Insights, Inspirations, Tranquility, Peace and Harmony » Blogging http://www.wailoong.com Unique Insights and Other Writings By Wai Loong Sat, 02 Jan 2010 06:56:25 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc Looking Back at 2008 and Moving Forward to 2009! http://www.wailoong.com/596/looking-back-at-2008-and-moving-forward-to-2009/ http://www.wailoong.com/596/looking-back-at-2008-and-moving-forward-to-2009/#comments Sat, 27 Dec 2008 14:08:01 +0000 Wai Loong http://www.wailoong.com/?p=596 Year 2008 is almost coming to an end (or have already ended by the time you read this!)!  I would love to take this precious opportunity to thank all my valued readers, friends and acquaintances for their invaluable support and insights!  Without you all, my learning progress may not have grown so fast and far!

Truth to be told, most folks never really take a serious thought what they have done, and more importantly, what they have not done in the year that is to be expiring (or have whichever point in time you’re reading this).  Even then, only a very small percentage of those who did so do not pen it down… or rather blog about it.  After all, we’ve advanced quite a bit technologically have we?  So there’s no excuse for not doing so…

Whichever is convenient for you, do keep a record of all your achievements for the year.  It’s your own report card – something only you along can create and review over if you’re serious about your own life.  Some areas of my life which I focused on  (I conveniently take them from my coach) are as follows:

  1. Business (career etc)
  2. Finances (relations with money etc)
  3. Relationships (family, relatives, friends, enemies etc)
  4. Life (spiritual development in general)

For me, it has been a very really fruitful year!  I have set out with an intention to attract an amazing amount of learning in many areas of my life, especially on core competencies such as managing my own finances and take charge of my own investments… and I’m happy and blessed to report that I’ve progressed quite a fair bit!

I know what you’re thinking about…

Most people by this time may have been completely wiped out financially as the major tsunami has finally crashed onto the shores of our economies.  And if you believe me, I have seen this coming at the beginning of the year and it is very obvious that the coming year will be an extremely tough year for businesses.  Many folks will be retrenched, more will have their pay cut or reduced, and many will witness their bonuses evaporated.

Many have asked, “Is there light at the end of the tunnel?”

My simply answer, “Definitely YES!“.

Financial disasters are excellent wealth creators and if you have been working smart (and not hard) by equipping plug yourself into the necessary networks, up your financial knowledge and boost your emotional intelligence by going against the fears of the herd (majority), you will be like me to emerge with for financial abundance when the tide goes down in the coming years!

Of course, financial success does not comes without a lot of environmental support and spiritual growth.  It is naive to pretend otherwise because the laws of the universe simply works that way.  Your inner mind and your outer environment is extremely crucial and it shapes your very present moment.  If you’re broke, it’s because your inner mind (or financial blueprint) has been subconsciously conditioned for financial failures.  Your environment is most likely non-supporting too; it drains you off your precious time and mental energy, resulting with very little time you can spare to concentrate on improving your own finances.

If you’re not so sure what I’m talking about, allow me to share my learning and may you be inspired too!

January-February 2008

I began the year with a very humble beginning thinking how I can contribute back my time and energy for the community.  A rare chance came along for me to join some like-minded friends to give out food to lonely and elderly folks in Chinatown.  Although I didn’t know most of them, it dawn on me that it wasn’t really important after all because our common objectives were met.

Very few Singaporeans actually know that there are many unfortunate old folks who are living very much alone in the heart of the buzz of Chinese New year… commonly known as Chinatown.  Most Singaporeans only know Chinatown as a modernized shopping spot for the Chinese festive season.

Most of these folks live in a block of over 30 levels of single room HDB flat just next to the much elaborated Fuo Ya Si (Buddha’s Tooth) Temple.  It sounds very ironic isn’t it but this is the sad truth in life.  If you take the life up to the 15th (mid-way) level and check out its surroundings, you can quickly contrast the bright afternoon sun ray with the extremely dark corridors where hundreds of old folks live behind closed doors – some of them alone and no more relatives in Singapore.

It saddens me that some of these old folks have quite a number of children.  Unfortunately, most of them have decided to abandon them for their own families and careers outside the country.  The only consolation part is that there are often volunteers who come along to help distribute food and living necessities to them, and some even help out in some cleaning and mopping.

Having experienced the short trip and still being able to reply much of the memory till today has been a great blessing for me.  So while you’re struggling on to provide for your own family, do remember to spare some thoughts how you may end up be lonely and need someone else to take care of you when you’re too old or unable to feed yourself.

Owning one of these little digital gadgets has been one of my desires and I am finally blessed to be able to own one myself!  It’s a little hard to justify a $500++ gadget unless I can convince myself to put it to good use.  Now that I know how to work out the compounding mathematics, it turn out that this device will cost me $4231 if the money were to be put to compound 15% for 15 years!

9 months later, I have been enjoying this valuable gadget… something that can help me review lots of memorable moments, pictures and videos.  It certainly did add a lot more excitement and colours to my family and friends!

So was it worth $4000++ future money?

As the saying goes, there are some things money can’t buy!  :)

March 2008

March was both a shock and a surprise for me.  It never occur to me that on my birthday, my father was admitted to the hospital for mild stroke!  Life is simply unpredictable.  Suddenly, I realize that our bodies are so fragile… and that our time on this little planet is so limited!  Even my elder brother admitted that his health has not been so good after years of hard work in the insurance business.  The money is good but one is trading health for wealth.  Is our time and wealth all that is worth?  It makes me contemplate deeply…

Waiting at the A&E (accident and emergency) at Changi General Hospital is one unpleasant experience.  You can witness all sorts of people who can carried in on stretchers for all sorts of reasons.  There was even one military escort case for a handcuffed detainee.

For the whole day, I was not quite sure what to expect… and it seems to me that the only thing I could do was to stay with my father.  Fortunately, the doctor finally declare that the stroke was not deadly and my father could recover well with proper medication for mild diabetes coupled with physiotherapy.

Through this incidence, I came to realized that now I am a lot more closer to both my father and my elder brother… especially my brother; for he is rarely at home.  Having a dialog with him in a month is most certainly a rare opportunity these days!

Do you have a very similar situation like mine?

Perhaps, constant in-depth communication with your family is the single most important aspect of your relationships.  I vividly remembered the wise words from my coach: “When the dialogue is stopped, the relationship is over.”  How beautifully phrased can that be!  If only more folks can appreciate the depth and wisdom behind that statement!

I’ve finally gotten a glimpse of what it feels like when I was introduced to the concept of investing in commercial real estate.  If you were like me who have never understand what various forms of investment is all about, much less about understanding the risks involved in each type of asset classes, you’ll be amazed at how much I have learned this year alone!

To most investors and speculators, real estate is commonly viewed as owning a piece of land, residential property, REITs or Royalty Trusts.  If invested wisely, real estate investment can generate substantial cashflow periodically along with possible capital gain if the property market is in your favor.

Unfortunately, Singapore’s property market is on the downturn since the beginning of the year and it is likely to hit its low soon.  Thus, many investors start to look for real estate opportunities such as those in Canada, USA, UK, Malaysia and even Thailand.  In my case, I was looking at fundamentally strong economics of oil, gas and tourism industry of Canada, in particular to the state of Alberta, Calgary.

As in any form of investment, liquidity and foreign exchange are one of the highest type of risks one can be exposed to.  It seems strange for me to get started but I guess one has to get take the first step after evaluating all the evidences of sound investment principles.  After all, I can either end up as a sucker or winning reasonably well.

So far, the rental income from that investment had increased in despite the severe decline of the US housing markets.  As of last week, I have received a 3% bonus and tax-free passive income.  The first rental income, as I was informed earlier, will be scheduled for payment in April 2009.  This is the first passive income stream that I’ve built this year.  :)

April 2008

One of most memorable speech I’ve heard this year comes from the famous founder of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studio in a graduating message to MBA graduates of Stanford University.

If you’ve noticed many of my previous posts, I’ve sign off using the tag “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”.  This is a really awesome statement when applied to your own life.

Stay hungry, stay foolish!

I met Adam Khoo in a workshop last year and I quickly felt very blessed to learn from him.  Interestingly, I’ve gotten another chance this year to learn from some of his best trainers for the cooperate world!

Many folks are not well exposed to the styles of coaching in this part of the world, therefore some students may find the course pretty uncomfortable or unable to appreciate the depth of experiences that were shared.

In fact, the trainers gave a lot of insights on what our economy is heading and how one should develop certain competencies to engage the coming challenges.  I can tell that possibilities are boundless, and it’s only possible if one is constantly ready to challenge oneself, adapt quickly and embrace changes.

This is an obviously a new paradigm but it seems strange that most people are not ready for it yet.  The challenges of our generation (Gen Y) is facing an increasingly complex environment that demands us to handle a lot of information.   Information is useless until we make sense out of them, or find important meaning behind them.  This implies that thinking, understanding, imagination and creativity is absolutely necessary.  Finally, the ultimate purpose of these constant exercise is to find clarity.  Without clarity and purpose in what we are doing, there is no way we achieve what our mind set out to do.

It was a simple course, but there are profound messages embedded behind it.

May-June 2008

I started taking health supplements again after a 3-year break.  Looking back, it seems that I have already survived 6 months later!  :)

Combining with a special breathing exercise, I feel myself a lot healthier.  In fact, I have not been sick, not even once since the day I took the special supplements.  However, I still feel tired and very soon, I discovered that it is due to insufficient sleep.  With some good recommendations from a close friend, I have been sleeping before, on and around mid-night.

So whenever possible, I force myself to get to bed as early as possible (preferably before mid-night).  This practice also force me to concentrate only on the important tasks at hand and help me focus and get things done very efficiently.

On 25th November, I took a comprehensive health screening exercise (DaySpring Wellness) and received a scientific “report card” over my health conditions.  I am blessed to discover that all areas of the test appear to be normal and some even optimal.  However, I believe that my HDL and LDL cholesterol level can be further improve upon.

With this purpose in mind, and for a new commitment in year 2009, I intend to take on more natural vegetarian food as often as situation allows, and reduce on meat consumption.

Why Go Vegetarian?

Perhaps, you may not see the benefits I’ve seen recently in a series of videos.  Humans are not designed to eat meat.  By eating meat, we humans have created scarcity in food and create more hunger and poverty in 3rd world countries.  Furthermore, if vegetarian food is taken correctly, there are perfectly no health issues.  Personally, I am a bit “Kiasu” (a Singapore Slang – it means not to loose out) in nutrition and I will continue to take health supplements, solely for health insurance.  :)

If you’re so blessed like me, you are most welcomed to view the following short videos to learn all about going vegetarian – the whys:

A seed for a better world (让世界更美好的善种子) Part #1

A seed for a better world (让世界更美好的善种子) Part #2

A seed for a better world (让世界更美好的善种子) Part #3

A seed for a better world (让世界更美好的善种子) Part #4

A seed for a better world (让世界更美好的善种子) Part #5

A seed for a better world (让世界更美好的善种子) Part #6

Watch all 6 Parts Here!

