Destiny Steps

Let Every action be directed to some DEFINITE Object and Perfect in its way

Write it on your hert that every day is the best day of the day

Make yourself indespensable and you will move up. Act as though you were indispensable and you will move out

Ambition like a torrent, never looks back

 Have an aim in Life, or Your energies will be wasted

A man’s biggest mistake is to be believe that he is working only for someone else.

Last wed, June 17, a lady driving a black Toyota Innova with the number plate BHU 7833 was doing a 3 point U-turn @ SS23/10 in order to go to the durian store by the road side. As she was making her reverse, the was an on coming toll truck waiting for her to clear the way. And she reversed without looking at the back. Despite my real loud honk, she reversed straight into my car. She claimed that she didnt hear the honk !! Duh, even neighbours came out to check what happened as a result of the honk.  

After a quick check, my corner light was broken. Unsure of the sport skirting / bumper though they look ok. Initially, she just want to “pay it off”. I told her I do not know how much it will cost at that moment. I told her she will have to pay for the repair.  I got her details. This is her hand written  note :

And her Roadtax :

(I should have taken a pic of her too)

She promised she will call the next Mon (ie. June 22). I had it repaired and it cost RM101.75. I called on Mon. The phone was not reachable. I left a sms message informing her the repair is done, call me. No call. Following that, I called every other day. The last was today, 5 min ago. It was the same message : the number you have called is not reachable. Please call again later.

RM101.75 is not a lot. I sure can afford it myself. But it is a matter of principles. You are at fault. It was your carelessness. And your carelessness cause me unnecessary damage. I don’t have to pay for your carelessness. And now, the ill integrity of avoidance.  I  will make sure this goes out into the public. From her car sticker, she  is probably a teacher (my guess) at a school @ Setia Eco Park. If she is a teacher, I hope the parents of her students take note & beware of her integrity. If you happen to know her, now you know the true her.

** I will make the effort & time to visit the residence address she gave & see what happen. This extra effort is so unneccesary.

One day as I was driving to see my client, BFM was on and it was about investment from some1 who has done it from where they were still in the workforce, having their day jobs. I like her goal oriented, passion and focus. Anthony Robbins says, “Energy flows where focus go.”

Months back, I think it was last Sept/Oct. I interviewed a candidate, very savvy in SCM & ERP, very well knowledge in processes. From his CV, it was clear that with his technical background, it is empowering his work now as a consultant / Business Analyst.  But during my meeting with him, he was very insistant that he is shouldering the role of a PM, has gotten himself certified in PMP and wanted to move into PM role. His main motivation to explore was to move to PM role.

It is a good thing to have candidates who knows what they want & where they want their career to develop towards. The only thing is too often these candidates want something that is not their flair, not what they are good at. I can see his strength in project consultancy, especially in SCM / ERP and logistics processes. But he has a big lack in people management & relationship handling. I have serious doubt of his ability to manage project conflicts & turn around situation, which is one of the key factor in project management. I have indirectly hinted to him of my observation, but, I was not about to go against his wish & tell him not to proceed as he wished. Human learn best when they hit the wall themselves. If I were to tell him PM role is not suitable for him then, he will probably think that I was critical & judgemental of him & of his ability.

9 months down, I got to touch base with him again lately. He has moved on obviously. He has gotten his wish to move on to PM role. But this time round, the story has a different tune to it. I was chatting & following up with him. Thinking he has just moved 8 months ago, he has gotten what he wished for - PM role, he probably want to stay to build his resume. But surprise surprise, he is aggressively looking out again. As a headhunter, I certainly ask for the reason. After 8 months into this new role, he has come to realise that he is not so good with people. He does best in partial hands-on, consultancy & hands-on role like he used to be. (My theory of human unlearning process :))  So now, although the company is good, he is not fulfilled in his role. Thus, now aggressively looking out.

As a ICT technical headhunter (although I cover non technical role at times), it is so often that I faced technical people who wants to discard what they do best for something in the perception is better but not their strength.

Build on strength, sharpen the sword, compensate your weakness to build your career. Technical role has equivalent opportunity to as well as operational / managerial role, if not more. 

“Choose your friends.”

“Choose the people that you want close to you”

………………………………………………………………………………………………

I am sure you’ve heard all these…no, I don’t mean the strategic network to serve specific motive, but really the people we surround ourselves with. They have a big impact, influence us as a person & affect our destiny.

