Today is my 30th year alive. 

Reflections, Mistakes, Choices, Learnings, Growth, Planning, Future…

I don’t really like birthday. I don’t like to celebrate birthdays or attend birthdays. I believe if I want to be nice to someone, celebrate their life, it should not only happen once a year on a particular day. It should be done everyday or as and when we feel right. I myself is guilty of not being nice to people on a daily basis or not celebrating life enough.

So today I am alone on my off day to find my soul back. To reflect on my past 30 years of existance. To remember my mistakes, acknowledge them, let it go, learn and move on. To lay out all the choices I have made, acknowledge the growth I have made, and reset those decisions if required and plan ahead to move to my next level or towards my goals.

Of course it is also not about myself. Without the people around me or those who passed through my life, I wouldn’t be where I am now. So today is also about acknowledging them.

Before 16 years old

This phase of my life kind of define who I am and how my future will be. Although, events in the later stage of my life changed some stuff. Now that I am recalling all the moments and memories during these period, I can say that I am always curious, eager to win, competitive, egoistic, thought I know everything, carefree, stubborn, rebellious, independent, and many more.

And because of these, there are many wonderful moments, many stressful times, and most importantly, many great lessons.

I learnt that my parents do not know everything. They are not the best father or mother figure around, but I believe they did thier best (Realised these more when I became a parent myself). I had a comfortable childhood (most of the time) or at least to me. Parents are not rich but did enough to let me do what I want. As I grow up, I realised that there are things they can’t do or do not know how. In fact, sometimes they need to refer back to me to find out certain things. I got fed up and think aren’t you suppose to teach me these things in life?

I learnt that friends are very important. So I have to choose my friends wisely. They kind of determine the next few years of your life if you mix around with them regularly. They can either bring you down or lift you up.

I learnt that I can’t win everything. In fact, I did not win much or big prizes. I am always on the losing end in life. I lose to my elder brother in cycling, playing games etc. I lose in basketball matches, I lose in competition, I lose in academic, I lose in pursuit of girls, I lose a lot of money gambling, I lose myself over a period of time. I turned to stealing money, lying, cheating, scamming, breaking promises etc. These sucks. I felt bad but ignorance about how all these will come back to haunt me. Karma, precision, what comes around goes around.

Luckily for me, the universe is always there to remind me. Although, I know I am heading towards a wrong direction in life, and no one is guiding me back, deep down inside I know I need to break out and do something about it. I know the real me is still inside finding his way back.

Life in Poly and Army

Like I said, I am curious. And I am now curious about girls, sex, and money. I got into a long term, serious relationship in my 1st year in poly. These relationship itself teaches me a lot about having a life partner.

• Do not go treat a girl like a queen if I am not able to consistently maintain that kind of treatment through out. Or in another way to look at it is, do not let others set an expectation too high that I am not willingly to match or exceed that level consistently.
• People change. I change. The heart change. But am I willing to accept the change? Am I willing to change with change? Are they willing to accept your change? Life is always very interesting. At the peak of the relationship, a new challenge came and put you down. At the lowest moment, the universe somehow lifted you up. Most importantly is that I learn from it, acknowledge it and move on in life.
• Choose someone who can make you better than who you are. Don’t choose the better one. Well I guess I still make this mistake after this relationship. Appearance is bonus. Honey moon period is not lasting. Human are full of shit. If I am still working on myself, exploring my own life, how the hell can I manage another person in my life? Or why the hell should I do that? So these are my learning and to me they are experiences that I faced. I acknowledge them and do my best to make better choices. Things happen to make me stronger. People came into my life to teach me something. I can choose to fuck around and be negative about them or I can choose to acknowledge them, learn the lessons, and move on. I choose to learn and move on.
• During poly period, I worked part time at Hotel Intercon as a banquet server. It was a fun experience and I enjoy my time there, working, earning some money (in fact, I realise that I have the ability to earn, I realise as long as I work hard, I will have more money.) I realise that work can be fun.
• I realise that my strength is in serving others. As a banquet server, my job is to serve. My aim is to let my guest have a hassle free and wonderful exerience. And I believe I did well there. In fact, on a part time basis, I worked there for a period of almost 9 years on and off. My longest employment in my life (even though it is only part time!)
• During army, I enjoyed the 2 years too. Even the toughest moments, give me satisfactions. This is a period when I am peaked physically and I am good at that. I am fit. I did a lot better than my peers. This period give me a lot of small wins, a lot of confident.
• I created great bonding with my camp mates. Enjoyed the moments when guys come together and be boys. Haha. Looking forward to reservist to meet up with old boys.

