Remain Frugal

"The less you can live on, the more chance your ideas and aspirations will succeed. This is true even after you've 'made it'".

In 2007, I was promoted to my dream job. Highly-paid, big title, big office and big apartment in the heart of the central business district. Glamorous corporate events, parties and glamorous backdrop. All feeding the urban sophisticate narrative, ets. all is good!!

The trouble was, even though I was being paid very well, I was still broke by the end of the month. Life in the big city was expensive, and I was determined to experienced it fully. I sure as hell wasn't saving anything!Like people say, education is expensive and I ended-up paying top dollar!

Off course one day the recession hit, the job dried-up, and I nearly found myself on the street. Had I lived a bit more modestly I would have been able to weather the storm better.

There are loads of people like me out there who made a lot of money, but spend just as quickly. The older you get, I must admit the less I envy them. Sure, they get to go to the fancy restaurant, meet the nicest birds and taste the best wine, but they pay heavily for the priviledge. They can't afford to tell their bosses to go take a hike. They can't afford to not panice when business slows down for a month or two.

Part of being creative and an entrepreneur is to learn how to protect your freedom to do business and that includes freedom from AVARICE!

Example of a Failed Advert

This is a classic example of an advertising which has generated a lot of talk value but with rather dodgy result is the Energizer battery Bunny. The Bunny passed the test by making both the Letterman and Leno shows repeatedly. What the Bunny didn't pass is the sales test, which was trully paramount. In fact Energizer has 29% of the US market while Duracell has 38%.

Funny thing is, while everyone knows the Bunny, not everybody knows Energizer! Some people think that the Bunny is the Duracell Bunny. A contestant on one American quiz show lost $10,000 making that very mistake. While the advertising campaign was a great success, the brand is a lot less successful.

One of the problem with the Bunny campaign is that Energizer is a No.2 brand, and 'generic' advertising solgans are generally associated with No.1 brands. "Just Do It" is associated with Nike, the No.1 brand of athletic shoe. "Whassup?" is associated with Budwiser, the No.1 brand of beer. So the Bunny is often associated with Duracell.

Gloating at the Enemy

If someone has repeatedly been hurful to us, it is easy to give in to vindicative pleasure when they experience misfortune. But Scripture abmonishes us, "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles" - Proverbs 24:17. Instead, we are to maintain an attitude of compassion and forgiveness and trust God to bring justice in His time. Love for God can be measured by the love we show for our worst enemy.

How Did the Greeback Became A Standard Global Currency?

Washington's first ally in the continuous struggle to defend the sovereignty of the greenback was Israel. Most of us including the majority of Jews believed that the Tel Aviv's decision to launch preemptive attacks against Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian troops along its borders in what came to be known as the Six-Day War of 1967 was driven principally by Israel's determination to protect its borders. Obviously, territorial expansion was the outcome at the end of that bloody week, but the Six-Day War also served another 'purpose'.

Arabs were humiliated and infuriated by the loss of their territories. Much of their anger was aimed at the United States; they knew that Israel could never succeeded without the American financial and political support, as well as the not-so-veiled threat that US troops were standing by in the unlikely event that Israel needed them. Few Arabs anticipated that Washington had motives that were far more selfish than defending the Jewish homeland or that the White House would 'turn Arab anger to its advantage'.

So, in response to the Six-Day War of 1965, Egypt and Syria simultaneously attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest of Jewish holidays. Knowing that strategically he was on shaky ground, Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat pressured Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal to strike against the United States (and therefore Israel) in a different way – by employing the ‘oil weapon’. Hence on 16 October 1973, Saudi Arabia and four other Arab states in the Persian Gulf announced a 70% increase in the posted price of oil; Iran in an act of Islamic solidarity joined them. During the ensuing days, Arab oil ministers, agreeing that United States should be punished for its pro-Israel stance, unanimously backed the idea of an oil embargo.

It was a classic game of international chess. President Nixon asked Congress for $2.2billion in aid to Israel. The next day, led by Saudi Arabia, Arab oil producers imposed a total embargo on oil shipments to the United States. At the time, few people perceived the cunning behind Washington’s move, or the fact that it was driven by a determination to shore up a weakened dollar.