—

A New Mobile Gadget For Me!

I’m a pretty frugal person.  Since graduation, I have never paid more than $50 for a mobile phone.  Interestingly, I caught a good deal this year in a StarHub roadshow this year.  This deal comes perfectly timely as my Nokia 6610 batteries are starting to fail quickly and IDA recently announced the freedom in mobile number retaining when customers port between Telco service providers.

Without a shadow of a doubt, I switched over to StarHub on a 24 months contract, paying $48 for the cool Nokia E51 security sensitive device!  Along with it comes a 6 months free subscription, rendering the service an 18-months deal.

It’s a no-brainier deal to a value buyer (Ha!  Speaking of value investing!).

July 2008

  • Millionaire Investor Program -
    Perhaps The Only Course in Asia for Investing the Warrent Buffett’s Way!

July is a life changing month for me…

I have been studying diligently about investing in common stocks, attending free seminars so far but I have yet to make any progress in action.  As the saying goes, “Knowledge without Application is Lame”.  Indeed, no amount of books will prepare me to make any move until I discovered a very important deal in July…

I caught sight of a headline, an advertisement, in one of my private forums run by my close buddy Leroy.  It said: “Investing The Warren Buffet’s Way” or something like that.  It was a preview seminar to teach people how to evaluate businesses using Buffett and his teacher, Benjamin Graham, methodology.

I am not an idiot or newbie to this industry… that such preview seminars are out to sell you something by giving you an idea, or something free so as to entice you to sign up for a course.  Also, I am no new comer to the legendary value investor, Warren Buffett and his teacher Graham.  I have personally read his original publication, “The Intelligent Investor” and I’ve always found it inspiring if his methodology can be applied equally in this part of the world.

I invited a few guys to join me on this seminar, but only my colleague CY was interested.

Being a skeptic of scams myself, I still keep an open mind throughout the presentation and understood all the marketing gimmicks presented.  I was ready to shut off my mind when one benevolent presenter went on stage and presented a little game… and this game changed my perspective and understanding immediately!

I thought I was able to understand financial statements after all the reading I had been doing.  The game instantly revealed my deficiencies in understanding various aspects of the financial of any company.  The game had only 4 listed companies, yet I was unable to pick the only winner in the list.

I was no dummy.  I knew from the bottom of my heart that this knowledge and experience in refining this skill alone and itself will put me way ahead of most speculators, traders and so call professionals and analysists in the markets.

Unfortunately, there was one problem – the course fee started out pretty steep – $4,995!

I knew I had to pass this one off, but deep down inside me, I knew its value.  Price is merely a concept of money.  Value is what you can get out of it perpetually for the rest of my life.  I knew that if I had to pay that figure, I would… but my trained skeptical protection immediately kick in and warn me – “Not so fast baby!“.

And true enough, all sort of marketing gimmicks were thrown in… but I was not moved.  I gave myself a target price to pay for the value of the course.  Nothing more than $x,xxx.  Eventually, the price fell below my target price and I gave myself the green light.  I’m already sold on to the course at a huge discount!  It’s a steal – I know it intuitively!  :)

It’s still above 3 figures, but I’m not a newbie to paying for something valuable, especially for my own personal improvement that is invaluable for life.  Most people cannot understand beyond this and that is why most people struggle in life.  They failed to identify value and grab opportunities when the price is right.  I must warn you that there are plenty of opportunities around you everyday.  Unless you’re trained to see them, there is no way to know, much less take advantage of them!

That’s it!  I was glad to locked in at a very low price what others are still willing to pay about 2x more than I paid for at the time I’m writing this.  I suspect that there is a huge demand for this kind of course, and much more as economic cycles gets shorter and shorter.  It’s really easy to become really rich if you follow through at least 2 bear markets as it is happening right now.  Maybe by the time you read this, the course fee might have skyrocketed back to $4,995 AND without all the bonuses and access to our private mastermind group.

If you are interested to find out more, you are most welcome to send me a comment for more information.  There are no obgligations to take this course, but somwhat, I would like as few people to know about it as possible… ahh… my small self is kicking me again!  Well, let’s just let nature discover you then!  There is no enlightened wealth if folks are not convinced of the benefits.  However, I will be most blessed and grateful to share this with any willing and open individuals who are tired of trading for a living.

August 2008

Yes!  I have been doing a bit of research by now and I’ve zeroed in a few possible low cost brokers to get started and gaining ownership in my own investments!

I’ve identified CIMB-GK, Kim Eng, DBS Vickers and Philips Capital as one of the most established and lowest cost authroized brokers in Singapore.  Coincidentally, I found a $1 deal for 8 trades with CIMB and I signed up immediately!  Brokerage fees are at least $25 and this means I saved $200 already!  What a no-brainer especially for value investors!

The Invest Fair was a very good event to understand more about value investing and understanding the property market in Singapore.  It’s like a mini-crash course all in one seminar!

You can read in much more detail on the exhibition on the link above.

  • Millionaire Investor Program Batch #1

End of August was a time for me to absorb the course I’ve taken up.

After the first day, I was like slapped on the head already!  I can challenge you that I have learn more in a single day than most investment courses out there you have ever taken – in a single day!

Investment psychology is so darn important yet people fail to take notice and treat investment like a big gambling game.  You have heard of the concept of “Buy High, Sell Low” right?  It’s a no-brainer, but most people take it the opposite way!  It’s no wonder why most people in the markets are loosing money!  Their psychologies are playing against them, and I’ve read somewhere before… that extensive research have already proven this phenominal, and it’s consistent even with folks who are very high in IQ.

As legendary value investor, Warren Buffett, pointed out: “You don’t need an IQ of more than 125 to invest.  Any more higher is wasted.”

I’m beginning to realize the wisdom of his approach.  The more I keep to that practice, the more I find it intellectually profound and easy to implement as long as you keep your emotions at bay by not following the crowd.  Achieving a compounded return of 15-20%pa is possible and achievable to most retail investors!

September-October-November 2008

Millionaire Mind Intensive is a 3-days seminar over the first weekend of November.  With over 5,000 people from all over the world, folks get to experience and understand their relationships with money.  Though the seminar was heavily peppered with marketing and sales talks, careful filtration enables one to extract really valuable information that can be readily applicable in one’s financial life!

One important concept I find very applicable is the 6 financial jars.  Personally, I like the concept of “Play Jar”.  It helps relieve one from the stress of spending money, which can cause one to feel guilty when one is supposed to be investing it or saving it properly.

The 6 jars form very important money management system which most folks do not have an idea how powerful the technique is.  For me, I’ve already established my FFA, LTSS, NEC and PLAY jars.  The 2 jars remaining I have not sort out is my EDU and GIFT jar.  I am currently adjusting my GIFT jar with my time so that I can maximize them for important FFA and EDU jars.

Besides applying the 6 jars concept, I’ve gotten to experience first-hand how powerful marketers can whipped up so quickly and got so many people to pay their hard-earned money.  It’s a lot like powerful Internet marketers who can craft emotional and triggering words to entice people to buy irrationally.  Having seen all their marketing gimmicks and very little genuinety in their offers, there were very little reasons to pay them any money.  Having said that, there is but one course, “Train The Trainers”, which I think makes the most sense.  Harv himself was a clear example of applying that single skill to make a lot of money in all his seminars.

  • Millionaire Investor Program Batch #2

November was a great time to review the MIP after having seen the major market drawdowns in September and October 2008.  I was blessed to attend a complete and slightly revised MIP.  Through this review, I improved my understanding of financial reports by sharing my knowledge with my fellow graduates, as well as students of MIP #2.

You see, you cannot improve quickly unless you can share genuinely  with an open heart and mind with the intention to learn too.  And this can only be accomplished with people who are willing to reciprocate.

I was also blessed to meet many more like-minded friends whom I have increased my learning too!

  • Dividends – My First Passive Income Stream!

It’s kinda hard to imagine that I have received my very first passive income stream at the end of the month only having stayed invested for a little over 3 months!

Now, dividends are very nice cashflow to receive in times of financial meltdown.  Coupled with reinvestment and proper money management skills, it its not hard to figure out amazing compounded returns over a long time-frame when one invests in the right type of businesses.

December 2008

  • Rental Income – My Second Passive Income Stream!

On the second week of December, a 3% early bird bonus was credited into my bank account!  This cashflow is a one-time payment because I had stay invested since March this year.  Rental incomes are very exciting for me to receive when I know that I don’t have to do any more work and the cash keep coming in for as long as I hold an ownership to the property after paying off all expenses to maintain the professional management services.  It’s a small glimpse for me to be a little business owner… cool!

My first 4.5% rental income is scheduled to flow in by April next year.  It is interesting to note that by April, I will be taking time off from the market to focus on my Internet projects, and I’m still getting paid!

  • “Tuesdays With Morrie” By Mitch Albom

I was really blessed to have a chance to borrow this book from LR and have invested a few days finishing it.  Man!  I must kick myself for not taking a friend’s advice to read this book when I was introduced to it more than 3 years ago!

This is an awesomely profound and spiritual book to read in under 3 days!  I urge you to read this little novel in the light of your own spiritual practice and see if you can find deeper meaning in your life.  Some of the most beautiful quotes I’ve extracted are as follows:

  • “Once you know how to die, you know how to live.”
  • “If you can accept that you can die at any time – then you might not be as ambitious as you are.”
  • “So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half asleep, even when they are busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
  • “A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”
  • “Love each other or perish.”
  • “Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own.”
  • “Love is the only rational act.”
  • “Without love, we are birds with broken wings.”
  • “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in…”
  • “As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.”
  • “You’re not a wave, you’re part of the ocean.”
  • “In truth, there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.”
  • “What’s wrong with being number two?”
  • “You talk, I’ll listen.”
  • “Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.”
  • “Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness.”
  • “There is no experience like having children.”
  • “People are only mean when they’re threatened.”
  • “You see, you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them too – Even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.”
  • “I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both.”
  • “Dying is one thing to be sad about, living unhappily is another thing.”
  • “The sick are the greatest danger for the healthy; it is not from the strongest that harm comes to the strong, but from the weakest.”
  • “I need to respect my children worlds, or else this disease will have ruined the three of us instead of one.”
  • “The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. and you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.”
  • “Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?”
  • “People act as if death is contagious.”
  • “Death takes away life, not relationships.”
  • “You live on – in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.”

In fact, my buddy LR wrote a short article on his feelings and afterthoughts that moved me quite a bit.

This little book is selling in Popular Book store for as little as $16.00 ($14.40 if you use the 10% discount card) and it gives so much beauty to the meaing of our lives!

