It is not that difficult to tell

It is not that difficult to be wise. It is not that difficult to be want you wanted to be.
It is definitely not difficult to predict how you would be and how you would end up.
Life is a cycle. History always repeats itself. And it is not that difficult to see which history that you are repeating.
Review this...
Allah says that we should learn from the Holy Al Quran. Why?. What is there is the Holy Book? If you care to review, all Allah describes in His Book is history and reminders.
It is relevant?. It is very relevant!. Why is it relevant, it is an old history you might say.
The thing is no matter how old the history is, history will always repeat itself. No matter how modern and complicated the world is today. The basic story line is still the same!.
It is not fortune telling. If you care to learn about the history and other people history, and if you care to evaluate where you are now and your past, you will more or less know what you are going to be. It will not take a genius or a fortune teller to figure it all out. It just needs some study and muhasabah to be able to foretell.
To all my staffs.
We are to be a great company. We are to be great people. Learn from the history. Learn your responsibilities to be somebody different and somebody great. Only if you are great people, will the company becomes great!.

It is a story

We are living in an imperfect world.
We are human, so we are imperfect.

We go through life everyday.
Everyday in our life is a page of our book.
We are the author of the book.

The idea is

How do we want our story to be?
How do we want our story to conclude?
How do we want our story to end?

Hmmmm... I come to think to this idea..

If we are not somebody... we are nobody!
I was thinking how am I to be that somebody, not to be that nobody.
Then, I was thinking...even to write a story book we need ink or a pen.
So I come to think that the ink or pen represent money.

Yes..money is not everything. It is just a medium. It is what makes the world go round in human's term. We are living, we are living in this world. We work hard to make a living. Living is money.

The magic word is, working is living. Cheating for living is not living.It is a sin. A sin of living in denial.

So we got to have money to start with... that is the brutal fact!
And I intend to have a lot of them starting from today!

So let us get to work

Selamat Hari Raya

Saya ingin mengucapkan Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Adha kepada semua!

It is only for those few

Life is ever changing, business environment changes all the time, hence the demand on human ability changes all the time. The standard for work deliverables is becoming more and more demanding. There are also talk of better quality of life. So to juggle between those two is petty damn hard.

Recruitment for good people is very hard.

Recruitment for great people is so damn bloody hard.

The idea is

Only few are able be "the person". You can be great for some period of time. But you must be adaptive to to sustain the greatness.

That is why there are only a handful of great people in this world. Definately it is good to be great!. It gives life a sense of meaning and purpose.

We should not be working anymore!

When people are on the job, they got frustrated, they whin and complain about their job. What is the point of working if you are not happy?!.

We should not be working anymore, it is too hard.

The idea is

When you find yourself the right job, you will not be feeling like working anymore.

The right job should make you feel inspired, anxious and it gets under your skin.

If you have not found it yet. Go look for one.

If you are in a big company maybe you belong to a small set up

If you are in a small company maybe you belong to a big set up

If you are employed maybe you should be self employed.

If you are self employed maybe you should get a job

I found mine!

Do we need more great idea?

I dont think we need more good ideas right now. More good idea will make us confused because there are too many good ideas around already.

Already we have too many good ideas and we do basicly nothing about it!.Why then we need new idea for?.

In term of the country, we have many ideas and good systems already. It is just simple not being implemeted and executed well. The trend is, we are all the time trying to carry out new good ideas without having to finish and without mastering of the previous one, without proper review and improving the current ideas.

Same goes to business,there are many business ideas around. But people think it is so difficult to find one.Businessman in Malaysia normally try to do so many business ideas at one time. They failed because they cannot focus and fail to master one business at a time.They try to do too many not because they are able, it is just simple that they are greedy and trying to take short cut to richness and relaxation!. Stupid fools.

I have been doing business for 10 years now. I have been doing the same thing too. I cannot be doing other business yet. Simply because I have not even master this one yet and I only have few good and able people. I make too many mistakes and there are too much to learn.I dont understand why people are too eager to venture into some thing new too fast.They are prone to disasterous failure.

The fact is most wanna be businessman in this country should not businessman. They can only be sole propriter. They cannot expand beyond their skill and themself. They are simply selfish and does not have the people and management skills.

