The FEAR of "Unfinished Business"

Don’t you sometimes get this feeling of lost, where you have no idea what you are doing with your life and had quite some worrisome feeling within you but you don’t exactly know what is wrong. You know something is missing, but it is just hard to identify what is missing. I would call it “Unfinished Business”, as it could be something I had not done, dunno how to do and still trying to figure out what to do.

What are the “Unfinished Business” symptoms?

• Lost
• Fear
• Uncertainty
• Failure to concentrate and be productive

The “Unfinished Business” symptoms pop up once in a while under the following circumstances:

• When I am alone
• When I have too much backlog of work
• When I had too much fun
• When I have unfulfilled dream I am desperately trying to achieve
• When I am uncertain of the future
• When I am being lazy

What motivates us to live our life day by day happily?

• A Promising Future? Success in life?
• Fun?
• Love?
• Responsibility?
• Challenge?

Again, perhaps too much analysis and question, with no exact answers. I should come up with some conclusion this time.

Okay, first of all, we need purposes in life (perhaps a few minor ones and big ones by our own definition). Basically, everyday we are working towards those purposes. We feel happy when we are doing enough, and felt kinda negative when we didn’t contribute enough. Of course we need rest and leisure as well. So again, the balance between work (contribution to our purposes in life) and self enjoyment (reward for us or to rest the soul and body).

Though we work for money most of the time, but I don’t think a lot of money will really make us happy for the long term. I think we need Challenges, which I turn leads to Satisfaction. We need to accomplish stuffs, stuffs which we like or interested with. There are a lot of people I know who actually sacrifice the opportunity to make more money to do something which they enjoy, or should I say, to chase a dream. The problem is, sometimes dream chasing could be painful and uncertain. Perhaps it is the attitude. We shouldn't care too much on what could turn out from it. We just need to try our best and enjoy what we like best. I once read, “When you believe you cannot be harm in anyway, there is no need to fear. Instead of fearing failure, you’ll end up falling in love with challenge”

I think in life, we are not used into taking much risk or challenges, thus it is not exactly a norm for us. We want the false sense of security, we want insurance and guarantee. Really, there is no real security in life.

Personally, I do really have to let go of all my personal baggages and walk tall as if I am invincible again. Believing I am the best for a moment, that I can achieve anything I like, and nothing could harm or discourage me that I have nothing to loose. I believed the greatest enemy is always within us; confidence, determination and perseverance are all we need to walk through life in a happy manner. All could be done and achieved, and dream can came true as long as we yearn for it. It is all in the mind.

I am INVINCIBLE again.

PS: I think I am using Blue Dragon as an avenue for self pep talking, a lot :)

2006 06 26

Quite a nice number huh, and it is her number. Happy Birthday from Blue Dragon.

So, what is the plan?

Sunday Night: Burnt mid night oil to finish my work to make way for her celebration.

Monday Morning: Wakeup in a blurred state

Monday Afternoon: Late Lunch at Jogoya, nice ambience, but the quality of food seems to had dropped since my last visit (or izzit because it is a weekday).


Monday Evening: Crazy Karaoke session, better than expected. When you sing without worry, when you create your own song, when you sing your own tune, and when you sang something you never quite sang before, it is all great fun and laughter. My personal best solo singing performance is here :)

Monday Night: Went to the Wonderland of Lights, plenty of opportunity for her to flash her camera.





I always say is the companion, not the event nor the place (though a good one might help). I hope she enjoyed it as much as I did. Tired, but with Joy :)

What need to be done next? Her belated birthday gift.

Jogoya Lunch. RM 150
Karaoke Session. RM 30
Entrance to the Wonderland of Lights. RM 5
A birthday celebration with Love One? Priceless.
The belated birthday gift? A token of memory.

Photo Link: Mei Ru's Picasa

Life in the fast lane, or izzit imaginary fast?

There seems to be so many things going on, and I don’t have enough time in a day to finish my work and backlog is piling up, and I don’t get to work on my dreamy ideas. Sometimes I wonder, izzit I don’t have enough time, or I am not good at utilizing time efficiently.

Perhaps it is a discipline or procrastination problem, or izzit because I am a perfectionist? I guess there is always up and down in life, we can’t be expected to be good or productive all the time. More importantly, I am trying to find the balance line whether I am pushing myself too hard, or giving myself too much excuses to be lazy. I am afraid that the later might hold more truth.

