Quote: “Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness — great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy.”–Jim Rohn

Quote: “Don’t be reluctant to give of yourself generously, it’s the mark of caring and compassion and personal greatness.”–Brian Tracy (The Treasury of Quotes)

There was a quote that was imparted to me, it was something along this line “whatever you set and plan to achieve in the things that you do a.k.a running a business, you would take around 5 years to be start seeing/tasting the fruits of your success”, I can’t really get the exact quote, nevertheless, I promise to update here if I ever find it! With the exception of 2010, a year of freak incident, operation, post-op rehabilitation and post-op recovery (whereby I lost about 9 months of working time), the businesses and areas that started more than 5 years ago, started to grow more fruits and bigger fruits too. Showing more baby steps towards success, it’s more steps climbed up towards my ladder of achievement. Over the years of learning to give without expecting returns, there are times when I give and give, a lot, there were times when there were nothing in return and feeling abused. Through encouragement and determination, I continued giving and rendering services.

Quote: “No one has ever become poor by giving.”– Anne Frank

Quote: “Whatever good things we build end up building us.”– Jim Rohn

In 2011, good things begets another, more starting to appear, blessed with more privileges and kindness, access that were once reserved for media, blessed with gifts from lucky draws, connecting with brands and alumni bodies, building wider networks and friendship. However, I felt that this continuation and giving can be done better and bigger, since I felt the greatness and satisfaction in the returns, and I plan to make it better in 2012 for 1 area of my businesses.

Quote: “Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”–Gandhi

Social Media Networking – here lies another huge area of networking that goes online and offline (in real life), it just gets bigger and wider, locally and internationally, more friends made online and met offline in real life to know them in person. Through social media networking, it can help to grow my businesses, time will tell.

Quote: “You have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile.”–Brian Tracy

Health is slowly getting back to me, with a history of horrific injuries, I always remind myself constantly that no amount of money can buy my health back to normal, the injuries are for life and will be with me till the end of my time on Mother Earth. While still cautious on my rehabilitation and not too over zealous in exercising, it got me lazy and slowly gaining unnecessary weight and fats at the waist level, even without much alcohol drinking.

Traveling in 2011 was a breakthrough because for the past few years, I haven’t really traveled out at all for a holiday! Amazingly, 3 short trips to nearby countries, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, makes it a fun travel year in 2011, however, I am always tempted by medium to long haul trips and looking forward to do at least 1 or 2 of them in 2012.

Quote: “Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.”–Brian Tracy

Sports photography is another achievement that I am happy with the growth, being a sports enthusiast, I was able to cover cycling, football cricket, beach volleyball, handball, rugby 7s with media privileges while F1 was on a personal basis.

On the social causes, my personal projects on the Old Places and the Green Corridor are two areas that will keep me writing, sharing, photographing and documenting. Up next will be Bukit Brown, an area whereby I have roots relating to the area. Looking forward to 2012, I hope to be able to contribute more to these personal interests of mine, probably from a personal level to national level with iRememberSG , let’s see how things turns out for 2012.

Quote: “The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.”– Zig Ziglar

While we all busy earning money, there are things whereby money can’t buy when it’s lost or destroyed. Health, History, Heritage, Culture, Preservation and Conservation.

The year 2011 has been another year of learning, I subscribed to the mantra of lifelong learning, never ending and never stopping, that’s always something new to learn, everyday from different people, experiences, situations, sharing, mistakes, crisis and life changing. Moving forward to 2012, I always tell & remind myself that I always have something new to learn, a new skill, new experiences and many more.

Quote: “Commit yourself to lifelong learning. The most valuable asset you’ll ever have is your mind and what you put into it.” –Brian Tracy

 Quote: “Learn something new. Try something different. Convince yourself that you have no limits.”–Brian Tracy

What lies ahead for 2012 ? Well, coming to my writing near you, stay tuned!

Do drop by to Siloso Beach, Sentosa for 2 days of hot octane sporting beach volleyball action from 9am to 6pm! Relax and enjoy the sporting fun too! It’s going to be a day of sports photography for me and enjoying the sports spectatorship of the beach volleyball game! Come down in your cool sporty beach gear and enjoy the sun sand sea & of course beach volleyball!

Have a beach volleyball weekend folks!

