You are much like a high-performance race car worth millions of dollars; a well-oiled, highly sophisticated machine.

 

Knowing the value of such a high performance multi-million-dollar machine, would it be wise to run it full out every minute of every day without taking a pit-stop to let the motor cool down?

 

Saying that you do not have the time to improve yourself, whether this means improving your mind or nourishing your spirit, is much like saying you do not have time to stop for gas because you are too busy driving. Eventually it will catch up with you.

Taking the time to renew yourself is the most important thing you can do. Ironically taking time off  your hectic schedule for self-improvement and personal enrichment will dramatically improve your effectiveness once you get  back into it.

 

Taken from Chapter 9 of  “The Monk who sold his Ferrari” by Robin S. Sharma

Sequoias are the world’s most ancient trees on records. The world’s largest tree is called the Ceneral Sherman, which still stands in Sierra Nevada. It is as tall as a 27-storey building, with its first branch starting at 13th floor. If placed in the middle of a California freeway, it will fill all three 12-feet wide lanes!

 

The largest of the species is the Giant Sequoia which can live up to 3000 years old, and can be as tall as 300 feet, with a base diameter of up to 35 feet. The common name for another type of sequoias, the Red Woods, still stand today in several National Parks in California, conserved and protected as legacies and living witnesses of worlds gone by.

 

Scientists who first studies these living legends discovered that Sequoias have roots that are surprisingly shallow – the adult Giant Sequoia has roots that are only about five to six feet deep. The curious question is of course how is it that such massive trees manage to hold themselves up with such shallow roots? The answer they found was striking – because the Sequoias have roots that reached out under ground and connected with the roots of other Sequoias, they provided the support for one another as they grew!

 

In her quiet way, Mother Nature seemed to be asking us these questions: In what ways might we be like (or not like) Sequoias? Do we provide for support for another like these Sequoia trees? Are our connections grounded by the same values & beliefs?

 

Here’s another twist to the story! As we shared this, a friend from California who lives near the red woods told us that even when the mother Sequoia eventually dies, her roots continue to provide support to other baby Sequoias growing around her. The young trees also depended on the mother tree for support and nourishment supplied through its tap roots. 

 

What legacy do we leave behind, when we eventually leave a place? And does what we leave behind continue to provide support for others? Have the people we left behind, in Robert Greenleaf’s words, become stronger, wiser, and better off than we were, because we were there with them before? 

 

Perhaps this is nature’s reminder of the work we do – whether as leaders, managers, employees or consultants, to help develop better work-places – or what we call work of OD (Organization Development). Fundamentally, it is really about helping people find the meaning, values and passion for their work – their “roots” so to speak. 

 

It is also a gentle reminder by Mother Nature on the importance of humility – we’re never too big to reach out and ask for help, to depend on one another for our growth. After all, in life’s journey, we stand taller together.  

 

 

The Sequoia Story. By Jacqueline Wong. www.sequoia.com.sg

life is ambiguous and thats the beauty of it

as long as you live with no regrets

you will be able to take things as they come

and see the beauty of life
 

Looking at the previous week, no one can be faulted for being optimistic.

 

In Singapore, STI has its highest close in 5 weeks. The three local banks and property companies performed well too. The government even reported that there is no need to introduce further stimulus as things are stabilising. For the record, Singapore’s economy has pulled itself out of recession in the second quarter and is now forecasted to perform better than expected. However instead of a sharp and decisive recovery, a slow and uneven economic growth is more likely. Afterall 8 of Singapore’s top 10 trading partners are expected to be in outright recession compared to 5 during the Asian Financial Crisis and this resulted in a fall in Singapore’s exports.

 

Worldwide, fantastic results from Intel, Goldman Sachs and Johnson & Johnson spurred investors to plunge back into the market, afraid that they might miss a fresh bull run in the making. Intel and Goldman was so impressive that they exceeded the most bullish analyst expectations. Intel has 2nd quarter sales of $8 billion (beating expectations by US$700 million) and this can mean higher computer sales for the computer giants will most probably follow. Goldman reported US$3.44 billion in 2nd quarter after repaying US$10 billion of bailout money.  However how they managed to be the first financial giant to get out of the crisis is rather interesting. They seem not to learn their lession as they returned to high risk trading and investing in everything from mortgages to underwriting of debt offers. And of course another reason why they did well is from grabbing market share from past and present competitors (Lehman and Bear Sterns who failed & Citigroup who is failing).

