The Law of Pouvoir

I'm usually touted as a person with a 'di da ba' ( Malay for 'heck-it') attitude when i do things or when things go wrong. Why? Because when things happen, people see my reaction and wonder, " Why the heck is that ass taking things so cool? Doesn't he know that this is a big deal?"
So here we are to discuss today's topic, of which can be summed up in one word- Response.
Every single day in our lives, things go wrong. Whether at work, home or school, trouble always has a way to find us. That's why we have the saying 'Don't go looking for trouble, because trouble will come find you'. But that ain't the point here. The point is, what do we do when trouble finds us? How do we react? How SHOULD we react? What can we do to minimise its often detrimental influence?
Whatever trouble comes, whether you are hounded by attorneys of your competitors over intellectual property infringements or being millions of dollars in debt and all your creditors want their money all at once, it is always necessary to remember one eternal rule, of which i call The Law of Pouvoir, meaning the 'power to be able to'. It's French.
So back to the point. Why is this a LAW? It's because Man has been designed by God( whoever he is to you...or SHE is, for that matter)in a way that he can withstand any measurable obstacle that comes before him. In other words, Man is powerful. You are powerful, more than you think you are and more than you think you know you are.
When trouble comes to you then, what should you do? What is that one universal step that you must take? The one true star which will guide you out of your predicament, your ordeal? No matter who you are or how big your trouble is, the one true law to follow is the Law of Pouvoir, the belief in yourself. It is the first step! No other method comes before the fact that you must believe in yourself! If this dies, everything else will flicker and be extinguished. No matter how 'tested' or proven any solution is, the first and most indispensable step is to have the Law of Pouvoir in yourself, the belief in yourself as a person who is able to overcome anything, that you are powerful, that you are mighty. Nothing and no one in this world can help you if you fail to believe in yourself. It sounds clichéd enough, but how many people actually do that?
The act of reaffirmation of the belief one has towards oneself is the most indisputable and unquestioningly essential part of anyone's success, because it has both the power of pulling you out of the depths of failure and also to drive you towards anything you have ever dreamed of achieving. It can also help you keep your cool in any tough situation in which you plonk yourself.
The Law of Pouvoir, the first and the last light.

To the end of all, may your life be filled with nothing but success and happiness!

Merry Christmas!

Alex Chéng

What to do when people talk bull about you (Self confidence)

The world harbours plenty of insecure people. The kind of people of which i am talking about are the people who feel insecurity in themselves so much that they have to resort to underhand means like gossiping or rumour-spreading to feel that sense of power in themselves to make them feel better. To put it simply, they step on other people's heads to make them feel 'higher'.

This form of human behaviour is especially prevalent among adolescent females, though males are not exempt. The harm of which this bad-mouthing creates is something of which is a major concern. Schools don't teach people emotional intelligence. When these people hear what others gossip about them, the feelings of fear, anxiety, stress and all the other negative emotions come pounding on their hearts like drumsticks. So what should we do when people talk behind our backs and say not-so-nice things?

The is how a typical person would react.

1) She hears someone talk behind her back.
2)She gets upset, angry, emotional, teary.

then either of the following can occur...

a) She confronts the b*tch who said so-and-so about her and a cat fight will occur. (Well, something like that.)

b) She can follow my Patented 'Anti-bull protection' which i am going to share with you right now without you having to pay licensing fees.

What i do when people talk bull about me, whether in my face or behind my back, is this; I LISTEN TO EVERY SINGLE THING THEY SAY. Yes! That's the beauty of it! People would tell you to ignore, i would say go all out and listen to what the other person is saying, because that's where strength is developed. The more you ignore what people say, the harder it will be. The less you ignore, the more you'd realise that what they said is a whole load of bull, and the easier it will be for you to dismiss it.


So first thing is, i listen to what they say. Important Step #1.


2nd step! Almost as simple as the first one. Reflect on everything they said.
The thing is, even though you know that most of what people say about you is a truckload of crap, always know that there is also a learning opportunity behind it. Think to yourself the following question.

Which part of what they said is true and what can i do to improve myself based on it?

