10th January – added 1 year more to my age band and received many well wishes and birthday wishes via Facebook wall, Twitter, SMS and personal greetings. Very grateful for those friends who sent me their birthday well wishes and small little birthday gifts too. On my birthday, always great to remind myself again and again of my blessings, count my blessings and be grateful.

11th January – 11 / 01 / 2011 at 11:11 , a beautiful number structure that will only last once in the lifetime. This is a time for me to write and pen down my planning and goal setting for 2010.

Business Operations & Development

- Structuring and strategising for 2011

- Improve marketing activities and breakthrough in new clients acquisition

- Improve Customer Relationship Management with existing clients

Blogging

- Increasing my posts with quality, diverse and interesting topics to attract more readers and followers

- Revamping my personal blog

- Improving my affiliate marketing for my 2 blogs

Social Media Networking

- Engaging & meeting more new bloggers / twitter

- Understanding more on the psychology and engagements of social media networks and inter networking

- Applying the social media channels and networks to all my businesses

Physical Fitness & Running

- Getting back into my active lifestyle of sports and outdoor activities

- Cycling on a regular basis with my 2nd hand road bike

- Going to gym to build up muscle and strengthening

- Starting to run again, from short distances to middle distances and finally the full marathon

• 10km & 15km Distance Runs
• August 2011 – 21km Army Half Marathon
• December 2011 – 42km Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon

- Sprint Triathlon in the last quarter of 2011 (proposed)

Personal Development

- Consistently and constantly reading books to update and improve my personal self

• Personal Development & Growth
• Leadership
• Mentoring
• Financial Knowledge and Management

Mentoring

- To help my friends via mentoring with my knowledge and experiences from the fields of

• Photography
• Blogging / Social Media Networking
• Financial Management and Planning

Do check out my photography and travel planning for 2011 too !

Goal planning is only the start of my journey in 2011, as I started to embark on my new marathon, my new adventure for 2011, exciting times await ahead for me. Over the next few days, I will work on breaking my goals down into more detailed and smaller components that will build up, just like building the lego bricks together in order to produce the final product – my goals and destinations for 2011 !

How much do we, and can we trust the newspaper reports ? How about financial news ? With the rise and fall of the recent global financial crisis, that rocked the entire world economy really hard, it was a testing time for all those inside the financial industry, no matter where you are worldwide. In this vibrant and dynamic financial industry that spans worldwide and interconnected, do you know where are the World’s Leading Financial and Trust Centres ?

It was with great honour and pleasure to be invited by the President of University of Queensland Alumni Association of Singapore (UQAAS), Dr Angelo M Venardos, to the official book launch of “World’s Leading Financial and Trust Centres“, whereby he was the General Editor of the book, on 6th October 2010 at Thomson Reuters Auditorium, at One Raffles Quay.

Dr Venardos, Founder and Executive Director of Heritage Trust Group, with many years of expertise and experience in the corporate and offshore banking, along with 3 books written by him under his portfolio,

(1) Current Issues in Islamic Banking and Finance: Resilience and Stability in the Present System

(2) Islamic Banking & Finance in South-East Asia: Its Development & Future (2nd edition)

(3) Islamic Banking & Finance in South-East Asia: Its Developments & Future

Many distinguished guests graced this event, listening to the words and wisdom of Dr Venardos. During his speech, it was very insightful and enriching, it also showed how much more I have to learn and expand my business consultancy experience and specialised knowledge, something I am striving towards to and it’s a steep and huge learning curve in my journey, for somebody very junior level like me (compared to the rest of the guests present).

Do drop by here at this link and you would have more information on the book “World’s Leading Financial and Trust Centres”, the order form is attached there too, facilitating your order and payment.

Over 1300 pages of knowledge and information inside “World’s Leading Financial and Trust Centres”, it’s definitely a niche area that I can develop learn and hone my skills, knowledge and experience down the road, in my entrepreneur and consultancy career.

I am Grateful and Celebrate Everyday

No Matter How Impossible It May Have Seem

The more you can feel, getting in touch and involved in it, the more you are able to attract abundance into your life !