The impact of the embargo was immense. The selling price of Saudi oil leaped to new records and by January 1974 it has soared to nearly seven times it price 4-years earlier. The media warned that the United States economy was on the verge of collapse. Long lines of cars formed at gas station across the nation, whilst economists expressed fears of the possibility of another 1929-themed depression.

As we know now that the corporatocracy played an active role in driving oil prices to these record highs. Although business and political leaders, including oil executives, feigned outrage, they were the puppet masters pulling the strings. President Nixon and his advisors realized that the $2.2.billion aid package to Israel would force the Arabs into taking drastic actions. By supporting Israel, the White House engineered a situation that generated what was the craftiest and most significant economic hit man deal of the 20th century.

The US Treasury Department contacted corporatocracy henchmen and formulate a 2 fold strategy whereby (1) is to ensure that OPEC would funnel the billions of dollars the United States spent on oil back to the US companies; and (2) to establish a new ‘oil standard’ that would replace the former ‘gold standard’. The key to any such plan and strategy to work will be to get Saudi Arabia on your side because it possessed more oil than any other country, it controlled OPEC; the Saudi ‘royal’ family was corrupt and highly vulnerable. Like other ‘kings’ in the Middle East, the Sauds understood the politics of colonialism. Royalty had been bestowed on the House of Saud by the British.

Saudi Arabia were arm twisted to agree on ‘3 important conditions’ (1) invest a large portion of its petrodollars in US government securities; (2) allow the US Treasury Department to use the trillions of dollars in interest from these securities to hire US corporations (e.g. Aramco) to westernize Saudi Arabia; (3) maintain the price of oil within limits acceptable to the corporatocracy. For its part, the US government promised to keep the Saud family in power.

However, there was an additional agreement, one that made few headlines but was crucial to the corporatocracy’s aim to maintain the greenback as the standard global currency. Saudi Arabia committed to trading oil exclusively in US dollars. With the scratch of a pen, the dollar’s sovereignty was reestablished. Oil replaced gold as the measure of a currency’s value.

A side benefit of the above allowed Washington to continue imposing a ‘hidden tax’ on every foreign creditor. Because the dollar reigned supreme, we bought goods and services on credit. By the time they used that credit to purchase oil (or something else) from our companies, the value of their funds had diminished, due to inflation, the difference between these amounts was cash-in-the-pocket for the corporatocracy- a tax without the need for tax collectors.

Put the Hours In

"Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. 90% of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort and stamina!"

If somebody in your industry is more successful than you, it's probably because he works harder at it than you do. Given, perhaps he's more talented, more adept at networking, but you should not consider that as an excuse. Remember, over time such advantages counts for les and less. Which is why the world is full of highly talented, network-savvy, failed mediocrities. - Success means you've got a long road ahead of you, regardless.

You have to pace yourself over the long haul. Stamina is utterly important and is only possible if managed well. People think all they need to do is ensure one crazy, intense, job-free creative burst and their dreams will come true. They are wrong, they are utterly wrong.

Being good at anything is like figure skating - the definition of being good at it is being able to make it look easy. But it is never easy. That's what the stupidly wrong people conviniently forget.

To start-off, go do something that interest you and that you have passion for. Dont quit your day job in order to make it big. Keep your day-job but instead find that extra hour or two in the day that belongs to nobody else but you, and make it productive. Put the hours in, do it for long enough, and magical, life-transforming things happen eventually. Given, this means less time watching TV, internet surfing or going out for dinner.

Please Update Your EPF Nominees List

Something to remind ourselves whom are depository to the Employees Provident Fund ("EPF").

There was a chain email saying that if one of my EPF fund nominees dies, my nominees list is automatically void & invalid and the EPF will channel my money to Amanah Raya upon my death.

The email also said that if any of my nominees dies, I should present his death certificate to the EPF and name a new nominee within 3-days of the death! See below for an official response from Encik Nik Affendi Jaafar a General Manager of Public Relations at EPF.

