Freedom to our children

Every child from a parent is a distinct individual. A child may even have the same pointed nose of the father or the same curly hair of the mother, but deep inside, the child is different in many ways from their parents and siblings. Likewise twins may look the same in most of their physical features; however one half of the twin is still different in many ways from the other half.

I have two sons and a daughter. My eldest son was very active when he was in school. He was the school prefect when he was in primary and secondary schools. He participated in many of the school's extracurricular activities as well as competed in many competitions representing his school. He was also doing well in his studies.

My other son however was a quite boy and will avoid attention as much as he could. When he was in his primary school, the only time he represented his school was in an English theatre competition when he was in standard six. In spite of this, I did not label or grade my sons in any way then because for me they are different and their difference is special in making them an individual.

My second son now is in his secondary school and this year he is sitting for his SPM national examination. He had gradually bloomed to be an active student. I attribute this to the coaxing from my wife and I as well as the examples that he had emulated from his elder brother. He was selected to be the school prefect when he was in form two and also joined the school's police cadet. He has also been progressing well on his study.

Last April, I asked my second son why he is still performing his duties as a school prefect though it is already four months down the year. It is very common in all schools, even when I was in secondary school and when my eldest son was preparing for this SPM examination two year ago, school prefects who are going to sit for their national examinations are released of their duty very much early of the year.

He told me that the Disciplinary teacher had instructed all school prefects to continue their duties until the end of the year. I discussed the importance for him to prepare for his exam and he agreed to inform the Disciplinary teacher that he will slowly released himself from duty to prepare for his exam. I told my son that if the teacher needs to speak to me, let her have my number.

After that, I was informed by my son that the Disciplinary teacher was not happy with my son's action. It seems that though most of the students in form five were not happy that they were still performing their duties, none of them dared to go against the Disciplinary teacher's instruction. As my son received my support, he went through it by himself.

In May, I attended the "Parents meet the teacher" session. This is the session to discuss on the children's education progress as well as to share the latest report card. I highlighted to the form teacher about the abnormality of the school still insisting the form five students to perform their duties just as the SPM exam is just round the corner. In fact I wrote a note in my son's report card for the school to take action on this matter at the suggestion of the teacher.

Apparently after this the Disciplinary teacher started to approach my son in a more negative manner until one day she asked my son not to wear the school prefect's uniform and instead wear the normal school's uniform. She seems to insinuate that my son was sacked as I have never known of any school giving such instruction even after the school's prefect relinquishes their duties. After all, it was only six months more before the end of the year and by giving that strange instruction meant that I would have to buy new pairs of school uniform for my son. When my son told me about it, I told him to ignore the instruction and to give the Disciplinary teacher my mobile number as I would like to discuss this matter with her personally. Apparently she refused to give me a call.

She then told my son that he was not fit to become a school's prefect. My son had been the school prefect for the past four years, the longest serving prefect at the school. I immediately went to the school after I knew about this. I managed to discuss this matter with the school's principal and eventually the whole incident was sorted out. The school principal decided to put all form five school's prefects on passive duties and will eventually relinquish their duties a couple of months before the SPM examination.

The whole saga was really different than what I had experienced when I was in school. My teachers showed a lot more finesse in educating the young generation. As any other individual, children require love and respect.

Of course there are bound to be children who may require a lot more attention due to their attitude and behavior, and I believe these are very small in numbers. However, there should be some focus on source of symptoms rather than generalising all symptoms and providing one single antidote.

The teachers and parents should ideally partner in building a young generation of thinking and free individual. Discipline is a matter of pride and it has nothing to do with instructions top to bottom with full compliance and expectating no questions asked. A thinking and free young generation will encourage them to explore the unknown territories responsibly and innovate to progress themselves. We can trust our young generantion.

You plan your career

I recently hosted a group of young graduates for lunch. They just joined the company I work for a couple of months ago and the lunch is part of the on boarding process at my company. The lunch provided an opportunity for interaction between the young graduates and departmental managers to share experience and seek clarification on company's philosophy and anything related to career progression.

One of the questions posted to me by one of the young graduates was: "Does the company I currently working for worth the time to be in until retirement?" My response was of course not a straight forward yes or no. Let me share it here.

First and foremost, employment loyalty should be for oneself. I know it sounds selfish, the reality is at this time and era, company strives for sustainable profitability and will not be hesitant to restructure and reengineer its business and operations including making its own staff redundant. Employees at the same time shall strive for sustainable employment either by working for someone or by working for him or herself in a business venture. Sustainable employment means that the employees shall always develop themselves to be able to be assessed as an asset for current or future employer. Developing oneself will also provide a platform for self work or business.

