is a hybrid, Eagle-Sparrow, with two sub-species - the undiscovered and the disgruntled.

The undiscovered refers to people who are innately self-driven for success but have been largely tamed by societal values and peer pressure. They conform to what most other people in the society and/or what most of their friends think. These undiscovered Eagle-Sparrows are likened to pure-carbon compounds; given proper polishing, they would shine like diamonds. In real life, these birds could be potential entrepreneurs in unchallenging salaried employment. All they need is one eloquent motivator to direct them to the entrance of self-discovery, a been-there, done-that mentor to guide them along a path of self-actualisation, and a biz opportunity for them to grow. The likelihood of success is high given their determination to solve problems, their fortitude in facing challenges and their high adaptability.

The disgruntled refers to people who had been wrestled by cirumstantial reasons to forgo their visions temporarily or permanently. These birds have long disbelieved that their income should be pegged by meritocracy or market values. They affirm payouts that commensurate with their effort. However, they'd been victimised by circumstances, for examples, a need to solve immediate financial hardship, lack of opportunity, lack of funds, overwhelming pressure by Sparrows etc, to suspend or stop quenching their thirst for success and behave like the smaller birds. They are likened to semi-polished diamonds; a diamond in the making but stopped short of a glistening shine cuz' its brillianteers backed out. The luckier lot of the disgruntled Eagle-Sparrows gets to continue its fervour after a temporary halt; the rest stops forever and risks getting mid-life crises. In real life, they could be ex-businessmen who had suffered bad losses or are already bankrupts, the constantly unguided employees who wanted to start businesses, budding entrepreneurs who had taken up salaried jobs to make immediate ends meet etc. All they need is ample breathing space, one that is big enough to unfetter them from their strifling circumstances, and soon they would be soaring again. The chances of success for these people are high, higher than that of the undiscovered, cuz' they (the disgruntled) were already moving along the path of self-actualisation before they hobbled earlier.

How Bad Is Bad?

The adjective "bad" is a relative term. Your "bad" may not be my "bad". Basically, it is an adjective to describe the relative state of a following noun. In brief, "bad" for a person with high tolerance would probably mean "extremely bad", "fatal", "suicidal" etc for another with a lower capacity. This leads to my next point - in a serious conversation, especially with pals in trouble, ask them to describe their bad situations to know just how terrible they've been. If the listeners were to impose their definitions of "bad" to what the speakers had said, the former may miss vital points in the dialogues.

Let me give an example. X has been missing his bank dues for many months, such that the bank had sent him a legal letter to demand for full payment, or else, he risks paying additional hundreds for the legal & late-payment fees. X also owes a friend a few hundreds and his friend has been urging very fervently for X to repay. If X pays his friend instead of the bank (assuming the amounts are the same), X would incur additional hundreds in debts (to the bank) as per legal-letter demand. If X pays the banks, he clears an outstanding liability and lowers his overall debt. However, his friend would be angry and might think he's an ingrate. So X approached his friend to tell him his predicament, but his friend misinterpreted the "bad" situation as a case of priority payment (i.e. paying something of the same amount to another creditor of a higher priority), and became sore about it.

What would you have done if you were X's friend? For me, I'd first want to know how bad is "bad" for him, and judge after hearing. For the above example, I'd be glad that X came and told me, and I'd let him make the more prudent payment, i.e. the bank, at least for this time round.

L'Amour Est ...

By "love", I mean friendship, man-woman relationships & fillial piety. Below are three of my life's lessons on such human relations.

(1) Best friends become the worst of enemies when they fall out. The more you trusted and/or loved each other, the more hatred there is when both get angry & split ways.

(Note: When you want to give more, think about the magnitude of the hatred if both were to split later. Commit only when you have a good confidence that a relationship or a friendship would last.)

(2) Many meetings with lesser outward expressions of fillial piety beat occasional visits with fuller expressions. For e.g., visiting one's parents weekly w/o doing much is better than visiting them once in two months & treating them to grand dinners and great outings.

(Note: Doing things in smaller denominations with a higher frequency is better than rarely doing them in bigger portions, even if the smaller denominations added up are lesser than the bigger portions. You get remembered in the former.)