If you’ve never ponder how you are going to die, then I’m sad to affirmed that you’ve never learnt how to live.  Death is the beginning, not an end as you might have been taught incorrectly.  In fact, if you’re well versed in Buddhist teachings, death itself is not frightening.  It is when one is not prepared for it that is frightening!  Death is a natural process that cleans out the old for the new, a universal law that no man have yet breech, and cannot be breeched.  Not even great emperors, or the presidents of supernations.

If you happen to know a very famous MediaCorp artist, Zhou Chu Ming, you would have realized that he has forgotten all that is to life until he was dignosed with his terminal disease.  He has been doing financially well over the years with MediaCorp movies and all his part-time property businesses, and yet, he failed to realized the truth, even when his best friend MC King collapsed and died recently.

What do you want yourself to be remembered as when you die?

Were there anything meaningful in this world that you should be doing, you know it and you’re still not doing, however small it may be?

Give yourself a punch or a slap in the face and set a resolution to get started in year 2009!  You deserve it!

And don’t forget to grab this book and read it.  I promise that your life will become much more fulfil somehow!

—

  • Investing In Pure Gold!

Gold to most investors are but mysterious and elusive diversifications.  Recently, I was introduced to this concept of investing in solid pure gold, 24 Karat and 999.9 fine gold bars!

I know, this sounds very skeptical to me too…

Nevertheless, I kept an open mind and checked out the presentation.  It was nicely presented with lots of information to follow up.  The gold bars presented were real 100g gold pieces that anyone can carry around in their pockets.

I’ve verified further that each gold bars were wrapped in special pastic wraps that were supposed to be tamper protected.  Tearing open each pack will breech the security marks which nullified their certification.  Each gold bar is certified by PAMP, that is claimed to be on par with International Standards and rating as solid as gold issued by Credit Suisse, Switzerland.

Indeed, these gold bars are highly in demand world-wide and are open to investors to buy at 2% discounts.  Under the contract, you can sell them back at the end of the month for the original price you’ve paid.  That is a whopping 2% capital gain while locking down the volatility of spot gold prices for 1 solid month!

Sounds too good to be true?  I’m not sure yet but I’ll probably will not be investing in this one.  I am currently quite strapped up for cash in some solid investments and business, so I cannot commit something new yet.

However if you are interested, feel free to drop me a comment with your details and I can get back to you.

  • Onwards To Year 2009!

It’s been a long article, and I must thank you for reading my blabberings (if you have been so faithful, I thank you from the botton of my heart)!

Year 2009 is not going to be easy for most people, but with a little good planning, a little luck and some disciplines, we can expect a very wonderful year to accomplish great things for the benefit of humanity.  Do keep your comments rolling in and perhaps even to engage me intellectually too!

Stay hungry, stay foolish!

Be Blessed, Peace, Inspired & Enlightened in Year 2009!

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]]> Year 2008 is almost coming to an end (or have already ended by the time you read this!)!  I would love to take this precious opportunity to thank all my valued readers, friends and acquaintances for their invaluable support and insights!  Without you all, my learning progress may not have grown so fast and far!

Truth to be told, most folks never really take a serious thought what they have done, and more importantly, what they have not done in the year that is to be expiring (or have whichever point in time you’re reading this).  Even then, only a very small percentage of those who did so do not pen it down… or rather blog about it.  After all, we’ve advanced quite a bit technologically have we?  So there’s no excuse for not doing so…

Whichever is convenient for you, do keep a record of all your achievements for the year.  It’s your own report card – something only you along can create and review over if you’re serious about your own life.  Some areas of my life which I focused on  (I conveniently take them from my coach) are as follows:

  1. Business (career etc)
  2. Finances (relations with money etc)
  3. Relationships (family, relatives, friends, enemies etc)
  4. Life (spiritual development in general)

For me, it has been a very really fruitful year!  I have set out with an intention to attract an amazing amount of learning in many areas of my life, especially on core competencies such as managing my own finances and take charge of my own investments… and I’m happy and blessed to report that I’ve progressed quite a fair bit!

I know what you’re thinking about…

Most people by this time may have been completely wiped out financially as the major tsunami has finally crashed onto the shores of our economies.  And if you believe me, I have seen this coming at the beginning of the year and it is very obvious that the coming year will be an extremely tough year for businesses.  Many folks will be retrenched, more will have their pay cut or reduced, and many will witness their bonuses evaporated.

Many have asked, “Is there light at the end of the tunnel?”

My simply answer, “Definitely YES!“.

Financial disasters are excellent wealth creators and if you have been working smart (and not hard) by equipping plug yourself into the necessary networks, up your financial knowledge and boost your emotional intelligence by going against the fears of the herd (majority), you will be like me to emerge with for financial abundance when the tide goes down in the coming years!

Of course, financial success does not comes without a lot of environmental support and spiritual growth.  It is naive to pretend otherwise because the laws of the universe simply works that way.  Your inner mind and your outer environment is extremely crucial and it shapes your very present moment.  If you’re broke, it’s because your inner mind (or financial blueprint) has been subconsciously conditioned for financial failures.  Your environment is most likely non-supporting too; it drains you off your precious time and mental energy, resulting with very little time you can spare to concentrate on improving your own finances.

If you’re not so sure what I’m talking about, allow me to share my learning and may you be inspired too!

January-February 2008

I began the year with a very humble beginning thinking how I can contribute back my time and energy for the community.  A rare chance came along for me to join some like-minded friends to give out food to lonely and elderly folks in Chinatown.  Although I didn’t know most of them, it dawn on me that it wasn’t really important after all because our common objectives were met.

Very few Singaporeans actually know that there are many unfortunate old folks who are living very much alone in the heart of the buzz of Chinese New year… commonly known as Chinatown.  Most Singaporeans only know Chinatown as a modernized shopping spot for the Chinese festive season.

Most of these folks live in a block of over 30 levels of single room HDB flat just next to the much elaborated Fuo Ya Si (Buddha’s Tooth) Temple.  It sounds very ironic isn’t it but this is the sad truth in life.  If you take the life up to the 15th (mid-way) level and check out its surroundings, you can quickly contrast the bright afternoon sun ray with the extremely dark corridors where hundreds of old folks live behind closed doors – some of them alone and no more relatives in Singapore.

It saddens me that some of these old folks have quite a number of children.  Unfortunately, most of them have decided to abandon them for their own families and careers outside the country.  The only consolation part is that there are often volunteers who come along to help distribute food and living necessities to them, and some even help out in some cleaning and mopping.

Having experienced the short trip and still being able to reply much of the memory till today has been a great blessing for me.  So while you’re struggling on to provide for your own family, do remember to spare some thoughts how you may end up be lonely and need someone else to take care of you when you’re too old or unable to feed yourself.

Owning one of these little digital gadgets has been one of my desires and I am finally blessed to be able to own one myself!  It’s a little hard to justify a $500++ gadget unless I can convince myself to put it to good use.  Now that I know how to work out the compounding mathematics, it turn out that this device will cost me $4231 if the money were to be put to compound 15% for 15 years!

9 months later, I have been enjoying this valuable gadget… something that can help me review lots of memorable moments, pictures and videos.  It certainly did add a lot more excitement and colours to my family and friends!

So was it worth $4000++ future money?

As the saying goes, there are some things money can’t buy!  :)

March 2008

March was both a shock and a surprise for me.  It never occur to me that on my birthday, my father was admitted to the hospital for mild stroke!  Life is simply unpredictable.  Suddenly, I realize that our bodies are so fragile… and that our time on this little planet is so limited!  Even my elder brother admitted that his health has not been so good after years of hard work in the insurance business.  The money is good but one is trading health for wealth.  Is our time and wealth all that is worth?  It makes me contemplate deeply…

Waiting at the A&E (accident and emergency) at Changi General Hospital is one unpleasant experience.  You can witness all sorts of people who can carried in on stretchers for all sorts of reasons.  There was even one military escort case for a handcuffed detainee.

For the whole day, I was not quite sure what to expect… and it seems to me that the only thing I could do was to stay with my father.  Fortunately, the doctor finally declare that the stroke was not deadly and my father could recover well with proper medication for mild diabetes coupled with physiotherapy.

Through this incidence, I came to realized that now I am a lot more closer to both my father and my elder brother… especially my brother; for he is rarely at home.  Having a dialog with him in a month is most certainly a rare opportunity these days!

Do you have a very similar situation like mine?

Perhaps, constant in-depth communication with your family is the single most important aspect of your relationships.  I vividly remembered the wise words from my coach: “When the dialogue is stopped, the relationship is over.”  How beautifully phrased can that be!  If only more folks can appreciate the depth and wisdom behind that statement!

I’ve finally gotten a glimpse of what it feels like when I was introduced to the concept of investing in commercial real estate.  If you were like me who have never understand what various forms of investment is all about, much less about understanding the risks involved in each type of asset classes, you’ll be amazed at how much I have learned this year alone!

To most investors and speculators, real estate is commonly viewed as owning a piece of land, residential property, REITs or Royalty Trusts.  If invested wisely, real estate investment can generate substantial cashflow periodically along with possible capital gain if the property market is in your favor.

Unfortunately, Singapore’s property market is on the downturn since the beginning of the year and it is likely to hit its low soon.  Thus, many investors start to look for real estate opportunities such as those in Canada, USA, UK, Malaysia and even Thailand.  In my case, I was looking at fundamentally strong economics of oil, gas and tourism industry of Canada, in particular to the state of Alberta, Calgary.

As in any form of investment, liquidity and foreign exchange are one of the highest type of risks one can be exposed to.  It seems strange for me to get started but I guess one has to get take the first step after evaluating all the evidences of sound investment principles.  After all, I can either end up as a sucker or winning reasonably well.

So far, the rental income from that investment had increased in despite the severe decline of the US housing markets.  As of last week, I have received a 3% bonus and tax-free passive income.  The first rental income, as I was informed earlier, will be scheduled for payment in April 2009.  This is the first passive income stream that I’ve built this year.  :)

April 2008

One of most memorable speech I’ve heard this year comes from the famous founder of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studio in a graduating message to MBA graduates of Stanford University.

If you’ve noticed many of my previous posts, I’ve sign off using the tag “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”.  This is a really awesome statement when applied to your own life.

Stay hungry, stay foolish!

I met Adam Khoo in a workshop last year and I quickly felt very blessed to learn from him.  Interestingly, I’ve gotten another chance this year to learn from some of his best trainers for the cooperate world!

Many folks are not well exposed to the styles of coaching in this part of the world, therefore some students may find the course pretty uncomfortable or unable to appreciate the depth of experiences that were shared.

In fact, the trainers gave a lot of insights on what our economy is heading and how one should develop certain competencies to engage the coming challenges.  I can tell that possibilities are boundless, and it’s only possible if one is constantly ready to challenge oneself, adapt quickly and embrace changes.