There are basic ideas out there all time. Just spend some time reading and thinking. It is not that hard, it is just creative imitation!.

The idea is

If you are working on one good idea. Just work hard on it and focus on it..master it.In time new ideas will automaticly come and presented to you!.

For those fresh graduates, look for an employment that demands your thinking, able you to develop new skills and demand the best out of you. Dont just simply work for money alone. Money will come later. You want a job that offer you learning and knowledge. If you dont have what it takes and are not willing to work hard and learn. Dont dream too high. You cannot go beyond your ability, your thinking, your will and your determination! Get the idea?

Technology Helps

I always have faith in people. The thing is, most of the time people dont have faith in their ownself.I try my best to help. Most of the time it's frustrates me. When it frustrates me, I used to get the feeling that I am wasting my time and I should not bother.

Then I wonder how am I suppose to answer to God when I die. I sure kena!.Maybe I would say to Him, people make me feels like giving up. Maybe He would say..I have never given up on you!. Why should you give up instead.

I would say that I thank Him for giving me the idea of blog. I would like to thank Cheah Ai Wei for teaching and helping me to set up my blog.

Now I am happy, I got the answer when He question me later!

It a serious and heavy

Yup, I admit I write heavy stuffs in my blog. My wife says it heavy.I am just being myself.That is what I am, I am always thinking of the heavy stuffs. It is worth my time.

If you notice, my grammar and sentence structure are often off. I am thinking as I write and my thinking is faster than my writing. I could not find my time to correct it. I just let it be.

That is why my decision is sometime off.. I make decision too fast.Well, nowadays I try to think it through more. But I wont take as much time. It is who I am. I am a risk taker.I am not that prudent. If I am too prudent, probably I will take too long to decide and playing on the save side.Risk taking means mistakes prone.No mistake no progress, no mistake no lessons.

It is always a double edge. I am trying to balance it out nowadays. I am trying to be more prudent but I wont lose my other edge, I dont intend to. I will have both edges.

To my staffs,I am telling you that I will get my third supercars, hehehe.

The way to grow - timeless tales

Be you are employed or selfemployed.

When we embark on a carrer or a business, at the beginning the accellaration of progess seems to be smooth. Our career and our business florishes and blooms.

Come halfway through, most of us will find out that it is hard to move forward. Growth is difficult to attain and sustained.

The idea is

To push forward and to keep growing we have to put ourself behind and to put others people growth as our focus. At this stage we will only grow by growing other people.

So if you have not started, learn focus on other people more and learn to manage people, or even learn to manage other people which is more intellegent and skillful than us.

In short, it is about being able to manage others people sincerely and to start to learn how to lead.

To grow, other people matters and to grow, leadership matters

The missing pieces about strengths and weaknesses.

As we journey through life, life and our experiences will show us something.. It will be revealed only if we care to reflect.

The idea is

If we care to reflect, life will reveal to us in time, more of our strengths and weaknesses.Many people might think that they know especially their strengths.

The fact is most of us does not know exactly and the assumption is mostly wrong. We will find out in time. Think more and try out more things to identify. Strengths and weaknesses have to be tested in term its validity. It will be validated mostly through real life experiences.

Once you have identified some of your strengths and weaknesses. Try to focus and work more on your strengths and try to fix your weaknesses. But focus on strengths!

Let us take a break

There are people that do nothing but hope that something good will come their way.

These people remained either hopeful or whiner or hopeless or helpless or pain in the neck..depending on how the present themself to the public.

I will not elaborate on this type of people, it is a waste of time

I want to focus on is the other type of people............

There are people who thought that they have done everything possible, put in every ouns of effort and energy yet nothing happens or nothing good materialises.

They have either give up, going to give up and start to blame their misfortune on anything possible.

The idea is.

Though sometime we have given everything into something,things wont simply happened accordingly.We should not give up. It is just time to stop doing what we are doing and take a break.

God is fair, He will give things for those wish and put in effort. The catch is...

Sometime we must take a break and think how to do it differently.When things does not come through we are simply doing the wrong thing, focusing on the wrong area or having wrong approach.

God will give for those who work, but they just have to work on the right thing and the right way.

So don't give up and give in...

