Monthly Net-Worth Update - July 2020

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here.

Here are the numbers for July!

Really nothing exciting. Hope my freelancer pay comes soon.

Net-Worth increase from last month: 5K SGD

Nothing exciting at all...

Investment: 2.46% annualized return, incl. dividend 

China market is doing a bit crazy. Rumors are that this is structural and might kick off another round of Bull. 

My take? I do not know. I have not really looked at the market for a while. So I will stick to the original plan.

If my freelancer pay comes through, I guess it will mostly go to the market.

Till the next time!

Different take on "Trust" and "Loyalty"

Photo by Richard R. Schünemann on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

My mentor secured me an official promise yesterday that I will start drawing salary from Apr, as if I have been on-boarded.

This is great news for me, because I am back on the payroll.

Previously, I was really just "hoping" to get paid. That was not easy after 6 months, especially given that I have a family to support.

Besides being happy and grateful that my mentor kept my interest in mind, I had some different take on "Trust" and “Loyalty”.

Maybe I should have even more faith in others and take the risks and actions.

1. Not a Trusting Person

Growing up in a not-so-trusting environment and having watched so many TV drama and movies where loyal generals and advisors die miserably with their families abused afterwards, I intend to be less trusting and show this through my actions.

I seldom trust others to deliver what they promise unless there is a proper mechanism in place to "force" them to, especially if delivering their promises takes time.

There were very few exceptions.

This is consistent with my experiences and I think this is wise, given human nature.

Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

While this belief still largely holds (I will still do the same towards most people in my life), through the years, I have learned that I do not need to be so extreme: the world is warm enough to let my guard down more often.

My first change came with my wife (Girlfriend then). She is a role model of being trusting for me (Not sure whether she made the right decision to trust me...haha) and she showed me that I could live so much more relaxed if I stop putting my guard up all the time.

So I changed. Now, I am sometimes even lazy to put my guard up even though my instinct tells me to.

I could recall a few instances that I suffered losses from. And sometimes, I blame myself for becoming less careful and soft.

But largely I am happy about the change. Life is more relaxing and I am open to exploring more things.

Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash

2. I Will Change Again

However, this recent experience makes me want to be even more trusting and believe that it could be beneficial both for me and the ones I care, particularly in the career perspective.

With my old "belief", when a boss makes me a promise that he would give me blahblahblah after I deliver blahblahblah, I would never believe them.

It is not that I will refuse to deliver what he needs.

It is more of a matter that I do not want to take the risk of being disappointed. I just know that the chance of disappointment will be high if I expect him to uphold his promises. Or rather, I do not want to believe otherwise.

Therefore, between an actual offer and a promise from my boss, I almost always choose the former.

Not surprisingly, I have switched jobs a few times. So in that sense, I am not a "Loyal" employee.

A few weeks ago, I gave up the opportunity to go back to my previous company with a promotion and pay raise I wanted.

It was clear to me that I was going for the long term development opportunities.

However, I still felt terrible when I rejected the offer, because I was betting on a promise with no enforcement and this time, I was being "Loyal", against my typical practices.

Now that the "payroll" arrangement is secured, my expectation is exceeded in a way. And I get re-confirmation that my mentor has my interests in mind and my "Loyalty" has paid off.

Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash

With this incident, I have decided to have more faith in other people and companies and be more "Loyal" going forward.

I knew all along the importance of "Loyalty" in career success.

Intuitively and logically, no one wants to work with and promote a dis-loyal team member.

Research shows that the median tenure with their company of CEOs of S&P 500 companies was 15 years.

So I had my own take on "Loyalty" and I believe I have done quite well, even when being "Loyal" might hinder my own progress: delivering outstanding work with the best interest of my boss in mind as long as I am working for him, which means going extra miles to make him succeful in front of his boss, never bad-mouse him and never go pass him in the command chain.

And it stops there. If you cannot match what I can get outside, that is it. Most likely, I am gone.

Deep down, the root-cause is still my "untrusting" intention or lack of faith.

I do not believe my current boss can uphold his promise for better outcomes.

I do not beleive my current company can do well enough or care enough for me, an average employee, to be benefited.

Therefore, I grasp what I can now and make my own future.

Following this route, I have gone through quite a few learning cycles and horned my skills in different areas, which gave me confidence and value to be an excellent contributor in any team.