This is an obviously a new paradigm but it seems strange that most people are not ready for it yet.  The challenges of our generation (Gen Y) is facing an increasingly complex environment that demands us to handle a lot of information.   Information is useless until we make sense out of them, or find important meaning behind them.  This implies that thinking, understanding, imagination and creativity is absolutely necessary.  Finally, the ultimate purpose of these constant exercise is to find clarity.  Without clarity and purpose in what we are doing, there is no way we achieve what our mind set out to do.

It was a simple course, but there are profound messages embedded behind it.

May-June 2008

I started taking health supplements again after a 3-year break.  Looking back, it seems that I have already survived 6 months later!  :)

Combining with a special breathing exercise, I feel myself a lot healthier.  In fact, I have not been sick, not even once since the day I took the special supplements.  However, I still feel tired and very soon, I discovered that it is due to insufficient sleep.  With some good recommendations from a close friend, I have been sleeping before, on and around mid-night.

So whenever possible, I force myself to get to bed as early as possible (preferably before mid-night).  This practice also force me to concentrate only on the important tasks at hand and help me focus and get things done very efficiently.

On 25th November, I took a comprehensive health screening exercise (DaySpring Wellness) and received a scientific “report card” over my health conditions.  I am blessed to discover that all areas of the test appear to be normal and some even optimal.  However, I believe that my HDL and LDL cholesterol level can be further improve upon.

With this purpose in mind, and for a new commitment in year 2009, I intend to take on more natural vegetarian food as often as situation allows, and reduce on meat consumption.

Why Go Vegetarian?

Perhaps, you may not see the benefits I’ve seen recently in a series of videos.  Humans are not designed to eat meat.  By eating meat, we humans have created scarcity in food and create more hunger and poverty in 3rd world countries.  Furthermore, if vegetarian food is taken correctly, there are perfectly no health issues.  Personally, I am a bit “Kiasu” (a Singapore Slang – it means not to loose out) in nutrition and I will continue to take health supplements, solely for health insurance.  :)

If you’re so blessed like me, you are most welcomed to view the following short videos to learn all about going vegetarian – the whys:

A seed for a better world (让世界更美好的善种子) Part #1

A seed for a better world (让世界更美好的善种子) Part #2

A seed for a better world (让世界更美好的善种子) Part #3

A seed for a better world (让世界更美好的善种子) Part #4

A seed for a better world (让世界更美好的善种子) Part #5

A seed for a better world (让世界更美好的善种子) Part #6

Watch all 6 Parts Here!

—

A New Mobile Gadget For Me!

I’m a pretty frugal person.  Since graduation, I have never paid more than $50 for a mobile phone.  Interestingly, I caught a good deal this year in a StarHub roadshow this year.  This deal comes perfectly timely as my Nokia 6610 batteries are starting to fail quickly and IDA recently announced the freedom in mobile number retaining when customers port between Telco service providers.

Without a shadow of a doubt, I switched over to StarHub on a 24 months contract, paying $48 for the cool Nokia E51 security sensitive device!  Along with it comes a 6 months free subscription, rendering the service an 18-months deal.

It’s a no-brainier deal to a value buyer (Ha!  Speaking of value investing!).

July 2008

  • Millionaire Investor Program -
    Perhaps The Only Course in Asia for Investing the Warrent Buffett’s Way!

July is a life changing month for me…

I have been studying diligently about investing in common stocks, attending free seminars so far but I have yet to make any progress in action.  As the saying goes, “Knowledge without Application is Lame”.  Indeed, no amount of books will prepare me to make any move until I discovered a very important deal in July…

I caught sight of a headline, an advertisement, in one of my private forums run by my close buddy Leroy.  It said: “Investing The Warren Buffet’s Way” or something like that.  It was a preview seminar to teach people how to evaluate businesses using Buffett and his teacher, Benjamin Graham, methodology.

I am not an idiot or newbie to this industry… that such preview seminars are out to sell you something by giving you an idea, or something free so as to entice you to sign up for a course.  Also, I am no new comer to the legendary value investor, Warren Buffett and his teacher Graham.  I have personally read his original publication, “The Intelligent Investor” and I’ve always found it inspiring if his methodology can be applied equally in this part of the world.

I invited a few guys to join me on this seminar, but only my colleague CY was interested.

Being a skeptic of scams myself, I still keep an open mind throughout the presentation and understood all the marketing gimmicks presented.  I was ready to shut off my mind when one benevolent presenter went on stage and presented a little game… and this game changed my perspective and understanding immediately!

I thought I was able to understand financial statements after all the reading I had been doing.  The game instantly revealed my deficiencies in understanding various aspects of the financial of any company.  The game had only 4 listed companies, yet I was unable to pick the only winner in the list.

I was no dummy.  I knew from the bottom of my heart that this knowledge and experience in refining this skill alone and itself will put me way ahead of most speculators, traders and so call professionals and analysists in the markets.

Unfortunately, there was one problem – the course fee started out pretty steep – $4,995!

I knew I had to pass this one off, but deep down inside me, I knew its value.  Price is merely a concept of money.  Value is what you can get out of it perpetually for the rest of my life.  I knew that if I had to pay that figure, I would… but my trained skeptical protection immediately kick in and warn me – “Not so fast baby!“.

And true enough, all sort of marketing gimmicks were thrown in… but I was not moved.  I gave myself a target price to pay for the value of the course.  Nothing more than $x,xxx.  Eventually, the price fell below my target price and I gave myself the green light.  I’m already sold on to the course at a huge discount!  It’s a steal – I know it intuitively!  :)

It’s still above 3 figures, but I’m not a newbie to paying for something valuable, especially for my own personal improvement that is invaluable for life.  Most people cannot understand beyond this and that is why most people struggle in life.  They failed to identify value and grab opportunities when the price is right.  I must warn you that there are plenty of opportunities around you everyday.  Unless you’re trained to see them, there is no way to know, much less take advantage of them!

That’s it!  I was glad to locked in at a very low price what others are still willing to pay about 2x more than I paid for at the time I’m writing this.  I suspect that there is a huge demand for this kind of course, and much more as economic cycles gets shorter and shorter.  It’s really easy to become really rich if you follow through at least 2 bear markets as it is happening right now.  Maybe by the time you read this, the course fee might have skyrocketed back to $4,995 AND without all the bonuses and access to our private mastermind group.

If you are interested to find out more, you are most welcome to send me a comment for more information.  There are no obgligations to take this course, but somwhat, I would like as few people to know about it as possible… ahh… my small self is kicking me again!  Well, let’s just let nature discover you then!  There is no enlightened wealth if folks are not convinced of the benefits.  However, I will be most blessed and grateful to share this with any willing and open individuals who are tired of trading for a living.

August 2008

Yes!  I have been doing a bit of research by now and I’ve zeroed in a few possible low cost brokers to get started and gaining ownership in my own investments!

I’ve identified CIMB-GK, Kim Eng, DBS Vickers and Philips Capital as one of the most established and lowest cost authroized brokers in Singapore.  Coincidentally, I found a $1 deal for 8 trades with CIMB and I signed up immediately!  Brokerage fees are at least $25 and this means I saved $200 already!  What a no-brainer especially for value investors!

The Invest Fair was a very good event to understand more about value investing and understanding the property market in Singapore.  It’s like a mini-crash course all in one seminar!

You can read in much more detail on the exhibition on the link above.

  • Millionaire Investor Program Batch #1

End of August was a time for me to absorb the course I’ve taken up.

After the first day, I was like slapped on the head already!  I can challenge you that I have learn more in a single day than most investment courses out there you have ever taken – in a single day!

Investment psychology is so darn important yet people fail to take notice and treat investment like a big gambling game.  You have heard of the concept of “Buy High, Sell Low” right?  It’s a no-brainer, but most people take it the opposite way!  It’s no wonder why most people in the markets are loosing money!  Their psychologies are playing against them, and I’ve read somewhere before… that extensive research have already proven this phenominal, and it’s consistent even with folks who are very high in IQ.

As legendary value investor, Warren Buffett, pointed out: “You don’t need an IQ of more than 125 to invest.  Any more higher is wasted.”

I’m beginning to realize the wisdom of his approach.  The more I keep to that practice, the more I find it intellectually profound and easy to implement as long as you keep your emotions at bay by not following the crowd.  Achieving a compounded return of 15-20%pa is possible and achievable to most retail investors!

September-October-November 2008

Millionaire Mind Intensive is a 3-days seminar over the first weekend of November.  With over 5,000 people from all over the world, folks get to experience and understand their relationships with money.  Though the seminar was heavily peppered with marketing and sales talks, careful filtration enables one to extract really valuable information that can be readily applicable in one’s financial life!

One important concept I find very applicable is the 6 financial jars.  Personally, I like the concept of “Play Jar”.  It helps relieve one from the stress of spending money, which can cause one to feel guilty when one is supposed to be investing it or saving it properly.

The 6 jars form very important money management system which most folks do not have an idea how powerful the technique is.  For me, I’ve already established my FFA, LTSS, NEC and PLAY jars.  The 2 jars remaining I have not sort out is my EDU and GIFT jar.  I am currently adjusting my GIFT jar with my time so that I can maximize them for important FFA and EDU jars.

Besides applying the 6 jars concept, I’ve gotten to experience first-hand how powerful marketers can whipped up so quickly and got so many people to pay their hard-earned money.  It’s a lot like powerful Internet marketers who can craft emotional and triggering words to entice people to buy irrationally.  Having seen all their marketing gimmicks and very little genuinety in their offers, there were very little reasons to pay them any money.  Having said that, there is but one course, “Train The Trainers”, which I think makes the most sense.  Harv himself was a clear example of applying that single skill to make a lot of money in all his seminars.

  • Millionaire Investor Program Batch #2

November was a great time to review the MIP after having seen the major market drawdowns in September and October 2008.  I was blessed to attend a complete and slightly revised MIP.  Through this review, I improved my understanding of financial reports by sharing my knowledge with my fellow graduates, as well as students of MIP #2.

You see, you cannot improve quickly unless you can share genuinely  with an open heart and mind with the intention to learn too.  And this can only be accomplished with people who are willing to reciprocate.

I was also blessed to meet many more like-minded friends whom I have increased my learning too!

  • Dividends – My First Passive Income Stream!

It’s kinda hard to imagine that I have received my very first passive income stream at the end of the month only having stayed invested for a little over 3 months!

Now, dividends are very nice cashflow to receive in times of financial meltdown.  Coupled with reinvestment and proper money management skills, it its not hard to figure out amazing compounded returns over a long time-frame when one invests in the right type of businesses.

December 2008

  • Rental Income – My Second Passive Income Stream!

