Decoding the ‘Millionaire Mind'

Tanned, streetwise and laidback, T Harv Eker speaks in soundbites: “Every master was once a disaster”, and “People don’t make money. People earn money.” Dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, the author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth and owner of mobile business school Peak Potentials Training looks like he spends more time on the beach than in a boardroom. Eker claims he can tell anyone, within five minutes of meeting the person, how much money the person has the potential to make. “Each of us has a personal money blueprint — a limit on how much money you can have. It is the root cause of financial success or failure,” he declared in an interview late last month. “Donald Trump could lose all his money, and make it back and more, his blueprint is set to unlimited. Lottery winners tend to lose all they’ve won very quickly. Their blueprint is set to low.”

Eker is in Malaysia from today till Sunday to conduct his three-day “Millionaire Mind Intensive” seminar, in which he resets participants’ money blueprint to “high”. He will also examine five critical ways in which rich people think differently from the crowd.Toronto-born Eker discovered his own money blueprint through personal experience. With a US$2,000 (RM7,000) credit card loan, he opened “one of the first fitness stores in North America” and turned it into a chain within two-and-a-half years. He did not name the store.He sold the business in 1987 for US$1.6 million, and then lost it all. “It was serendipitous. I looked at my bank balance and it was exactly the same as it was two years ago. Now in fitness, each person has a ‘set point’ on their weight. It has to do with metabolism and the number of fat cells they have. I was looking at my financial ‘set point’,” he noted. Unwilling to accept his financial “set point”, or what he now calls “money blueprint”, Eker set about changing it.According to him, the money blueprint is ingrained in an individual through upbringing, society and parents. But it can be identified and changed. “I went to seminars and learned the ‘accelerated learning method’, which I used on myself, and things started to change. That’s how the ‘millionaire mind’ concept came about,” he explained.

His new business, Peak Potentials Training, earned a revenue of US$50 million last year. While the company runs many courses, its keystone seminar is the “Millionaire Mind Intensive”. The programme incorporates techniques from the accelerated learning method, which stresses “high impact, high frequency and ongoing support”.Eker said the “Millionaire Mind Intensive” course aims to reprogramme one’s “hardware” from “cellular memory”. But you, the “hardware”, have to be present at the seminar. “You can’t do this just by reading the book,” he said, adding that the programme has given rise to more than 200,000 success stories. When the course was held in Malaysia last year, it attracted about 5,000 people. The current seminar is sold out. To Eker, getting rich is entirely about “who you are”, not about capability or opportunity. “Financial success doesn’t come from IQ. There are people who are just too smart to be financially successful because they don’t do much.

Thinkers are not doers. If you don’t do, you don’t get,” he declared. “It doesn’t take much to not succeed. But to succeed, you must be a more determined, bigger and more courageous person.”For example, he believes the downturn is a great time to “go shopping” because the economy will eventually recover. “What goes down must come up. When? Eventually! Rich people think long term, poor people think short term.” People who fail to seize this opportunity are acting out of fear, which is natural, but it stops you from being rich, he said. “Thoughts lead to feelings, which lead to actions, which lead to results. If you take out actions, you don’t get the results.”

This article appeared on the Management page, The Edge Financial Daily, June 12, 2009

Written by Emily Tan

When investing in stocks - control your greed and fear

by Ooi Kok Hwa is an investment adviser and managing partner of MRR Consulting

THE recent strong market rally caught many investors by surprise again.
Most investors, including some analysts, predicted earlier that it was just a bear market rally. They have been hoping the market will turn down again. Unfortunately, it has been moving up strong without looking back.
For investors who have not invested during the recent low in March 2009, they are getting very worried as they are not benefitting from the recent rally. They may even wonder whether they should jump in now in order not to miss the boat.
Another group of investors, who have managed to catch some stocks at cheap prices during the previous market low, are also facing the dilemma of whether to lock in their gains now or continue to hold on to their gains. Some even regretted selling their stocks too early last month.
We all know that it is very difficult, in fact impossible, to predict stock market movement. Most investment gurus will refuse to time the market.
Howard Kahn and Cary Cooper published a book titled “Stress in the Dealing Room” in 1993. According to their surveys done on 225 dealers, 73.8% of them suffered from fear of “misreading the market.” Most dealers have the same problem of acquiring and handling information.
We believe that in order to do well in stock investing, we need to know ourselves, especially in controlling our emotion on greed and fear.
Due to information overloading, our emotion is highly influenced by the news that we read. Each time we feel that the market is getting bullish and time to buy stock, the overall market will collapse the moment we enter.
On the other hand, the moment we fear that it will drop further and we have decided to cut losses, we will notice the market will recover after that. Most of the time, the prices of stocks that we sold were at the lowest of the recent fall.
In order to control our greed and fear, we need to ask ourselves whether the market has discounted the news that we have received.
For example, many analysts have been bullish lately, having the opinion that the worst may be over for the market based on the recent economic indicators which showed that the overall economy may have stopped contracting or is on its way to recovery.
Nevertheless, the recent strong market rally would have discounted this bullish news. In fact, we need to ask ourselves whether the current stock prices can be supported by the fundamentals for certain listed companies.
In our experience, in most cases, the moment we feel like buying stocks is the best time to sell them while the moment that we feel like selling them is in fact the best time to buy. We can apply this contrarian theory quite successfully in most periods.
Sometimes, if we are taking in too much contradicting information and, as a result, get confused over the market direction, we feel that the best strategy is to stay away from the market until we have a better and clearer picture of the overall market or the economic situation.
We should not be influenced by other opinions.
There are times that we need to follow our heart. Sometimes, our hearts try to warn us from taking hasty investment decisions. However, we refuse to follow our intuition but instead, choosing to get influenced by others or the information that we read and ending up making mistakes.
In conclusion, we need to maintain our concentration.
We should not be led by the market sentiments regardless whether it is on the way up or crashing down fast. We need to go back to the fundamental of economic situation and the companies’ performance and future prospects.
One way to minimise the feeling of regret is to stagger our purchase and selling. We will only know the peak when the market starts turning downwards and vice versa. Therefore, by staggering, we will have an averaging effect rather than taking a one-time hit, especially if it is at the wrong timing.