Anyway, lately I realized a few things

• I think I had somehow subconsciously burnt the bridges to go back to employment life. 1st of all, my cousin had invested heavily in The Skill Academy and somehow expect me to help her run the IT Department, and I can’t quite do that under employment and I wouldn't want to disappoint her. 2nd of all, I found it is hard to sell myself as a good employer at my current state (I am not sure what I am good at? It seems like running a business had made me a more valuable overall, but not great at any specific task). 3rd of all, I think I had too used to the flexibility and innovation opportunities I enjoyed.
• I realized that freelancing is not really my passion, but more as a means to put food on my plate. What is my passion then? Trying out new ideas for my venture, Malaysia Most Wanted. It holds a lot of excitement and promise for me. It had potential, and manages to spark the moment of joy in me.
• Though I do teach children nowadays, but I think I am not passionate about it. I can do an averagely good job, but not a great job. It doesn’t excite me nor sparks a lot of idea in me. I fail to be creative or felt the excitement in it.
• I still didn’t manage my time and procrastination very well. Besides I was never quite a person with great discipline, need to find ways to work around it.
• Last but not least, I need to work with a team (part-time will do as well). Working as a lone ranger is pretty demoralizing at times, while having a team member have creates more accountability and get the job done is a timely and fun manner.
• And also, izzit possible that I am a good programmer with crappy business idea? I mean, I did fail at 2 Cradle applications, and I know of people who are suckier than me or with lousier business idea manage to get the money (though their project didn’t take off as well). The point which might be hard to gulp, but definitely demoralizing to be pondered upon.

Venture Voice

Since I have chosen the entrepreneur path, perhaps it is good to learn from those who are still trying but ahead of me, and those who already succeeded.

I suddenly remembered about Venture Voice, a site about entrepreneurship which distributes their material in MP3 format (pod casting). I never quite grow on this site because the MP3 take quite a while to download, and perhaps it is a bit time consuming as well since each interview is about 50 minutes. Anyway, I decide to give it a try. The quality is pretty good, and suitable for people on the go with an mp3 player (perhaps it is a good reason to get one as well)

At first the “Failure” post caught my attention, as I believe sometimes the media over glorify entrepreneur success and discarded their dirty failure. Entrepreneurial Terror is quite a terror, as it seems to be a norm for people to fail numerous times and lost all their money before they found their success. It sounds pretty scary as I had only tried and failed once, and this is my second. And loosing all my money and become bankrupt? OMG!

Then I was led to the interview of David Sifry of Technorati. Basically, this is probably the 4th venture for David, and he is an entrepreneur freak (meaning he will keep looking for new idea to venture, no staying too long with the same thing). Basically, it is his passion to turn nothing into a usable service wanted by others, while being “something to prove” is secondary for him. He believed the primary for a company to exist is to make money, like oxygen, without it the company will suffocate. But as in life, we could do more besides breathing. Besides focusing on what should be done, he focus on what should be done as well (it seems to be an important mantra nowadays, to focus in don’t as well as do).

He said, “If I am not the founder, I’m not sure if they will hire me”. I kinda worry about employment as well. Somehow entrepreneur skill doesn’t quite seem so sellable to future employer. It is a common believe that building a Technology is about the Technology, but it might seems to be a common Myth as well. According to David, is all about building a great team that can churn out wonderful stuff. I believed I read it many times, only through a great team we could achieve greatness. One interesting point he made is, “If I found someone who is better than me in doing what I do, I shall employ him to replace me and move on to my next venture. But sometimes, you shall believe that you are the best person for the job”. If we don’t believe that we are great, how could it be possible for us to achieve greatness?

It seems there is no eternal happiness, but only moment of joy. Basically, the entrepreneur path does not guaranteed happiness, but it does bring in moment of joy. Last but no least, a last word of advise from David, “No matter what they said, if you believe in yourself, in the market, in your service, just do it. I have a lot of respect for entrepreneur, as it is tough, but rewarding”

I hope I did learn a thing or two. Sometimes we already knew or understand a specific idea or concept, but we just need repetition to reinforce it. I once saw a book, “Things I already know but keep forgetting”

Good Business Idea

What makes a good business idea?

• To solve one person’s pain (according to Joel)
• To able to make tons of money out of it (according to VC and Businessman)
• An idea isn’t important at all, it’s the implementation that count (Einstein: Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration)
• A good business idea is something that’s proven successful by others
• A good business idea is something unique, not thought of or used by others yet
• A good business idea is the simplest idea in our everyday life (Pet Sitting, Cleaning Service, Delivery Service, etc)
• Something which you are passionate about
• Something which target the niche market, where competition is non-existent
• A idea which is no unique, that it could not be copied or replicated easily

So, what do I think of my idea?