However, I have never been near the "Power", the ability to participate in determing the strategic direction, splitting the pie and nurturing the next generation.

To put it frankly, I do not have the ability to take "ownership" on any meaningful level.

It is time to change that.

I have this great opportunity to work with my mentor, someone who trusts me and is willing to help me, in a field with reasonably good outlook.

There is no better occasion for me to stay for the long term and dig deep, with him and preferably also with the company.

Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

3. One Little Thing

Before we end this post, I would like to highlight that while "Loyalty" is important, it is equally important to let others know your "Loyalty".

I had the proper occasion to tell my mentor about the offer I had rejected during last weekend. And the "Payroll" arrangement literally came two days after that.

I think my action was also a re-confirmation for my mentor about my determination and "Loyalty".

"Loyalty" is a compliment to the other party!

My readers, hope my experience can be of help to you! Till next time!

Reading - How?

Photo by Maxim Ilyahov on unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here.

In this post, I would like to summarize the way of reading a book that I have been using and found useful.

First of all, I am sure everyone understands the importance of reading.

Many "achieved" man even advocate that reading is the best way to learn, compared to audio or video media, because reading let us control the pace and have the time to think and reflect properly.

Second, one thing needs to be clear: there should be some take-away from the reading we do.

We have limited time for reading and unlimited materials to read. Even though I do believe in the old saying that there is something to gain as long as you open the books, I strongly encourage that we should get serious and purposeful in reading since we are spending the precious time.

Third, the best way to get serious and purposeful in reading is:

1. Take notes
2. Review notes
3. Output
   

Ok now. How do we do that?

Below is the way I have been using. It is largely based on the way introduced in her book by "奥野宣之"，combined with my little twists.

1. Take notes

The key is capture what matters to us and our comments.

What matters to us could be the viewpoint, the methodology, the structure, the way to convince and even the excellent use of words etc.

Our comments could be our thoughts, the connection we recall (e.g. Does this confirm or contradict my previous knowledge), the specific methods or tools for implementation and application etc.

Therefore, the length of the notes does not matter as long as it meets the above two requirements.

Tip: it can be really short.

There are 3 steps to follow:

a. Read the book and take down or highlight what is interesting in the book.

Normally, I read on my phone and highlight what is interesting.

For "serious" material (mostly books, sometimes some blog posts etc also) with tons of information some of which may be hard to grasp, I read on my PC and take down what is interesting in a mindmap along the way. It takes more time.

(I pretty much only read e-books now)

b. Re-read what I took down and de-highlight or remove from my mindmap those that are no longer interesting to me.

We grow. Actually, reading the book the first time and highlighting the interesting part itself is part of that growth. So what was interesting then might not be now.

c. Put what is still interesting in a mind map and attach my comments for each of the interesting item

For "Serious" books, this is already done!

Mind-map is a better format for me that just dot-dashes.

2. Review notes

There are two occasions to review the notes.

a. I set periodic review schedule, like every Sunday.

b. When I need some information. In this case, it usually starts with a vague or clear idea that I read something related before and then searching.

There has to be some take-away in reviewing the notes (it is also reading!). It could be new thoughts, new understanding, new tools we know of lately or new scenarios where we can apply what we read.

This is hard! So maybe do it once every week.

3. Output

This should be the ultimate purpose of reading. Without output, there is no point in reading at all, unless only for pleasure, which is "luxury" in my mind（Not really a reading guy. I can think of many other ways if I want to get "luxury" of pleasure)

We can:

- express to others in the form of teaching or discussing

- write about it (what I am doing now)

- solve a problem (Best output ever)

- create new ideas with what we read as foundation

- etc

This requires time. The only way to extract value from it is to keep doing it for 5, 10 15 years.

Happy reading.

Till next time!

How long can a man/women hold a grudge?

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

It seems that the job market is getting better. I was approached by a few recruiters and agents who had some positions to fill during the past week.

One of the calls was from the company that retracted my offer a few months ago. I bet the recruiter did not know the history there.

I was open to the opportunity and we agreed to follow up with a call the next day as I needed to rush for a meeting.

To be honest, I was pretty glad that I would have the opportunity to talk to them again and I was hoping to have a fresh start and even land a job offer, as that was a very interesting area for me.