If one of your nominees dies during your lifetime, only the portion that was bequeathed to the deceased nominee will be invalid. Should you pass away without updating your nomination, the other nominees will receive their portions accordingly. Only the deceased nominee's portion will be subject to procedures under "EPF savings withoout nomination", where the right to claim the member's savings goes to the nearest next of kin or the appointed administrator of your estate. However, if you have named only one nominee and he predeceases you, the nomination will be void.

There is no need to produce the death certificate of a deceased nominee to change your nomination. You can update & change your nomination anytime by simply completing Form KWSP 4.

The Sex and the Cash Theory

Most creative person basically has 2 kinds of jobs:- One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task at hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.

A good example is a friend of mine, whom is a owner of a bookstore selling second-hand book by day ("Cash") but also a anime & manga painter by night ("Sex"). Or anorther example would be Nicholas Cage where one year he'll be in an ultra blockbuster flick like Face-Off ("Sex"), anorther he'll be in some forgettable, big-budget thriller like Bangkok Dangerous ("Cash").

Or painters. you spend one month painting blue pictures because that's the color the celebrity collectors are buying this season ("Cash"), you spend the next month painting red pictures because secretly you despise the color blue and love red ("Sex").

Or geeks. You spend your weekdays writting code for a faceless corporation ("Cash"), then you spend your evenings and weekend writting anarchic, weird computer games to amuse your techie friends ("Sex").

It's balancing the need to make a good living while maintaining one's creative sovereignty. My modus operandi is being a corporate lawyer during the day ("Cash") and by night or my free time expressing my thoughts, no matter how weird or absurd on my blog ("Sex").

This tense duality will always play center state. It will never be transcended. As soon as you accept this, for some reason your career starts moving ahead faster. I don't know why this happens.

It's the people who refuse to cleave their lives this way - who just want to start day one by quitting their current crappy day job and moving straight on over to bestselling author - well, they never make it.

The point is, keep your day job, but dont ignore the 'sexy' creative part of you. Life would be more fulfilling.

Recession? The End? Certainly Not!

Cant help but to share this posting with you. Over the weekend, friends and relatives have been painting a very bleak picture of the coming year. I do acknolwedge that the economic situation in many countries will not improve in the near future as most are still feeling the effects of a recession. Some are even experiencing a double-dip effect (where their economy improves but dip again).

Recession holds nothing but trauma for a lot of people around the world. But honestly, it needn't be so. Many people start businesses and make money during the recession. Many people including you may eventually look back and say "that recession was the making of us". That recession was when I grew-up to be a man. That recession certainly separated the 'boys from the men'. Now what should you do and not to do during a recession? Read on.....

First, your immediate aim is to build up some funds, you can't do anything with out funds. It will take time, huge commitment and effort. If you haven't got the drive, and the self-discipline then give up now.

If you have no money now, save some. Saving is simple, everyone can do it. It means that you have to get more income, and at the same time spend less than you earn. No short cuts, just get on and do it. You'll need to make a little sacrifice here and there. Stop taking that extra cup of coffee. Don’t have an extra pastry. Cut back on the evenings out a bit. Eat at home. Cook your own food is often cheaper than eating out. Less clubbing, less drinking. Less partying. Not, no partying, just less partying. A little bit here and there goes a long way.

Having said the above, you don't get rich just by saving money and buying less. You've got to look at a much more profitable avenue as well - your income. You'll need to earn more money. Most people stay in poorly paid jobs for far too long. Either you must get a better one, or you must get promotion! You may have to do a bit of learning at this stage, you may have to study.

Go to the reference library and do it there rather than buy books or attend courses. The reference library will give you masses of ideas, best place for research. You'll need this library later when you are working for yourself and setting up your own enterprise. Work out what you could earn doing something else and then go for it.

If you are in a reasonably-paid job now, then make sure you do the job well, don’t make trouble for the bosses, work out how you can be promoted to a higher level and then ask for that promotion, or ask for a raise. But take care, you need to give them a reason to agree to your request for money. Above all, always stay positive and always show enthusiam because when the chips are down, your spirit will always light-up the room.