• It solves a major pain in Property Sale & Purchase decision
• We might be able to make some money out of it
• We have quite a lot of competitors, but I wonder how much money are they making as well
• The idea could be copied with moderate effort, but we are banking on first mover advantage and customer loyalty (as long as we continue to do a good job on it, people will stay with us). Besides, we should be moving faster and more innovative than others
• It is an interesting idea and it had not been done before
• I am passionate about it, it gets the adrenaline pumping

I met with Simon today (my ex-boss) to share my business idea with him, and to get him into my team as well. Basically, he kinda agreed with the idea, but worry on how we are going to make money out of it. Nevertheless, it is still an interesting idea to try on.

What does Simon worry about?

• How are we going to make more money from it? Advertisement, but how much? Hmm, Google made billions from advertisement alone. The theory is as long as you have something which the public want; the traffic will come followed by advertisement. So, I need something which the public want badly and it would be hard to get it from somewhere else.
• How are we going to do the marketing? Yup, I admit we are still pretty new in this. Email and SMS Spam (ops! Forbidden word), online advertisement, individual contact and fair/exhibition. I admit, we are still pretty new and inefficient in this.
• The market might be a bit too small and local. Yup, it might seem so, but there is a lot we could venture into the future, once the brand name is up. Basically, our business is business archival: effective search on business offering.
• Why people would like us or use us? Because we have something which they want and it is not available elsewhere yet?

Basically, I don’t have all the answer. All I have is faith and confidence, believe and passionate about the idea. If I know how to make a million, I am already a millionaire. Nevertheless, though everyone have different perception on the same simple idea, I believe it is workable and worth the try.

What would I loose? Time and Money. What would I gain? A dream come true, or just the chasing part.

Gunung Rajah Day 2

Day 2, as more adventures unfold.

The morning isn’t very cold at the 1st camp site, and we were greeted with porridge with mini oyster and beans for breakfast. It is pretty good in fact, probably the best porridge I had ever eaten. We spent some time doing our morning business; we pack our stuff, keep out camps and tents, and ready to roll out. For all responsible campers out there, please don’t leave your rubbish in the jungle. Nature friendly please, Peace!

Wakup in the Morning Tent

Somehow the weight of the bag seems heavier, though we had eaten a lot of the food. No more flat land walking, the trail is pretty steep all the way, among the woods. As usual, all the sweat cover my face and eyes along the way, probably lost a few liters of water. After an hour, we reached a mini hilltop. The view is quite excellent here, slight windy with a very popular tree for climbing.

We are in front of the peak of Gunung Rajah

Tang on the popular climbing tree

After some rest, we continue trekking to the next challenge, wall climbing. It is not actually a wall, but it is pretty steep until ropes are required. It is still manageable, not as bad as those walls back in KK. After the wall, we need to fill up our water bottle for further usage at the top (yup, no water at the top). This stretch of trek is pretty nice, as the land is soft with some pretty special grass. It is kinda misty and cold as well, so it kinda has a mysterious feel.

The Mystrious Grass

When we reached the top, it started to rain slightly. Get the rain coat out and cover our bags with plastics. We quickly setup our camp, and the chef start cooking before it is dark. There is limited space on the top, and it can get quite windy at times, lucky our tent is quite protected from the wind. Since we lack of water supplies, me and Ah Seong volunteered to go down to get the water. It is supposed to be an hour of journey, I think we made it within less than 30 minutes. Ah Seong is quite a runner and mountain climber, and can hardly keep up with his pace.

There is a pretty nice stone platform at the very top, where we could see a lot of mountains, beautiful sky, the town of Jerantut (I think) and Genting. The weather changes pretty fast up there, one moment is it foggy, the next it is cleared. Nevertheless, the view is magnificent and it definitely feels good to stand on the top of the world.

Mich with Matrix Style on top of the world!

We had another great dinner up there, thanks to the master chef, Ah Fong. We had Lap Cheong (腊肠), Sei Dai Tin Wong （四大天王）, Onion Egg, Salted Fish (super delicious), Soup and Rice. We had dinner at the top of the world, and it is absolutely one of the best moments in life. A sunset dinner at the top with my love one beside me sharing the small bowl of rice, what more could I ask for :)

Our absolutely delicious dinner

At night, it rains again. More people have to move into the closed camps, while less people can fit into the open air tents. We have Fan Shu Tong Sui (番薯糖水) for the night as well, but the weather is very cold. Luckily we had the Jacket, Sleeping Bag, Floor Mat and Head Cover. We played some games just like back in Survivor Island with Tang; she is good, but not very active in asking relevant questions.