Tragic happens near to the end of my army days. My elder bro left us.

This is the defining moment of my life. The turning point of everything. The wake up call from the universe, telling me, time to grow up, time to take responsibilities.

I am not close with my bro and it will always be a regretfully part of my life. All I can do is acknowledge it and move on. At that period, I promise myself and my bro a few things which I intend to make it happen:

• I will take care of my parents and give them a comfortable life.
• I will be successful in life, so that my parent can be proud of me and my bro can rest in peace.
• I (subconsciously I guess) will complete my degree. Because my bro are not allow to study for a degree as my dad do not have the money to study.
• I will set an example for my younger brother.

It is tough to achieve these but I am going to do my best.

Lessons learnt from the death of my bro

• Everything happens for a reasons and it is to forward my life. I believe my brother left me to teach me a lessons. A very important lesson. Family is always the most important people in my life.
• Life is short and unpredictable. Everyone will die. Anytime. So what can I do about that. Live my life to the fullest. Appreciate the people around me.
• Be grateful in life. Because anytime can be my turn to leave. Anything that happen in my life is either to guide me and give me more time or show me the lessons and live a better life. If I am not grateful for these, then maybe my time here might be up, meaningless, useless.

Lessons learnt from parent divorce moment

My mum decided to divorce my dad (after my encouragement and I feel bad about it) She blamed my dad for the death of my bro (which is not the case but she just need to blame someone). And the next few years, hatred and resentment build up. Plus I am not helping to resolve the issue.

When my mum finally decide to separate and my dad moved out of the house, reality hits me. That my parent are staying apart. My family is falling apart. I can see the struggle my dad and my mum are feeling. I am worried and what did I do, I ran away. I kept myself busy. Luckily for me, they did not go ahead with the divorce and decided to stay together. Must be my bro helping our family while I learn more lessons.

My first venture into business

I joined a MLM company before I ORD from army. My life changed after the death of my bro and I told myself I need to earn money to support the family to give my parent a good life. So when a friend show me the business, I joined. It opens up my mind to the business world, sales and marketing, and people.

• Money is not the end goal. Money can never be the end goal. Money is the results of the actions that I take. Never work for money. Let money work for me.
• Integrity is the essence of everything successful. Especially in business and relationship. In MLM, there are unethical and off integrity ways of how they run the business. I followed what they did and affected my relationship and trust with friends and people.
• To be successful, first I must work on myself. I must grow as an individual.
• To build a business, I need to build a system and structure that will run on its on without me being the bottle neck.
• Luckily, the universe is there to pull me away 1 year later. To begin my next phase in life.

I went back to work with my dad as a painter. I am grateful that my dad is a small business owner and I believe I have that entrepreneur blood in me. More about that later.

So someone came back into my life to show me that there are more in life. I was introduced to life coaching. Although it was only a brief moment, but soemthing inside me was awakened. I began to explore more in life and tried a lot of things consciously or subconsciously. My life was back to ok for a while but then started to spiral down again.

Girls, money, people, drinks. My life was up one day, down another day. I did not heed the lessons I learnt. I went downward spiral. I reached the bottom of the pit and almost jumped out of the window. I lost a lot of money, a lot of friends and most importantly, I lost myself again. I let my parent down and let my brother down again.