(3) Maintaining friends is a social need. If lower needs (jobs, shelter, food & water etc) are threathened, spend lesser time on friends. Spending lesser time with friends could be a test too. Good friends will understand the virtues of letting another go for the latter's betterment (and it's temporary anyway). The less-than-deserved would fade away while the tested ones would be felt strongly. By the way, most of us wouldn't have a lot of good friends. Sometimes, just one would do; many others have none.

(Note: The closest of human relations does not oblige the parties to see one another very frequently. For e.g., we may not see our siblings so often, but we get the pains and would be damn worried when we know they're in trouble.)

There Will Not Be A Singapore Style

We've heard of people who dressed like Japanese & Korean, or are followers of BCBG (Bon Chic Bon Genre), le Roc, le Punk, le Bohemia, Hip Hop & many other genres, but we've never heard of a "Singaporean style" per se.

There are two main reasons why we'll not have a Singapore style, namely, our population is small and we don't belong to one single race or culture. With a relatively small no. of people, we can't assume an influential position large enough to affect world fashion. With a demographic make-up comprising four major races, the lack of homogeneity in culture makes it difficult, otherwise, impossible to fuse our fashion styles into one. Combined, Singapore's case becomes one with not enough people to push thru' a difficult-to-merge style. In other words, with no critical mass and a major difficulty to amalgamate the cultural fashion styles, we will not have a national fashion genre.

Let's look at how other countries could do it with sheer sizes. In Japan & Korea, they could develop their national genres cuz' their populations are large, and they are near-100% racially homogeneous. In France and the US, although they are less racially homogeneous than Japan or Korea, the no. of people in each race, ethnic and genre groups are large enough to have the critical masses to make world fashion statements.

Still, crossing races & cultures remains difficult, if not, impossible. Despite France's and the US's success stories, we still don't hear of a French or American genre that's cross-racial, do we? This is especially so in the US. The ideals of the Melting Pot (the term came about in 1908) had been mooted since the 19th Century, yet the races remain largely multi-cultural and are independent in fashion styles. They didn't mix, and it just won't happen. That's reality! And thank God it didn't mix, we get genres like the White-influenced BCBG in France and the Afro-American's Hip Hop in the States.

Karma & The Power Of Religion

Most Buddhists believe in retribution or karma. I believe there's a greater being up there who renders short-term karma to people who had misgiven or accumulated merits. This cannot be science; it can't be proven. This is what I call the Human Equation. For some incomprehensible reasons, the combination of certain actions and inactions, coupled with the person's merits, would result in certain happenings. For e.g. a man who had squandered his money, beaten up an old nanny, did not lend a help hand to a drowning kid, eventually became a bankrupt and contracted syphilis. Well, my example wouldn't make sense; karma can't be explained logically anyway.

To me, following what my heart tells me to do, and to do the right things all the time would probably prevent these bad short-term karma from happening. In the midst, I might have executed the right combination to have invoked good karma.

I'd like to emphasise a power that any religion could bestow onto its believers, i.e. the power of temperance. Think about how our nerdy, staunch & pious friends never/seldom run into problems like a run-away debtor, getting romantically involved with foreign imports, evading the law etc. They don't cuz' their strong religious beliefs had moulded them to be nice people who wouldn't step near danger zones. With this refrainment, they wouldn't get into funny troubles. So, while many pray hard for miracles, have they thought that, perhaps, there'd never be miracles; the greater deities' magic is in making its followers not do certain things at the first place?

Have You Been Lucky So Far?

There is a popular equation that goes Luck = 1% Pure Luck + 99% Hardwork or similar. I beg to differ. My personal experiences tell me Luck = 10% Pure Luck + 90% (Preparation + Opportunities).

Firstly, I give Pure Luck a higher percentage cuz' many good things in life happen sans raison. For examples, being born rich, striking lottery, picking up a briefcase stashed with cash etc. A handful of my acquaintances are simply blessed with Pure Luck without much explanable reasons. A mere 1% under-estimates the commonness of incidents of Pure Luck; I give it a 10.

Secondly, 99% Hardwork may be an over-estimation. A lot of Hardwork and a little Pure Luck probably can't work wonders. Imagine a person who had prepared himself extremely well with investment skills, and here comes an investor who dumped in only $10k. How much could he reap? Not much I'd say.