On the second week of December, a 3% early bird bonus was credited into my bank account!  This cashflow is a one-time payment because I had stay invested since March this year.  Rental incomes are very exciting for me to receive when I know that I don’t have to do any more work and the cash keep coming in for as long as I hold an ownership to the property after paying off all expenses to maintain the professional management services.  It’s a small glimpse for me to be a little business owner… cool!

My first 4.5% rental income is scheduled to flow in by April next year.  It is interesting to note that by April, I will be taking time off from the market to focus on my Internet projects, and I’m still getting paid!

  • “Tuesdays With Morrie” By Mitch Albom

I was really blessed to have a chance to borrow this book from LR and have invested a few days finishing it.  Man!  I must kick myself for not taking a friend’s advice to read this book when I was introduced to it more than 3 years ago!

This is an awesomely profound and spiritual book to read in under 3 days!  I urge you to read this little novel in the light of your own spiritual practice and see if you can find deeper meaning in your life.  Some of the most beautiful quotes I’ve extracted are as follows:

  • “Once you know how to die, you know how to live.”
  • “If you can accept that you can die at any time – then you might not be as ambitious as you are.”
  • “So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half asleep, even when they are busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
  • “A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”
  • “Love each other or perish.”
  • “Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own.”
  • “Love is the only rational act.”
  • “Without love, we are birds with broken wings.”
  • “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in…”
  • “As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.”
  • “You’re not a wave, you’re part of the ocean.”
  • “In truth, there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.”
  • “What’s wrong with being number two?”
  • “You talk, I’ll listen.”
  • “Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.”
  • “Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness.”
  • “There is no experience like having children.”
  • “People are only mean when they’re threatened.”
  • “You see, you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them too – Even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.”
  • “I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both.”
  • “Dying is one thing to be sad about, living unhappily is another thing.”
  • “The sick are the greatest danger for the healthy; it is not from the strongest that harm comes to the strong, but from the weakest.”
  • “I need to respect my children worlds, or else this disease will have ruined the three of us instead of one.”
  • “The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. and you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.”
  • “Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?”
  • “People act as if death is contagious.”
  • “Death takes away life, not relationships.”
  • “You live on – in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.”

In fact, my buddy LR wrote a short article on his feelings and afterthoughts that moved me quite a bit.

This little book is selling in Popular Book store for as little as $16.00 ($14.40 if you use the 10% discount card) and it gives so much beauty to the meaing of our lives!

If you’ve never ponder how you are going to die, then I’m sad to affirmed that you’ve never learnt how to live.  Death is the beginning, not an end as you might have been taught incorrectly.  In fact, if you’re well versed in Buddhist teachings, death itself is not frightening.  It is when one is not prepared for it that is frightening!  Death is a natural process that cleans out the old for the new, a universal law that no man have yet breech, and cannot be breeched.  Not even great emperors, or the presidents of supernations.

If you happen to know a very famous MediaCorp artist, Zhou Chu Ming, you would have realized that he has forgotten all that is to life until he was dignosed with his terminal disease.  He has been doing financially well over the years with MediaCorp movies and all his part-time property businesses, and yet, he failed to realized the truth, even when his best friend MC King collapsed and died recently.

What do you want yourself to be remembered as when you die?

Were there anything meaningful in this world that you should be doing, you know it and you’re still not doing, however small it may be?

Give yourself a punch or a slap in the face and set a resolution to get started in year 2009!  You deserve it!

And don’t forget to grab this book and read it.  I promise that your life will become much more fulfil somehow!

—

  • Investing In Pure Gold!

Gold to most investors are but mysterious and elusive diversifications.  Recently, I was introduced to this concept of investing in solid pure gold, 24 Karat and 999.9 fine gold bars!

I know, this sounds very skeptical to me too…

Nevertheless, I kept an open mind and checked out the presentation.  It was nicely presented with lots of information to follow up.  The gold bars presented were real 100g gold pieces that anyone can carry around in their pockets.

I’ve verified further that each gold bars were wrapped in special pastic wraps that were supposed to be tamper protected.  Tearing open each pack will breech the security marks which nullified their certification.  Each gold bar is certified by PAMP, that is claimed to be on par with International Standards and rating as solid as gold issued by Credit Suisse, Switzerland.

Indeed, these gold bars are highly in demand world-wide and are open to investors to buy at 2% discounts.  Under the contract, you can sell them back at the end of the month for the original price you’ve paid.  That is a whopping 2% capital gain while locking down the volatility of spot gold prices for 1 solid month!

Sounds too good to be true?  I’m not sure yet but I’ll probably will not be investing in this one.  I am currently quite strapped up for cash in some solid investments and business, so I cannot commit something new yet.

However if you are interested, feel free to drop me a comment with your details and I can get back to you.

  • Onwards To Year 2009!

It’s been a long article, and I must thank you for reading my blabberings (if you have been so faithful, I thank you from the botton of my heart)!

Year 2009 is not going to be easy for most people, but with a little good planning, a little luck and some disciplines, we can expect a very wonderful year to accomplish great things for the benefit of humanity.  Do keep your comments rolling in and perhaps even to engage me intellectually too!

Stay hungry, stay foolish!

Be Blessed, Peace, Inspired & Enlightened in Year 2009!

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]]> http://www.wailoong.com/596/looking-back-at-2008-and-moving-forward-to-2009/feed/ 8 Site Redesign and Overhaul – Coming Soon! http://www.wailoong.com/444/site-redesign-and-overhaul-coming-soon/ http://www.wailoong.com/444/site-redesign-and-overhaul-coming-soon/#comments Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:43:29 +0000 Wai Loong http://www.wailoong.com/?p=444 My WordPress Evolution

If you’ve been a regular visitor to my blog, I really got to thank you for your patience. I’ve been kept real busy for the past few weeks unable to write regularly for a good reason… it’s time for a change.

As Steve Jobs have pointed out in one of my earlier post, whenever I look into the mirror in the morning, and ask myself if I were to do what I’m about to do today for the past 30 days, I know it’s time for a change.

And you should too!

It has been a while that I’ve been writing articles based on my own experiences and some from others. I’ve gotten acquainted with the blogging platform I’ve been using and so far, I’ve been able to combine my passion in software and graphics design. Keeping abreast with changes in social media and technology will probably not going to change easily in the near future.

What will change is my presentation style.

In case you’re not aware, all the articles that I’ve written so far have been written with the very platform that have evolved quite a bit until now. Honestly, I haven’t really explored much about the blogging software until I made a tough decision recently to take a serious look at what readers actually wants to see.

I noticed that many of my readers are really tech/financial/entertainment geeks. Only a handful of visitors are friends and acquaintances. Considering what different readers really want, and what the blogging software can do, I’ve decided to build a structure out of the existing one.

In summary, here’s a rough breakdown of what’s up in the coming months:

Blog Presentation Style:

If you’re observant enough, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve started to style with smaller fonts.

I figured that smaller fonts with great content allows greater flexibility in template styling, while allowing spaces and graphics to fill in neatly. As display resolutions keep going up higher, and more mobile devices are better equipped to view web pages, it makes sense to plan longer term for such changes.

In case you’re not aware, this blog is now iPhone and iTouch capable! I reckoned that such changes shall cope with the popular in demand in the coming years… and any blogger should get prepared for the new age of mobile visitors.

As multimedia and social media gets widely accepted, it also makes sense for me to include targeted audiences using rich media like audio and video. I’ve recently added a video extension to this blogging platform that allows anyone to create video comments on all my past and future posts/pages!

To engage visitors and draw fresh content, I’m planning to supercharge various parts of the blog post and pages with special RSS feed capability, both inbound and outbound.

—

Blog Posts:

Blog posts are what makes up most blogs out there on the Web. Each post is like an entry that is arranged in order of date. The latest post is almost often at the top. Each blog post can be categorized into one or more groups.

My plan is to keep each post short and focus on current affairs. This should be aligned with what most blogs looks like everywhere else, without burning myself out writing long and deeply researched articles in each post.

As you’ve probably noticed by now (if you’re my regular reader – thanks dude!), I make deep researches and uncover evidences and facts before putting together a full article/post. On average, it takes me 1 to 2 full days to research, prepare (typing and graphics) and publish each. You get the idea how much information there is!

While trying to keep sane, I think it’s about time to keep current and short posts in the main thread, aiming around 300-700 words per post with about or less than 5 pictures to drive through a point. I’m also planning to keep the main page to display around 3 to 5 posts so readers can look back for a while. :)

As I pointed out, it’s going to keep me occupied writing about my experiences, while keep the details elsewhere… as I’m about to get to next.

—

Blog Pages:

What are blog pages?

Pages are very similar to posts. To understand pages, you got to contrast against posts. Posts appear automatically in reverse chronological order in most blogging platform. Pages are where I will present timeless information, mostly information sharing that I am passionate about.

Since most folks are not aligned to my “diverse” interest and passions, I have discovered that the best way to keep those topics isolated (and therefore more targeted), by creating specialized templates and run those pages in parallel with the main posts.

Each page shall have a main parent hierarchy (forgive me – I’ve always been an engineering professional), and each children pages shall be linked together using proprietary templates and codes that I write and customized.

For example, here are some root hierarchies that I plan to create as times passes by:

  • WordPress Hacks
  • IT Hacks
  • F&B Hacks (Food & Beverages)
  • Financial Hacks
  • Reading Hacks
  • Spiritual Hacks
  • Other Hacks etc

Each root category shall drive down to sub-categories which are linked automagically by proprietary codes. All sub-category articles shall keep a consistent series of templates that shall remain relevant to the parent category. This may permit better human interactions, as well as relevance to indexing and bots engines who may be crawling around.

What else…?

Okay, these are just some ideas to get me up and going and probably very busy for the coming year ahead. Each category of information shall be specifically targeted for ideas and tips relevant to their topics.

And of course, this arrangement can assist me to isolate my diverse interests without getting killed trying to write lengthy articles as I’ve used to be doing. Furthermore, this arrangement allows me to extend the system engage freelance writers of anyone who may be considered domain expert to participate.

—

Blog Navigation:

This is a very trick part.

I’ve never been good at this and have tried to learn some great ideas from other bloggers and web designers. Navigation is tricky because it has to be able to allow anyone to find information on the site, while keeping it friendly to human and machines.

I’m looking at creating a breadcrumb-like navigational links on the top of the site, while keeping the bottom ones slightly complicated for visitors who would like to explore deeper into the site.

—

That’s it!

The existing blog RSS feed will continue to function as per normal. Comment feeds have been added where they will be serviced by the blogging platform for anyone who may be interested to watch any comments made in that interest post/page. I’ll be looking forward to the day where I have learn the art of creating specialized feeds to serve each and every interest groups on my blog.

If you are interested to become an editor, author, or freelance writer for any of my future interest categories, do feel free to drop by a comment and make your voices known.

