Jo's cooking

Nowadays I enjoy doing my own cooking at home.  Here is my dinner menu tonight:

1. Asam Fish
2. Marinated Chicken
3. Steam lady fingers & some fresh tomato (non-spicy version for Pig Pig)

   

(The fish was covered by lady fingers & tomatoes... I'm quite impressed with this dish, yummy...)

Cooking is so much fun!

November's reading

I read 3 books this month:

1. Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires, by Adam Khoo.
2. Getting started in investment, by Chris Gan.
3. Creative Visualization, by Shakti Gawain.

I like all three, taught me something new. First book taught me how to be financially smart, a lot of concepts/techniques on financial planning & financial intelligence. Second book taught me how to understand the stock market, read company's profile and investment options. Third book taught me the concept/techniques of applying visualization to achieve goals and peace.

I still have few books borrowed from friends, mainly on investment and self improvement. These are the two area that I am interested in recently.

The Six Human Emotional Needs

I read this somewhere, I agree with it, so I make a reminder to myself here to always keep a balance among all these six important needs.

Human Need 1: Certainty

The first human need is the need for CERTAINTY. We all need to feel a sense of security that things will be okay. Certainty gives us peace of mind and assurance.

Human Need 2: Uncertainty

As human beings, we have a second emotional need that is in direct conflict with our first need. We all have a need for UNCERTAINTY! Life is boring without uncertainty. This is probably why I quit my job.

This is also why a woman/man in a perfect marriage where everything is routine and predictable will eventually get so bored, that they will unconsciously start picking a fight, having an affair or leave the marriage. There is no more excitement and stimulation that we all need emotionally.

Human Need 3: Significance

The third human emotional need is the need to feel significant/ special/ unique/ important/ needed. We all hunger for this need and again pursue it in different ways.

Some people feel significant by attaining qualifications (e.g. MBAs, PhDs etc..), achieving success, buying lots of toys (e.g. bigger house, bigger car, country club, Rolex watch etc…) or pursuing status symbols.

Others get significance by putting other people down, dressing in a unique way or tattooing every conceivable part of their body. Again, others feel significance by having children (and making sure they excel and do them proud) or flaunting their wealth. Some people get significance by being proud of certain identities they adopt like being a Christian, a Muslim, an Army Officer, a Vegetarian etc…

Human Need 4: Love and Connection

The 4th human need is in direct conflict with the 3rd human need of SIGNIFICANCE. Think about this. If you felt TOTALLY significant where you were so unique, so special and so different from all the people around you. Would you be happy? No! You would feel disconnected from the people around you.

One of our strongest needs as humans in the need to be accepted, to be loved and connected to the people around us. Once we become so special and unique, we will start to find ourselves losing that connection to our peers. It happens to me often, due to the many different thoughts in my mind that I find it hard to convey and be understood by others, I often feel disconnected and would rather keep things to myself sometimes.

A man (or woman) often wants to leave the marriage either because he/she no longer feels significant, loved, certainty or uncertainty by his/her partner. What is a very very common scenario is that after a couple has a child, the man no longer feels the same level of significance anymore. It seems that his wife spends all the time with the kids, that he is no longer important. So what happens? He rather spend his time in the office where he feels more significant or find a girlfriend who makes him feel special again!

Human Need 5: Growth

However, to be truly fulfilled and happy, we need to meet the last two needs of ‘growth’ and ‘contribution’. We need to constantly grow by learning more and challenging ourselves to become better. The moment we stop growing, we start dying emotionally.

I read somewhere before that the job learning curve will grow and become flat every 2-3 years, that is the time to make change and learn new things, so it is good to cross train in different area from time to time, to avoid the lost of momentum. For my case, I guess I have been handling similar scope for too long that I bored myself. Now that I am free, I find myself very eager in learning new things everyday.

Human Need 6: Contribution

Finally, we all need to contribute beyond ourselves, This is why people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett make all the money in the world only to give most of it away to charity. contribution is what gives us ultimate purpose and fulfillment in life. Giving unconditionally is indeed a source of happiness to me.

The price of procrastination

In the highly volatile investment world, if one opts for high return (also high risk), the price of procrastination can often be very high.