I choose to believe a good 90% could be attributed to preparing oneself well enough to grab opportunities when they come. Some examples on Preparation are - picking up salesmanship skills, breaking free from a common man's inhibitions (on approaching friends, kins & strangers for sales talks), learning to manage and raise sales teams, acquiring knowledge on the payout structure of network marketing etc. In the above examples, having been trained in sales and sales management skills would allow one to hit the gong when Opportunities like dealership of a good product, third-party investments come. Moreover, as 90% of Luck is NOT attributed to Pure Luck, even if a person were never to strike lottery in his lifetime, he'd still be blessed. In other words, he'd still be considered lucky to have been only able to grab hold of opportunities when they come. In a related issue, some opportunities are not obvious. One needs trained acumen to recognise them. Having a trained acumen also means afore training, and that's also Preparation in play.

While one wouldn't know if Pure Luck and Opportunities would ever come, he could best prepare himself well and wait. This beats the mentality of some coffeeshop seat-warmers; they just wait for good things to happen. If they were to strike lottery, lucky for them; hope they have the money-management skills to stretch their dollars. If they were to be offered Opportunities, too bad; they're unlikely to have the skill sets to hold on to these Opportunities for long, and would soon lose them and return to Square One, or even be worse off than before. Let me give you an example. A lazy Ah Beng was given a sum of money to run a loanshark biz. He lent it to almost anybody he knows, gambled with some of the funds and spent others on merriments. In the end, some debtors ran away, he lost on gambling and he had squandered parts of the funds. He's left with little or no funds to roll his biz, and he's no choice but to end it. He now loses a biz and probably has the investor hot on his tail to get back the interests for supporting him. This story is a classic case of a person who had an Opportunity without prior Preparation. He could have well-ahead prepared himself in money-management, personal discipline, and/or to develop a trained acumen to recognise people with good credibility. If he'd done so, the situation would have been different.

Hmm? Think about it. Have you been lucky so far?

Lost Without An Income? Read This.

Most men are lost when they hit walls and see no light at the ends of tunnels. It'd happened to a few of my friends and me. At trying times, for e.g., when a man loses a long-standing, good-paying job and has been fruitless in seeking another income avenue, he's bound to be lost. The best gift for such a person would be mentorship, i.e. a guidance on life, on the routes to take, the lanes to explore and the activities one could engage in.

I bumped onto an ol' friend and he's a similar problem as above. I acted as his mentor and advised him on three broad categories of activities. However, prior to any good advice, step zero would always be active listening. The techniques are to listen to the person with neither interruption nor judgement. If you need to punctuate him, it'd be either for clarification or to paraphrase what he'd said. Do not be judgemental, i.e. don't say things like "I think you should ...", "Why didn't you ...", "You're wrong! It should be ..." etc. Comment on obvious sentiments and get the person to tell you more (may not be the truth). The combo of of non-interruption, sans judgement, paraphrasing and the reinforcement of the subject's sentiments would get the person to open up and to tell you the truth. One needs to know the truth as background info, so as to be oriented into the subject's psyche, to advise well.

I actively listened to my friend, assessed his situation and gave him three main advices. The first advice was for him to total his monthly financial obligations so as to derive at a figure. This figure would serve as the initial objective for later activities. The second advice was to find money and it comprises three parts, namely, (1) to be increasingly more fervent in his job search (I mooted making 100 enquiries in a month with the aid of the Internet, newspapers, friends & kins), (2) to learn a new trade or skills (if one's current skill level and trade cannot break one from the vicious cycle of endless work, learn one that can), and in his case, I suggested sales & marketing, and (3) to face the brunt of the new trade and to stay determined for successes i.e. to do sales and close them. The third & last advice was time management. I drilled into him that he now needs to do many things within the same period, and this can only be achieved with an efficient usage of time, down to every waking minute. At a crunch, if rest has to be compromised, be it. He needn't be restricted to the 24-hr day as a benchmark to compartmentalise work & rest. I advised him to do purposeful things until he's really sleepy, sleep lesser hours and continue the fight relentlessly upon wakening. In other words, a normal person's three days could be his two. In addition, I cautioned him on one OB marker, i.e. entertaining friends. I used Maslow's Theory of Needs to briefly explain that while one lacks security needs, one shouldn't commit unnecessary time for the attainment of higher-stratum needs (in his case, friends as social needs).

