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.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
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.
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.
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.
Friday, January 08, 2010
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?
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?
Thursday, January 07, 2010
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.
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.
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