 

One thing is for sure, even if there is no light at the end of the tunnel, there should not be another oncoming train =)

 

 

 

If you want to find out how this financial crisis started, heres a video that explains everything in the simpliest way. =)

 

Video created by Jonathan Jarvis. http://www.crisisofcredit.com/

I was at Aaron Kwok’s concert last weekend and I have to say i was so impressed by him. As one of the 4 Heavenly Kings, he was known not for his singing but more for his dancing abilities. Since he is in his 40s, I could have pardoned him if his dancing dropped in standard. Futhermore I had known beforehand that he spent a lot of money to create a revolving stage and I thought that will be the highlight of the night. How wrong I was.

 

His singing was great and what made it more remarkable was that he was dancing non stop for most of his songs and yet his voice was so steady throughout. His dancing was absolutely fantastic and it was perhaps the best I have seen from a male artiste in my life. Futhermore the revolving stage was just out of this world and i now understand why it broke the Guinness World Record for being the largest (and i feel the most high tech) revolving stage.

 

Aaron Kwok was terrific. Everytime when you thought you have seen the best, he will come up with something more unique and unexpected and leave you impressed time and time again. The fact that this concert was flawless, you can see how much effort he put into his concert. Not only did he put in lots of hard work, you can also tell that he was determined to produce the best concert anyone had ever had. I guess he did. He was the highlight of the night and I am so glad I had the chance to watch him perform.

  

Kudos to Aaron Kwok. He is a heavenly king, my heavenly king. No doubt about it.

 

** Unfortunately I lost my camera after the concert so I am not able to post any pictures of him or his impressive revolving stage.

When something happens, you can always decide how you want to look at it.

 

From a technical analysis point of view, it appears that for our financial markets, there will still be the 5th wave (according to the Elliott wave) , which means that there will be one last correction. The question on many investors’ mind is how low will this correction go?

 

Well if you look at how the indexes worldwide has been performing, the asian indexes seems to have a upward trendline, which means that most probably asia has bottomed out and the next correction will not be that bad. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for US and Europe. On the contrary, they seem to have a downward trendline and this means that the next correction might even go lower than their lowest point in this financial crisis. 

 

If you believe in technical analysis, then you should wait for the correction before getting into the market. And it is perhaps the last “good time” to get in.

 

So should we be pessimistic that there will be another big correction or should we be optimistic that we might have a chance to get in when everything is cheap before the bull takes over? Its all up to you =)

We see more and more of capital guaranteed and capital protected financial products. Do you know what the difference is between the two?

 

Capital Guarantee means that your capital is guaranteed and you will not suffer any loss even if the underlying investment did not perform well. Normally the capital is guaranteed by a third party bank. This means that an additional fee is taken away to pay the bank that provides the capital guarantee and hence it may reduce the returns to the investor.

 

On the other hand, capital protected does not mean that your capital is guaranteed and you may actually make a lost. Do not buy into a capital protected fund/product thinking that your capital is safe and secure! In actual fact, there is high costs incurred for a capital protected product/fund. Hence if possible, stay clear of capital protected products.

Mr Oei Hong Leong, one of Singapore’s richest businessman, is sueing Citigroup’s private banking arm in the High Court for negligence and misrepresentation. He said that Citibank gave him an inaccurate picture of his trading exposure, which caused him to take on more positions than he would have otherwise done so. In the process he lost a whopping $1 billion on foreign exchange and US Treasury bond transactions last year.  

 

Mr Oei’s suit could prove to be just the tip of the iceberg as the number of lawsuits filed by the wealthy against private banks continues to swell. Whether Mr Oei can be successful depends to be seen especially when it is a formality for banks to put disclaimers in the fine print to relieve themselves of any potential grievance from customers who lost millions. 

 

I agree with what Mr Jean Pierre Cuoni, chairman of EFG International said, “private bankers should play the role of the adviser, not the role of the sales person.”  

 

Citibank barnds themselves as the bank that never sleeps. Whether Citibank sleeps or not, I am not sure but i guess they might be losing some sleep in the last few days due to this. =P

Well who needs more protection? The stock market or insurance companies?

 

The stock market is turning into a see-saw ride and clearly need some protection from the investors. Yesterday as i correctly predicted, there were green pastures in the stock markets (indexes) in Asia (due to the earlier US stock markets) and as i am typing this, the US market is in the red now. Unless there are some good news over the weekend, Asian stocks look set to follow in their footsteps. 

 

Besides providing protection, two of the most well known insurers need more protection themselves .  

 

AIG is planning to launch the IPO of its largest Asian subsidiary AIA. After many months of AIA claiming that they are still financially strong and “not affected” by the near-collapse of AIG in September, it appears that AIG looks set to use its stake in AIA to raise cash.

 

In US, Prudential was granted approval to raise billions of dollars through the government’s bank bailout plan. Investors will be relieved but I am not so sure about the policy holders.

 

So who needs more protection? Your guess is as good as mine.