The urge to run was getting more intense as time passed by, wanting to relieve my physically active and sporting days. I was planning to run my full marathon at the end of 2011, keeping my fingers crossed that my physical conditioning and recovery would enable me to embark on my full marathon target at the end of 2011. However, as much as I plan ahead, I would not go against my specialist’s advice or my physiotherapist’s advice if they feel I am not deem to do my full marathon in 2011, besides, if I feel my body and recovery is not up to the required fitness and training level, I would not go for the full marathon and aim for the half-marathon instead.

During the run, I was feeling great! The rush and adrenaline inside me was pushing me on even though my legs were wobbly and jelly like due to my 1 year of inactiveness from exercise and running. Stretching before and after the run was absolutely important, to prevent any muscle damage and for me to personally assess my injury and whether I am comfortable and did I feel any pain at all on my injured body sections.

Overall, it was just muscle ache and a happy tired face. This is my Comeback Run! It’s the Return of Me, into the world of running and marathons!

Habitat-Barclays Bare Your Sole 2011

It is organised by Habitat for Humanity and Barclays is the title sponsor for this upcoming event on Saturday 18th June 2011, it would be held at the picturesque Gardens by the Bay East, Tanjong Rhu, with a scheduled start time 0f 9.00am. Do check out their website Bare Your Sole 2011 for more information!

Online registration is now open at their website!! All the funds raised would be for local and overseas beneficiaries. The route would be Gardens by the Bay East, Tanjong Rhu and the venue will definitely offer a beautiful and tranquil environment for the walk which will be 2.5km or 4km long.

Let’s all Bare Our Soles for Charity!!

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 !

First and foremost, I would highlight some of the key specifications of the Sony W Series MP3 Walkman NWZ-W252 -

• 2 GB capacity
• New & Improved Water Resistant
• New ZAPPIN™ and Folder Skip Functions
• 11 Hours Battery Life (Quick charge : 3 minutes charge 90 minutes play back)
• Weight : 43 grams
• Number of songs : Approximate 470
• Continuous Playback Time : Approximate 11 hours (128 kbps)
• 5 different colours available : Green, Limited Edition Camouflage, Pink, Black & White

Full specifications details of the Sony W Series MP3 Walkman NWZ-W252 can be found here !

Therefore, how’s the performance of the Sony W Series MP3 Walkman NWZ-W252 ? After using it for a few days and listening to the MP3 player while I am commuting from places to places, these are my tech reviewer personal opinions -

Pro

- Sound quality ~ It’s great, loud and clear.

- Not too heavy, even for daily walking from place to place with the MP3 player on my head and ears.

- Firm construction, solid body and well-built up, no flimsy and weak cables/wires.

- Ease of drag and pull songs from your computer to the MP3 Player (for both Windows OS & Mac OS)

- Long battery life, essential and important especially if you are on the road traveling or running marathons.

- Ease of use on the buttons and controls ~ once you get the hang of it and know which button and control is for which function, it’s simple and helpful.

- Catered for (targeted at) the sporty lifestyle, however, it also suits the leisure and working lifestyle too ! Just hang it around your neck !

- MP3 player stand + USB charger , 2 in 1 function, holds up the MP3 player in place while charging it at the same time, it’s great for display too !

- Magnet to connect the 2 sides of the MP3 player together.

- Voice instructions that inform you when you are playing the song, ZAPPIN (songs searching), skipping of folders

- ZAPPIN ~ enables you to “ZAP-in” to preview the chorus of the next track with a choice of either 4 or 15 seconds, making it easy to browse and find the track you want. Once you found your favourite song? Press the button again to “ZAP-out” to start playback from the beginning.

- A runner would usually select his/her songs for their runs (short distance, middle distance or marathons) and they would plan their folders and songs into less complicated structure, thus allowing them to listen to their flow of music selection and concentrate their running with the help of the music from their Sony MP3 Player.

- It might be a good alternative MP3 player for people already holding a smartphone, not wanting to burn out the battery life or separating the playing of MP3 from their smartphone, the Sony  W Series MP3 Walkman NWZ-W252 fits in perfectly (leisure, work and active sports)

- Using the Sony W Series MP3 Walkman NWZ-W252 player, you would not face the issue of messy headset wire/cables. No headphone wire/cable connecting your smartphone or MP3 portable player and getting tangled up with your arms, hands, bags or other people’s arms, hands and bags.

