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I have always loved reading. When I was young it was books like Secret Seven, Famous Five, Three Investigators and so on. Nowadays I look for books that inspire and motivate me. So when I travel normally always have a book to read especially before I sleep at night. Now it’s even better, there are books in PDF format. Now I can store a lot of reading materials in my pc and bring it with me anywhere. Before if I wanted to read on my mobile, I had to convert the PDF document into a word format but you normally loose the pictures in the process. Now I found great free software. Its called PocketXpdf. You can save all the PDF files on your memory card like I do as you can easily open each file. Another thing that I like about this program is that I can bookmark where I left off, so I can come back to read it later. By bookmarking it I can load it to the right page without having to look for it and waste a lot of time. One of the bugs that this software has is when you zoom too close you will get a "Not enough free memory warning" and the software will cancel the zooming. But I normally click on the "View as text " key. Then you can enlarge the text as you prefer.

What’s in my Pocket Pc

People who will Inspire You- Against all Odds

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

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.

Inspire You, Inspire Me

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

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.






Product Traditional Malay Kuih Recipes E- Book
Cost : $29.95 USD

This Recipe Cookbook Reveals 101 Sinful Recipes of Traditional Malay Kuihs or Sweet Delicacies

Delivering Great Customer Service

This is very important especially if you are new to the community. Anything that you do, you must be sensitive to the local culture and beliefs. Do some research on the taboo in that community. If they find it offensive than avoid doing it. One example to this point is, when I was a waiter for a hotel that had just been taken over by an international chain. The Group General Manager, a foreigner insisted that for the new menu, we serve the local dishes in a wok. To the local community eating out of the wok was a taboo. We told him about this but he brushed it off, saying it was rubbish. We went ahead with this menu. The result of this action is that the locals avoided us and those that came were very annoyed. After a few bad reviews from the customers eventhough the food was great, the Group General Manager finally gave in to change the menu but it was too late. It took us another year to build back our local clientele. Even the design of your place or the uniform is also important. In the East Coast of Malaysia, the people there don`t take too kindly to their waitresses wearing revealing clothes. When I was working in Thailand, they have so much respect for their King and Queen to the extend that they don`t serve alcohol on the King`s and Queens` birthday.


Also if you know their culture you can use this to your advantage too. One episode of Restaurant Makeover, the designer found out that it was a culture for the Somalian families to dine together in a private dining area. So she created an area just for that. By the way they were making a Somalian restaurant. Well this a great customer service to the Somalian community.

All this means is that different cultures have different beliefs and taboos. In order to give great customer service and be on the good side of your customers, you must know what is the beliefs and taboo of the community around you. Even Sun Tzu has a verse for this in his Art of War. It goes like this
"We are not fit to lead an army on the march unless we are familiar with the face of the country--its mountains and forests, its pitfalls and precipices, its marshes and swamps." Chapter VII. MANEUVERING Verse 13

To know more on how I use the Art of War, please click here. How I use the Art of War

A Restaurant Promotion Idea- Watch Reality Shows

I know this goes against what some parents told us when we were kids. That in order to succeed we need to watch less TV and study more. And I'm aware that some reality shows bring out the bad side in people. But there some if you cut out the backbiting and bad sides of humans, can be a great learning process. One such show that I loved to watch was "The Apprentice", the show with Donald Trump. The show is about people working in teams at projects in order to be the last one standing to be "The Apprentice” for Donald Trump. There is one episode that is an example to what you can learn from it. It was the one when each team had to promote a product using a limited amount of money. One team used their money to promote at the back horse drawn carriages. As promoting on horse drawn carriages was expensive, they managed to get only 10 carriages. Another team promoted on sandwich boards carried by people walking around. Promoting on sandwich boards were much cheaper, they managed to get 50 sandwich boards moving around the town. So from there you can see who had the most coverage. From this episode I learnt that if I put up one banner, how strategic the location may be. You will only capture a certain amount of coverage. But if you put up buntings around you will capture more people. And I have also learnt that the overhead for putting up 30 buntings is the same as putting up one banner. So now I put up more buntings. Another great reality show is "Restaurant Makeover". It has a lot of ideas on how to design a restaurant. And the ideas are very simple and nice.   This Reality Show is about two people (a designer and a chef) helping people to revise and revitalize their restaurant. The Restaurant Makeover team has only 6 days to make the restaurant with a new menu and design with a limited amount of money. The ideas that come out are great and simple and also don’t take too much money. I have also learnt that you don’t need a large menu to attract people just a small one with all your specialties.

For More Ideas on Promoting your Restaurant you can go to my website Restaurant Promotion Ideas