I was glad my ol' pal felt very much relieved after hearing from me. While I may not be rich enough to bail him out of his predicament, I think I had led him well to self-help.

Oxygen Is A Happy Gas

Ever felt tired & sleepy after a heated quarrel? This phenomenon and many others could be easily explained with the depletion of blood cells. Our blood cells die in great numbers when we are stressed. Naturally, when we quarrel and feel heated, our blood cells die, and since blood cells carry oxygen, lesser blood cells mean lesser oxygen, and lesser oxygen would retard brain activities and make us sleepy.

Oxygen is a happy gas. Ever wonder why oxygen makes up only 20% of natural air, but docs give pure-oxygen masks to patients? Cuz' oxygen rejuvenates the body. Not convinced? Here's another example. Remember the occasional mornings you strolled in the park? The smell of the air, filled with the early-morning oxygen emission from the greenies exhilarated you, didn't it?

In a related issue, sleepiness after meals comes from the drawing of blood away from your head to your stomach for digestion. With a rush of oxygen-carrying blood cells elsewhere, our think tanks get groggy naturally. Feeling sleepy after sex for some men could be explained in similar ways too. Think along this line and you'd be able to explain why we feel sleepy shortly after some other activities ...

Did You Plan To Fail?

I get to hear a lot of ideas and plans in my marketing & business-writing work. An idea is just a thought, whilst a plan is an idea put into actions. The usual mental note when I hear an idea or a plan is, "did he plan to fail?". Let me give you an illustration - a debtor planned to repay his creditor $1k over 5 weeks, $200 each. His idea was to split the payment into smaller, manageable portions. His plan was to negotiate with the creditor and to get him to agree. It worked. When the payment dates come, he couldn't pay one of the $200-instalments. What went wrong here? The debtor didn't plan on how he was going to get the weekly $200. His plan failed. Similar scenarios are visible in plans many make daily. Detailed planning, looking into 2nd-, 3rd-layer or even deeper layers of the sub-plans are the keys to make plans work. So, next time someone tells you he has a plan, ask if he'd already thought through it. Otherwise, Murphy will strike unnoticeably. By the way, many people have plans that are not. They could be referring to just ideas or lightly-processed ideas (which don't yet qualify as plans). Ask them, "did you plan to fail?" A simple follow-through in his "plans", asking questions expertly with the 5Ws & 1H would get you some answers.

Life & Money

Life is about living and being happy. While some happiness cannot be bought by money, most can. If it can be bought, that makes money a mean to happiness. To get money, there are only a few means, and sadly, work is one of them. Hence, that makes work a mean to another mean to an end. So, don't get persnickety about work ... stay positive always.

From another perspective, the poor have their problems, so do the rich. Given a choice, would you want a poor man's problems or a rich man's? I'd choose the latter; at least, my problems would not revolve around survival issues.

Yet, a 3rd perspective. Man is born with nothing. With the money he earns and the life he lives, he incurs debts, which very plainly, is merely an ingenious human creation on money. Money is a creation too. That makes debts a 2nd-generation creation, at least. Heard of people who had jumped to their deaths cuz' of debts? These men created something, which spurs the creation of another, and they died from it. Man is better off creating nothing sometimes. Fuzzy human logic you think. It's probably better being a rabbit or a Java Sea cockle; one needs only bother about mating or spitting into the seawater ...

(Great) Britain? UK?

Ever thought of the differences between Britain, Great Britain, England, United Kingdom (UK)? Britain is the name of the island, which England, Wales & Scotland are located. Great Britain is this big island and its outlying islets. England is just a country. UK refers to NEWS, i.e. Northern Ireland, England, Wales & Scotland. It is a confederation. However, the term "British" had been so inaccurately used that it had come to mean "of England".

How To Decentralise Work?

Decentralisation is the mother. It means one of delegation, deconcentration or devolution. To delegate is to pass down a chore to another person while you supervise. You remain nonetheless responsible for it. E.g. a Platoon Commander getting his runner to transmit a message over the field radio. To deconcentrate is similar, but usually a group of related functions is undertaken by another person/sub-unit while you maintain an oversight. You're still responsible for its successes, but you now have lesser control over the daily running. E.g. a company director getting his HR Dept to handle all personnel matters. To devolve is to pass the buck to someone else while you relinquish the responsibility. E.g. a condo owner paying his dues for the security services (guards, alarms, patrols etc). The differences are in the varying degrees of control over the subject function from supervisory control in delegation to no control in devolution. So, the next time somebody tells you to decentralise your work, ask him/her what exactly does he/she wants you to do.