I have been monitoring HK stocks market for few months, two weeks ago the HK market has gone down quite a bit, there were many good stocks to pick up at very reasonable price. However I did not take action in time, after one week those that I was eyeing have soared so high.

Lesson learned: Opportunities come and go in a glimpse, we need to be prepared, be aware and be decisive, in order to position ourselves to make the right choice at the right time.

Be a player, not just an on-looker.

The Law of Attraction

Incident 1:

Few weeks ago, while I was having lunch with my lunch group, we talked about a very old Hong Kong tv star - 马敏儿.

Pig Pig told us that马敏儿is her distanced relative, and we talked about her old tv series that we used to watch when we were kids. At that time, I posted a question in my mind “I wonder how this person is doing now?”

Last week, Emily showed me a news on the newspaper about ‘马敏儿 决定出家’. We were both shocked at why suddenly 马敏儿 appeared again on the newspaper after we talked about her. In fact she has disappeared from Hong Kong entertainment industry for over 20 years.

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Incident 2:

I quit my job few weeks ago. It’s the first time that I have decided to stay jobless for quite some time, so I have some questions regarding tax reporting. I asked Derbe and jOu about it, I thought lawyers know these things. Then they asked me to talk to a tax consultant. Oh well, I have no contacts in my friends network who is a tax consultant or who knows a tax consultant. So I just posted those questions in my mind.

Then two days ago, when I went to Audrey’s place to help making cupcakes for the LNH food fair, I bumped into a lady who’s Audrey and Hoonster’s friend. After she left, Hoonster told me that that lady worked as a tax consultant…

p/s: While writing this post just now, I forgot what I want to mention in Incident 2, so I walked away to read a magazine, and saw a content title ‘Tax Planning’ and recalled that I wanted to mention about tax consultant.

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Besides the above two incidents, I found many answers to my recent questions from tv and magazines almost within the next 1-2 days after posting the questions in my mind. For example, yesterday I was wondering how gold is performing recently, today Bloomberg has a report on gold’s performance and forecast. On the other hand, I wanted to explore the investment options and I found a lot of these answers in a magazine that Emily bought last week.

Anyway, the answers are all out there, we just need to apply ‘The Law of Attraction’, i.e. to post the questions out to the universe and wait for the reply.

Back to the future...

I've got mails in my mail box today, just like any other days.

However when I opened the first one which was a credit card bill, I have '???' in my mind as I wasn't familiar with the items listed on the bill. Then I realized it's dated March 2009, which is 1/2 year ago. I thought the bank made a mistake by printing out the wrong bill. Okay.

Then I went on to open the 2nd mail, which was a bank statement, the balance figure was way out... then I noticed the statement was dated June 2008.

So I opened up all the subsequent mails, they were all dated either 2008 or even 2007...

Hey, what is going on???

At that moment I got a very strange feelings... it feels like 'back to the future' out of a sudden, I thought I was waking up on a wrong day... I just can't tell you how strange that feels.

Till now I still can't figure out what happened. I guess may be the post office or the Condo management office found some old undelivered mails in their office today so they dropped them in my mailbox.

Hold on... those are accumulated mails from past years... how did that happen I wonder... Is there a hidden message??...

Opportunity Cost

I am constantly observing the opportunity cost that I paid for my decisions, especially when it comes to investment.

1. Trading penny stocks vs. buying stable blue chips.
2. Trading stocks vs. buying funds.
3. Buying/Selling stocks today vs. yesterday or tomorrow.
4. Buying an apartment vs. a landed property.
5. Buying a bigger car vs. a smaller one.
6. Spending long hour working for a company vs. investing more time on personal learning.
7. Watching news channels vs. others such as discovery & learning, entertainment etc.

The list goes on.

I am not sure why I keep doing so. I guess by keeping the options in mind help me to :

1. re-evaluate my decisions from time to time,
2. learn from mistakes and correct them in time,
3. re-adjust my current position according to the better possibilities out there.

I think by collecting all my personal learnings on opportunity cost, I can soon write a book to advise people on the 'do and don't'.

Simplicity

Sometimes having more is tiring. It's good to do some 'clean-ups' from time to time, and keep only those that you need.