Tell your bossess you’ll work differently to earn them the money back and then you’ll get the raise you want. Don't demand extra money for doing nothing. Look for opportunities in the work they do. See how you can improve it and get them better results and then suggest that you will do it for them because you would like promotion and a slightly better pay rate.

See it from their point of view. If you don’t work well, if you make trouble or are slipshod then they will be reluctant to give you a raise. Or maybe your income is governed by a set of salary rules. In this case, look for promotion to a higher grade, or find another job. Here is where to search for ideas to suggest to your bosses to improve their income and yours as well. Look for any ideas which will help to save money for your employers. Their life is tough in the recession as well.

Maybe your company can use less materials in some way. Suggest ways of saving money on the things they buy from outside. Their money is often wasted when their activities are not well planned. Their money is wasted also when they must make rush decisions or change their minds too often.

Now to getting more money seriously - in the end you'll need to work for yourself. This is not as hard as it sounds. Start off the easy way, by picking some activity that you know well, if you can. Talk with friends and others who are doing it already. Otherwise go to the reference library and hunt round for ideas.

If you can do something first in your spare time while you have a normal job. That way you will start small, with low risk and if it does not go right then all you have lost is you time and effort. Your first ideas will probably be no good. But everything you try will add to your experience. Like me starting a blog. Never know one day it will generate some advertising income for me!! Just keep doing it and improve on it. Hoever, here are a few ideas at random, all stupid and not for you, I know, but to give you the flavor of what I mean.

One friend of mind has got an allotment on which she grows her own family's vegetable and fruit. That saves him significant money each year by itself. He takes hhi surplus products and sells them to his neighbours. Later, he started to buy in goods from others and started a regular door-to-door delivery service. He was a shop without a shop. Guess what, he heads the Technical Department of a company.

Another of my firnd went around her neighbours and asked if she could help them to sell some of the old things / secondhand stuffs they had stored in their attics and did not want any more. She split the takings with them, and provided receipts. She only took things she thought she could sell on E-bay. This turned into a slightly more profitable business where she cleared attics for people and took extra rubbish to the tip for them. She became in short a second hand agent through E-Bay.

Well, you say, they could take the rubbish for themselves couldn't they? Yes, but they lived in nice areas, in nice houses, they had some money and they could not be bothered to do it. This later turned into a service she offered to small businesses, where she took old machinery such as computers from offices and got rid of them. When the stuff was too heavy for her she hired a laborer to help.

Another set himself up as an authority on solar heating, and saving electricity and gas costs. He would talk people through how to do it, for a fee. This turned into a good business when he did it for small companies. They paid better and they could not be bothered to do it for themselves. He studied the subject properly. He was a consultant earning quite good money within a year.

But, if you are already running your own business then here is how to make it a lot more profitable:

See if you can change it slightly to hit people's needs in a recession. They are looking for safety first, for saving money, for improving their income, to pay lower prices. If you are running your own business and are self-employed, then do two things. First of all get more high value customers and drop off the low value customers, work hard at sales - but only to profitable, no trouble, customers.

Next, raise your rates and prices. Aim for ten per cent, but do it in small bites. Do it to new customers first, get them on the higher rate, then you can do it to your existing customers particularly the ones who give you trouble. The only time you’ll lose customers because of a rate rise is when you don’t supply good service. Take it nice and easy and give them plenty of warning. When you put up your prices try to build in some extra service or new product so they don’t feel so bad about it. Don't reduce your prices in the hope that sales will go up as a result. If you cut your costs by the amount of your price reduction, that is ok. This needs a true cost cut.

Look at your housing costs: Now lets start making some money.

Don't buy in a falling market. Wait until it turns up then if you are renting then you may find a way of raising a mortgage and buy your own house. But that only works in a rising market.

But at the moment you may find it more flexible and easier to rent rather than own. It may be profitable to sell your house, so long as you put the money into an asset which will improve. Such as you and your new business idea. Whatever you do, don’t spend this money you raise on a new flashy car, or holiday abroad. Not right now perhaps, but remember that in the long run property and land will increase in value. It may pay you, if you’ve raised some cash to go back into the market at some time.