The Culture of Compromise

When we embarked to do anything, normally we tend to be anxious and ambitious. It is normal to do it overboard and excessive. We got so overwhelmed that we did not compromises or making too much compromises.
Our country is multiracial. At the beginning compromises were made to set things up correctly. Compromises have to be made to make the ball rolling. Compromises at the beginning is definitely the right thing to do.
Of course compromises make a lot people happy. When people are happy they can focus on something else which is important, like working and working to develop country. Definately, compromises induces some degree of peace.
The Idea is
The problem with this country is that ever since, excessive compromising has become the solution and culture. There were and are too many compromises being made. When you make too many compromises, important agenda is very difficult to roll off, difficult to do and some time has to be abandoned. When there are too many compromises, we lose the sight of the right thing that has to be done. We are so swap to entertain a lot of parties and the kind of compromises have to be made that we do not quite enough argue what is the right thing to do.
The correct way is that to figure out the right thing to do first then figure out what is the compromises that need to be made to ensure that the agenda goes through accordingly but not at the expense of abandoning and ourselves losing too much.
The thing is if you make too many compromises over a long period of time environment will always and eventually deteriorate. The time will come that we have to make a harsh call or else we will lose it all.
Since we have developed and having the culture of making too many compromises, I like to draw our attention to situation of the country. The reason I bring out the issues is just to trigger everyone to think.
The first scenario, the government has the obligation to drive the country forward in term of economics, moral, thinking and many other aspects and disciplines. If they do not drive all these things forward they will lose the confident of the people.
The second scenario, the government or the ruling party has to really revamp the political parties that it becomes relevant, stable and produces quality leaders that will lead the country forward. Most of the leaders may not be relevant anymore and should be replaced. They are there not focusing on the people or the country anymore, they are there to take care of their legacy and position only. If they are not replaced, the government will also lose the confident of the people.
But the thing is if they are replaced there will definitely be havoc and instability in political parties. The coming election will definitely will be in jeopardy.
The fact that we have to face is that we are running out of time and we are at the cross road. We have to make a turning soon. The government is to make the decision and cannot be so hopeful that things are going to be ok. If they do not realise this fact and decide to ignore it, one day they will regret and found out that they have lose it all.
It is difficult issue but unfortunately the time has come to make the harsh decisions and it is so difficult to make the right compromise now, for we have arrived at the crossroad. May God have mercy on us.

From average to good, good to great

The base

In today's senario, what qualify you to becoming an average person is your formal education. From what it seems now, the basic qualification is a resonable degree. A diploma now seems to be the entry for you to go on the job market.

Average to good.

What then qualify you to be good? It is the commitment and the satisfactory deliverence of your assignment.

Most of people sits on this band. Simply because it is easy to settle for good.It is comfortable to be just good because you will look most competent on the job.

From good to great

Since this is the grandest status, very few qualify and very few are able to maintain it.

So what does qualify you to be great. Ambitious. Always seeking for better way of doing things. Dissatisfied with one's status of quo (good).Always learning and doing better things.

Some people did great but fail to maintain it. So how to maintain it? People who maintain it normally has the chracteristic of humality, not egosentric and always pursue a new level of improvement.

The idea is

It is so easy to settle for good that is a fact.So if you have settled for good, please dont be a whining person. It bleeds somebody's else ears listening to you.

In and out of the box

People say you have to be think outside of the box if you are to come up with better option and solutions.

That might be true. True to the people who life in a box and think within the box.

The idea is

Why limit youself living in a box. With thinking limitation within that box.

There should not be a box in the first place.

Don't get puzzled - simply benchmark

This morning, I was talking to my managers. There was this one issue that persist for a few months now.We have been implementing or rather investing into something new the past few months. The thing is the result is somehow not as we anticipated.

We have been trying a lot of approaches to get where it suppose to be. Somehow or rather we are against the wall. We are simply not moving as fast.

I got the feeling that we are simply not doing the thing that we are suppose to be doing. I pause for a while, thinking. Then I came out with the word... benchmarking.

The idea is

When you want to improve things and go about finding better solution or better option, you just have to benchmark. Benchmarking someone else or another organisation that is much better than us. Studying how they go about doing the same thing with better result.Then you will definately find better ways of doing things! with high standrard and better results of course.

