Monthly Net-Worth Update — Oct 2020 — Added GOLD in the tracking

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Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

It is the end of Oct. So another update of our Net-Worth.

I read in an article that we should look at our net-worth from multiple perspectives. And one example mentioned in the article was GOLD.

So I added that in my tracking. 

And it was not really encouraging to realize that all I had worked for was only worth a dozen KG of Gold.

But it is a new perspective. I will keep it for now and see how it goes.

Below are the numbers. Another boring month.

Net-Worth increase from last month: 5.47K SGD, 1.5KG Gold

The increase is mainly due to the appreciation of Chinese Currency against SGD, offset by losses in STI.

Investment: 1.87% annualized return, incl. dividend

Come on, STI! Definitely my worst investment so far. 

But it is ok. I am in it for the long term. I will look at it when I retire.

Till next time!

I finally got it: why things seldom work out the way I want?

 

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Dear readers,

Thank you for coming here！

I was going through my personal notes and I noticed quite a few “Testimonials of success” — things I imagined I would say or do when I succeeded, some of them even with sketches to describe the wonderful occasions and the wonderful “out-of-this-world” feelings.

I must be quite happy with them, otherwise, I would not have recorded them down.

However, when I recalled those pursues, either I did not succeed or the success came in an entirely different format.

Either way, I did not get to use my “Testimonials of success”, which pretty much rendered them completely useless.

I could not help but wondering why.

I prepared “Testimonials”, which means I must have valued the success a great deal, which means I must have fought hard for them to happen and to happen in that specific way I had imagined.

The result, however, was disappointing.

Why have things seldom worked out the way I wanted or intended?

And this is not a new feeling to me. I had it all along and I would ask myself why now and then.

However, I never really seriously looked for the answer. Most of the time, I simply thought to myself: this is just life.

Therefore, I never had an answer that I could use to convince myself.

Until recently…

My theory: Things seldom worked out the way I wanted or intended because of two reasons:

1. What I wanted was not realistic
2. I did not fully plan for it

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1. What I wanted was not realistic

As much as I want it or want it in a specific way, it is just not realistic. The world does not work that way.

Most of my imaginations about success, as reflected in my “Testimonials”, were centered around me being the center of the world and everyone else present would behave according to my plan.

For example, I would make certain outrageous comments or behaviors to further enhance my charm as if the success would be just a piece of cake. And everyone else would simply buy it.

It is just not realistic.

In reality, the success would be just the beginning. People would maintain low profile and be even more cautious about their comments and behaviors, because they know success could yield jealousy and fame would bring the possibility of falling hard.

In reality, everyone is the center of their own world. Everyone has their own agendas, emotions and plans. Failing to realize that would just bring ourselves illusions.

To realize, accept and embrace the harsh reality is the only way for an adult.

Time to bid goodbye to illusions and fantasies!

So, I, a man in his thirties, finally realized how naïve and childish I have been! Well I guess this is progress.

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2. I did not fully plan for it.

Some of my “Testimonials” require certain occasions, such as ceremonies, to play out in a certain way, be it the agenda or the cast or the music.

However, I almost never did anything to influence the occasions.

Sometimes, it was just out of reach. How a school celebrates its anniversary is essentially none of the business of a primary student.

Sometimes, I simply cannot afford to do anything. All my attention was focused on getting the success and that was not even sufficient.

Sometimes, I just gave up as I did not think that was within “my scope”.

…

So the learning here is that if you want certain things to happen in a certain way, the best way is to consider all elements and plan for every single one of them, because the definition of success is that those certain things happen in that certain way.

So getting the medal is not the end. You have to influence how the ceremony will be carried out, so that you can “make” an appropriate occasion to use your prepared “Testimonials”.

If you want it, this is the price you need to pay and it would be worth it.

Till next time！

Surprise! I made the hard decision to “Chicken out”, but I did not get to!

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A simple background intro: I was out of a job in Jan 2020 and then the Covid-19 hit. My mentor offered me a position overseas in his team against all odds after his company had frozen all headcounts. However, due to border control, I have not been able to onboard, which means I am not getting paid. It has been 10 months.

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

A VP in my previous company reached out to me in Jun 2020 and offered me a promotion for me to go back. I said “No” and felt terrible at that time. You can read more about it in my previous post.

The same VP reached out to me again 4 weeks ago and told me that he really wanted me back for the position.

I knew he was sincere as I understood exactly what he needed done and I knew I was probably the best match he could find because I had done it before and built myself a bit of reputation in the same company.

I really gave it some serious thoughts this time, because the main stopper back in Jun — cannot break my commitment to my mentor — was gone.

About one week after I rejected the VP in Jun, I had a routine chat with my mentor and I brought up this episode. My mentor appreciated my commitment to him given my challenging financial situation and shared that he also felt the responsibility for my situation and was always trying to find ways to make it up to me, which also added to his pressure.

Therefore, he would keep my offer for as long as needed and he was perfectly fine if I started looking for something locally.

Since then I have not really started looking. Maybe I have been lazy. Maybe deep down I still want to go for this opportunity with my mentor. Maybe I believe subconsciously that the border will reopen soon.

However, the VP reaching out again really stirred my “desire” to go for something with more certainty and more “ease”.

So after much struggling myself and discussing with my mentor, I told the VP that I would pursue it. And the VP promised the same promotion as back in Jun.

After getting off the call with the VP, I felt a deep sense of “relief”: Yean! I chickened out, finally! And the wait could finally be over.