Source : The Star Business: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/5/6/business/3838362&sec=business

Why I want to be a Blogger?

This article is by guest blogger Sarah Lam and moderated by Wong Sook Chin.
So, you have finally decided to be a blogger. Do you know the real reason why you want to be a blogger. For some people, it might be because they want to have an online diary to express themselves while others want to share their hobbies such as reading or playing games.
There are actually several reasons why one wants to be a blogger.
1. You want to earn money
Many people start a blog in the hope to earn money through the blog. The only problem is they might not know how they can earn money from their blog except by using Google Adsense. Money being a factor to start a blog is either a make or a break in the blogosphere. 2. You think you know something
It is obvious that when you blog, you are sharing knowledge with people. In this case, you must have known something that you can teach other people about. For example, you know how to play World of Warcraft and increase your character’s level faster than anyone else so you start a blog to share your tips.
3. Learn something
You will be surprised at how much knowledge you can learn when you start to blog. Imagine having to integrate writing and communication skills when you blog, thus helping you to improve your writing skills and communication skills at one go.
4. Inspire someone
Are you a cancer survivor? Perhaps you can start a blog and talk about your journey through recovering from cancer from surgery to chemotherapy. This will inspire other people with the same fate as you and motivate them to be strong so that they can heal just like you did.
5. The love for writing
You love to write and share it with the whole world about what you have written. You can have a blog to store all your great masterpieces, be it the next ‘Harry Potter’ series or simply poems and short stories that you have written. Mind you, someone might approach you to publish your work if you are lucky!
6. Freelancing portfolio
If you have a website dedicated to your services, that would be great but if you just want a small space on the web to promote your portfolio, a blog would be convenient and easy to set up. Whether you want to showcase your latest designs or writing samples, create a blog and spread them around to your potential clients and friends.
Have you found the real reason to have a blog?

Earth Hour - 28th Mac 2009

Shut off the light on 28th Mac 2009. Yes, I will for the sake of the mother earth.

Funny things happen in Malaysia

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's day to all. To all lovers, may you all enjoy your wonderful day together.

Model glad to be back in the city

KYLIE Anne Chapman was born in Australia but spent her first few years in a Chinese school in Kuala Lumpur, until she was whisked back to Perth for the next few years, before recently returning to the place she had visited many times over the years.
“I have always wanted to come back ever since I moved away.
“There’s always something to do here, and I love the nightlife.
Good experience: Chapman said that modelling was challenging and had taught her a lot.
“Plus most of my family is here,” the 23-year-old model and host, who has been living in KL for about a year now, said.
Chapman, who is of Chinese and Australian parentage, is the resident host of Mad About Dodgeball (MAD) events and looks forward to the many events planned for this year.
“I enjoy doing things that help people in any way, especially kids. Dodgeball is a great sport that’s going to be a big thing and I’m happy to be a part of it,” said Kylie, who is fluent in Mandarin and speaks conversational Cantonese.
“Mandarin was my first language, I spoke it until I was about six,” the commerce graduate said.
“I was this white kid who spoke Chinese and I was a bit of an outcast.
“Then, when I moved to Australia I was this Chinese kid who didn’t speak English,” she added, laughing.
Since returning to KL, Chapman hasn’t had much trouble adjusting to life back here, except sleeping in an air-conditioned room and waking up thirsty, and enjoys the release modelling gives her.
“It’s just an escape, pretending to be someone else for a little while. It’s very relaxing,” she said of her modelling stints.
“Of course, it’s challenging as well. I’ve had to get used to rejection and it’s made me a lot stronger and thick-skinned,” she said.
What do you like about KL?
The mamak stalls – I like that I have access to food any time I want. The taxis! You can hail one down anywhere and they’ll take you wherever you want.
What do you dislike about KL?
The driving, it’s a bit aggressive for me. Sometimes it feels like if I put my indicator on, people are less likely to let me through.
What’s your favourite food?
Char kuay teow, pan mee, mangosteens, rambutans.
What do you do to relax?
I buy lots of girly DVDs, switch my brain off and just be a couch potato all day long.
Where’s your favourite place to hang out?
I love playing pool at the Social, Bangsar.