Always know that it is always easier to avoid the emotional pitfalls of bad gossip when we try to be understanding instead of being stubbornly arrogant. Your ears ain't closed, and what you try to dismiss is not going to be kept out just by you chanting to yourself, "I will not believe the crap they say about me". No, it's not going to work. You will eventually get the 'creeping effect' of the gossip and it will begin to affect you subconsciously, most probably in a negative way. So i say welcome the attack, pluck out the fruits ( the valid points of what they said), and throw away the thorns ( basically, the crap and bull). Simple as that. You won't get hurt. Tested and proven by me. So that's step #2.

That's the secret of repelling bad stuff you hear about yourself, from yourself. It's no use being an oyster with a hard shell that blocks off everything because one day it's just going to crack and affect the soft inside. My point here is, with the listen and reflect method, you have to be like a sponge which absorbs everything and nourish yourself with constructive stuff and release everything else which is not useful away. That is the way to handle negative feedback or rather, gossip.

Trump strategies for real estate (Real Estate investing)

Just read this book by George H. Ross, Donald Trump's right-hand man in business and his legal counsel (lawyer, basically). You see Rosssitting with Donald in the board room on TV in episodes of The Apprentice. So anyway, let's jump straight in...

Some of the great stuff I learnt from the book are as follows...

1. Increasing value of property

Improve it! Spruce it up! Whether with Italian carpets or decorations with a whiff of grandéur, improving yourproperty in terms of décor or added functions like an extra room or cupboard will make your property value go up. In fact, it doesn't even have to be expensive! The key is to improve features that the buyer will PERCEIVE AS EXPENSIVE. Polished doorknobs, varnished doors, fleece carpets, etc. Everyone wants to feel rich and good living in the place they live, whether they're poor, rich or middle class. No point improving features of your property which the buyer cannot see. If we were to look at Trump towers in New York, he gives condo buyers a sense of exclusivity and he decorates his properties with the finest marbles from the best quarries in Italy or the most beautiful trees.


If he sees a tree along the side of the road in someone's backyard he'd go up and knock on the front door of the house and say something like,'"Hi ma'am! I'd like to buy your tree." Usually he gets the tree which he would then plant in his golf clubs to beautify them. Be creative!Trump found a granite block while constructing one of his golf courses.The contractor told him he'd have to whack the granite out of the course. Trump, being the creative man in sprucing the golf course up,wondered, "Perhaps we can use this as a backdrop of the golf course?"". The contractor told him, "No way! You'll have to have lots of water to build a a waterfall that high and it might cost you a few million just to have this block of rock here renovated!". "Trump said, "Well,this will be a key hole in the golf course and golfers from all around will come and talk about it." Today the 13th hole is a much talked about subject and it costs $250,000 to have a membership in one of Trump's golf clubs. That's the benefit of making your property exclusive by sprucing it up. So key here is: improve features which the buyer will be able to see.

2. Negotiation tactics

Every negotiation requires planning, extensive at that. Your contact's background, etc. Know everything you can about him. And prepare everything for him. Instead of going through the numbers saying everything and going through all the ruddy graphs and all, what Trump does is put a bold, CAPITAL and BIG heading at the bottom which says something like...

RETURN ON INVESTMENT 20%

You see? Trump doesn't waste time telling you everything. He goes straight to the point of the negotiation and doesn't waste time on irrelevant stuff. That's the essence of his style.

3. Leadership- motivation

Trump doesn't hesitate to praise someone in public if he can. If he sees a woodworker doing a fantastic piece of work, he'd say something like...

"George, you see that man there doing the woodwork? He's the best woodworker in the city, maybe the world!"

Yea we all know it's extremely exaggerated, but you can be sure the woodworker will do a better job than he was required to, while blushing heavily. The best thing is, it costs nothing at all! But let's say if Trump were to say something like this...

"You! Why are you so slow with your work? And zip up your pants!"

Do you think the man would be upset? Of course he would! He was embarrassed and hurt at the same time, and you can be sure there'll be flaws in his work. So the morale of the story is that it costs nothing to praise someone but it will cost something if you criticise someone.



