to change or kena change.....

I’m writing my OMD (occupation management development) on leading change.... basically its all about brain washing lah.. my forte haha.. well... i went down to AKLTG today.. to visit my shi fu (adam khoo) brain washing talk.. as usually empowering.

After the whole thing he was like sharing with us his encounter few days ago, a middle-aged gentleman attended his Patterns of Excellence brain wash Seminar and signed up. He told Adam that he wanted to re-think and re-plan his life’s strategy as he felt like he wasn’t going anywhere in his career. What frustrated him was that he used to be very successful in school. He was the perfect student who studied hard, got top grades and went to Raffles Institution, Raffles Junior Colleges and to NUS, where he got a first class honors degree.
He did everything by the book and coudn’t understand why he had less success and money than some of his friends who were from lousier schools and had poorer grades. ‘Where did I go wrong?’, he asked .

He always wanted to attend the POE program and learn NLP but procrastinated for a long time. What really made him take action was that he had enough about working so hard, but always getting passed up for a promotion. What’s worse was that his company (an MNC) was undergoing a restructuring and there was a high posisbility that he may get retrenched. At the age of 43, he had the fear of what he was going to do if it should happen to him.

Well the world had changed so much since our parents time and the advice they gave us in the past will not only NOT help us succeed, but it may kill us. In the past, change happened slowly and people would work for the same company their entire lives. In the old days, parents gave good advice like, ‘ study hard hard future bright bright’. Get good grades. find a good job with a good company. do as you are told. don’t rock the boat. the longer you stay and the more loyal you are, your value and pay will automatically increase until you finally get to retire at 50 with a nice secure pension.’

However, the world we live in today is vastly different. Technology and knowledge is changing so fast that 80% of what you learn in school is OBSOLETE by the time you graduate. The nature of jobs are changing so fast that 50% of the jobs that exist today will not exist or exist in a different form 10 years from now. So what does this mean? This means that when we work for a company today, there is no job or income security anymore. The longer we stay in a company, our value will begin to decline (if we don’t upgrade ourself continously and do things differentl). By the time we hit 45-50 years old, there is a 70% chance of being retrenched! Why? becasue boss will know that he can hire someone half our age, half our pay, double our energy, doing the same job! And even if we can find another job, it will probably be at a much much lower pay!

Many people who are holding their prestigious degrees and in prestigous positions (Senior managers, Vice-presidents, directors) think they have security. But it is really an ILLUSION of security. Because we do not own our job or our income. Both these can be taken away from us at any time. Company can just close up without signs.

So what will give us true income, true freedom and true security? The answer is in continually investing in ourself and upgrading ourself, we are our greatest asset. Our true wealth and security lies in our mindset and our personal mastery skills in being able to continually motivate ourself and overcome adversity. No one can take this away from us! With the right mindset and personals success strategies, we will be able to ride the sea of changes and take charge of the environment, instead of allowing the environment take charge of us! We have to begin to master our mind and design our own destiny (or someone will design it for us..and when they plan for us.. we wont like it.) I remember someone told me that “if i fail to plan then i’m planning to fail”, “to know and not to do is not yet to know”. So take our Singaporean Unique kiasu potiential.. chiong ah.. haha...

As Robert T. Kiyosaki said in his book “cash flow Quadrant”
“Giants often trip and fall..but worms don’t..cos all the do is to dig and crawl”

Well... the main reason that so many people struggle financially is not because they are lack of a good education (btw..a degree is just a passport to our 1st job...), or they are not hardworking. It’s because they are afraid of losing...Losing their “steel rice bowl” their secure job or losing their money...but they dont know that their act are actually more dangerous. If the fear of losing continue to prevent them from stretching our their comfort zone, they’ve already lost.