A few days ago, I came across this article which I thought is worth taking note & paying attention.

Toxic personalities to avoid by Brett Blumenthal - Sheer Balance, on Wed May 13, 2009 8:01am PDT

Although we like to think that the people in our lives are well-adjusted, happy, healthy minded individuals, we sometimes realize that it just isn’t so.  Personally, I’ve had moments where I’ll be skipping through my day, happy as can be, thinking life is grand and BAM, I’ll be blindsided by someone who manages to knock the happy wind out of my sails.  Sometimes it is easy to write it off and other times, not so much.

Maybe you are a positive person, but when you are around a certain individual, you feel negative.  Or, maybe you have an idealistic view of the world and when you are with certain people, you are made to feel silly, unrealistic or delusional.  Or, maybe you pride yourself in being completely independent and in control of your life, but when you are around a certain family member, you regress into a state of childhood.

Some of these situations, and yes, these people, can have a tremendously negative impact on our lives.  And, although we are all human and have our ‘issues,’ some ‘issues’ are quite frankly, toxic.  They are toxic to our happiness.  They are toxic to our mental outlook.  They are toxic to our self-esteem.  And they are toxic to our lives.  They can suck the life out of us and even shorten our lifespan.

Here are the worst of the toxic personalities out there and how to spot them:

1. Manipulative Mary: These individuals are experts at manipulation tactics.  Is a matter of fact, you may not even realize you have been manipulated until it is too late.  These individuals figure out what your ‘buttons’ are, and push them to get what they want.

• Why they are toxic: These people have a way of eating away at your belief system and self-esteem.  They find ways to make you do things that you don’t necessarily want to do and before you know it, you lose your sense of identity, your personal priorities and your ability to see the reality of the situation.  The world all of a sudden becomes centered around their needs and their priorities.

2. Narcissistic Nancy: These people have an extreme sense of self-importance and believe that the world revolves around them.  They are often not as sly as the Manipulative Marys of the world, but instead, tend to be a bit overt about getting their needs met.  You often want to say to them “It isn’t always about you.”

• Why they are toxic: They are solely focused on their needs, leaving your needs in the dust.  You are left disappointed and unfulfilled.  Further, they zap your energy by getting you to focus so much on them, that you have nothing left for yourself.

3. Debbie Downers: These people can’t appreciate the positive in life.  If you tell them that it is a beautiful day, they will tell you about the impending dreary forecast.  If you tell them you aced a mid-term, they’ll tell you about how difficult the final is going to be.

• Why they are toxic: They take the joy out of everything.  Your rosy outlook on life continues to get squashed with negativity.  Before you know it, their negativity consumes you and you start looking at things with gray colored glasses yourself.

4. Judgmental Jims: When you see things as cute and quirky, they see things as strange and unattractive.  If you find people’s unique perspectives refreshing, they find them ‘wrong’.  If you like someone’s eclectic taste, they find it ‘disturbing’ or ‘bad’.

• Why they are toxic: Judgmental people are much like Debbie Downers.  In a world where freedom rings, judgment is sooo over.  If the world was a homogeneous place, life would be pretty boring.  Spending a lot of time with these types can inadvertently convert you into a judgmental person as well.
  

5. Dream Killing Keiths: Every time you have an idea, these people tell you why you can’t do it.  As you achieve, they try to pull you down.  As you dream, they are the first to tell you it is impossible.

• Why they are toxic: These people are stuck in what is instead of what could be.  Further, these individuals eat away at your self-esteem and your belief in yourself.  Progress and change can only occur from doing new things and innovating, dreaming the impossible and reaching for the stars.

6. Insincere Illissas: You never quite feel that these people are being sincere.  You tell a funny story, they give you a polite laugh.  You feel depressed and sad and they give you a ‘there, there’ type response.  You tell them you are excited about something and you get a very ho-hum response.

• Why they are toxic: People who aren’t sincere or genuine build relationships on superficial criteria.  This breeds shallow, meaningless relationships.  When you are really in need of a friend, they won’t be there.  When you really need constructive criticism, they would rather tell you that you are great the way you are.  When you need support, they would rather see you fail or make a fool of yourself.

7. Disrespectful Dannys: These people will say or do things at the most inappropriate times and in the most inappropriate ways.  In essence, they are more subtle, grown up bullies.  Maybe this person is a friend who you confided in and uses your secret against you.  Maybe it is a family member who puts their busy-body nose into your affairs when it is none of their business.  Or maybe, it is a colleague who says demeaning things to you.