Basically these are some of the more outstanding lessons i learnt from the book. It's an extremely information-rich book and i recommend it to any real estate investor or trader, whether just starting out or along the route already. The full title of the book is 'Trump strategies for real estate Billionaire lessons for the small investor'. I'm sure you'd find it a fantastic and extremely useful read.

I WOULD RATE IT :


That's all for today.


To the end of all may your life be filled with success!

Alex Trump

More babies...a call of desperation..(Government policies)

The government of Singapore has been actively promoting and encouraging their people to have more babies. That is to say that the population of Singapore is not growing at an expected rate, most probably slow and also the fact that the population of Singapore is aging. In fact, 1 out of every 12 Singaporeans are aged 65 or above (http://www.mcys.gov.sg/successful_ageing/index.html). There is a dire need to find a remedy to counter this worrisome trend. If it is not done as promptly as possible, Singapore may find itself lacking in terms of not only human manpower, but more detrimentally, human resource and talent. Humans are every country's natural resource. For a country as small as Singapore, that is even more so.

The government has implemented incentivising policies to encourage people to have more babies through the use of work leaves, monetary grants and what not? However the rate of growth is not as fast as required and the population is not increasing at a speed and velocity which would be essential for the future of the country.

From my perspective, it is a little bit difficult to do so with the dawn of Globalisation. The world economies are becoming less and less segregated and they are becoming more and more integrated. Jobs from the MDCs are being exported to LDCs for a fraction of the price. Competition is becoming more intense, whether in the corporate world or the business world. However, globalisation brings with it major benefits in the form of opportunities. With the full fledged power of the Information Age, people are becoming more and more sophisticated and look for more flamboyant lifestyles to suit their ever growing want for a higher level of affluence.

The call for more babies will be 'obstacle-ised' by this advent of globalisation. People would more rather pursue career opportunities than settle down at night to make love. In a conservative Asian state like Singapore, this is very much so. However, if the government were to address this problem, another essential arm of their armada of encouragements would be to promote sex. Promote the joy of having sex, promote books on sex, encourage newly wedded couples to go for sexual sensation courses, programmes or what not?

The point is, couples need to have more sex, but from the way i see it (not that i have visually experienced their inadequacy), they do not. Moreover, conservative people do not know the intricacies of sex, of which i will not go into here, of which can be summarised as the finer details of the process. The government has to promote sex. Simple as that. It cannot be said with more importance. They have to go all out to promote safe, passionate, morally motivated sex. However they would have to be careful as to not stray into the part of sex which some term as 'fucking'. That word connotates a casualness and citizens in the land might be put off by its immorality. The government has to incentivise this area in addition to their whole armory of incentives to boost the population growth of Singapore to finally be able to get Singaporeans to 'have more babies'.

Luck Cluck (Success)

Luck. What imagery does this word bring to your head? Well, definitely for most of you what comes to mind is a sort of a bright star which can be seen at a distance. This is what the perception of most people is of luck. But luck is only useful if you try and avoid it.

People who are looked at as successful by other people are also looked upon as having luck or they got to where they were by caso. The thing about luck is successful people view luck as being 'labour under correct knowledge'. Now, that has a few implications. It can mean you know what you are doing and have a clear goal and direction of where you are going. It can also refer to the technicalities involved and having them with you in the pursuit of your success. But the basic thing is that successful people do not allow luck to decide what they achieve or who they become. They will not say, "Well, maybe this'll work, maybe it won't, so let's try it and find out". These are the words of people who look at luck as the prerequisite for anything- sports, business, school, love or marriage success. The problem with depending on luck for success is that luck will rarely get you anything you want.

Luck is an evil and bastardly thing and it works exactly like a double edged sword. It can work for you or it can work against you, usually in greater degrees. If you count on luck to get where you want to go, you will go nowhere. You will fail. You will not succeed. The only people who succeed through luck are those people who have a plan and that plan meets an opportunity. My business partner told me of this and of course I agreed. It is when you have a plan prepared and ready, like a bag-packing for a great hike, that you will be lucky. And when you do succeed, you will say," Oh well, i was lucky".