Life is about choices

It’s been several years since I neither met nor spoke with my AIA insurance agent Josephine. I signed my first AIA insurance policy with her when I was working in Micropolis Limited Singapore. That was about 12 years ago. It was thus a surprise when she rang me up last week. We met up last Friday evening and chatted for hours till 10.30pm in the evening. She told me she left her AIA insurance agent job to start up her own consultancy and training business firm about 10 years ago. Nevertheless she continues to maintain her AIA insurance agent portfolio, a very smart and wise move on her part.

According to her it’s been really tough to start up and manage her own business firm. She has to work on most of the weekends to keep the business moving. Office politics were rampant and she has to deal with unreasonable and nasty relatives who were unfortunately also her business partners. Finally she had enough of it after struggling for over nine years and therefore decided to call it quit. She is still in the process of winding up her business and is now back to doing insurance agent job again. She told me she loss quite a lot of money when she winds up her consultancy and training business firm. She did not tell me how much she loss; I could sense from her expression the loss has been quite significant and considerable enough to perplex and impact her health. She suffered from high blood pressure for several months and her doctor has advised her to take things in stride. Don’t get me wrong though. Apart high blood pressure she seems to be in excellent health for a woman of her age. She has neither gain nor loses weight tremendously and I must compliment her for that despite her busy schedule.


Apart from the headache of having to face office politics, she also reckon that it is time for her to spend more time with her son whom she feels she has kind of neglected the pass 10 years due to her commitment to her business firm. Her son is now 14 years old and according to her a bit out of control. I told her she need not be too alarm since most kids of growing age tend to be more rebellious. Most kids in Singapore grow up after they complete their national service.

Josephine is an amazing woman to begin with. She possessed the kind of fighting spirit that most of us lack. Life is all about choices. Sometimes we make right choices and at times wrong choices in life. No one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. All of us have our ups and downs in life. We all learn from mistakes. What matter most is that we should persevere in times of difficulties in life. We ought to be willing to accept and acknowledge that some choices we make aren’t the best one in life and therefore we should quickly move on with life instead of clinging to some of the bad choices we made and regretting it but not doing anything about it.
Josephine demonstrated her ability and willingness to take up her old job, that of selling insurance policy. Apart from insurance policies, she also provides financial planning services. I could sense that she is not the kind of person that is into the get rich quick scheme type. She is willing to trade her time and efforts for long-term benefits in particular of that pertaining to customer loyalty.

We only live this once; surely any mistakes we made in life should not deter us from pursuing our goals and dreams. Do not let mistakes that we made to discourage us in life.
Pickup the broken the pieces and move on with life. After all, like I said, life is all about choices.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy and prosperous new year.

Cheers
Richard

Hair care

Hair loss prevention and treatment is a multi billion dollar industry.
Majority of the people in particular those below the age of 35 who suffer from hair loss symptoms in one way or another are generally willing to pay thousands of dollars to seek cure for their hair loss problems. There is no universal cure for hair loss. Described below are some basic hair care practices that are important to help reduce early hair loss problems.


General
A healthy lifestyle will mean healthier hair for you. Excessive stress, smoking, not exercising and not eating nutritiously are not healthy for your hair.

Hair Products (Gel, mouse, hair spray...)
Avoid and if not possible try to reduce the frequency of using hair styling products with alcohol that dries out hair. Do take note that most hair tonic contains small amount of alcohol.
Avoid putting hair styling products directly on your scalp; if you put it on your scalp you'll clog the pores on your head. The same goes for hair conditioner that is supposedly to be applied to the end tips of the hair. Do not apply hair conditioner directly on your scalp. Do not use hair conditioner if you have oily scalp.

Swimming
Before entering a pool, wet your hair so your hair will soak up the initial water instead of the chlorinated water.
When swimming wear a cap to protect your hair from chlorinated water, if you choose not to wear a cap make sure you shampoo and condition your hair right after you are done swimming.

Drying
Hot air can be damaging to your hair so when using a hair dryer use the cool setting.
Don't leave the blow dryer in one spot for more than a few seconds, keep it moving and at a good distance away from your hair.
To speed up the drying process, pat your hair dry with a towel and let the remaining moisture in your hair dry naturally. Block dries your hair with a towel gently, do not rub your hair against the towel while it is wet cause wet hair is brittle and can break easily when rub against the towel.
Gently use your fingers or a pick to untangle any knots while your hair is drying.

Shampooing and Conditioning
Buy shampoos & conditioners that match your hair type, trial and error is the best way to find out what specific hair product is best for your hair.