Which Bird Are You?

There are many personality-profile tests in the market. DISC is commonly used. It singles out four distinct character types named after birds - Eagle, Peacock, Sparrow and Dove. It is quintessential that the right type is matched to the right profession for a good job fit. By the way, character is one's true self, while personality is its outward display. Heard of people who behave in ways different from what they think sometimes? This is a classic case of a character-personality mismatch. Ok, briefly on these feathered vertebrates ...
Eagles are people who like to cheong. They think quick, love to solve problems, enjoy challenges, and are goal-oriented. They make excellent entrepreneurs, motivators, field commanders. Most, if not all CEOs are Eagles. They would do less well for jobs like nurse, counsellor or simply most salaried jobs with little increment to fill their hunger for success.

Peacocks are people who love titles. Good names to them are way more important than most other factors. They are egoistic, usually a person in the limelight, but they too enjoy feeling important by doing what important people do. Academics, some top clergymen, some authors (especially those who engage ghostwriters) are good examples. They would do less well in jobs that denounce recognition like administrative clerks, primary school teachers etc.

Sparrows are what most Singaporeans are. Sparrows would subscribe fervently to the you-know-who's propaganda on job (not career) fulfilment. Most women are sparrows. These are peace lovers who enjoy their status quo and would not take big steps out of their comfort zones. They enjoy stability and are usually contented with perks like a once-a-year tour, an income package with less changes than a rock on Everest. However, these non-fighters are survivors! Good examples are some fully salaried executives, shop assistants, counter salesman in watch shops etc. They would prefer a straight 2k/month income to one that pays 1.5k basic + commission even if there's a very good chance of hitting more than 500 in commission. Sadly, many Sparrows are Eagles or Peacocks in disguise, but they don't know that yet. Not surprising that some bigger systems knead people to become Sparrows unknowingly.
Doves are people whose self-esteem greatly depends on how others perceive it to be. They are people-oriented, kind-loving angels who care and listen to the needed. They make excellent nurses, kindergarten teachers, marriage counsellors, staffs in old folks' home etc. However, if they were to be thrown in a position that obliges them to make fast decisions or to be accountable for company profits, they would tumble & fall. Doves make bad entrepreneurs. They'd be so well-guarded by fears that others might perceive them with bad motives, and not approach people. This bird is a bad choice for a sales job.
However, everyone displays different bird traits in different situations at different time. Nevertheless, there is a dominant bird in everyone. Which is yours?

Time & Money

Most of us trade in our time & effort for money, working 8 or 9 hrs a day to bring the bread home. Subscribing to this notion would never make us rich, that's why we remain as the poorer 80% to 90% of the local population. So, you wonder ... how did the remaining 10% to 20% do it?
Well, they worked in lines which allow them to generate passive income, and eventually, attain financial freedom. Briefly, passive income is achieved when one works hard for a period and generates recurrent income for the years to come. However, one would need to thrive hard again to create more bundles of these passive income when the recurrence ends. When one gets smarter, he recruits & trains his downlines to acquire the same passive income, while he gets this payout called "over-riders". This goes on, and more downlines are recruited. Some of these proteges would set up agencies. As time passes, more agencies mushroom, the over-riders increase and c'est tout! Financial freedom is achieved. Others are earning money for you; you'd only need to maintain oversight. Good examples are Financial Advisors, Sales Directors (with network marketing), MLM Operators etc.
At this stage, one could oversee a few establishments at the same time. That's why some big wigs could be chairmen to organisations, non-executive CEOs to others, consultants to several businesses etc. Only oversight is needed. To buy time, one pays money to hire third parties to take over certain functions, for examples, a chauffeur to drive his BMW X5, some maids to clean his mansion, a housekeeper to keep his chateau in order, a gardener to tend to his rose garden ...
Now you get it? For the less well-off, us alike, we exchange time for money, whilst the rich buys time with it.