Which one are we?

There is a saying

"Below average people talk about other people, average people talk about themselves, great people talk about idea"

The idea is

which one are we?

What needed to change?

Normally, when people want to introduce changes, they will go about making a fuss and hugh publicity, dwell into strategy and introduce new strategy and etc

The thing about changing and changes is that all the big fuss, horay does only one good thing and one good thing only. It only promotes awareness..what happened if you try to wake a bear during their hibernation season?.. They open one eye and goes back to sleep.
Changes and changing takes time...the fuss and publicity is only a starter.

If you poke the bear with a knife ... it will definately wake up..to kill you ...but what happened afterward? It goes back to sleep.

That is what happen if you introduces sudden and brave change agendas...most of the time it is not sustainable.

The idea is

So how to we tackle this individual, organisation and government to a sustainable change? hmmm... let me see...

I think the effective way to change oneself, organisation and government is cultural change. Cultural change mostly goes about discipline. It can be as simple as getting earlier in the morning..and other simple thing..discipline thinking and discipline action.

So the essence of change is the change of culture. Culture of discipline. Only with change of discipline will effectively change oneself, an organisation and a country.

Without it, the intended high income society or vision 2020 is futile.

Last but not least. God invent human with faith. Faith is about discipline. What does solat or prayer teaches us? The discipline of time, dicipline of thought and discipline of action!

Think about it... dicipline is fundamental. You cannot aim high if the foundation is wobbly. That is for sure

The key word is the culture of discipline

The little push that makes a lot of difference

When you started working, you get to know a few kind of people. I get to know a lot more kind of people. I get to know a lot of people especially when I started venturing into business.

Most of the succesful people that I observed of, of course work hard to look for opportunities. But there is one pattern that emerge to my observation. Guess what...

These are the people who are always been good to their parents. As to compare other of their siblings, they are the one that is most caring and responsible to their parents. Somewhat the kindness to their parents makes them easier to stumble upon good things.

The small number of them continue to be successful even more, simply because they do not forget their parents and their welfare even in most good times.

If your have tried hard and have not been that successful and find it hard to push forward, try check on your relationship with your parents.

The people that I mention has been successful over many economic cycles. These people are happy people and trust me, these are very successful people in their own way...

The Older The Better

I about middle age now. I make mistakes and I try to learn as much. Sometimes, I am in the middle of a mistake, I could not see it and I could not learn lesson from it there and then. I may realised the lesson and the mistake later, much later or sometime never.

Well that is pretty obvious huh...It happens all the time you might say. I will definately not be able to capture all the offerings. Will never will. It is just simply that we are human.

The idea is...

People say you should learn your own lesson. By that I think what they mean is, you have to go through it by yourself and make the mistakes, pay! the mistakes and learn the lesson.

Well I think that is about a fair statement for most of the time. Human do have to learn their own lesson. If not they wont be able to appreciate the lesson.But owwchhh...it can be painful most of the time.. to pay for the mistakes.

What am I getting at?

Well, I have made my fair share of mistakes and big mistakes..that you have to trust me and trust me, more are coming! definately and period!.I will make a lot of them in time and everyday.. why? because I am not going play it that prudent. I am going fast and I am going big!..why? I am ambitious and there is no fun in playing it too safe.

If my managers and my accountants are reading this.. they are going to start getting worried and oppss .. here he goes again...We are dead... we are going to be asked for more results and more results in shorter time...The boss is going nuts again...

All i am trying to say is that I am not going to let go the thrills and the good things that life is offering.Just in case you guys are reading this.. which I am sure you will.. I will tell you that I will always play it big and I always will play it rough...I want you guys to do the same too!.. But this time around, I will definately put you guys and the company sustainability in the equation. I will get it.. may be longer time.I will be a bit more prudent..I hope..hehehe

Ok...coming back to the topic..to learn from one own mistakes is a must and it is inevitable. Just that sometime ago, I realise that most people will definately learn a lot of lessons when they are pretty old!...So what? ..Nowadays, I look for the old and do more listening from the old..I ask them to tell me stories...I ask them if they dont mind, telling me, the things that they regret and the things that they were so grateful.. their experiences and etc.I am more interested in history and living history from the mouth of the living old.