Thanks for reading and do keep your comments coming in!

Stay hungry, stay foolish and live a life with passion!

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©2010 Insights, Inspirations, Tranquility, Peace and Harmony. All Rights Reserved.

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]]> My WordPress Evolution

If you’ve been a regular visitor to my blog, I really got to thank you for your patience. I’ve been kept real busy for the past few weeks unable to write regularly for a good reason… it’s time for a change.

As Steve Jobs have pointed out in one of my earlier post, whenever I look into the mirror in the morning, and ask myself if I were to do what I’m about to do today for the past 30 days, I know it’s time for a change.

And you should too!

It has been a while that I’ve been writing articles based on my own experiences and some from others. I’ve gotten acquainted with the blogging platform I’ve been using and so far, I’ve been able to combine my passion in software and graphics design. Keeping abreast with changes in social media and technology will probably not going to change easily in the near future.

What will change is my presentation style.

In case you’re not aware, all the articles that I’ve written so far have been written with the very platform that have evolved quite a bit until now. Honestly, I haven’t really explored much about the blogging software until I made a tough decision recently to take a serious look at what readers actually wants to see.

I noticed that many of my readers are really tech/financial/entertainment geeks. Only a handful of visitors are friends and acquaintances. Considering what different readers really want, and what the blogging software can do, I’ve decided to build a structure out of the existing one.

In summary, here’s a rough breakdown of what’s up in the coming months:

Blog Presentation Style:

If you’re observant enough, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve started to style with smaller fonts.

I figured that smaller fonts with great content allows greater flexibility in template styling, while allowing spaces and graphics to fill in neatly. As display resolutions keep going up higher, and more mobile devices are better equipped to view web pages, it makes sense to plan longer term for such changes.

In case you’re not aware, this blog is now iPhone and iTouch capable! I reckoned that such changes shall cope with the popular in demand in the coming years… and any blogger should get prepared for the new age of mobile visitors.

As multimedia and social media gets widely accepted, it also makes sense for me to include targeted audiences using rich media like audio and video. I’ve recently added a video extension to this blogging platform that allows anyone to create video comments on all my past and future posts/pages!

To engage visitors and draw fresh content, I’m planning to supercharge various parts of the blog post and pages with special RSS feed capability, both inbound and outbound.

—

Blog Posts:

Blog posts are what makes up most blogs out there on the Web. Each post is like an entry that is arranged in order of date. The latest post is almost often at the top. Each blog post can be categorized into one or more groups.

My plan is to keep each post short and focus on current affairs. This should be aligned with what most blogs looks like everywhere else, without burning myself out writing long and deeply researched articles in each post.

As you’ve probably noticed by now (if you’re my regular reader – thanks dude!), I make deep researches and uncover evidences and facts before putting together a full article/post. On average, it takes me 1 to 2 full days to research, prepare (typing and graphics) and publish each. You get the idea how much information there is!

While trying to keep sane, I think it’s about time to keep current and short posts in the main thread, aiming around 300-700 words per post with about or less than 5 pictures to drive through a point. I’m also planning to keep the main page to display around 3 to 5 posts so readers can look back for a while. :)

As I pointed out, it’s going to keep me occupied writing about my experiences, while keep the details elsewhere… as I’m about to get to next.

—

Blog Pages:

What are blog pages?

Pages are very similar to posts. To understand pages, you got to contrast against posts. Posts appear automatically in reverse chronological order in most blogging platform. Pages are where I will present timeless information, mostly information sharing that I am passionate about.

Since most folks are not aligned to my “diverse” interest and passions, I have discovered that the best way to keep those topics isolated (and therefore more targeted), by creating specialized templates and run those pages in parallel with the main posts.

Each page shall have a main parent hierarchy (forgive me – I’ve always been an engineering professional), and each children pages shall be linked together using proprietary templates and codes that I write and customized.

For example, here are some root hierarchies that I plan to create as times passes by:

  • WordPress Hacks
  • IT Hacks
  • F&B Hacks (Food & Beverages)
  • Financial Hacks
  • Reading Hacks
  • Spiritual Hacks
  • Other Hacks etc

Each root category shall drive down to sub-categories which are linked automagically by proprietary codes. All sub-category articles shall keep a consistent series of templates that shall remain relevant to the parent category. This may permit better human interactions, as well as relevance to indexing and bots engines who may be crawling around.

What else…?

Okay, these are just some ideas to get me up and going and probably very busy for the coming year ahead. Each category of information shall be specifically targeted for ideas and tips relevant to their topics.

And of course, this arrangement can assist me to isolate my diverse interests without getting killed trying to write lengthy articles as I’ve used to be doing. Furthermore, this arrangement allows me to extend the system engage freelance writers of anyone who may be considered domain expert to participate.

—

Blog Navigation:

This is a very trick part.

I’ve never been good at this and have tried to learn some great ideas from other bloggers and web designers. Navigation is tricky because it has to be able to allow anyone to find information on the site, while keeping it friendly to human and machines.

I’m looking at creating a breadcrumb-like navigational links on the top of the site, while keeping the bottom ones slightly complicated for visitors who would like to explore deeper into the site.

—

That’s it!

The existing blog RSS feed will continue to function as per normal. Comment feeds have been added where they will be serviced by the blogging platform for anyone who may be interested to watch any comments made in that interest post/page. I’ll be looking forward to the day where I have learn the art of creating specialized feeds to serve each and every interest groups on my blog.

If you are interested to become an editor, author, or freelance writer for any of my future interest categories, do feel free to drop by a comment and make your voices known.

Thanks for reading and do keep your comments coming in!

Stay hungry, stay foolish and live a life with passion!

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©2010 Insights, Inspirations, Tranquility, Peace and Harmony. All Rights Reserved.

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]]> http://www.wailoong.com/444/site-redesign-and-overhaul-coming-soon/feed/ 0 Believe It Or Not – Money Can Be Made The Easy Way – With A Catch! http://www.wailoong.com/415/believe-it-or-not-money-can-be-made-the-easy-way-with-a-catch/ http://www.wailoong.com/415/believe-it-or-not-money-can-be-made-the-easy-way-with-a-catch/#comments Mon, 19 May 2008 15:08:36 +0000 Wai Loong http://www.wailoong.com/?p=415

Have you ever felt lost one day without turning on your computer?

If you are, then that’s not too bad!

Have you ever felt lost in front of your computer? Or felt frustrated and didn’t know what to do when you realized that your Internet connection was somehow terminated or disconnected by natural or technical problems?

Believe me or not – I actually felt frustrated because I was so used to working online these days! I even suspected that my home internet connection was terminated because we didn’t pay the bills…

Fortunately, I’ve retained a very important skill – the skill of reading materials offline! :)
I kept myself company throughout the downtime… all the while reading; and reading quickly.

The truth is, the Internet has totally revolutionalized the way we live, the way we social network, and even the way we make a living!

Remember my previous articles about social networking?

To extend the possibilities of the various forms of online networking, let’s explore the other possibilities of making a living online.

Wait a minute… did I say make a living – online?!

If you didn’t think that’s possible, let me blow your mind off with what I am about to reveal…

Here are some pictures of a real US check; it’s cold hard cash that I received in my mailbox some 2 weeks ago. I don’t receive this kind of checks often, but you get the idea that it’s real cash I made while promoting some products I use myself.

Affiliate Clickbank Checks Screenshot 1
I’m not trying to boost or what, but it’s simply a small check of about $100 greenback – but you get the idea and the possibilities on what I am about to show you!

Affiliate Clickbank Checks Screenshot 2

Wells Fargo's corporate headquarters and main branchImage via Wikipedia

This check was issued by Wells Fargo Bank, a very reputable bank from the United States of America. The stability of the bank’s business is so good that even Warren Buffett has a shareholding stake!

—

To be more realistic, let me point you to what’s easily possible here in Singapore…

Last week, I caught a rather interesting live interview on Channel U of a medical doctor who has turned his passion of tasting great food into a huge turnover photography hobby for his Singapore food blog!

According to him, his food blog has a daily traffic of over 7000++ unique visitors!

Was that a hype or real?

I point my browser over and did a little spying; it’s a skill I’ve acquired over the years and was surprised to uncover a significant amount of useful information that may support the doctor’s claim.

But first, here’s some screenshot of his site and how he derive money out of it…

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Screenshot 1
This is the blog’s main header. Notice the rectangle round edge boxes?

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Screenshot 2|
I’ve zoomed in further to show you what are showing up in these boxes.

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Screenshot 3
This doctor was pretty smart. He took full advantage of his interview with Channel U and used the media to help him drive free and solid publicity! Not to mention about free traffic! That’s the way every businesses should aim for to get credibility and increase site exposure.

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Screenshot 4

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Screenshot 5

Noticed the rectangular advertisements? These advertisements are served by Google advertisers that are syndicated across from its various advertising networks, such as Adwords and Doubleclick. If you click on them for him, it may earn the owner $0.20 to $5.00, depending on the maximum bid and quality of the advertisements.

Let say each click earns the owner an average of $0.20. With an average 6,000 to 7,000 daily visitors and about 2% folks clicking on them (2% CTR or click-through rate), that will be $28 passive income earned per day.

Or in the case of $2 per click, that will be $280 per day.

I scrolled down further down on his page and noticed that the advertisement network was serving him some very badly targeted advertisements.

Imagine finding *gasp* “Lesbian Dating” advertisements on a food blog?

Two things are pretty obviously here…

  1. The owner is probably a bit greedy. Too many Google Ads CAN be harmful and CAN reduce earnings.
  2. The publishing advertisers (Google Adwords) are obviously suckers for over paying clicks for highly un-targeted keywords, or paying by per million impressions (if they’re lucky).

In either case, that translates to $840 or $8400 passive income per month! And with over 7,000 visitors and still growing at a fantastic rate, this owner can be easily earning 5 figures passively month after month.

And I’m not even considering other smarter forms of revenues, partnership or deals that can bring him even more income passively! He can even quit his medical practice if he wants, but I suspect that he enjoys blogging so much that the money is secondary. :)

Is content syndication really so profitable?

Let’s take a look at some of my traffic analysis on the site:

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Site Stats Screenshot 1

First of all, the webmaster was not so smart. Either he was deliberately leaving those traces for me to dig out, or was it place out there to convince his interviewers.

I took the liberty to drill down to on his site visitors and indeed, most of the traffic that’s being driven to it are spread by word of mouth.

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Site Stats Screenshot 2

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Site Stats Screenshot 3

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Site Stats Screenshot 4
Site was measured since 2006.

Interestingly, the site has been on Google blogger hosting network but has been pointed to a private domain name since 2006. Looking back to the inception of the site, it appears that traffic has been building up really quickly (and possibly exponentially) in a very short span of time!