• Why they are toxic: These people have no sense of boundaries and don’t respect your feelings or, for that matter, your privacy.  These people will cause you to feel frustrated and disrespected.

8. Never Enough Nellies: You can never give enough to these people to make them happy.  They take you for granted and have unrealistic expectations of you.  They find ways to continually fault you and never take responsibility for anything themselves.

• Why they are toxic: You will spend so much time trying to please them, that you will end up losing yourself in the process.  They will require all of your time and energy, leaving you worn out and your own needs sacrificed.

All of these personalities have several things in common.  1) the more these people get away with their behavior, the more they will continue.  2) Unfortunately, most of these people don’t see that what they do is wrong and as a result, talking to them about it will fall on deaf ears, leaving you wondering if you are the crazy one.  3) Most of these people get worse with age, making their impact on you stronger with time.

Frankly, life is too short to spend your time dealing with toxicity.  If you can, avoid spending mucho time with people who are indicative of these behaviors and you’ll feel a lot happier

A client of mine, a reputable Business Intelligent Solution MNC, is hunting for a highly qualified Finance person with hands on Finance experience, IT savvy, has tremendous business acumen, excellent business consultative skills, superb communication & presentation abilility to fill the senior position of Business Performance Consultant.  

Requirements:

Requirements:

• Candidate must possess at least an Advanced Diploma / Bachelor’s Degree Computer Science / IT / Finance & IT / Math.
• At least 7 year(s) of working experience in consulting and pre-sales of datawarehousing, ETL, business intelligent & business performance, etc
• The candidate must be expereince & knowledgable in financial services industry (banking / insurance) or in the domain of Finance, consumer insights, enterprise business information performance, Knowledge and experience of Enterprise Performance Management products (Hyperion, SAS, Teradata, Cognos, Business Objects, SPSS, Outlooksoft, Cartesis, etc) Ideally but secondary experience of working with ERP products (Oracle, Siebel, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards, SAP, BAAN)
• Knowledge / exposure in Project Management & Account Management Experience of pre-sales delivery in a major software vendor
• Experience of working with fast-paced, multi-disciplinary environment to develop and deliver solutions
• Good communication skills - able to articulate key messages very clearly
• Results orientation - you won’t be satisfied until the job is done with excellent delivery standard
• Good understanding of the IT market/trends particularly in the business intelligent, datawarehousing, Business performance & related field
• Proactively support sales teams in positioning the solutions as a key differentiator Self motivated, hunger to achieve, acute sense of hunter instinct to seize opportunities
• Have the natural drive to learn and pick up new challenges Eagerness to succeed & WIN
• Enjoy the challenge of turning technical, functional & business skills into power influence on prospects & clients.
• Work experience in a similar role is an advantage Strong solutions presentations & demonstrations skill Experience in answering tenders / RPI / RFP / RPQ
• Maintain in depth and up to date knowledge of relevant business drivers & typical customer needs
• Ensure collaboration with industry presales teams, the core technology presales community and sales.
• Actively developing products & solutions expertise in the area of Business Intelligent, datawarehousing & Enterprise Business Performance Full-Time positions available.
• Applicants MUST be Malaysian or with work permit not tie to any employers

If you meet the above requirements & keen in an excellent career opportunity, leave me a message & I will get back to you in a jiff.

We All Need To Become Millionaires. How does this statement sound to you ? A little materialistic, money manic ? It was the statement made by an investment advisor licensed by our SC. Read on the article by Ooi Kok Wah, an investment advisor licensed by SC published in The Star Business section on Jan 28.

One must have cash reserves of about RM1mil to be able to maintain one’s current lifestyle 20 years after retirement

Ooi Kok Hwa: The key principle here is we need to have cash reserves of more than RM1mil to be able to maintain our current lifestyle 20 years after retirement.

WE need to become millionaires when we retire! A lot of people have misconceptions about being millionaires. To them, being a millionaire means they should own total assets – by adding up their total cash, house, Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) contribution and car – that are worth RM1mil and above.

They believe that once they achieve one million cash, they should enjoy themselves by driving big luxury cars and staying in bungalows.

In reality, all of us need to become millionaires when we retire at age 55. Based on our computation, we need to own total cash, including all money in savings, fixed deposits and EPF, which have total value of more than RM1mil.