I really believed the hardest part was the decision and it was over.

I would start work really soon and solve the problem for the VP, because the VP was really eager for me to start as soon as possible.

And then maybe I can explore working together with my mentor again in 2 or 3 years.

Next should all be formalities and it should be settled really soon.

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash

So I was just waiting for the offer to come to me.

Two weeks later, I did an interview with the HRBP, which was supposed to be only a formality.

And I was waiting…

Until now, I still have not received the offer.

During all this time, the VP and I kept in touch, just with reducing frequency. And he has been telling me everything is going as planned.

Just I believe him less every time he tells me the same thing.

And according to an ex-colleague and friend, things are stuck with the HR and the VP is not really pushing hard enough.

I am just disappointed that the VP is not upfront with me and instead, he just tells me everything is fine, like he would not even want to take the time to explain things to me.

The feeling of obligation towards the VP due to his “twice” reaching out is completed gone now.

Yesterday, I decided to stop contacting him and turn into “passive” waiting mode.

It is ok to me. I had to struggle so much to make the decision and now I would just go back to my original plan.

Now I just feel stupid and pity for all the struggles I went through to make the decision to “Chicken out”.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

So thinking back the whole incident, I could not help noticing that I was limited by my own worries.

1) I was limited by my own worries from making the best decisions.

Back in Jun, I could have discussed with my mentor before I single-handed made the decision to reject the VP.

I was worried about that my mentor might feel disappointed due to my “lack of commitment”. However, It never came to me that my situation could also add to his pressure.

Discussing it with my mentor might have yielded better outcomes for all three of us.

2) I was limited by my own worries from focusing on the most critical problems.

Back in Jun, I was worried about my commitment to my mentor and 4 week ago, I was worried about the long-term vs short-term, family time, life style, future plans etc etc.

I focused soly on making the decisions to choose Option A or Option B.

However, I failed to notice the most critical and hard reality: I did not have the options!

I was worrying myself to death, twice, for an offer I never had.

I would have been able to save all those worries and struggling if I only waited until I had the offer.

Till next time!

How to be a good manager (Still exploring) - Part 1: Learn to rely on your team

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Dear readers,

Thank you for coming here.

I started my series “How to be a good employee to increase your salary 10 times in 10 years” a few weeks ago, based on my actual experiences and thoughts as an individual contributor.

I am glad to have received some feedback from my readers saying that the series is helpful.

I stepped into my current managerial role as a senior consulting director about 9 months ago. While I am still exploring how to be a good manager, I have gathered some thoughts and learnings.

Initially, I planned to start this series “How to be a good manager” in a few years when I have enough experience.

Then it came to me “Why wait?”. I could share my thoughts and learnings along the way. It may not be that insightful or even structured.

But this is a great place to record down my thoughts and better still, I could have your feedback along the journey.

So here it goes. My first post in this series: “How to be a good manager — Part 1: Learn to rely on your team”

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Today is the first working day after the China Golden Week holidays.

For the last working day before the holidays, I gathered the team in a meeting room and assigned work to each of my team members and told them to arrange their time themselves, as long as they could complete the work and send to me before 9am today.

On that day in the same meeting, I also scheduled a review with the team at 11am today so that they know the importance of sending out their work by 9am.

My intention was to give my team flexibility to arrange for their long holidays. Therefore, the work assigned could definitely be completed within one day and the requirements should be clear as the work was nothing new.

The team welcomed the arrangement, so I believe they understood my intention for them to have great holidays and rest.

And in return, I expected quality work. I was also secretly hoping that they could appreciate my care for them and therefore deliver even better work than usual.

While I did receive all their work by 9am today, some last night and some this morning (but none before the holidays), I was not impressed by the quality of their work.

The analysis was not insightful enough; the messages were not crispy; the support clearly could be stronger with more details readily available in the database; the layout of the slides was not carefully planned and aligned…

I was a bit upset.

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I knew I should not do the work for them. That was the mistake I would not commit again.

But I was not sure how best to express my frustration to the team. Should I show my anger and deliver a heavy message? Or should I pretend to be patient and just tell them how to improve?

After some thinking, I decided to step back and make the review a light one, where I would ask every team member to share the difficulties they face, the information they still need and the next steps they are going to take.

There are 3 reasons:

1. They know the requirements and my standards as they have done this before. And I believe they are able to see why the work needs improvements and how to make those improvements. So there is no need for me to reiterate that.
2. We still have some time before the deadline, so I can afford to spend one more day for the team to improve their work.
3. I have decided to let them present their own parts during the management meeting, to make it directly clear that they need to take responsibility for their own work.

As a result, I had one of the most relaxing review ever. The team did most of the talking and they picked up most of the improvement points, with me adding in the few they missed.

And they did seem refreshed after the holidays and ready to make the improvements today. I have already seem them acting to collect more data etc.

Overall, I think everyone was pretty happy.

I could not help thinking what if I just let out my anger and delivered a “negative” message. Maybe they would agree with what I said and the improvements would be made. They probably would not feel so happy and motivated.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

I had three take-aways:

1. The team members are not stupid and there is no need to point out the improvement points every time you see one. They probably already know them and are on the way to implement them.
2. Trust your team and let them do their work. If needs be, provide support and emphasize that they are responsible for their work.
3. Always try to plan for some buffer so that if one or more team members could not deliver, there is time to rectify.

Till next time!