I talk more to my father and mother, asking them questions. Listening to their past. Now I know why I got wacked all the times when I was little. I thank them for wacking me!

The things about finding the purpose of life

Just to note. Human will never find or understand the purposes of life unless they constantly makes mistakes and one day stumble upon 'the mistakes'.Don't be surprised even some of the wise and the religious one does not understand and found the meaning and purposes of life.

Why? becaused even the wise and the religious one are just only another human being.Why not? Because they will be subjected test of how they conduct themselves with the knowledge given by God.They shall not escape God test unless they are prophet or angel.Which they are not!

Life progression - a reminder

Life goes on regardless. Time goes by regardless.

The young and the old experinces new things everyday. Experiences is our test. There will be endless test regardless. It is the norm. It is normal life progession. It is "fitrah" of life and human.

Human does not have the choice to what situation that they are born. They can be born in wealthy or poor family. They can be born in Malaysia or in Europe. That is the decision of God. But upon being born is the decision of the parents.After puberty, it is the decision of human to decide their life progression.We do not have the choice of how we are brought here and being brought up, but after, it is about our choice to determine how it is going to be. What God will do is to reward and punish. He will subject human to test and evenue to learn. It is the fitrah or norm. Fitrah that human will make mistakes and sins, to correct it and to learn from it.

What will be then definate and the decision of God is only one. It is the exact second that we will die. Not one second more or less.

Human is constantly making mistakes and sins. It has been said that if this human does not sins, He will exterminate the human race and replace is with a new human being who sins.

That is the reason why,He loves it when human sins and ask for His forgivess. That is why He loves it when human is in trouble, he works hard and ask for His mercy and assistance.

The idea is

God will subject human to test until human exhale their last breath. Human are required to learn until the day they die.

That is why human progess from being rich to poor, from being rich to poor and rich again, from being rags to riches and etc. Some time God accelarate the this process because of other human excessive bad or good deeds. But human fate else than that rest upon the human himself. God is fair.

All I am trying to say is that, we should reflect the purposes of life. When we have purposes or when we are aware of our purposes, only then we will know what to do. And the right thing to do.

Reflect on that!

The thing about luck

I get to chat with my accountant today. I mention to her that i consider myself very lucky for I get to learn my lessons very early in life. She responded to saying that there is no such thing as luck.

Then I remembered of a book by George Clason - "The richesman in Babylon". It was written in 1926, if I am not mistaken..I shared with her and I'd like to share with you..The book mention that luck only attracted to those who work!

It is all about work

The truth is what you put it in is what you will get. But it is also true that what you put in will get you more if you do it smartly.

The idea is... You have to put in something to get something. You simply have to work and put in efforts.

The more efforts you put in, the more mistakes you will make. The more mistakes you make, the more likely you are going to learn new things.

So do more work and fear not making mistakes. It will do you good. There is no shortcuts!

The missing list - the secret

In the modern world, technology advances it term of communication, transportation and etc. It reduces time consumed to do things. That is great!, we might say. The thing is, time is more efficiently used nowadays, but it seems that we are getting more occupied with work and more busy . The boses and the organisation that we work demand more from us.

We spend odd hours checking and replying emails. We even have devices like blackberries (did i spell it right?. I dont have one!) to enable us to get updated.

It is in my opinion, this is very unhealthy. We work to provide to our family. But we does not seems to have time for them or even ourselves.

The idea is...

Time is saved by efficiency provided by technology. We are getting busier because we or other people in our surrounding keep adding more things to do to our 'to do lists'. It never stops!.. That is the thing what gets us busier, the endless addition to the 'to do lists'.

At the end of the day, we would only realised that suddenly we are old, we are tired, we are sick, we forgot to enjoy life, we are missing our children or somebody else gets the promotion that we work for.

What to do?..

Start having the 'missing list'. The missing list is the list of things that we should reconsider of its relevance and priority, to be abandoned and to be eliminated. The missing list is the 'not to do list'!. Most people are good with 'to do list', not many consider and have 'not to do list'.