(To clarify, considering the virus situation, my mentor expressed his understanding for me to start looking. And if a satisfying offer comes, we will continue our cooperation in a advisor-style manner.)

To me, what happened was in the past and I would only look forward with no hard feelings. The retraction of the offer was only business after all. It was not like anyone has done anything "wrong".

I decided that the first thing I would tell the recruiter would be the history and let the recruiter decide whether to continue.

I even planned to apologize first for the possibility of "wasting his time". But later, it came to me that I should not.

I was prepared to accept the worst-case scenario: he would tell me that I would be disqualified due to the history, and I would say to him that I would understand and thank him for his call.

At least, it would be a proper grown-up conversation.

Or so I thought.

The next day, half an hour before the scheduled call, I received a message from the recruiter that he would need to cancel the call.

I could only guess he found out about the history.

I replied "Thank you", because I could understand that maybe he did not want to waste his time to call or maybe he was even worried that he would get into some kind of trouble by speaking with me.

And I knew it would not have any tangible impact on my life, not any more.

And I knew there was nothing I could do.

But still, I felt uncomfortable.

Why? Because, half a year later, I was still not treated like any other candidate and I was not given a chance, even for a proper conversation.

It was like I have done something unforgivable to them, even though I was the one who suffered significant loss - because they gave me the offer, I quit from my previous job, and because they later retracted the same offer, until now, I still did not have a job and I almost did not have any income for the past half a year. To some extent, my life had to take a different path!

I just could not understand why they still refused to even talk.

As a person, I let it go; however, the other side, as a company, still held a grudge against me.

I just could not see why it was necessary. Maybe it would be hard for the other side to believe that I actually let it go, simply because they did not.

Happy voting, everybody!

Till next time!

I was given "my life" back and I said "No" and I do not know how I feel

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here.

I got a call earlier this week from one of the VPs in my previous company.

He offered me what I wanted but could not get while I was still there: a promotion in title and a reasonable pay increment.

Essentially, I was given "my life" back with more perks.

I was pleasantly surprised. I missed my previous job in the past few months so many times: the feeling of having everything under control, the "better than great" work-life balance, the perks and of course the paycheck.

In the end, however, I said No to him.

The reason was simple.

1. My mentor decided to take me in and actually got me an offer when I had nothing and when his company decided to freeze headcount. And he kept the offer for me until now. I also did accept the offer. How could I break the promise and contract at the first sight of other options?

2. From a long term perspective, sticking to the current offer is better for me. As a minimum, I will get the challenges and the learning that comes along, which represents the opportunity to reach "another level" of capabilities, self-satisfaction and life.

However, knowing this so clearly, it was still so damn hard to let go of the certainty and comfort at my fingertips.

I had to repeatedly tell myself that I needed to look at the long term, that I could not be satisfied with "my old life" after all I had gone through in the past few months, that I was more ambitious than that and my family and I deserved better than that...

What came out even more often was how this new offer could enable me to live an easy life, stay with my family, get my family covered under a great insurance scheme, and the pleasant feeling I would get when I accepted the offer...

What also kept coming out was self-doubt: what if I failed the challenges in my current offer, what if I had to wait another few months before I could onboard, what if I could not get the pay for the past 5 months and the few months I still would have to wait, what if I could not find a comparable job offer in the future...

It was so difficult to finally finalize the decision and pick up the phone to inform the VP.

And I felt terrible afterwards.

But thinking back how I have been making decisions, I probably should feel terrible.

It was my first decision against all "feelings" that I could remember.

I am a typical "feeling" person when it comes to decisions. When faced with difficult decisions, I usually let it sink in, wait until my feelings become amply clear and go with my feelings.

This decision was against my feelings. I felt I should go with the new offer because of the certainty and the "Easy" mode it offers.

After all, why cannot I take the easy route?

After all, why do I have to take the "hard" mode all the time?

After all, to succeed in my current offer, there are so many challenges to overcome and things are exactly not at their best now.

Now that I have made and carried out the decision, I have rationalized it which means I feel better now.

That is what I am going to keep in my head:

1. I made the decision for me

2. I need to make the decision right, after all the struggles and the certainty and comfort I let go

3. I will check on #2 after two years.

Till the next time!