Combing/Brushing
Use a brush whose bristles are made from natural animal hairs, it is softer and more flexible that means less damage will be done to your hair.
Hair is most fragile when it is wet so avoid brushing or combing when it's wet, or else it will cause breakage, wait until your hair is almost completely dry before brushing it.
Use brushes/combs with widely spaced bristles/teeth and smooth tips. Sharp toothcombs can damage your hair, cause split ends, and scratch your scalp.

Shampooing
It is important to wash your hair, shampooing removes dirt, dead skin cells, hair oils, any hair products you may put into your hair.
When shampooing, rinse your hair out with mild warm water first before applying any shampoo to remove any dust, dirt, and any other foreign items, then apply the shampoo onto your scalp and massage it gently with your fingertips and work your way outwards. After you are done make sure that you thoroughly rinse out your hair to remove any shampoo residue that may be left.
Shampoo residue may dry your scalp/hair and or attract dirt. It is recommended that you only lather once to avoid drying your hair out, if you have oily hair, lathering again may stimulate your oil glands to create even more oil than normal.
You should wash your hair as often as you feel necessary to keep it clean, but a general rule is for oily hair you should wash it every day or every other day and for dry hair only wash it 2-3 times a week.
Try rotating the shampoo and conditioner periodically, your hair responds differently to different products.
Use a conditioner after shampooing if you have dry scalp, it'll moisturize your hair, give it extra protection, add shine, reduce static, and makes it easier to untangle.
Use a leave in conditioner, it'll hydrate and protect your hair. A leave in conditioner on your hair is the equivalent of moisturizer on your face.
When conditioning your hair, try to spread conditioner evenly through out your hair and leave it in for a couple of minutes before rinsing out your hair.
Put the conditioner in at about an inch away from the scalp, the roots of your hair contain the most oils and usually don't need the extra conditioning.
Be gentle when shampooing and conditioning, don't use excessive force rubbing your hair, remember hair is most vulnerable when wet.

Diet & food intake
Add iron and minerals in the natural form in your diet.
If your hair is oily, cut down on fried food and fat. Drink plenty of water.
Cut down on carbonated cold drinks and drink plenty of water instead. Most drink and food contains preservative and coloring that are not only not good for our hair but also bad for our health in general.

Hair bends
Never use a rubber band on your hair as it can pull and damage hair considerably.
Add iron and minerals in the natural form in your diet.
If you color your hair, limit coloring it to once ever 2 months. Hair coloring damages your hair and the less frequently you color it the better.

Christmas dinner

Time sure pass quickly. It’s again Christmas. I had a wonderful Christmas dinner with my elder brother and his wife & her mum and younger sister at the Dragon Gate restaurant located at Harbor Front. The dinner was well worth the money; the prawns and crabs were very fresh and so were the fish and the chicken dishes. The dinner lasted over 3 hours and we enjoy the great fellowship while savoring the delicious food.

Wish for downpour and there comes the flood.

Just a few months ago most of the population in South East Asia in particular Malaysia and Singapore wish there were more frequent heavy downpour so as to expedite the dozing of the hot spots and jungle fire in Indonesia which were then causing serious haze and air pollution problem.
Malay witch doctors better known as ‘bomoh’ were even called by the government of Malaysia to help pray for heavy rain. Due to the sporadic nature of the hot spots and the scale of the wide spread of jungle fires which occurs randomly, most expert agree that only mother nature in the form of heavy storm and downpour could help to stop the haze.
There was no heavy downpour as everyone hopes for and the haze continues unabated for weeks causing widespread respiratory health issue and economic impact to the surrounding regions. Air flights were delayed due to poor visibility and in some cases school lessons were called off indefinitely.
Well, the haze problem is over; in place of the haze we now have the flood instead caused by heavy downpour, something we wish for during the peak of the haze. The monsoon flood has left thousands homeless and scores of victims swept away by strong over river currents.
Have it ever occur to you that what we wish for may just come too soon or too late resulting in new problems? The heavy downpour we desperately hope and wish for to overcome the haze came a little too late I suppose.

New Year Resolution (2007)

The New Year is just around the corner. What is your New Year resolution? Do you dream of becoming more successful in your career, to be wealthier, healthier, to achieve your goals be it from those you made in the past year or the new coming year or etc?
I guess all said and done our New Year resolution should lead us to ask ourselves as to what we would like our life to stand for and what we would like to accomplish in that which are truly meaningful and important to us. It is important for us to ensure that the goals we set comes genuinely from our heart and not from others and that the goals are attainable no matter how far fetch it may be from a glance.