Always keep your property investment small until you have built up substantial funds.

Never invest more than you can afford to lose if the market crashes. The mistake people make is to get too greedy and go for the big one. They borrow too much money, and spend all they have. The property drops in value and they are wiped out. But remember that in seven years out of eight this does not happen – the market will increase. Just invest what you can afford and don’t get greedy.

Also learn your craft, do the research and don’t buy on emotion. Then, when you have money to spare, you can start thinking about buying some stocks and shares and some gilts and fixed interest securities. You’ll get plenty of new advice at this stage. The old game will come back, bit by bit. But it does take time. a few years.

Good luck.

Do you think you are creative? SURE YOU ARE

Do you ever wonder sometimes if you could be creative? This is a question I always ask myself whenever I attend fashion shows, painting gigs, poetic competitions or some other events which highlights one's creativity. My answer would always be "I dont think I am creative enough".

But honestly aren't we all given crayons in kindergarten? Where did it go wrong? When you hit puberty they take away the crayons ad replace them with dry, uninspiring books on history, georgaphy, algebra, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the 'creative bug' just a tiny voice telling you, "I'd like my crayons back, please."

I think everyone get's bitten by the creative bug through their adulthood. You don't know where the itch came from, it's almost like it just arrived on your doorstep, uninvited. Until now you were quite happy holding down a real job, being a regular person........ UNTIL NOW.

You don't know if you're any good or not, but you think you could be. And the idea terrifies you! The problem is, even if you are good, you know nothing about this kind of business. You don't know any publishers or agents or venture capitalists or any of these fancy kind of folk.

Besides, if you paint a picture, what if you can't find an art gallery to showcase your masterpiece? If you invent a new piece of world-changing software, what if you can't find a financial backer? If you write a cartoon screen play, what if you can't find a producer to produce it? You've always worked real hard your whole life, you'll be dammed if you'll put all that effort into something if there ain't no pile of cash at the end of this dumb-ass rainbow.

Hmmm. That's not your tiny voice asking for the crayons back! That's your other voice, your adult voice, your boring and tedious voice trying to find a way to get the tiny crayon voice to shut the hell-up.

Your tiny voice doesn't want you to sell something!! Your tiny voice wants you to make something. There's a huge difference! Your tiny voice doesn't give a damm about art galleries, financial backers or venture capitalist or Hollywood producers.

GO AHEAD AND MAKE SOMETHING. Make something really special. Make something amazing that will really blow the mind of anybody who sees it.

If you try to make something just to fit your uninformed view of some hypothetical market, you will fail. If you make something special and powerful and HONEST and TRUE, you will succeed eventually.

The tiny voice didn't show-up because it decided you need more money, or you need to hang-out with movie stars. Your tiny voice came back because your SOUL somehow depends on it. There's something you haven't said, something you haven't done, some light that needs to be switched on, and it needs to be taken cared of. NOW.

So you will have to listen to that tiny voice or it will die...taking a big chunk of you along with it.

They're only crayons. You didn't fear them in kindergarten, why fear them now?

Ignore Everyone

The more original your idea is, the less valuable advice other people would be able to afford to you. At the same token, you will not know if your idea is any good the moment it is born. Neither does anyone else. The most you can hope for is a strong gut feeling that it is a good one. My personal experience is that trusting my own gut feeling is not as easy as the optimists say it is. There's a reason why feelings scare us - because what they tell us and what the rest of the world tells us are often two different things.

And asking close friends never works quite as well as you hope, either. It is not that they purposely want to be unhelpful but it is because they don't know your world one millionth as well as you know your world, no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard you try to explain.

Also, a big idea will change you! Your friends may love you, but they may not want you to change. If you change, then their dynamic with you also changes. They might prefer things the way they are, that's how they love you - the way you are, not the way you may become.

If your idea is so good that it changes your dynamic enough to where you need them less or, God forbid, the market needs them less, then your friends are going to resist your ideas every chance they can. That's human nature.

That is why good ideas are always initially resisted". - Good ideas come with a heavy burden, which is why so few people execute them. So few people can handle it.

Can you handle it? Sure you can.