Valorous Halcyon

As I walked towards the gate of my office after work, I saw this guy also walking towards the same direction with his friend. He’s my friend but his name seemed to vanish from my mind for a temporal moment, so for one whole minute I walked behind their back quietly. I hoped he never spotted me because I was ashamed of my wonky memory. When I finally managed to recall his name, he spotted me walking behind him and his friend. I couldn’t call out his name on time, so I just addressed him as “bro”. Hey Bro! How’s it going? The rest remain history. I believe I am not alone in this. I KNOW! I know. It sounds trivial. Not remembering other people’s names is a small matter and everyone does it, right? To be honest, yes it is. But if you come to think about it from a larger picture, this seemingly trivial matter has the capability to trickle into larger issues, and could be the one mammoth factor in determining one’s success in everything. Many business leaders and politicians kne...

The past weekend has been physically exacting for me, because I was irrational bold enough to join the Sports Day organized by my employer Bank Negara, knowing I was/am not much fitter than the majority population. Still I challenged myself. I knew the chance for me to win anything was extremely slim – close to 0%. I took the first step and stepped out of my comfort zone. I made an impulsive decision to sign up for 800m and 4x400m even before I had time to regret over my decision. I took the risk of embarrassing myself. The result? I managed to clock 2 minutes 47 seconds for my 800m run, attaining fourth place out of 6 runners. The runner who got third was not too far ahead of me, yet I had ran out of energy to sprint in my last 100m. Even more encouragingly, the other two runners in 5 th and 6 th places were physically fitter than me. For the first time in my life, I did not book the last spot in an athletic competition. It was a personal victory for me. I was extremel...

Each time I thought of a great idea, it would daunt on me that the next challenging thing to do is starting the first step. Because starting first step is always the hardest, the urge to procrastinate kicks in. So there is this Rational Decision Maker who is extremely energetic and keen to start doing the work and complete the task on time, driven by dogged determination and passion, living within everyone. He is downright boring, but he as a perfectionist gets things done rather efficiently. But there is another partner in crime, an Instant Gratification Monkey. This Instant Gratification (IG) Monkey is directly opposite of the Rational Decision Maker. He loves all the fun and at all costs avoids challenging problems. He indulges in instant gratifications (as his name suggested) and persuade the Rational Decision Maker to doing the same. On a normal occasion, the Rational Decision Maker will steer the direction of what I will be doing and the course of my actions for the da...

If you are a regular visitor of this blog, you may have noticed the reduced frequency of my post entries. Let me clarify, I have been writing an entry every weekday for the past 2.5 months, and it is my joy and privilege every time I write. But just last week, I realised this is not sustainable. I have a full time job but because I was still new and my team was pretty busy with their year-end project, I ended up having nothing much to do. Now work started to pile up and you can see where I might be heading next. Not only my time allocated for blogging will be significantly reduced, my one big concern is writer’s block. My friends have asked me how did I managed to get inspiration daily, to update a blog entry every weekday. My only answer is to spend about 2 hours to read, daily. Read books, blogs and email subscriptions. Read 200 books, 50 books is equivalent to having one mentor. Check out the books that can take your breaths away. Read books that can keep your attention s...

Motivational quotes are ubiquitous. Whilst I myself am an avid reader of motivational quotes, they may not be sufficient to pull someone back on track, assuming the person has access to it. Many people are not that fortunate. Imagine someone so dreadful of life or fell so deeply in financial debt, waiting for time to pass. No purpose of life whatsoever, time is just ticking before that person drifts into extreme depression and eventually jumps off the window of a city skyline, or one of the cliffs in Zermatt.  Why such pessimism? People who really need to be heard can't be heard, people who need help can't get one. The sad truth is they may not even have access to such motivational edification as they are engulfed by the horrendous reality of life, day in day out. People around them are too obsessed with themselves and barely able to notice their peculiar behaviour. Perhaps if we could practice a little more empathy, things could have been turned out differently. Li...

When I was relatively younger, I used to doubt myself. I had poor self-esteem purely out of the thought of myself being untalented. I was raw and inexperienced in whatever came my way. In everything I encountered at school, I stood by the sideline and watched the high flyers performed to their best abilities and won tournaments, one after another. Then I would envy them. I wished I could be just a little bit like them, being outstanding in fields of their choices.  And I bumped into this quote out of the blue, saying: "If others can do it, why can't I?" I paused. If others can do it, why can't you? There are so many people who have made histories, success stories are everywhere if you bother to look around. So many people have succeeded, why not myself? Many excellent students had attained straight A1's, what is stopping me from achieving the similar feat? What a powerful revelation! From that moment onwards, I started to gain courage, aim higher and str...