The site’s traffic more than doubled and by May 2008, it has reached a new height. I suspect that at the rate it’s going, it will reach its 1,500,000 unique visitors mark by December 2008!

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Site Stats Screenshot 5

Can you understand why a food blog is such a remarkable business model? Virtually everyone is addicted to eating or tasting good food and they can be spending as long as an hour to see what great food he has to introduce.

Only rarely do you find a weird geek like me who enjoy poking at his blog stats, trying to figure out how much money he may be making out of it. :)

Updated 19th May 2008:

Just this evening, Channel U reported at least 3 different NUS student groups making advertising fee by creating interesting Facebook applications. One of the group even reported a net worth of over $13,000 (after about 5 months of hard work) should they decide to sell it to professional developers.

Honestly speaking, building a business on Facebook is entirely possible, but do be wary. Not every Facebook business can be valued accurately. Their valuations are mostly based on intangible values which are often hard to measure.

As in any solid businesses taught by Warren Buffett, Facebook businesses must be build on fundamentals that adds value to the lives of their users. As you may be aware by now, most Facebook application waste or kill your time more often than adding any value. This is the main reason why I don’t play games on Facebook. :)

If you are still skeptical about how this online business model, work, then I invite you to check it out. Here are a few resources you can begin with: CS3216 Software development on evolving platforms course launched by NUS, and a recent report on Warring Farmers raking in fans, by TODAYonline.

—

Question: Can anyone really make a living blogging online?

It’s hard to deny that but from my experience, the answer is a resounding yes!

Unfortunately, as always true to any success, there is a catch!

Many folks I’ve seen on ping.sg are working so hard to make a couple of bucks here and there trying to create blogs to make some advertising fee. The truth is, most of these folks will be sadly disappointed.

Professional blogging is a lot of hard work.

Not only must you write useful articles, you must also be willing to put in labor to research your topic and deliver your content with passion!

The best mix of blogs I’ve seen are those articles that really make a difference in your life. The content are usually highly practical and honest, forcing you to think hard if it makes any sense before you dismiss them as time killer.

Coincidentally, writing good articles has tremendous value in personal development and making the world a better place. Ethical bloggers write about their thoughts, so as to enrich the knowledge of others through their own living experiences. Their main motivation comes from satisfied commenters who appreciate their works, or pick up a little tip from constructive criticisms.

When a blogger, very much like a author of a book, looks to add value to others through their own research work and/or compilation of others, they seek compensation much later through the mechanism of royalties from their publishers (or just about anyone who like to use their works in a variety of different ways).

A blogger is no different from a book author.

Advertising, product recommendations etc.. are just some ways to get compensated for the work put in. Plus, the hostings and domain names are not free – someone’s got to pay for it somehow; and that is compensated in a similar manner.

—

Question: What Risks Does A Blogger Have?

If you are totally inspired but what I’ve put together so far, then you’ll be more likely interested to know the risk factors to blogging.

Blogging has its own inherent risks.

Unfortunately, we all live in a world of imperfections… unpleasant folks who are out to ruin your reputations, or drastic changes in the landscape of social networking can easily bring down your blogging businesses.

Also, web technology is constantly coming in as a challenge to many aspired professional and part-time bloggers.

Risk #1: Hosting and Server Migration Challenges

For my case, I’ve been rather bogged down by many technical challenges with a new web host after shifted from Bluehost. I face a variety of new problems, ranging from setting up my secure IMAP for emails, crashing the web host’s SQL servers, being banned for resource over utilization having upgraded to a newer version of the CMS software, and keeping spams from hitting me from real visitors who make a comment.

Fortunately, I have sufficient technical background to deal with the recent migrations and the good news is, I’m more than capable now to handle server migrations, backup and recovery. The recent exercise had boosted my confidence to test out future and new (and possibly cost effective) hosting solutions soon.

As a side note, if you’re looking to find someone to help you out on script configurations, setups or full backups, I may be able to take out some of my personal time to assist you, in exchange for a small negotiable fee.

Risk #2: Spam Challenges

To keep hosting cost down, most entry bloggers like me will opt for cheap (and mostly unreliable) web hosts. The main problems with such hosting solution is, they are shared. If your IP address (Internet Protocol Address) of your host happens to be blacklisted by major search engines (especially Google), then a large part of your traffic may be crippled, unless they come from email or RSS subscriptions.

Such blacklisting usually comes from bad neighbors residing on your host’s, where a few hundreds of domains share the same IP address.

If you can afford (and I do if I honest can justify for the added cost!), I recommend dedicated servers from Rackspace or MediaTemple.

Risk #3: Loss of Blog Database, Content, Domain

Imagine loosing your entire blog database and content on your blogging host!

That’s the ultimate nightmare I can think of for a blogger… or any webmaster for that matter.

How does one lost control of one’s blog (or website)?

For certain, a growing number of folks enjoy hijacking or invading into a site for thrill or for money. Hackers consistently look out for victims with well known vulnerabilities on their site and attempt to break in with those weaknesses.

And by the way, these people may not even require to know your passwords, but it does help tremendously if the owner uses a weak password. Upon breaking in, the hacker can use it for any targeted purposes, such as ruining the site’s reputation, to launching spams or illegal activities to evade law enforcers or make law enforcers difficult to track down their origins.

This topic on blog intrusion is best illustrated by the classical example of Xia Xue, a Singaporean blogger who lost control of her Google blogger account some time in July 2005 by some unidentified hacker(s). Not only did she lost her $3,000-4,000 monthly income (maybe more by now!) from her blog, she lost control of it all until finally, she managed to convince Google that she was the real and authentic owner.

Even after then, a significant part of her blog was damaged by the intrusion. Blogging reputation and content takes time to rebuild.

Another possibility is the loss of domain name. As you probably know by now, domain name marketers trade high quality domain names for huge returns! Many times, domain names are bought outright due to the failure of the owner to renew it in time.

As a blogger or site owner, you will want to make sure that your domain registrar is not on an automatic recurring payment system linked to a credit card. This way, you will not take the assumption that your credit is still honorable and legal for payment when it has actually been expired or canceled without you realizing it.

Having said that, many folks still make the common mistake to run their professional businesses (blogs) on free servers.

My advice is to pay for the ownership of your domain name and hosting servers. If they are generating income for you, doesn’t it make sense to own it outright legally, or would you rather risk the possible and changing terms and conditions of those free services? You’ll get what I mean if you truly look at your blog from the perspective of a business owner.

Lessons learnt:
Take some time to configure your CMS software to backup the database regularly, and keeping mirror archives of the entire blog/website as often as possible.

Make sure you pay upfront any charges you incur to maintain your domain name. The content does not matter too much as long as you keep consistent backups to your local machine and on offline optical storage discs.

Risk #4: Loss of Advertising Revenue

Most blogging folks may not be aware of the terms and conditions of their advertising network. For Google, they are very protective of their advertising business. Google staffs will not think twice to terminate anyone on their publishing network for abusing their Adsense (and hence Adwords) program.

For instance, I have personally saw one interview on Channel U that people are clicking on their own advertisements to make some quick money. Google treats fraud clicking activities very seriously and they will not hesitate to terminate any publishing accounts that violate their click through terms and conditions.

And there should be no excuses too. According to the creators of the currently very popular Facebook game, BattleStation, they were forced to asking all their friends to help them click on their advertisements to tide through the low periods when their Facebook business were not bring them enough income to sustain their monthly operation costs.

Lesson to learn:
Never depend on a single source of income stream.

Actively research for various ways to supplement contextual advertisement in case something bad happen to you. In fact, there are no fewer than 10 ways I can think of for anyone to monetize a high traffic blog once it starts rolling it!

—

Conclusions:

Think hard again when you’re thinking of making quick bucks using the Internet.

The truth is, most people are never persistent enough to earn a single dime despite their efforts. Many others are lead astray by focusing on get rich quick schemes for short term profits. So when something looks too good to be true, it probably is!

Blogging, like any other marketing activities, is a continuous and on-going work. There are many other activities besides the risks that I mention that must be put into serious considerations.

To put things in perspective, focus only on the things you are passionate about, while developing professional interactions with your visitors through actively responding to comments. Pay close attention to the quality of your writings and finally, align your expertises to the theme of your blog.

That’s it!

And wow! This article actually took me more than 2 days to prepare and draft!

I trust that you have enjoyed reading so far and somewhat benefit from my experiences.

I look forward to hearing your comments and learning from your own experiences!

Stay hungry, stay foolish, and live a life with passion!

—

Other Useful Resource Links:

—

Related articles
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©2010 Insights, Inspirations, Tranquility, Peace and Harmony. All Rights Reserved.

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]]>

Have you ever felt lost one day without turning on your computer?

If you are, then that’s not too bad!

Have you ever felt lost in front of your computer? Or felt frustrated and didn’t know what to do when you realized that your Internet connection was somehow terminated or disconnected by natural or technical problems?

Believe me or not – I actually felt frustrated because I was so used to working online these days! I even suspected that my home internet connection was terminated because we didn’t pay the bills…

Fortunately, I’ve retained a very important skill – the skill of reading materials offline! :)
I kept myself company throughout the downtime… all the while reading; and reading quickly.

The truth is, the Internet has totally revolutionalized the way we live, the way we social network, and even the way we make a living!

Remember my previous articles about social networking?

To extend the possibilities of the various forms of online networking, let’s explore the other possibilities of making a living online.

Wait a minute… did I say make a living – online?!

If you didn’t think that’s possible, let me blow your mind off with what I am about to reveal…

Here are some pictures of a real US check; it’s cold hard cash that I received in my mailbox some 2 weeks ago. I don’t receive this kind of checks often, but you get the idea that it’s real cash I made while promoting some products I use myself.

Affiliate Clickbank Checks Screenshot 1
I’m not trying to boost or what, but it’s simply a small check of about $100 greenback – but you get the idea and the possibilities on what I am about to show you!

Affiliate Clickbank Checks Screenshot 2

Wells Fargo's corporate headquarters and main branchImage via Wikipedia

This check was issued by Wells Fargo Bank, a very reputable bank from the United States of America. The stability of the bank’s business is so good that even Warren Buffett has a shareholding stake!

—

To be more realistic, let me point you to what’s easily possible here in Singapore…

Last week, I caught a rather interesting live interview on Channel U of a medical doctor who has turned his passion of tasting great food into a huge turnover photography hobby for his Singapore food blog!

According to him, his food blog has a daily traffic of over 7000++ unique visitors!

Was that a hype or real?

I point my browser over and did a little spying; it’s a skill I’ve acquired over the years and was surprised to uncover a significant amount of useful information that may support the doctor’s claim.

But first, here’s some screenshot of his site and how he derive money out of it…

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Screenshot 1
This is the blog’s main header. Notice the rectangle round edge boxes?

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Screenshot 2|
I’ve zoomed in further to show you what are showing up in these boxes.