The thing is, we can only get better if we are able to focus. Focus on key important items. We can not deliver best results if we are to do tons of thing at the same time. We can deliver best results if we focus on a few most important things on our to do list.

The idea now is, to shortern our 'to do list' and to have 'not to do list'

Think about it.... it will worth your while!

FDI dilemma - where does Malaysia stand?

In the past we have taken bold and aggressive steps to woo foreign investors to put their money into our country. We have succeeded. It was the era where foreign company outsources manufacturing to country of strategic location with cheap labour cost and sensible tax incentives. They also need a regional hub to reduce the logistic costs and to be able to be near to capture prospective market namely Asia.

We have been blessed because in those days we do have cheap labour cost and South East Asia is the most stable in term of politics. It makes sense to do business in South East Asia. Plus at that point of time South East Asia are on the verge of developing, because of competition among the Asia countries, incentives are very attractively formulated and the set up is very relax.

Singapore at the beginning is very much into the manufacturing developing Jurong industrial area. They compete intensely to win investment over Taiwan and other prospects. Later they found out that they are lacking in term of land and manpower thus pack up their management skills to conquer site for regional office and regional financial hub.

The last few years the climate has changes where China and India politics are more open to attract investors. They are cheaper in term labour cost and outsourcing to India and China is making more sense as they provide hugh sales potential from their high population. They are even catching up in term of knowledge workers. India has a lot of competent engineers. Most of outsourcing for global call centres and global supports goes to India. China of course carries the title of World Manufacturer.
Environment has changed. Malaysia has to change. Before we come to the need justify why changes are needed to change for Malaysia, let us go back to China. Even China has to change eventually. China has become exporter of their own products. They are exporting automotive, machineries, telecommunication products. This is because they are the hard working people who always look for growth opportunities. While manufacturing other people product, they learn how the technology works and develop their by creatively imitating.

The west has seen China an emerging potentially threatening competitor. The Chinese has to change into a product developer and producer with their own branding. The west foresees this and they are taking measure to only outsource the low tech manufacturing to china. They are taking back the high tech manufacturing to their country. There reasons that I do not want to elaborate here. In short, capture and improve manufacturing techniques to themselves, to integrate R&D and manufacturing of high tech together, to reduce competition and preserve their margin and etc.

Enough of that, so where does that leaves us?. I dare not intend to elaborate here. We have a lot of strategist and economist. Let them wake up and think!. They should stop get busy with mere busyness, sit down, think and come up with one concrete plan. They should be reviewing the state that what we are in now, our current competitive advantages and our relevance. They should be thinking of what new skill and new approaches needed to be acquired. They need to argue where we are heading with the current climate. Lastly they need to think of the direction that we needed to go. Also they need to think of how to diversify our skills and future income.

Being bold - drastic and dramatic

The country definitely needs drastic changes. It needs dramatic changes. Why drastic and dramatic?. It is because we have 2020 vision to become developed country. Dramatic changes are needed the wake people up and get them focus. I don’t see a lot of drama yet!. We are running out of time! For a country to change, 10 years is definitely a short time. We wasted a lot of time already...

Who are involved in these changes. The answer is the leaders and the people. Who has the responsibility for these changes. The leaders. They lead the followers. Whose faults it is if changes do not materialise?. The leaders.

I mention leaders not leader. It is plural not singular. I have seen small number of leaders shouting and promoting changes. They can only do best at promoting. That is all I have seen. I can guarantee little success.

The leaders need to be serious to deliver. They need to show their seriousness. The Prime Minister is good in promoting ideas and measures. He has shown seriousness promoting awareness. He should start showing seriousness in demanding and delivering results. He should push hard and drive hard for results.

The way I see it, if he is busy and serious promoting awareness, all eyes are on him only. What happened to the rest who are suppose to be executing?. They sleep and dream.His eyes and our eyes should be on ourselves and the people around the Prime Minister seeing whether we and they are doing the thing that we and they are suppose to be doing.

They were KPI. Publishes the KPI. What are the progress? Where is the results? I do not see the rewards and punishment yet. Do you think that all the ministers are performing? I don’t think so! They are busy cheering up the awareness promotion. They do not know what are they supposed to be doing. Why?. Because people and the prime minister are not demanding enough!.