The key principle here is we need to have cash reserves of more than RM1mil to be able to maintain our current lifestyle 20 years after retirement from age 55 to age 75. This is on the assumption that we can live up to 75 (the average lifespan of Malaysians).

Based on our computation (see table), if you are now 35 years old and your current monthly expenses are RM3,000 per month, assuming you are only able to generate a return of 3% (the return from fixed deposits) on all of your savings and the RM3,000 will grow by the average historical inflation rate of 3.5% per annum, you would need RM1.6mil when you retire at age 55.

This amount will be enough to maintain your current lifestyle for the next 20 years after your retirement at 55.

However, if you need to spend RM5,000, RM7,000 or RM10,000 per month, then you need RM2.6mil, RM3.7mil and RM5.3mil respectively at your retirement age of 55.

In short, you need to become a millionaire when you retire even if you only maintain a simple lifestyle after your retirement. You will not be able to use this money to buy a big luxury car or a bungalow, as you really need the money for the next 20 years.

Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko have conducted research on the reasons why some Americans become wealthy. They discovered that a lot of them live well below their means.

Unfortunately, we notice that some Malaysians do not have enough money when they retire. Some of them may not be aware that they really need to accumulate that amount of money when they retire. Some may be aware, but they may have used up all their savings to support their children’s education. As a result, they need to find a job after retirement.

Some may have difficulties finding a job. A lot of companies may prefer to employ a young graduate rather than a retiree unless the latter is willing to accept a lower pay.

We also believe that a lot of investors are quite worried about having enough money for retirement. They are also concerned that their money may not be enough to protect them against inflation. Hence, besides controlling our expenses, we also need to know how to grow our money.

Looking at the table, different minimum achievable annual target returns can provide different required amounts for retirement.

For the current monthly expenses of RM3,000, if you are only able to generate a 3% return per annum, then you need to have RM1.6mil for retirement whereas you only need about RM900,000 if you are able to generate a return of 10%.

However, higher returns come with higher risks. We need to understand our risk tolerance level. We need to equip ourselves with adequate investing knowledge if we intend to generate higher returns.

We begin this New Year of 2009 with dampened enthusiasm and dented optimism.

Our happiness is diluted and our peace is threatened by the financial illness that has infected our families, organizations and nations. Everyone is desperate to find a remedy that will cure their financial illness and help them recover their financial health.

Every new year, I adopt a couple of old maxims as my beacons to guide my future.

This self-prescribed therapy has ensured that with each passing year, I grow wiser and not older.

This year, I invite you to tap into the financial wisdom of our elders along with me, and become financially wiser.

Hard work : All hard work brings profit; but mere talk leads only to poverty.

Investment : Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

I’m certain that those who have already been practicing these principles remain financially healthy. I’m equally confident that those who resolve to start practicing these principles will quickly regain their financial health.

Let us become wiser and lead a happy, healthy, prosperous and peaceful life. Opportunities are never lost. It’s just that the other fellow takes what you miss.

Warren Buffet

Working in S’pore. Anyone up for it ? Or you know of anyone with these skills and expereince & intend to move to S’pore.

It is FSI. At VP level (ie. manager level).

Additional important Criteria
- CHINESE,
- very good supervisory skills/experience & communications with primary focus is in SAP FI-GL module

Package estimates : > SGD 8K + FSI VB

Role : SAP Application Analyst - Financial Accounting

- provide regional application development, management and support services for financial accounting and procurement & expenditure management system to regional users.
- It has approximately 20-25% of travelling per year for project implementation at overseas branches.

Responsibilities:
Implement SAP applications to regional offices
Develop solutions within SAP to support business needs
Enhance existing functions to improve business processes
Perform and support system testing activities
Develop user functional and system technical specifications
System tuning and production support

Requirements
Degree in Computer Science or related discipline
At least 8-9 years of experience in SAP with technical skills in ABAP programming, dialog programming, SAP script, user exits, BDC, ALV reporting, interactive reporting, function modules, workflow, data migration and conversions
Possess technical knowledge in AS/400 and Control-M would be advantageous
Good interpersonal and communication skills with good attention to details
Able to communicate with users at all levels
Good understanding of financial operations
Strong analytical skills and proactive in providing solutions

Interested ? Think you meet the above criteria & qualify ?  Leave me a message & I will get back to you in a jiff.