After we fall asleep, another group of Malays came up during the middle of the night. Thus, we had to make some space for them, since real estate is rare up there. Actually it is pretty dangerous of them to climb during the night, and inconvenient with no place to camp.

That’s all for Day 2, and Day 3 is downhill all the way.

Picture Links: Mich's Multply 1, 2 (Tang's Camera)

Video Links: The Journey Continues, The Next Morning, Top is Cold, Night & Day, at the Top or ALL

Tioman Part II: The Forgotten

Hmm, it had been so long and I can’t quite remember what happened on day II. Perhaps just a quick and short one.

We went for snorkelling, where this time we are more experienced. The corals here are much more beautiful compared to Pulau Tiga’s Survivor Island back in Sabah. They are abundant and colourful accompanied by lots of pretty fishes as well. We get to feed the fishes with bread this time, and the feeling of being bitten by a whole lot of fishes is scary at first, but turn out to be an interesting experience in the end.

Hand in hand, snorkelling, hehe

Later we get to visit a white sandy beach and have lunch there. The beach is absolutely marvellous, with fine and white sand. It’s like paradise by just lying down on them. We did some simple swimming and snorkelling here as well, with less corals but lots of fishes (as long as you have the bread).

Sand Man and the Bond Girls

Fine White Sands

Then we visited the Marine Park, where the water is deep but milky (pretty scary) with lots of big fishes. I saw one of the bigger fish try to chomp my finger off when feeding them. Besides the jetty, big floating platform, bigger fish and scary ocean, the place is pretty much boring. Perhaps too much snorkelling for the day.

The last stop is dunno monkey bay or donkey bay, a shallow bay with lots of corals. A very relaxing sight and we played around on the boat and took lots of photo. On the way back to the island, we get to sit in front of the speed boat, absolutely superb!

Why this female captain so manly one?

Basically, we didn’t do too much during this trip. We missed the diving, waterfall and some land activities. Perhaps should really do diving if there is a next trip, should be pretty cool. The trip is fun and relaxing, and the companies are really great.

Lion King

We had dinner, with a nice sleep, take the speed boat back to Mersing, drive to Batu Pahat for overnight + Karaoke, and on our way back to KL, just in time for my computer class with the kids, and treat Wynn a nice dinner for her kind hospitality.

Photo Link: Mei Ru's Dropshots 3, 4, 5 & 6.

Latin Dance Exam Afterthought

Last Sunday was my Latin Bronze and Silver exam, and it sure is exhausting.

At 1st I wasn’t very serious or nervous about the examination, as I had too much thought in my mind and too much work in my hand. I didn’t attend much of the Wednesday round of practice, and didn’t even have the time to practice with Mei Ru during the weekend. I just attend my usual dance classes, with a few supplementary classes. I didn’t even get to practices solo dancing much as well.

My Class

I had this dilemma. I didn’t practice much as I am busy, but the rest seems to be hard at work. So, seeing everyone very anxious about the exam and working hard kinda make me worry. Besides, I see some of them are getting much better than me. Perhaps it is a choice I had made.

Let's Fight!

Don't Kill Me

In life, with limited time, we can only choose to be good at a few things. In school, I just take sports as leisure (no talent, no competition), and concentrate on striving in academics. This let me to realize one thing; it can be a painful journey to be damn good at something. If I take sports seriously, I would need to train vigorously. Though I might be very good at it, but there is a price to pay, the sweat and time. Perhaps taking things easy and enjoy sports as it is would be much better. So what if someone beat me in a game, I just wanna have some fun and sweat a bit.

After the Exam, dont't we look good :)

The same goes for dancing, I have no intention to be a great dancer (neither do I have the talent if I planned to). I just wanna enjoy dance as it is, a weekly activity, and perhaps sometimes go to some dance party to enjoy myself. And probably when I grow old, I can still manage to dance with my love one. I once heard the president of KLDA (Kuala Lumpur Dance Association) said, “Let me dance as it is, just to enjoy it, not to win nor to show”

Our Examinar, a nice lady

BTW, the dance examination goes pretty well with both my partner, Mei Ru and Michelle. No mistakes and I think we did pretty well. This is probably the best performance in my life, in my own heart at least :)

The Class of Al Chifar

Photo Link: Mich's Multiply, Mei Ru's Multiply and Tang