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Screenshot 3
This doctor was pretty smart. He took full advantage of his interview with Channel U and used the media to help him drive free and solid publicity! Not to mention about free traffic! That’s the way every businesses should aim for to get credibility and increase site exposure.

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Screenshot 4

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Screenshot 5

Noticed the rectangular advertisements? These advertisements are served by Google advertisers that are syndicated across from its various advertising networks, such as Adwords and Doubleclick. If you click on them for him, it may earn the owner $0.20 to $5.00, depending on the maximum bid and quality of the advertisements.

Let say each click earns the owner an average of $0.20. With an average 6,000 to 7,000 daily visitors and about 2% folks clicking on them (2% CTR or click-through rate), that will be $28 passive income earned per day.

Or in the case of $2 per click, that will be $280 per day.

I scrolled down further down on his page and noticed that the advertisement network was serving him some very badly targeted advertisements.

Imagine finding *gasp* “Lesbian Dating” advertisements on a food blog?

Two things are pretty obviously here…

  1. The owner is probably a bit greedy. Too many Google Ads CAN be harmful and CAN reduce earnings.
  2. The publishing advertisers (Google Adwords) are obviously suckers for over paying clicks for highly un-targeted keywords, or paying by per million impressions (if they’re lucky).

In either case, that translates to $840 or $8400 passive income per month! And with over 7,000 visitors and still growing at a fantastic rate, this owner can be easily earning 5 figures passively month after month.

And I’m not even considering other smarter forms of revenues, partnership or deals that can bring him even more income passively! He can even quit his medical practice if he wants, but I suspect that he enjoys blogging so much that the money is secondary. :)

Is content syndication really so profitable?

Let’s take a look at some of my traffic analysis on the site:

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Site Stats Screenshot 1

First of all, the webmaster was not so smart. Either he was deliberately leaving those traces for me to dig out, or was it place out there to convince his interviewers.

I took the liberty to drill down to on his site visitors and indeed, most of the traffic that’s being driven to it are spread by word of mouth.

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Site Stats Screenshot 2

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Site Stats Screenshot 3

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Site Stats Screenshot 4
Site was measured since 2006.

Interestingly, the site has been on Google blogger hosting network but has been pointed to a private domain name since 2006. Looking back to the inception of the site, it appears that traffic has been building up really quickly (and possibly exponentially) in a very short span of time!

The site’s traffic more than doubled and by May 2008, it has reached a new height. I suspect that at the rate it’s going, it will reach its 1,500,000 unique visitors mark by December 2008!

I Eat, I Shoot, I Post Site Stats Screenshot 5

Can you understand why a food blog is such a remarkable business model? Virtually everyone is addicted to eating or tasting good food and they can be spending as long as an hour to see what great food he has to introduce.

Only rarely do you find a weird geek like me who enjoy poking at his blog stats, trying to figure out how much money he may be making out of it. :)

Updated 19th May 2008:

Just this evening, Channel U reported at least 3 different NUS student groups making advertising fee by creating interesting Facebook applications. One of the group even reported a net worth of over $13,000 (after about 5 months of hard work) should they decide to sell it to professional developers.

Honestly speaking, building a business on Facebook is entirely possible, but do be wary. Not every Facebook business can be valued accurately. Their valuations are mostly based on intangible values which are often hard to measure.

As in any solid businesses taught by Warren Buffett, Facebook businesses must be build on fundamentals that adds value to the lives of their users. As you may be aware by now, most Facebook application waste or kill your time more often than adding any value. This is the main reason why I don’t play games on Facebook. :)

If you are still skeptical about how this online business model, work, then I invite you to check it out. Here are a few resources you can begin with: CS3216 Software development on evolving platforms course launched by NUS, and a recent report on Warring Farmers raking in fans, by TODAYonline.

—

Question: Can anyone really make a living blogging online?

It’s hard to deny that but from my experience, the answer is a resounding yes!

Unfortunately, as always true to any success, there is a catch!

Many folks I’ve seen on ping.sg are working so hard to make a couple of bucks here and there trying to create blogs to make some advertising fee. The truth is, most of these folks will be sadly disappointed.

Professional blogging is a lot of hard work.

Not only must you write useful articles, you must also be willing to put in labor to research your topic and deliver your content with passion!

The best mix of blogs I’ve seen are those articles that really make a difference in your life. The content are usually highly practical and honest, forcing you to think hard if it makes any sense before you dismiss them as time killer.

Coincidentally, writing good articles has tremendous value in personal development and making the world a better place. Ethical bloggers write about their thoughts, so as to enrich the knowledge of others through their own living experiences. Their main motivation comes from satisfied commenters who appreciate their works, or pick up a little tip from constructive criticisms.

When a blogger, very much like a author of a book, looks to add value to others through their own research work and/or compilation of others, they seek compensation much later through the mechanism of royalties from their publishers (or just about anyone who like to use their works in a variety of different ways).

A blogger is no different from a book author.

Advertising, product recommendations etc.. are just some ways to get compensated for the work put in. Plus, the hostings and domain names are not free – someone’s got to pay for it somehow; and that is compensated in a similar manner.

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Question: What Risks Does A Blogger Have?

If you are totally inspired but what I’ve put together so far, then you’ll be more likely interested to know the risk factors to blogging.

Blogging has its own inherent risks.

Unfortunately, we all live in a world of imperfections… unpleasant folks who are out to ruin your reputations, or drastic changes in the landscape of social networking can easily bring down your blogging businesses.

Also, web technology is constantly coming in as a challenge to many aspired professional and part-time bloggers.

Risk #1: Hosting and Server Migration Challenges

For my case, I’ve been rather bogged down by many technical challenges with a new web host after shifted from Bluehost. I face a variety of new problems, ranging from setting up my secure IMAP for emails, crashing the web host’s SQL servers, being banned for resource over utilization having upgraded to a newer version of the CMS software, and keeping spams from hitting me from real visitors who make a comment.

Fortunately, I have sufficient technical background to deal with the recent migrations and the good news is, I’m more than capable now to handle server migrations, backup and recovery. The recent exercise had boosted my confidence to test out future and new (and possibly cost effective) hosting solutions soon.

As a side note, if you’re looking to find someone to help you out on script configurations, setups or full backups, I may be able to take out some of my personal time to assist you, in exchange for a small negotiable fee.

Risk #2: Spam Challenges

To keep hosting cost down, most entry bloggers like me will opt for cheap (and mostly unreliable) web hosts. The main problems with such hosting solution is, they are shared. If your IP address (Internet Protocol Address) of your host happens to be blacklisted by major search engines (especially Google), then a large part of your traffic may be crippled, unless they come from email or RSS subscriptions.

Such blacklisting usually comes from bad neighbors residing on your host’s, where a few hundreds of domains share the same IP address.

If you can afford (and I do if I honest can justify for the added cost!), I recommend dedicated servers from Rackspace or MediaTemple.

Risk #3: Loss of Blog Database, Content, Domain

Imagine loosing your entire blog database and content on your blogging host!

That’s the ultimate nightmare I can think of for a blogger… or any webmaster for that matter.

How does one lost control of one’s blog (or website)?

For certain, a growing number of folks enjoy hijacking or invading into a site for thrill or for money. Hackers consistently look out for victims with well known vulnerabilities on their site and attempt to break in with those weaknesses.

And by the way, these people may not even require to know your passwords, but it does help tremendously if the owner uses a weak password. Upon breaking in, the hacker can use it for any targeted purposes, such as ruining the site’s reputation, to launching spams or illegal activities to evade law enforcers or make law enforcers difficult to track down their origins.

This topic on blog intrusion is best illustrated by the classical example of Xia Xue, a Singaporean blogger who lost control of her Google blogger account some time in July 2005 by some unidentified hacker(s). Not only did she lost her $3,000-4,000 monthly income (maybe more by now!) from her blog, she lost control of it all until finally, she managed to convince Google that she was the real and authentic owner.

Even after then, a significant part of her blog was damaged by the intrusion. Blogging reputation and content takes time to rebuild.

Another possibility is the loss of domain name. As you probably know by now, domain name marketers trade high quality domain names for huge returns! Many times, domain names are bought outright due to the failure of the owner to renew it in time.

As a blogger or site owner, you will want to make sure that your domain registrar is not on an automatic recurring payment system linked to a credit card. This way, you will not take the assumption that your credit is still honorable and legal for payment when it has actually been expired or canceled without you realizing it.

Having said that, many folks still make the common mistake to run their professional businesses (blogs) on free servers.

My advice is to pay for the ownership of your domain name and hosting servers. If they are generating income for you, doesn’t it make sense to own it outright legally, or would you rather risk the possible and changing terms and conditions of those free services? You’ll get what I mean if you truly look at your blog from the perspective of a business owner.

Lessons learnt:
Take some time to configure your CMS software to backup the database regularly, and keeping mirror archives of the entire blog/website as often as possible.

Make sure you pay upfront any charges you incur to maintain your domain name. The content does not matter too much as long as you keep consistent backups to your local machine and on offline optical storage discs.

Risk #4: Loss of Advertising Revenue

Most blogging folks may not be aware of the terms and conditions of their advertising network. For Google, they are very protective of their advertising business. Google staffs will not think twice to terminate anyone on their publishing network for abusing their Adsense (and hence Adwords) program.

For instance, I have personally saw one interview on Channel U that people are clicking on their own advertisements to make some quick money. Google treats fraud clicking activities very seriously and they will not hesitate to terminate any publishing accounts that violate their click through terms and conditions.

And there should be no excuses too. According to the creators of the currently very popular Facebook game, BattleStation, they were forced to asking all their friends to help them click on their advertisements to tide through the low periods when their Facebook business were not bring them enough income to sustain their monthly operation costs.

Lesson to learn:
Never depend on a single source of income stream.

Actively research for various ways to supplement contextual advertisement in case something bad happen to you. In fact, there are no fewer than 10 ways I can think of for anyone to monetize a high traffic blog once it starts rolling it!

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Conclusions:

Think hard again when you’re thinking of making quick bucks using the Internet.

The truth is, most people are never persistent enough to earn a single dime despite their efforts. Many others are lead astray by focusing on get rich quick schemes for short term profits. So when something looks too good to be true, it probably is!

Blogging, like any other marketing activities, is a continuous and on-going work. There are many other activities besides the risks that I mention that must be put into serious considerations.

To put things in perspective, focus only on the things you are passionate about, while developing professional interactions with your visitors through actively responding to comments. Pay close attention to the quality of your writings and finally, align your expertises to the theme of your blog.

That’s it!

And wow! This article actually took me more than 2 days to prepare and draft!

I trust that you have enjoyed reading so far and somewhat benefit from my experiences.

I look forward to hearing your comments and learning from your own experiences!

Stay hungry, stay foolish, and live a life with passion!

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