According to some sources, A & W, as in the fast food chain Allen & Wright, came to Singapore in 1968. The chain sold hot dogs and root beer floats to loyal afficionados until about 2003, when the last restaurant closed down. Another A & W pair came to Singapore long before that. Their names […]
Don’t worry, I’m not inviting you to die today. I’d rather you live for as long as your body was designed for. Nobody likes to talk about death or dying. However, if you are one of those people who are able to say “It is a good day to die!” with full conviction and with […]
“Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point.” ~Blaise Pascal~ (The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing.) I came across this quote by Blaise Pascal in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time several years ago. There is a pretty good explanation for what Blaise Pascal meant on the Helium website, written by […]
Yes, really, how lucky are you? How lucky have you been? Will you continue to be lucky in future? Will you start getting lucky? We all know Seneca’s quote. Do we all practice what it says? In my last newsletter I talked about “Deliberate Delegation” and attached the story of “A Letter to Garcia” in […]
Do you know of people who seem to be successful no matter what they turn their hands to? Have you ever wondered how they manage that? Is it because they came from good, nurturing and loving families, had a privileged education, or simply inherited their wealth? Is it because they had all the “good breaks” […]
Do you treasure feedback? I hope you do. Feedback is extremely precious. What would you classify as feedback? Affirmations from others? Brickbats? Criticisms? Accolades for your various and wonderful achievements? Scathing remarks about your work attitude? Do you have what many call “thick skin” for feedback of all categories? One of our senses is the […]
No, that’s not a tongue-twister. In fact, it’s something for you and I to focus on. Focusing on this will help a lot in freeing us to be and do all that we are meant to. Ready? Say it out loud, now, “yt ilib isnop serym siti!”. Hmmm…let’s do that again, shall we? With a […]
Most of us have heard of, or know a thing or two, about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Although some have said that Maslow himself never used a pyramid to depict this hierarchy, it is commonly represented as that rather well-known pyramid. The bottom four layers are supposed to represent the “Deficiency”, or “D” needs and […]
This is one of the stories that can be found in Rudyard Kipling’s “The Second Jungle Book”. The story is called “The Miracle of Purun Bhagat” and can be read free online. It is about a man who, having reached the dizzying heights of a long an illustrious career, forsook it all and took up […]
Simple Truths has a movie called the 212 movie. It is about how a difference of one degree (Fahrenheit, in this case) makes all the difference between no power and steam power. When I was with Lifeskills Enrichment, I wrote a blog post (now defunct) to expand on this concept. My stand was that the amount […]
It is no secret that we as people tend to trend. We want to be with the “In” crowd. We want to be “Hip”, “Cool”, “Happening” and I don’t know what else. I don’t think it only happens to teenagers, meaning that supposedly crazy mixed-up bunch with raging hormones, which in my book should not […]
It has often been said that business relationships ought to be nurtured based on a “farming” approach instead of a “hunting” approach. I was wondering how much our environment influences our decisions in that regard? Would an environment that actively encourages agriculture tend to generate more of a “farming” mindset? What if the environment is […]
I was reading Alan Weiss’ book “Thrive”, and was musing on what he said about WISH-ing your life away. It struck me that a fundamental difference between a DO-er and a WISH-er is that DO-ers Develop Opportunities and that WISH-ers Willfully Inflict Self Harm So, are you are DO-er or are you a WISH-er? Be […]
What is the purpose of implementing a minimum wage? Minimizing exploitation of low-cost labour, even foreign labour, by employers. Is that the only way to minimize such exploitation? Certainly not! The only reason I will support such legislation, if it indeed comes to pass, is to bring unscrupulous employers who exploit such workers, both local […]
On Wednesday 14 Mar 2012, I happened to meet with Koh Yong Jin, an old friend who had served with me in the Armed Forces since the mid-80s. Yong Jin is a Fitness and Conditioning Specialist who helps people live better quality lives by keeping their levels of overall fitness at an optimum level. We […]
I read with interest about the Buffalo Fighting Festival in Do Son, Vietnam, in the 23 Sep 2011 edition of the Business Times’ Special Focus Section. Having done a little research on smallholder dairy farming in the tropics a while back, it was heartening to note that interest in buffalo farming remains high in this […]
This morning, we enjoyed some badminton at the Woodlands Sports Hall. My son had booked two courts from 8 to 9 am. I spent most of the time playing with my daughter Ephrath, who is our seventh child. Remembering that she is not the active sort, I returned her shuttlecocks that were easy to reach, […]
How concerned are you with making right choices? What do you base your decisions on? How do you decide which career to embark on, what hobby to pursue, what financial instruments to invest in, where to go for your next vacation, and so on? In this post, I am not talking about making ethical choices. […]
You must be logged in to post a comment.