1. When work gets too stressful and too much -> quit.

2. When people get too demanding, harsh or calculative -> say bye.

3. When hearing too much little little complaints from others in a day -> shut down and meditate. Spend more time with those who are cheerful, thankful and loving, who appreciate you and life.

4. When wardrobe is full -> get the clothes stay untouched for > 1 year packed and donated.

5. When the house is full -> do spring cleaning, create more storage, dump away the unwanted.

6. When eating too much make you sick -> stop indulging, and adopt simple & healthy eating habits.

7. When sitting in front of a computer for too long -> stand up and go for a swim to improve blood circulation, clear your mind and think of nothing for a while.

8. When the investment profile gets too diversified -> analyze the ROI vs. risk, do some personal long term financial planning, decide what to let go, what to keep and what to pursue.

9. When there are too many goals to achieve -> Do visualization more often and decide which to let go and which to pursue, in order to meet the long term goals.

10. When there are simply too much info to absorb from TV, newspaper, internet -> Define an info list, pick a few reliable sources, spend minimum time to read only the important ones. Source for the info you need and don't let all kinds of info overload you or consume too much of your time.

After simplifying everything, sit down to admire the beauty of simplicity and smell the fresh air.

Remember : Stay simple, positive, healthy, happy and focus on the long term life goals. It doesn't have to be that complicated, really.

Take Time

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven. - Ecclesiastes 3:1

Take time...

To work: It is the price of success.

To think: It is the source of confidence.

To play: It is the secret of youth.

To read: It is the foundation of wisdom.

To be friendly: It is the road to happiness.

To dream: It is the source of inspiration.

To laugh: It is music for the soul.

To love: It is the ultimate joy life can give.

To pray: It is the key to everything good.

2 weeks later...

Well, after two 'jobless/bossless' weeks, am I bored?

Kakaka... you must be kidding. In fact I kept myself very occupied everyday. Basically I woke up at 7 a.m. every morning, went for a morning swim, and started 'working' at home. I don't watch TV, DVD etc..

Everyday I do stock trading online, read reports/analysis/books, organize info in the way to ease future use (there are simply too much info nowadays that I need time to read and filter the useful one). The reason I even bother to organize the info I read everyday is that I am quite a forgetful person, good info tends to slip away from my memory pretty soon. I figure if I don't organize and store these info, then I will just be wasting my time reading so much everyday and forget about it later.

By the way, I went for an 'interview' last Saturday night (basically I was invited to have dinner with a CEO who flew from Europe) for a position that he thinks I am the best fit so far. The job prospect is very good, directly report to the CEO himself, position is high and important, but the responsibilities are hell a lot, sounds pretty busy and stressful. So I doubled up my price tag and let him consider.

Anyway I am not keen to jump back into the same field at this moment. I still wish to take my time off resting, learning, while doing investment online. Basically I can still survive, and it's quite stress-free.

Oh well, I will see when I start to get bored, or when there is a really good job offer coming along that is simply irresistable, or when I can't stand my dad nagging at me for staying jobless (he simply can't accept the idea of earning $ online at all), or when I am lazy to explain to those who keep showing concern on what I am doing everyday and those who are curious to dig info on how I make $ (quite annoying).

Meanwhile, I'll just take time off and have fun.

Happy Birthday to my Scorpio friends

Somehow my ex-office-lunch-group consists of all Scorpio except myself who is an Aries. So Oct and Nov I am busy celebrating birthday for them.

Pig Pig - 24 Oct

Lunch at Elephant - Pig Pig, Jo, Hoonster, Audrey, Kayden & Jason

Audrey and Hoonster made a 'McDull' birthday cake for Pig Pig. McDull is Jenny's favorite cartoon character, so she was very happy to see it.

Dinner at Hoi Tin Lau - Pig Pig, Jo, Hoonster, Tea & Ling

Emily - 5 Nov & Evie - 14 Nov

Lunch at The Cottage - Pig Pig, Jo, Emily & Evie

Dinner at Side Walk - Pig Pig, Jo & Emily

Today is Emily's birthday. Wish Emily Happy Birthday!

I bet Pig Pig would be happy to see her pix on my blog as she is the Libra/Scorpio character but Emily and Evie would really hate me for posting their pix as they are those very private and secretive Scorpio/Scorpio type.

p/s: The pix were taken with digital camera so not so clear, sorry!