Is there a day you just don’t feel like doing anything, but to lie on your bed staring at the ceiling and do nothing? Skipping everything you told yourself you will do every day and find yourself lack of motivation to continue doing it? That’s me right now, but I’m glad I have finally written my first three sentences to kick start my writing mood. I am demotivated. I have missed my gym session today, but I had an intensive badminton session yesterday evening. Excuse.  Where do we find motivation anyway? I am curious if you would let me know your source of motivation, I will try to tell you mine. If you don’t have one, please read on. What drives you to do everything you are doing? Is it genuine passion and your love for the job keeping you where you are? Or is it financial security? Indeed one of the biggest challenges is to achieve breakthrough in your workplace. Quitting your job you don’t enjoy is one of them.  Today my motivation was nowhere to be found. I woke...

Many years ago I used to write New Year resolutions at the beginning of the year but only to regrettably see the excitement gradually being subsided by the end of February. At the end of the year, I may even be worse off compared to the start of the year. I believe most of us have encountered this at least once in our life. Because all the cool kids do it. Adults, growing teenagers, kids. Everyone does it, so we must follow! But let’s take a step back and ask ourselves, why bother making a New Year resolutions list if we never intended to follow it through? Lack of discipline is one thing. Deep inside we want to be one of the cool kids, and cool kids normally have all the bragging rights, and they are generally well accepted in our communities. At least we wanted to feel like we are accepted. But this is not my main point. This may not be your reason. Maybe you wholeheartedly wanted to do things differently as the New Year approaches, to improve every aspect of your life. Th...

Every day when I log on to Blogger and click on “Create a New Post”, a blank page appears. It is up to me how I want to smear it. Fresh page, white as snow, ready to be painted. I may not have anything particularly productive to write, but I can write. So I keep writing. I may be writing craps, which I am right now, but I still write. I have set this my personal conviction to write a post every weekday, so far I have been disciplined enough to cling on to this conviction. Your conviction may be on something else. Maybe you had promised yourself you will go exercise every evening. Or every morning. But you have been procrastinating. Don’t worry me too, many times. Then I realised I don’t have to dwell in the sense of guilt. I may have missed today’s gym session, but I can go tomorrow. There’s always a second chance. There’s always tomorrow. A better tomorrow. Don’t miss it! Everyone deserves a second chance. You deserve a second chance. But the problem with us is we tend ...

Yesterday an unfortunate event happened in my family. My mom crashed her 7 year-old City unto a tall divider near her office and the front bumper dropped off! The steering wheel went out of alignment, so you can imagine how devastating the magnitude was. Fortunately nothing bad happened to her, and thanks to the help of some kind-hearted passerbys and two police officers, she managed to drive back home. The car isn't pretty anymore. Apparently her reason (or excuse) was the new divider was built too high up and she couldn't see it. Of course not only the car was in a bad shape, I bet her emotion was in paranoia state too. I would never be able to comprehend because I had never gotten myself into an accident. But how does that affect me? Remember in the previous post I wrote about my excitement to join my colleagues for futsal later today after work, and I was supposed to drive the Myvi to work this morning. It would have been more convenient this way because then I can dri...

This morning I was playing badminton with my friends and we randomly talked about the upcoming BNM badminton closed tournament. To say I am good in playing badminton is definitely an overstatement. I am not that good, but I can play. I may not be as good as the state level players (and there are quite a number of them working in the Bank, Bank is indeed the hub for many excellent sportsmen/sportswomen), but I know I am not too far behind. So we randomly talked about it, and they immediately dismissed the thought of even joining the tournament. I was keeping a positive and optimistic attitude about it the whole time we were talking. It would be a little too wishful and idealistic if I were to say I can win, but I don't think I will fare terribly to the extent of getting trashed and humiliated in front of hundreds of people. So I kept on saying it's possible. Indeed, it is possible. It just depends on whether I have the strong desire to work on my weaknesses and turn the...

Every day we are faced with many little crossroads whether we realise it or not. Some are small decisions we can make instantaneously with little impacts on our general happiness, while some can be so significant it would punch a hole on our wallet for some extended period of time if we were not careful enough, and thus our general happiness. For instance, changing a job, buying a house or car, getting involved in a joint venture deal with a business partner and maybe planning a trip to some exotic destinations. All these are crossroads that would determine your future paths and financial situation. I was quite risk averse but over the years in the UK, I have become more and more risk tolerant, thanks to the endless opportunities to invest in the UK. I was younger and I was more than willing to absorb a slightly higher risk for a greater return. I had invested a fair amount of about £4,000 in Funding Circle, a P2P lending platform to SMEs in the UK, but withdrew most of it wh...