The Secret reveals the single most powerful law in the universe, it dawns upon me that …..

It’s not just about your work, business or career, it’s also about your health, relationship and happiness. As I reflect upon myself, my inner self, the invisible barriers that I set up without telling anybody, it’s an omen to myself that I can CHANGE MY LIFE !

Today is the Day that is The Secret to Life !!

I am able to change my life, no matter who you are, no matter where you are

“You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!”

Obi-Wan-Kenobi to Darth Vader (a.k.a Anakin Skywalker)

No, don’t worry, this is not digging up Star Wars trilogy. The above segment was in relation to my article today, Mentor and Mentee, Obi-Wan-Kenobi in the Star Wars trilogy was a Mentor to Anakin Skywalker, his protege a.k.a known as the Mentee. In the later part of the trilogy, Obi-Wan-Kenobi continued Mentoring another Skywalker, he is Luke, son of Anakin Skywalker.

Bringing back to reality and real life, what is a Mentor ? what is a Mentee ? Is a Mentor your trusted friend, counsellor, teacher, experienced professionals, personal development coaches ? A Mentee on the other hand is a student of the Mentor, sometimes called a protege.

In today’s fast paced and constantly changing working environment, how are you facing up to the challenges of the current situation and future ? Are you ready for constant changes and new developments ? Are you ready to take them on – the new challenges ahead ? What are the area of concerns for you ? Career ? Personal Development ? Pay -It-Forward ? Professional upgrading education ? Networking ? Mentoring is present across different disciplines, careers, industries, that is how dynamic and wide scope it can reach out, yet it can be just as disciplined and focused in the field you are operating/working in.

~ Are you a professional with a rich wealth of experiences in your field of expertise and life ? Would you like to take on the role of a Mentor ? Are you ready to Pay-It-Forward ?

~ Are you a young professional that is still learning the ropes and gaining the work and life experiences ? Would you like to be a Mentee and learn from the highly experienced/experts who had been through that and done that ?

It was with great interest from this article here – Retire Early, Live Longer from the TodayOnline paper. The topic of Retirement Age was brought up with this headline “I don’t think there should be a retirement age” and retirement is something that all societies/countries/economies need to face today, tomorrow and eventually.

Some countries are facing retirement issues, in the area of support for the elderly and retired whereby the future generation would/may not be able to support the aging population and if we observe carefully, more countries might or have already raised their retirement age, encouraging more people to work longer beyond their retirement age.

Why do we continue working beyond our retirement age ?

- Is it that we fail to plan for our retirement and golden years ?

- Is that we don’t care about our own future ?

- Is that we can or want to depend on others during our retirement years ?

There are probably 2 schools of thoughts on retirement -

~ People who retired early and not doing anything passed on within the next 10 years

~ People who retired early that planned for their retirement years, financially, emotionally and lifestyle, living a longer life.

From the TodayOnline article by Tan Kok Tim

“Japanese Nobel Laureate Dr Leo Esaki once spoke on the relationship between longevity and retirement age. He revealed that the pension funds in many large companies such as AT&T, Boeing, Lockheed, Lucent, and so on, are overfunded as many who retire at the age of 65, usually die within two years of retirement.

Separately, Dr Ephrem Cheng of the University of Alberta did an actuarial study of lifespan versus age at retirement, based on the number of pension cheques sent to Boeing Aerospace retirees. It found that staff who retire at the age of 50 had an average lifespan of 86. Those who retire at the age of 65 live to an average age of just 66.8.”

Therefore, if you want to retire early, have you plan for it, financially, emotionally and what’s the lifestyle that you wanted? If you want to retire early , yet you don’t take any action at all to plan for your retirement , do you blame yourself or you find somebody to blame ?

Or you have grown complacent, lazy and don’t care or can’t be bothered about your future, your retirement ?

Retirement Age is up to YOU, it can be a daunting task if you fail to plan …..