Source: The Star
http://www.thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?file=/2009/2/14/central/3264763&sec=central

Sticker on the wall, anyone?

Always dreaming of having a classy designer home of your own? Stop dreaming now and leave it to us to turn your fantasies into reality; your boring wall to a playground of unlimited possibilities. Say goodbye to troublesome wallpapers and messy paints.
Now, I have a new idea to decorate my house. Guess what? Use sticker.

You can design and print your sticker on your own. I know there is one online printing company that can print very nice sticker. Visit www.printingterminal.com and http://www.printingterminal.com/index.php?p=1_17 for more product info and samples. They are very professional and experience in wall sticker design. And other than these, they also print banner, back drop, bunting, report, certificate, book, invitation card, calendar , letter head, computer form, tickets, scratch off cards, postcards, posters, presentation folders, paper and PVC stickers, booklets, business cards, calendars, catalogue, door hangers, greeting cards, PVC card, paper bags, t-shirt, uniform, flag, logo, bag, lanyard, cap, gifts and premiums, just anything....you name it, they can print for you. Worth a visit, I would recommend www.printingterminal.com for printing ideas.

More M’sians seek additional sources of income

By LAALITHA HUNT

PETALING JAYA: Tay, 46, a sales manager at a local manufacturing company, has been forced to take unpaid leave for a week this month.
“My salary has been reduced by about 25% as a result of the unpaid leave and benefits such as handphone, petrol and entertainment allowances have been cut by half,” he told StarBiz.
Nirmala Paramaswaran
Tay, who declined to give his full name, said that with demand not showing any signs of recovery in the near term, he was prepared to accept further pay cuts.
“My wife recently took a course and just started a part-time business offering nail art and treatment services from home. This additional income proves useful at times like these,” he added.
Like Tay’s wife, more Malaysians are seeking additional sources of income to cope with the current economic slowdown and higher cost of living.
Nirmala Paramaswaran, 27, a team leader at an IT outsourcing company in Cyberjaya, is selling food items such as nasi lemak and sandwiches.
“Demand from my colleagues has been great and the extra income is handy as daily necessities have become more expensive,” she told StarBiz.
Nirmala, who enjoys cooking, said the venture had also been a good learning experience as she was able to improve her culinary skills based on her customers’ feedback.
Many people are also drawn to seek a second income to sustain a comfortable standard of living.
Samantha Chin, 28, a technical support executive at an insurance company who aspires to buy an apartment for her family, earns up to RM1,000 a month providing Web page design services to small and medium-scale enterprises.
Leigh Howard
“The additional income has increased my savings considerably and would enable me to make my purchase much sooner than I had hoped for. However, orders have fallen slightly in recent times,” she said.
Meanwhile, Great Eastern Life Assurance (M) Bhd senior group sales manager Reginald Yoganathan Hunt said a good part-time insurance agent with more than five years of experience can make up to RM6,000 in recurring commission.
“The insurance business can yield lucrative income even on a part-time basis, provided the agent is commited,” he said, adding that he had 16 part-time agents in his group.
Talent2 International Ltd director for South Asia Leigh Howard said the current job market in Malaysia was definitely slowing.
“Several multinational corporations have blanket hiring freezes although they would continue hiring for specialist skills,” he said, adding that the manufacturing sector appeared to be having a tough time as retrenchments loomed, but they were still looking for higher-grade skills as well.
“The current economic climate may also see wages stalling while the cost of living continues to rise,” he added.
Howard said that it was possible for employees to seek a second income but they should first check their current employer’s policies.
G. Rajasekaran
“Specific permission may be required and potential conflict of interest declared. It depends on the situation. The rule is, make sure a second job would not jeopardise your current one,” he said.
On the downside, a part-time job could be tiring and leave one with less time to spend with family and friends, Howard said.
“Also, look out for hidden expenses such as transport costs,” he added.
Malaysian Trades Union Congress secretary-general G Rajasekaran said there was no restriction on workers pursuing part-time jobs except for certain key or high-risk employment positions.
“In fact, in view of the rising cost of living, it was recently announced that government staff would be allowed to take on part-time jobs, but for a limited number of hours per day,” he said.

Source : The Star Business

Fireworks display in Dubai