Secondly, establish a goal in your career, what will be the highest position you want to hold if you are working for a company? Then plan many paths toward this position by knowing what will be the next and subsequent positions that you need to perform before eventually landing at the highest position. Set sensible timeline, normally 3-4 years at one position and always plan for a promotion when moving into a new position.

Thirdly, executing this plan shall also include competence gap identification and learning initiatives. Identification of competence gap can be done individually and by others. Be humble to seek and receive views from others. Learning initiatives can be formal and informal. Formal learning may be in the form of classroom training and coaching while informal learning may be in the form of projects involvement. Make sure the learning can cover for an alternative plan if the desired highest position is not attainable. Initiate the learning yourself instead of waiting others to initiate it for you.

Thirdly, harness soft skills such as communication, interpersonal, problem solving as a start and gradually moving to influencing and leadership skills. These skills are important to apply while working.

Lastly, always review the plan. Make some adjustments along the way in order to reach to the goal. Take calculated risk and know when to bail out.

Roughly we can say that the success factor of this plan is made up of 50% from within oneself, 30% within one's influence and 20% based on luck. If the employee is able to develop him or herself, half of the journey is reachable. The next one third is via influencing one's way for a career path by demonstrating one's capability and capacity to move over to higher positions. The last one fifth is luck and luck comes from God. So be nearest to God as you could so that divine interventions always exist in one's career path.

Facebook - Social network vs. Social friendship

Sometime ago, I had a discussion regarding Facebook with my family during a family's dinner at the UiTM Shah Alam Hotel. We were there after fetching my eldest son from his UiTM hostel. The discussion started after one of my sons shared about one of his friends' opinions that in order to become Facebook friends, both parties need to know each other prior to being accepted as friends.

During the discussion, everyone at the table agreed that Facebook is an internet social network tool i.e. Facebook being one of the many virtual networks other than Twitter, LinkedIn, Blog and many others. We then discussed on the definition of social network. We also discussed on the merit of tagging friendship in Facebook as networking for friends that can be done virtually rather than physically.

I then posted a question to everyone, what is the difference between Networking and Friendship? We discussed several aspects. Among them, network is a lot looser in term of connection to friendship. Friendship of course requires a bit more knowledge of one another and most of the time; the sharing in friendship is a lot more open and can be intimate for some. Friends may also be restrictive in term of number as it is normally small circle. Network in the other hand is an extended friendship where there may be close friendship or just mere acquaintances relationship either directly or indirectly. For example, Ahmad is a close friend of Lim at their former college and via Lim, Ahmad knows Puvaneswary and Mary Pega who happened to be Lim's colleagues at the office. Network does not necessarily require in depth knowledge of one another's background, just mere common interest would be sufficient. The common interest can be hobbies, career or sports.

Right or wrong, most of Facebook's users still restrict their Facebook friendship to social friendship i.e. their day-to-day friends. This somehow restricts the benefit they can derive out of Facebook. Among the benefits from Facebook that one can maximise by having a wide network of friends beyond day-to-day friends are:

1. Sharing of common interest such as tour tips, cooking tips, gardening tips.


2. Sharing of uncommon information such as how to have a pokke Gecko farm i.e. rather than hunting for this wild lizard that is quite common nowadays, one can rear this expensive lizard for commercial profit


3. Business opportunities


4. Career opportunitiesGlobal Borderless and virtual friendship

Of course they are bound to be risk in virtual networking in term of exposing one's personal data to unknown recipients; however this can be controlled via Facebook functionalities and one's protective mind set. To safeguard my personal data profile for example, I will not provide my house address and telephone number in my Facebook account. The other measures that I had taken are

1. Restrict access of my Facebook wall to only my friends. Except for any statement that I don't mind the general public to know such as common discussion but I restrict on my personal or sensitive opinion.


2. I also restrict my photograph access to only my Facebook friends


3. I accept Facebook friends via stringent steps below.

There are several steps that can be taken when accepting Facebook friendship. I had devised my own and will usually use the following:

1. Look at the info wall of the requester - the info provided should be sufficient to create interest for me to accept the request. I will normally ignore a request from someone unknown that only provides that person's name and email on his or her info wall.


2. Look at the friends of the requester - there are mutual and non-mutual Facebook friends. Some of the requester's friends may be popular personalities and these popular personalities normally will accept any Tom, Dick or Harry's Facebook request. So it would be noteworthy to also check whether the requester also has other personal friends and how diverse are his or her friends. The diversed friends should also be people whom you would not mind to share your interest and opinion on Facebook


3. Look at the photos of the requester - some people do not put their own profile photo. It is still alright to accept their friendship as long as the requestor's personal info and circle of friends are not dubious and still strike your interest.

