Start your own business

Some of my colleagues have left their full time engineering jobs to pursue financial and investment related businesses. There is one guy who decided to go into Forex trading and investment related training business. I was surprised he decided to quit his job as Senior Manager in the R&D section of large MNC in Singapore to venture out.

One of my senior engineers has quit his job to pursue Internet related project business. It is no easy tasks to start own business. 9 out of 10 startup companies go bust before the 5th year. On the average, most small local startup companies takes 3 years or more to break even. Apart from the financial risk involve with starting up a business, there is no effective short cut to getting your own business off the ground quickly. It takes sheer hard work, dedication and determination to get your business takes off. My younger sister has also left her managerial job of over 8 years in cosmetic and beauty related business to strike out on her own with another business partner.

There is another guy, my former superior so to speak who has decided that he has enough with working for others. From being a network-marketing skeptic, he has now become a leading firm believer and advocator of network marketing and currently venturing out on his own, exploring various multi network-marketing businesses & moneymaking opportunities. Anthony Robbins, the famous motivational speaker was in town a few weeks ago. Is there any thing interesting about Anthony Robbins teachings which strikes accord with those guys I mentioned, guys who has decided to venture on out? I bet you can guess, act upon something, not later but as soon as it is possible to do so. Most of us like to procrastinate. Yes, we have dreams, dreams and aspiration without action is just that, dream in the end.

Here a link to a free resources pertaining to investment information. I stumble across it while looking for information pertaining to stock market guide.
http://www.investmentu.com/aboutiu/SignUp.html?o=1355231&u=25898271&l=812293

Loan sharks

Have you ever wonder how the rich gets richer? Have it ever occur to you to the fact that the smart and wealthy people make use of other people’s money to acquire and accumulate more wealth? Why is it that most banks prefer to lend money to customers than to have customers deposit money into their bank accounts? This is evident from the low interest rate associated with saving and high interest charge by the banks and financial institutions with regards to credit borrowing and lending.
Banks makes profit from the high credit interest charge to those who borrow money; the longer the repayment loan period the happier is the bank. Credit card companies are also making tons of money during economic downturns. How does a credit card company go about making profit despite the economic crunch? The answer is much simpler than you could ever imagine. Credit Card Company prefers to do business with the average Joe, the working class types rather than dealing with rich customers. Why is that so? Broke borrowers like the average Joe are what the banks and credit card companies often like to deal with. Those who have experience bankruptcy are more likely to struggle harder to repay the loans since they do not wish to end up in bankruptcy again.
Banks prefer borrowers to stretch the loan period to the maximum duration thus enabling maximum interest charge across time. Ordinary borrowers like the average Joe are more likely to stretch their loan repayment period.
Come to think of it, it seems that the banks and credit companies are no different from the normal loan sharks isn’t it? Banks and loan sharks equally alike charge high repayment interest for loans. Thus there are two things we must avoid if possible, the first one being to borrow money from the bank to finance our needs such as housing and etcetera, and secondly to partially pay our credit card bills since the interest charge for outstanding remaining credit card bill payments are enormous to begin with!.

Guangxi

The word ‘guangxi’ literally means interpersonal connections or networking in Chinese terms. It is well known that one of the most important requisite one must have when trying to strike successful business deals and joint ventures with China business partners and customers is establishing good ‘Guangxi’. Earlier Singaporean, Europeans and Americans learn the hard way when they tried to penetrate into the China markets. Early foreign companies thought they are good to go strictly by the books when dealing with Chinese business counterparts. Some the foreign businessmen think that ‘Guangxi’ practice is a form of corruption. Is ‘Guangxi’ a form of corruption? My personal thought is that we can’t escape from dealing with ‘Guangxi’ or networking in our everyday working life.

Consider the fact that each year thousands if not millions of students graduated from colleges and universities each year. But how do they differentiate themselves? Many of the graduates have hundreds if not thousands of classmates who are vying for the same jobs with the exact same knowledge. In my over 15 years of working experience, I am bold to say that 90% of the time, it is not what you knows or how much you knows about that lands you successfully on the job. Rather it is whom you know and who knows you that make the big differences in terms of landing that dream job of yours. It just our human nature to prefer to interact with those we know and to get something in return for our service render to others. It is thus not surprising that network marketing, shuns by many as illegal business practice has gain momentum and is regarded by business experts as the 21st century business model.

High paying job. TT Durai does it again.

It was reported in today’s Strait Times that TT Durai, the disgraced former CEO of the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) has been offered a job that pays well over 25k per month. I can’t help but admire this man who I felt in one-way or another a slight cut above the rest in Singapore. While many has lose their jobs due to company downsizing and having trouble getting new jobs, here is a man who has lose his position of CEO and being charged for corruption, demonstrate the ability to adapt to situations and land himself a job with lucrative pay. It was reported that he is able to pay off all the debts and charges own to the state in 4 years time. As much as I felt disgusted with this man who had misappropriated charity funds and betrayed the public trust, I must admit thought that there are things we could learn from him. I am sure many who not mind to spend money on books if any written by TT Durai on effective financial survival techniques.!

Why blog

Someone once ask me why I write blogs? Don’t I have anything else better to do? Why would anyone want to publish personal thoughts into the worldwide web for everyone to read? I don’t have particular reasons for spending time on blogs, in actual fact I don’t really care if anyone would read my blogs at all. So back to the question why do I even bother to become a blogger? The answer is simple; I just want to brush up my skill in writing in expressing thoughts. I hope to be a good freelance writer one of these days. Perhaps when I retire someday or I get laid off due to company downsizing, I may consider becoming a full time writer.

There are those who write blogs to earn money, either indirectly or directly through the contents they publish or via advertisement programs such as ad sense. It’s amazing though how the Internet has change the way we live our live. I suppose it’s wonderful indeed that we can express our feelings and thoughts through cyber world. I enjoy reading topics of interest and quality contents posted by many bloggers around the world. There is just so much we can learn through the Internet, particularly through network of bloggers who share interest and thoughts on topics of interest. However we should be mindful of what we write in our blogs. My personal thoughts are that we should never write on anything that touches on sensitive issues, in particular with regards to race and religion. Inflammatory remarks won’t solve problems, on the contrary sensitive topics would only aggravate situations so why blog on such topics?