Others may inspire us, help to point us to the right way and offer help in different ways. However it is important to remember that to be successful and achieve our goals and dreams, all those resolutions, goals and decisions worth pursuing have to have root in our heart.

Winds of change

Experience golf player knows that the direction and the velocity of the wind could affect the outcome of any golf game. The effect of the wind depends on the ball trajectory. Hitting the ball against and into the wind has greater impact than hitting the ball along the same direction of the wind. The experience golf player knows when the wind is an ally and when the wind quickly becomes the foe. The wind direction is unpredictable at times and could easily change. A good golf player does not waste time unnecessary and leave it to chances when the wind is to his or her advantage. The smart player seizes every opportunity and gives his or her best shots when the wind is on their side.

The same goes for our daily life isn’t it? Opportunity does not always knock twice.
So next time if you happen to come across any opportunity don’t just sit on it and do nothing, don’t procrastinate, act on it while you can for timing is critical in ensuring the success in some of the things that we do.

Why not write a book?

Do you know that you can make money by writing and publishing books?
Consider JK Rowling the author of Harry Porter series, a homemaker turn multi millionaire. Then there’s the 16-year-old boy by the name Christopher Paolini who wrote the kiddy story ‘Eragon’; ‘Eragon’ caught the attention of moviemakers and was turn into a movie this year. I have not read the ‘Eragon’ storybook yet; I have to admit though that I find the movie ‘Eragon’ extremely disappointing the least to say. The story is a far fetch from LOTR (Lord Of the Rings).

Carly Fiorina is no stranger to the corporate world. The former CEO of HP was ousted yet able to earn money through the book that she wrote and publish recently entitled ‘Tough Choices’. During the five and half years that Carly ran HP, the stock declined 50 percent. It was estimated that 35 thousands people lost their job during Carly tenor as CEO of HP. Despite her unpopularity, her book ‘Tough Choices’ are selling like hot cakes worldwide. If a JK Rowling, Christopher Paolini or Carly can write books, I am sure so can we. You don’t need to be gifted to be able to write and publish your thoughts and ideas. Pick up skills and techniques with regards to screen and story writing and be on your way to write books of your topics of choice.

Mr. Yes Man

Have you ever experience working for a boss who seems only know how to say ‘Yes’ to every single request put forward by other departments or cross functional groups?
I certainly do with some of the previous bosses I work for in my previous companies.
At times I wonder what these bosses are there for since all they do is to agree and to accede to all incoming requests? Some people are just simply by nature too nice and could not bring themselves to say no to others. Some people are afraid to offend others because they feel it is better to be in everyone good books for you never know when perhaps you might just being unlucky enough to end up reporting to one of those people who don’t like you because you do not entertain their request so to speak.
If you find yourself working for such a boss then I suggest it is time for you look around to start making plans to move on. There is no point working for someone who would rather compromise theirs and your dignity by saying yes to everything even if it means at your expense.
On second thought why not consider becoming your own boss instead of having to take orders from others? No Mr. Yes boss to worry about and having the opportunity to pursue your own dreams. I am sure everyone yearns to have wealth, health and freedom. What better way to achieve it through network marketing? Do give a thought about this.

Cheers

Penny-wise pound-foolish.

I know of this guy who just recently bought a new car that cost over seventy thousand dollars, bought a classy condominium priced at over 3000 dollars per square feet, invested thousands of dollars into high risk trading stocks, well you know, the sort of guy that loves all the finer things in life. Therefore it surprises me that this guy despite his splurging on properties and cars would become extremely concern and nervous when dealing with small money issues. Time is precious to most of us yet this guy has no qualms of wasting time to try to strike a bargain with shops, all for the sake of saving perhaps ten dollars or less over small items.

Just a couple of days ago we had dinner together, I took the opportunity to introduce him to the home ultrasonic bubble wave spa. He ask me how much it cost and I told him that it cost less than 10 cents investment a day given the reliability of the product. I told him that the amazing product cost just slightly over two thousand dollars with lifetime service warranty and that he could settle the bill by credit interest free installment plan over a period of one year. That works out to be about just two hundred dollars per month. He told me it is too expensive and he could not afford it. He said he need to consider it for couple of days before getting back to me. I was sure that he understood, aware and was indeed convinced of the benefits that come along with hydrotherapy treatment, however it is just his nature that he could not bring himself to spend money on small items. Did he finally buy it? Nope, he didn’t. What a pity isn’t it for such people, penny-wise pound-foolish.

Being first is all that matters.