In conclusion, Facebook is just a tool for us to use wisely. Facebook add value to life in a manner that it provides benefits for people who are keen to socialise virtually. There are of course no full proof tips on how to utilise Facebook in a safe manner, however an instinct for survival would of course help. Enjoy and discover the infinite world of networking via Facebook.

ONLINE SPAM TO CON

BEWARE! I have searched the net for Lalachite Azurite and it is not lubricant but gemstone. By the way the sender of this "spam to con" email may be different from one to another but so far I've seen, all are Malay names. The email connection can be msn, gmail, yahoo so on and so forth. Only greed will make you fall for this.

Friday, February 4, 2011 9:31 PM
From: "Noreha bt mahat"
Add sender to Contacts
To: undisclosed-recipients

Assalamualaikum,

I'm Noreha Bt Mahat, i work as Assistant Marketing Officer with a Gemstones Processing Company in London. i will like to introduce you to this business opportunity. I need your urgent assistance, which will be a benefit to both of us financially. I am contacting you because I don’t want to lose this contract provided by our company because we both going to get a good profit from this business in the
coming future. That’s why I’m requesting you to be the supplier to our company
so that we can both take advantage of this business opportunity in the company
now.

Currently our company needs a Three(3)years constant supplier of a product called LALACHITE AZURITE which is a new scientific chemical fluid substance, its of lubricant, mainly used in the gemological laboratory for the purification of diamonds clarity treatment, generally what this fluid does is to penetrate deep into diamond and vaporizes out black inclusions in Diamonds and other precious stones. The original supplier of these product is in Malaysia and former supplier of this product to our company has finished his contract and our company is looking for any other person who can be able to supply the LALACHITE AZURITE in large quantity so that to meet the demand of our consumers and merge into partnership with the company presently.

The main reason why I’m writing you seeking your interest for assistance, I just want you to act as an intermediary agent to stand the gap between the sellers of the product in Malaysia and the buyers (our company).This is a big business, which will be of good dividends to both of us.

I only need your cooperation to make this business successful. I will give you more information about this if you are willing to stand as the agent to supply my company the product. Firstly, i will like to secure a supply contract deal for you as a supplier to the company where I work.

Based on percentage, originally the actual purchasing price of this chemical by the company per Carton is about USD4,000.00 if i convert it to US dollars while in Malaysia the local selling price is USD2,100.00 and my company needs not less than 200 Cartons. The reason why I want you to be our agent is to be the link connecting the local seller in Malaysia directly to the buying company then the profit margin will be shared by both of us 60% to you while 40% to me.

Your major assistance for me is just for you to talk to my Director that you can supply the company the product and to also go in details in terms of price and mode of payment then we can pick up from that point.

Please get back to me as soon as you receive my email if you are interested and
willing to do business with me so that I can give you the local seller's contact
in Malaysia so that you can contact her to ask if she has this product in stock
to supply to you. Before our company sends the purchasing manager down to
Malaysia to purchase the product from you directly. Thanks for your
co-operation. Waiting to hear from you soon.

Regard’s
Noreha

Excel in UPSR 2011 Motivational Programme

On Monday, I conducted a motivational programme for year six students at a primary school in Gombak. These students are going to sit for their UPSR examination in September. UPSR is a government standard examination for primary student at year six i.e. 12 years old. Though passing the examination is not mandatory, however to excel in it will open up greater learning opportunity either at the fully funded boarding school, special class in a normal school and either academic or sports scholarships in their upcoming secondary school years.

There were close to 150 students who attended the programme and they were divided into two groups. I conducted a two hour session each culminating a sense of idolisation of people who have excelled, knowing what they have and how did they excel, coming through to what do the students require to excel in their own academic endeavour. I also established with them a sense of self-realisation of their individual goal, strength, weaknesses and support.

Amidst all these, we also had fun. I'm quite please that many of the students then took the opportunity to add me as their facebook friend and had also shown their positive response to the programme on facebook. I share one of them below.

Office liaison or relationship

Yesterday while I was having some drinks at the office cafeteria, I met with an office colleague whom I have not met for a long time. We exchanged greetings and news about each other i.e. ourselves, our work and our families. I then introduced her to those at my table as "my long long long good friend". She responded while pointing at me "and this is my long long long good boss". Only then I realised that she was one of my former subordinates some years back.

In the middle of last week, two of my former subordinates approached me for references to apply for a job. Although I no longer managed them, I was delighted when they approached me and got to know that apart from me, they had also approached their current supervisors.