Cons

- If you have many folders and songs, without a panel on the player to look at the songs, it might be  difficult to search for your particular favourite song (especially if you have time on hand and wanted to search for a particular song)

- With such excellent construction (that’s an excellent point by the way), the MP3 player stand to connect the player to, is pretty tough and can be a little bit tricky at times to connect them together, due to its excellent construction, thus might cause some frustration at times.

- Some people might find 2GB disk space to be insufficient for their songs storage.

- The ear buds given is not too bad, nevertheless, for long distance running or long hours plugging in and listening to the MP3 player, maybe the ear buds could be of better quality, for comfort and listening too.

- No matter how good or light an MP3 player can be, if a person just want to have everything all-in-one squeeze inside a smartphone (including MP3 playing), this Sony MP3 player being light and powerful, would not suit this particular group of people.

From a technology user perspective, the Sony W Series MP3 Walkman NWZ-W252 is a pretty cool, trendy and multi-purpose MP3 player that can be adapted in active sporting lifestyle as well leisure and corporate lifestyle too!

Stay tuned for my upcoming a runner’s (that’s me ! ) review post on using the Sony W Series MP3 Walkman NWZ-W252 player when he/she is running, the feeling and comfort of the player !

This Sony W Series MP3 Walkman NWZ-W252 is kindly sponsored by Sony Singapore.

While I had not put on my physical training (PT) gear , put on my ASICS running shoes and hitting the running tracks in the parks and roads, I was longing to do it and my current business/work schedule was putting me off – this excuse shall be thrown out and I must not blame my lack of time and instead concentrate on my time management and desire to get back into fit and healthy lifestyle again. I promise to take responsibility for my running and healthy lifestyle actions ! I am looking forward to returning back to running full Marathons again !

In my previous post, on Thanksgiving and being Thankful, an early Christmas + Thanksgiving gift came into my life, fitting in perfectly to the Return of my Running. Dear readers, I would like to introduce and present to you

Sony W Series MP3 Walkman NWZ-W252

In the month ahead, I would bring you through my personal experiences with the Sony W Series MP3 Walkman NWZ-W252, from

- A technology reviewer perspective

- Runner and sporting lifestyle perspective and hands-on experiences

- Corporate and leisure lifestyle perspective and hands-on experiences

- Sharing with my fellow marathon runners

- Photojournalistic journey too !

Stay tuned to my upcoming posts on my experiences with the Sony W Series MP3 Walkman NWZ-W252 !

I would like to sincerely say a BIG THANK YOU to  Sony Singapore and Hill & Knowlton SEA Pte Ltd (Singapore) for this kind sponsorship of the Sony W Series MP3 Walkman NWZ-W252, along with an awesome and wonderful sharing opportunity with my fellow marathon runners and my readers !

This got my attention immediately and I continued to read with great interest about how young people in 6 different global cities around the world would love their dreams  to be. After reading their stories and aspirations, it was enlightening and an eye opener on my generation’s and younger generation’s desires, views and dreams, such as “To make an impact” , “Fulfilment first” and “Not for the money”.

You see things; and you say, “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?” – George Bernard Shaw

Taking 1 day back into the papers, how about Singapore ?

“The Great (unreachable?) S’pore Dream” The Straits Times 17th April 2010

The above heading, kind of hit the jackpot, SPOT ON too. Continuing reading, it was started by a freelance photographer Charles Lim who spent the last 10 years recording Singaporeans’ dreams by getting them to pose with the dreams written down in chalk. The 5 Cs as commonly known among Singaporeans

- Car , Condominium , Credit Cards , Cash and a County Club Membership

How many of us are constantly chasing the 5 Cs ?

Question : How much of chasing the above 5 Cs eroded our values and causing us to be less polite, rude, violent, angry, dependent on foreign domestic workers ? Is the quest for materialism causing us more harm instead ?

Therefore, I ask myself again, What is my Dream ? What is your Dream ?

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. – Carl Jung

Looking inside my heart, I used to dream having a few of the 5 Cs mentioned, namely Car & Cash and till date, it’s still Car & Cash. With varying life harrowing experiences that could have resulted in me no longer on Mother Earth, things and life experiences had changed over the past 10 years especially, with 2 major accidents that shook myself and my world upside down. There was also an inner voice …

I want to be financially independent with minimum liabilities, generating varying sources of revenues through my entrepreneurship networks. With my assets and wealth, I want to help people in other countries that are less well off and make a difference in their life, helping them to get off the poverty viscous cycle.