We all have heard of the saying ‘Slow and steady win the race’. The story about the tortoise and the hare teach us the importance of perseverance and of bidding our time with regards to achieving our goals amidst life challenges.
No doubt patience is a virtue however we need to be mindful that in today’s fast paced environment, speed and timing is equally important.
Most of us remember that Neil Armstrong was the first man to land on the moon. How many of us though ever heard or remember who the second man was that landed on the moon? Likewise it is not surprising that some athletes won the gold medal by a mere fraction of seconds apart from the closest rival, the silver medalist; A fraction of seconds is all that determines the triumph victor from the dejected looser so to speak.
Thus the lesson learned today is that speed and timing is crucial to achieving our goals. It is not enough to head towards the right direction leading to our ultimate goal, it is also equally important for us to achieve our goals be whatever they are in the shortest possible time so as to reap the maximum benefit.

The SG-2000 home ultrasonic bubble wave spa is one of the very few spa apparatus in the market to firstly support the 3-In-1 features such as ultrasonic wave, ozone and far infrared. Likewise it is also one of the few spa apparatus that firstly meets the stringent European standard requirement, namely the CSA certification.

Come, be part of a dynamic and aspiring team in promoting and marketing the SG-2000.
http://youthfountain.150m.com

Too good to learn from others?

The younger generations, in particular students spends more time criticizing, arguing and debating rather than learning. There is a new school of thoughts that encourages children and adults alike to ask questions and to challenge answers so as to stimulate thinking and to improve their mental reasoning and logic thinking power.

No doubt sometimes it is important for us not to take answers at face value or to take answers for granted, nevertheless we have to be mindful that sometimes we waste time unnecessary when we cast doubts on answer and advice given to us. We need to exercise respect, humility, humbleness and a genuine willingness to learn and to accept advice and answers from others if necessary. We have one mouth and two ears thus the more we should learn to listen and do less talking Unless you're confused about something, of course then you should ask questions.

There is no point in trying to go out on a quest to seek for answers and solutions to our problems by our own self where others has experienced similar situations and live through it successfully. Learn from those who have gone before us to solve similar problems in their daily life.
For instance, why take the unnecessary risks and trouble to learn how to invest on your own instead of learning and getting sound advice from investor and financial experts?
Don’t try to waste time argue, get the basics right first and learn from others.

It is relatively easy to pick up any subject. Find a good mentor or a book and just shut up and learn! Find the appropriate GOOD source of information and follow it passionately.
Once you've finished learning everything you can learn from that one source, review your progress. See how much improvement you have made and consider if the information you have gathered to date is sufficient to address your needs. If not find another source and learn from it. It doesn't matter if the new information is different than what you've been learning. You just absorb new information and keep it at the back of your mind. Digest the information and do so till it integrates into your own system and you are convinced it address your needs.

Always find out what’s best for you, what has worked consistently for other successful people, and then duplicate the effort because duplicating an effort leads to duplicating the result. Having said that it is also important to remember that the best teachers are NOT those who know better; it is those who know and DO better. Any advice or suggestion can only be useful in helping you to help yourself. So take action to realize your dreams whatever they are.

Lesson of the day: Be humble and learn from others and duplicate their effort likewise, don’t reinvent the wheel. You will see better and faster results!

If you are serious about maintaining good health and earning residue income, then you should check out the SG2000 at http://www.youthfountain.150m.com

Cheers

Keeping a pet may help to improve your overall wellbeing.

Did you know that keeping pets at home could help to reduce stress, improve our quality life and thus reduce the aging process? Sounds unbelievable? Oh yes, there may be some truth in it according to surveys and research done by medical and health experts.
Some experts believe the benefit of keeping a pet is more than of emotional rather than physical aspects. Regardless, our emotional wellbeing is important and has direct impact upon our health.
It was reported that singles tend to live a happier and enriching life if they keep pets at home. Some pets make good companionship in life. Unlike your spouse, pets don’t shout or rattle at you. Pets are good listener but unable to advice unfortunately, not a big shortcoming though since most of us prefers a sympathetic ear rather than advice when we are in bad mood. Couples are also known to have lower heart rate and blood pressure if they keep pets at home.
Owning a pet reduces the number of visits to the doctor, prolongs survival after a heart attack, and wards off depression, says James Serpell, PhD, director of the Center for the Interaction of Animals and Society at the University of Pennsylvania. (His family has a cat, a dog, a large green iguana, a bearded dragon, and a dozen fish.)

Would like to know more about the benefit of getting a pet?
Check it out at http://preventdisease.com/home/tips41.shtml

Cheers!