This posting is about office liaison. There are a couple of office liaisons such as colleagues, superior-subordinates, contact or network. In this topic it is more of superior-subordinates liaison. Liaison is relationship though the latter is commonly used, the former is a more formal description. I will be using relationship a lot more in this posting.

When I started work in 1989, it was totally unthinkable for superiors to mix around with their subordinates. I am working at a European company with strong British presence. So the class separation was quite apparent then.

However, I did not prescribe to that and mix around with as many people as possible. As I climb up the corporate ladder, I continue to mix around freely. However, I will confine it to the office and not out of office as I balance my work and life. After office is my time with my family and I commit fully to that.

So, why relationship is important to us? Human relationship is important to simulate positive emotional well being and to ensure productivity. Human are able to exchange information and ideas that can be discussed and debated to derive to the best conclusion by interacting with each other. However there are certain etiquettes that need to be followed in a relationship i.e. integrate, respect and sincerity.

1. Integrate will be the underlying principle of relationship where it connects one to another. Integrate means that two different individuals may co-exist with each other despite their differences. The differences may be due to class, race or position or any visible or non-visible differences. In integrating, the differences will still exist however these would not be a hindrance to the relationship.
2. Respect will be the catalyst of the relationship where it keeps the relationship civil and harmonious. It will facilitate the relationship though there are differences mentioned above. Respect will also ensure that the relationship is based on mutual freedom to act and react.
3. Sincerity will be the spirit of the relationship where it keeps the relationship free of malice. Sincerity does not exist through verbal claims, it comes from the heart and it is shown in one's action.

With these etiquettes the relationship will hopefully prolong deriving greater benefits to those who are in it.

Investments decision

One of my Facebook friends posted a question to me on investments. He asked me, "How to gain highest return in investments?" It seems someone had approached him on a Gold investment scheme with the pretext that Gold investment is lucrative and guaranteed. Definitely, gold investment is lucrative because gold is valuable and expensive and it is guaranteed because the price of Gold is stable. Well let us look at the chart on gold price trend to see how true are these statements.

2001-2010 Gold Price trend:

The chart shows that the gold price is in an upwards trend for the past ten years. From USD250/ounce nine years ago, it has risen to around USD1,250/ounce, a 500% increase in value! So the notion is true that the price of Gold is stable, however for a long term period! If we look at short term period price trend (short term means less than twelve months, not necessarily within a full length calendar year), gold price at exit points may be lower than entry points. For example if we look at the first column on the left of the chart, the gold price was about USD280/ounce Jan 2001 but it went down to USD260/ounce a year later. So the notion that the returns on gold is guaranteed does not whole water all the time. It depends on once entry and exit from the market.

I am not an investment analyst nor I claim to be one. However my investment rules are simple:

1. invest and save in something that you know about.
2. buy at low price and sell at high price.
3. use your social and religious beliefs as a guide.

With these rules, I had on the past invested and saved in cash, unit trusts, stocks and real estates. I consider myself as a moderate investor i.e. I can only accept reasonable risk. Most of the times I'm saved, but sometimes people and circumtance deceived me. Take for an example. My first real estate purchase was a house in Bukit Sentosa. The company was impressive, the same company that developed the Pandans: Pandan Indah, Pandan Jaya. Bukit Sentosa was suppose to be the 2nd Petaling Jaya. The master plan was really stupendous: schools, a college, a small township and an industrial area. After close to 15 years, Bukit Sentosa is still a township that I know had not changed much. My rental returns is 4% but the value is half of my purchase price!

Compared to my other real estate investments which are paying off, I have an apartment with 10% rental returns and a condo unit with 11% rental returns, both real property values are appreciating, so 2 out of 3 is considered ok for a moderate investor. This brings me to the house that I'm staying in. The house was built 10 years ago with my own design. The land area is 50ft x 75ft with build up area of about 70%. I handled the construction project from its architectural design, contractor selection, construction contract, monitoring of construction progress, Interior Design and Landscaping. My overall cost was only RM70,262. I'm pleased to share my Project costing and my funding plan below.

My project was called Baiti Jannati, this was planned 2 days before my birthday in 2001.

From the above, although I have consolidated all my savings, my funding was short by RM12,ooo. My savings were not much at this point as I have already invested in the apartment while repaying the Bukit Sentosa house's lost and utilising two cars (the other one for my wife's use). However with careful payment schedule and contruction progress reporting, I was able to settled the shortfall with ease by the time the house was completed six months later. At the moment, I have not officially valued my house, however I believe it is worth RM500,000.