I want to take on the role of mentorship to people, from personal development, leadership, scouting skills, life skills and photography skills.

I want to bring my photography and travel writing to the level of National Geographic Magazine, through my photoblog and travel editorial.

Dreams are only Dreams, if you choose to Dream and No Action.

As I write finished this small chapter, the journey had already started a few years ago and it was never easy, every day is challenging, the journey of an entrepreneur and I am still moving in the direction that I undertook.

Dear readers, “What is your Dream ?”

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

As much as life in unpredictable and important to live our life to the fullest and most meaningful everyday, we must not forget the future, the planning itself can change during different periods of life stages such as family, children and retirement years. We all might lose track of our future plans with such modern rat race pace society growth, expansion and competition. In lieu of this, there is a common aspect/denominator, in ensuring that at different stages of your life, you will be able to carry out your roles and plans. It’s basically keeping fit and healthy, from young till old.

Ask yourself

- Do you want to be old and weak ? Having to rely on future generation (if you don’t have, then it would be care givers) to take care of you and your daily living activities ?

- Do you still want to carry out your hobbies and recreational activities like the time when you are younger ?

- Do you believe in being a burden to your family, relatives ? Either physically, emotionally, mentally and financially or all of the above ?

The modern society today is facing a shortage of population, the replacement is not adequate, thus there would be lesser younger generation to take care of the older population in the next 20 years to come (or even earlier ?). Which life stage are you in now ? I believe nobody ever wanted to be old and weak, they wanted to enjoy their old age and retirement years when the time arrives.

My paternal grandmother is an inspiration to me, she’s 93 NOT OUT, she’s still active and walking, although not as fast and frequent. With my numerous physical injuries and “bionic” components inside my body, a few years ago, I had embarked on being fit and healthy as much as possible, running regularly, participating in marathons, taking on sports science and team sports on a stronger interest area.

Moving forward, I am planning to

- Gym on regular basis

- Cycling

- Swimming

- Basketball, badminton (if there are participants)

- Triathlon (Sprint)

My recovery might take up to 6 months to 1 year, not rushing back into marathons for 2010, planning shorter runs to start my recovery journey back to a sporting healthy lifestyle.

Of course, I need to watch my diet in food plentiful Singapore too !

It never occur to me that during the past one month and still counting, I am a patient at the other end of rehabilitation, physiotherapy and occupational therapy. With fractures to my left hip and left shoulder, not your usual areas of injuries happening together, I undergo an intensive rehabilitation program, with physiotherapy and occupational therapy, to take on the route of recovery, learning from scratch – how to walk again soon.

Physiotherapy – “is concerned with identifying and maximizing quality of life and movement potential within the spheres of promotion, prevention, treatment/intervention, habilitation and rehabilitation.” – via Wikipedia. Without the rehabilitation and physiotherapy and occupational therapy program, my one month of recovery might not take place as fast and smooth that I would like and want to be. Occupational therapy helps me in the activities of daily living conditions again and how to adapt in my current medical conditions. Therefore, I am very grateful to the team of physiotherapist, assistant physiotherapists and occupational therapist for my recovery till date.

My injuries sustained belong to the orthopaedic segment, in the post-orthopaedic procedure and fractures. The program gets my flexibility, range of movement, strength back in stages, without rushing, working hand in hand with my doctors and specialist. The program is not designed to rush me back into shape, thus the pace of rehabilitation can be pretty slow compared to the mad rat race society pace. Nevertheless, the period of rest does me well too in the rehabilitation program

- Learning to take life in perspective

- Realigning my goals and objectives in life and career

- Personal reflection

- Rest from work, business and rat race

- Appreciating the finer things in life

While I am currently still undergoing rehabilitation, physiotherapy and occupation therapy programs, the importance of healthy and active living strikes an even bigger than ever importance to me because I see for myself how these 3 areas affect different people of different age groups and medical conditions. I would share this in another post soon, keep a lookout !

Moving forward, how would these 3 programs help me in my quest to learn more about sports science and its application to professional sports, team sports, recreational competitive sports ?

Before everything else, I am back to continue my rehabilitation, physiotherapy and occupational therapy program. The route to recovery continues ………..