Sunday, May 29, 2011

People who will Inspire You- Against all Odds

My Story
We all need heroes, someone to look up to. The people who you choose as heroes,mentors or idol(whatever you may call them) are a reflection of who you are or who you want to be. So choose people who add true value to your life. When I was young my heroes were the firemen, nowadays they are people who have succeeded inspite of difficulties. Someone who have become successful like Bill Gates, Walt Disney, Donald Trump and many more. I don`t admire movie stars, sports stars or celebrities. Reason being these people will normally disappoint or distress us when they fall from grace. People like Tyson, Tiger Woods and even Lohan are bad influence to youngsters today.


Even Robert Kiyosaki said in his Cashflow Quadrant book that you need heroes to succeed. Someone to look up to, to learn from. Apart from reading inspirational books, I also like to read about the lives of successful people. I like to read about how they succeeded through difficulties, their rags to richest stories and how they live. To my surprise most of them are very frugal. I like to catchup on the news of how they are doing now. Even closer to home, there are people who has succeded against all odds and they are my inspiration. To name a few there is Lim Goh Tong of Genting Highlands, Dr. Mahathir our former Prime Minister, Tony Fernandez of Air Asia and more.

Lim Goh Tong

Lim Goh Tong is the guy who took an unexplored hilltop to make it one of the famous holiday destination in Malaysia, the Genting Highlands. I came across his bio in the Genting Highlands website. He is a fine example of the results of what a `Can Do` and `Never Give Up` attitude can do. Lim Goh Tong was an immigrant from a little mountainous county in Fujian, China. He came to Malaysia to work as a carpenter and rised up to be a building sub-contractor. The idea for Genting Highlands came when he was having dinner in Cameron Highlands. He thought it would nice to have a cool place where people can escape from the heat in the lowlands. As Cameron Highlands was too far from Kuala Lumpur, he had to search for another location. He did some research and that's where he found an unexplored hilltop called Genting Highlands. He started building a casino up there. And he continued adding building after building until it is what it is now. As he was building at a new unexplored location, there were many difficulties he had to face. But all the difficulties didn`t stop him. You can click on the link below to read about him. He has since passed away in 2007, now the Genting Empire he created is being run by his son

My Heroes- People who inspire me

Monday, May 23, 2011

Have Heroes that Inspire you

We all need heroes, someone to look up to. The people who you choose as heroes,mentors or idol(whatever you may call them) are a reflection of who you are or who you want to be. So choose people who add true value to your life. When I was young my heroes were the firemen, nowadays they are people who have succeeded inspite of difficulties. Someone who have become successful like Bill Gates, Walt Disney, Donald Trump and many more. I don`t admire movie stars, sports stars or celebrities. Reason being these people will normally disappoint or distress us when they fall from grace. People like Tyson, Tiger Woods and even Lohan are bad influence to youngsters today.


Even Robert Kiyosaki said in his Cashflow Quadrant book that you need heroes to succeed. Someone to look up to, to learn from. Apart from reading inspirational books, I also like to read about the life of successful people. I like to read about how they succeeded through difficulties, their rags to richest stories and how they live. To my surprise most of them are very frugal. I like to catchup on the news of how they are doing now. Even closer to home, there are people who has succeded against all odds and they are my inspiration. To name a few there is Lim Goh Tong of Genting Highlands, Dr. Mahathir our former Prime Minister, Tony Fernandez of Air Asia and more.



Datuk Tony Fernandez

He is the guy who you normaly see in the media casually dressed and wearing his signature red Air Asia Cap. But he is the guy who had a dream, mortgage his home, bought an ailing airlines for RM1 which landed him with a RM40 million debt and finally turn the airlines company around to make it one of the best low cost airlines in the world. He started AirAsia after the September 11, when everyone was afraid to fly. And many airlines was going into the red. But Tony Fernandez said this timing was perfect. The leasing cost of planes were low and airlines lay-offs meant that that experience staff were readily available. He is a great example of turning lemons into lemonades. He is also a great example of Managing by Walking Around, people have seen him carrying luggage, checking in guest and so on. He believes that if you are closer to the ground you can hear more. On reading his bio I was surprised that he was from my hometown.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

How the Boss or Owner can bring down a company

12. There are three ways in which a ruler can bring misfortune upon his army:--



13. (1) By commanding the army to advance or to retreat, being ignorant of the fact that it cannot obey. This is called hobbling the army.


14. (2) By attempting to govern an army in the same way as he administers a kingdom, being ignorant of the conditions which obtain in an army. This causes restlessness in the soldier's minds.


15. (3) By employing the officers of his army without discrimination, through ignorance of the military principle of adaptation to circumstances. This shakes the confidence of the soldiers. Chapter III. ATTACK BY STRATAGEM verse 12 -15

What this verses means is that the boss or CEO should leave the running of the operations to the managers that is closer to the operations. This is because these people know how bad or good the situation is. They know whether they can win or lose. If the CEO insists of his orders being followed without knowing the outcome than his company might fail. One example is when I was working as a waiter in a hotel that has just been taken over by an international chain. The Group General Manager insisted that we serve the local dishes in woks. We tried to explain to him that the local taboo is that its bad manners to eat from the wok. He didn't want to listen. The result of this came in the form of bad publicity and lose of business from the local community due to the fact that they didn't want to eat from the wok and that the hotel was not sensitive to the local culture. In some companies, there are times when the bosses or owners insist on put personnel even though the person is not experienced. This will then make the experienced staff there feel very frustrated working for a boss that doesn't know their job. Sun Tzu has verse for that to.


33. If there disturbance in the camp, the general's authority is weak. If the banners and flags are shifted about, sedition is afoot. If the officers are angry, it means that the men are weary. Chapter IX. THE ARMY ON THE MARCH verse 33

How I use the Art of War

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Putu Bambu

Putu Bambu or Putu Buluh is a
Malaysian street
food that my wife introduced to me when we were in Cameron Highlands. It’s made from rice flour, fresh grated coconut and coconut palm sugar which are all stuffed into the bamboo tube. Then the prepared bamboo tubes were then steamed on a container of hot boiling water that had little holes to allow steam to come out. Once they are well-cooked, the fillings will sink into the bamboo tube. Each of them is then pushed out from the bamboo tube and wrap with banana leaves. It has a soft, cottony texture and is sweet due to the gula melaka in the middle.

 Traditional Malay Kuih Recipes




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