What is the point of this posting, one may ask? My sharing is simple. Afford what you can afford, plan and hope for the best and avoid being deceived. Use the time and avoid being hasty. A 1% doubt may save you a lot.

AFF Cup - Malaysian victory, what's next?

In my earlier posting World Cup 2010 Tuesday, 6 July 2010, I commented regarding the condition of Malaysian soccer in the world arena. The posting was made a few months after the Malaysian team won the SEA Games Gold medal and even after Malaysia won the most recent AFF Cup, my comment still stands. I mentioned in my earlier posting that to be in the running in Asia top five (to be vying for the World Cup Asian qualifiers) and in the World Cup (only top four Asian teams and the fifth team through AFC/OFC playoff will qualify), Malaysian soccer requires four elements to be successful:

1. Vision
2. Determination
3. Action
4. Fulfillment

FAM and the players need a vision for themselves. The vision for FAM can be to promote professionalism in its organization and sustain a successful national leagues and a formidable national team with layers upon layers of potential successors. The players in turn may have a vision to be top notch professional football players plying their career in Europe just like Park Ji Sung of Korea, Imamoto of Japan, Sun Jihai of China and Ali Al Habshi of Oman in the English Premier league, Mahdavikia and Karimi of Iran in the German Bundesliga and Nakamura of Japan in the Scotland League, just to name a few.

Both FAM and the players must have the determination to fulfill all its vision. FAM needs to organize a more flamboyant domestic Premier League, M-League, Malaysia and FA Cup that will bring back the fans into the stadium, just like what it was in the 1980's. With more fans in the stadium, FAM's coffers will be filled up not only by match tickets but also by sponsors who will try to outdo each other to become the main sponsor or part of the sponsorship team. The players as well should be more determined to dish out a consistent and sustainable performance in every match that they play. With a consistent and sustainable performance, their value in the regional and global market will increase and they in turn will be able to maintain a rewarding career in soccer.

All these require action by the FAM and the players. To be fair to the fans, if all of us expect the fan to be with the team all the time, the Malaysian team needs to be consistent in their game. Winning and losing are part of the game, however the way the team perform even with a loss or a draw, fighting hard and smart will surely melt the fans' heart in favour of the team.

Look at Vietnam after they were trailing by two goals in the first leg of the AFF Semi-Final match at Bukit Jalil, the team fought hard to try to score and win the second leg at home. Their fans and supporters were behind them all the way with full confidence that the team will put their best to win the game.

Likewise Indonesia, they were trailing by three goals in the first leg of the AFF Final at Bukit Jalil. The atmosphere right after the loss was so ecstatic. The Indonesian fans used the internet by twittering massively that the Indonesian team's loss was due to the insignificant laser ray on their goalkeeper. Then the Indonesian media hyped the issue further by making it their front page news three days in a row until the second leg match. Not to be left out, even the Indonesian leaders followed suit with low rated remarks in the fanatical frenzy.

On the match day, the Gelora Bung Karno stadium was pack, the fans who were following the match via giant screens outside the stadium were almost equal in numbers to the number of spectators in the stadium and no fans from Malaysia except for the Malaysian media and VIPS could be present in the stadium.

Maradona, the Argentinian coach and a former renowned World Cup player once said during the 2010 World Cup, "Latin American soccer will never overcome the European soccer, what we can do is to develop our youngsters for them to be skilled in soccer. Let them ply their professional soccer career in European leagues where there are abundant of big monies. When the World Cup turns up, we bring them back and let them play for their country with love and pride to win the World Cup". This is a statement full of vision, determination, action and fulfillment. Achieving fulfillment requires a clear vision, strong determination and consistent action.

So the next step of fulfillment for Malaysian soccer is for some of the players to ply their trade in Europe. Playing for the Indonesian or Vietnamese clubs will not bring the desired outcome that will bring us up several notches over these countries in AFF. Look at Bambang Pamungkas, he was playing for Selangor once and he is still a player good only for this region.

To be able to outdo or even match the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Saudi and the Iranian teams, we need to send out as many MALAYSIAN players as we can. Send out Safee Sali, Norshahrul, Safiq Rahim, S Kunalan, Mahalli Jasuli, Mohd Sabree Abu, and Khairul Fahmi Che Mat to play in Europe. With more of them playing abroad, the better it will be for our soccer's future. In the void, we will have new and upcoming star players who will try to outperform those players so that they may also be able to be noticed and selected.

We need to start this now. Once we sustain this cycle then we will reach the apex of fulfillment, that will be when the World Cup is won by Malaysia (and we probably will have public holiday for a week :).