These wise words came from Bill Gates, a person that needs no further introduction, somebody who had helped to change the world that we live in today over the past 20-30 years. How does this line of wisdom impacted me ? Well, simply, as I started moving into the arena of teaching and mentoring, with the confidence, skills and experiences in the field, it would be an easy trap into

~ “We think We Know Everything, in fact, We Don’t” ~

Does success make us so much better than the rest that we don’t seek to continuously improve our current skills and knowledge ? Do we think too smart of ourselves ? Have we grown too complacent ?

2010 has been earmarked as my year of mentoring friends and in 1 field of my skill and expertise, I took up the challenge with pride and honour, accepting students in photography, from a National Youth Achievement Award candidate to friends who recently entered into DSLR. Till date, I would have 4 students However, that does not mean that I know everything in photography yet, now I am exploring lomography, studio lighting and portraiture photography. Besides that, I have helped out with junior photographers that just entered the industry.

What other areas have I been involved in mentoring ?

- Blogs setup and advisory , SEO, Social Media

- Blog shop setup and advisory, internet marketing

When I stepped into this arena, it’s not daunting, it’s like a pilgrimage, a journey of an entrepreneur, Pay It Forward, Helping and teaching people, sharing the skills and knowledge. By transferring, teaching, guiding and mentoring, I will bring my current skills and knowledge to the next higher level too !

The financial crisis, the causes and aftermath are well documented and researched in today’s highly connected world, google any key words and many information and data would be easily available. It’s VERY IMPORTANT that we learned the harsh lessons of the financial crisis, realised our mistakes and remedy them, before we can embark on the road to recovery (that might be going slow).

First and foremost, remembering how it started, the timeline of the crisis done by CNN Business and Global Recession Timeline by BBC News, learning lessons of Lehman and 5 Lessons from the CRASH, great information and financial planning lessons for ALL. Do drop by this special insight reports by BBC News on the Special Report of the Global Recession.

Moving forward, the world economy and financial markets ahead are still uncertain, some experts said the worst of world recession is over – do check out the reports here. However, the world economy is still sluggish and most probably longer to full recover.

There are many lessons learned here, we all need to learn and move on, rebuild and grow again.

In the days ahead, the road somehow seem long, don’t despair

- Life still goes on, no matter how tough it is

- Let’s take stock of our life and appreciate our loved ones and our blessings

- Appreciate Mother Nature and her beauty

- There are people around us and in the world that has less of everything you have now and they would suffer more in this current crisis. Let’s all make a difference in their life !

- Take serious actions to plan for your future, save and invest prudently and strategically with professional financial advisory 

- It will only get better !

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world — that is the myth of the atomic age — as in being able to remake ourselves.” - By Mahatma Ghandi

You …… YES ……. YOU ! …… You can make the decision to remake yourself and Upturn The Situation !

The markets had been in the spotlight of the newspapers, daily life coffee shop talk among the heartlanders, some world economies were suffering and hurting, bleeding so badly that some countries could almost went under. No need for me to add more stuff here, when I crystalised my thoughts and teachings, sharing would be done here.

A lot of outstanding To-Do-Stuff, many things stacked up, some uncompleted, some went beyond further than expected.

- Singapore Standard Chartered Marathon is coming on 7th December 2008, again, another 1 month of crash course physical fitness training and marathon training. My 4th Marathon till date.

- Holidays have been postponed due to prudence in spending and saving, reshuffling holiday plans. Sorry to disappoint any friends out there that I promised to visit.

- Book chapter reviews had slowed down, need to get back and continuously read, learn, upgrade, apply, fine tune and repeat the good steps, that would help in personal growth, development and career development.

- To be a Shining Light and direction for my clients under my advisory, consultancy and care, especially in this period of weak sentiments, slow economic growth and uncertainty.

- Planning something to help my alumni, Dragon Scout Group

- Finding volunteer male and female models for my indoor portrait photography learning shoot.

- Getting ready for entry into investments !!! It’s Time !!!

- Finding and settling down on a permanent template for my new photoblog. Do drop by and take a look!

- Any other outstanding matters that I blogged and posted and I had not completed.

A pretty long list of stuff ……………. Anything more that I missed out ?