While seating on the latch of the window, I cried but I dare not jump. Somehow I cannot let my mum suffer the lost of a son again. Somehow I know that is not the way out. At the back of my mind, I know what I need to do. I got back to life coaching. I got back to doing my work. Worked to earm back the money. I join coaching and leadership programs to work on myself. I am still in debt but at least I know I am working on it to get out of it.

Lessons learnt in Executive Coach International

This is another defining moment of my life. I get to know myself a lot more deeper. I had more clarity in life. I am shaped to be a leader. I got to know a lot of true friends. I got to know my wife there too and we have a baby girl! More about that later.

This period of about 2 years was tough yet enlightening. I was pushed to my limits every single day/moment. I see the shit in me, machines I am running, ego I need to manage, and open up my mind and awareness about life. Although once again I left the community, but this time round, I know what I need to do. Plus, miracle happened!

Got married and have a daughter

Everything happens for a reason. Maybe the universe feel that I am back on track, stronger, and ready for the next phase of my life. My gf got pregnant and I decided (after considering abortion) to take responsibility and marry her. Keeping the baby is the best decision I have made in my life. At this point, my daughter Sora is coming 3 years old and my marriage is 3 1/2 years. I am still learning about being a husband, being a great parent, being a leader in my family and juggling so many things in life at the same time.

• I must set a good example for Sora.
• Be conscious of my words, actions, feelings and emotions when I am with her.
• I must show her more love and attention
• I read somewhere that the best way to show her love is to show her how much I love my wife. To demonstrate love to my wife. To be a caring loving husband.
• I need to spend quality time with her
• That goes for my wife. I must appreciate her more
• communicate with her more
• Show her love consistently
• Be nice to her
• Accept her for who she is

At the end, I want a happy family and I need to do what ever it takes to achieve that.

Business lessons

• I know that the only way for me to achieve my dream is to build businesses and investment.
• My objectives in life (simplified):

1. Get out of rat race ( more passive income than expenses)
2. Grow my net worth to $1million dollar
3. Grow my ability to earn a million dollar a year
4. Reach billionaire net worth

To do so, I want to do a number of things.

1. Build Singapore Furniture Rental Pte Ltd and get it listed @ valuation of $300million
2. Investment in businesses and property development
3. Build a profitable international business empire

At this moment, I have assembled MT, ZY and JS to join me in this journey with the help of XY and other supportive family members and friends. I have huge dreams and aspiration to do a lot of things. But I want to take small steps first to keep working towards the goal of IPO SFR.

Planning for the next 30 years

With all the above reflections, learnings, lessons, Moving forward, I am going to focus on key aspects of life:

Self Mastery:

• Be kind, be patient, be empowering, be inspirational, be a leader everyday
• Be discipline. Tough on others, tougher on self
• Be aware of self limiting
• Journal Daily
• Weekly planning
• Be grateful daily
• Monthly realignment

Relationship:

• Be kind and loving to family — friends — others
• Parent
  - be patient and respectful
  - show love and spend quality time
• Wife
  - be nice
  - show love
  - show appreciation
• Sora
  - be patient
  - control my emotion
  - spend quality time
• Comrades
  - Be supportive
  - Be empowering
  - Be inspirational
  - Be open
• Others
  - treat everyone the same
  - dont be too judgemental
  - show respect and acknowledgement

Health (to start training to gain wins in life)

• Yoga at least once a week
• Mediation at least once a day
• Running at least once a week
• Swimming at least once a week
• Dental at least twice a year
• Body check up at least once a year
• More fruits and vegetable

Finances

• Daily tracking of expenses
• Weekly update
• Monthly assessment
• Donation monthly $50
• Saving of $250 monthly
• Begin value investing and fire a bullet within 2014

Business

• Get SFR IPO
• Be CORT of Asia
• Make a dent in the furniture rental industry in Asia
• Always be serving

Anything that are not align to these should not be given any time and energy.