FOLLOW YOUR OWN GPS

Dear Families, Friends, Followers and Fans, 

My father, like many people who have migrated from China to the south, sought his fortune prior to the second world’s war. My siblings were the first generation in Malaysia. I am proud to be the first in my family to graduate with a professional honours degree from a local university. My parents were both illiterate, but 6 out of 7 siblings received higher education.

I am fortunate that my family given me freedom to choose what I wanted to be. No pressure whatsoever, but has its own challenges. My family did not have a business that I could join. I was a science and maths person before I discovered my talent in Accounts by passing my LCCI intermediate book keeping examination which gave my teacher a great surprise.

My smooth sailing into the local university is my only reward I obtained throughout my early life struggles. This was my only hope to move me out from poverty that I have in my mind. I never really thought about career and never had any counseling or mentorship. However, I was not so fortunate and recession came in after my graduation with a degree in Accountings in 1987.  I joined the mid-sized professional firm after nearly 6 months of seeking relentlessly for a job.

After nearly one and half years I made the decision that I could not endure the financial hardship of a very lengthy internship training, so I make a shift into commercial field and become a commercial accountant.

I learned , researched and applied all my know-how to move all the way up to become a Financial Controller after successfully helping an entrepreneur to grow his private limited company to a public limited company. The journey was full of challenges which I truly enjoyed and moulded me to be what I am today. The whole journey turned out to be one of the best things that happened to me.

Now I am an Accountant, prolific writer, trainer cum consultant in the financial and mind changing field. My articles are regularly published in digital printing, online, magazines (Smart Investor, Financial First & Money Compass) and I am a well sought after speaker in financial literacy, economic and mind changing fields. My mission is to help people to explore the invisible and achieve the impossible.

I realized that the first and most important decision a person needs to decide is the selection of the field of your choice. It is most likely that you will be in that industry for the rest of your working life. However, if you decide to change along the way you will pay a switching price with such cost increasing year to year as you make progress in your career. Since this is a long-term commitment I recommend that you chose a field that you believe will flourish over the timeframe of your working life. Most importantly, you should do what you love, that is psychically rewarding that fascinates and endures you through the entire journey.

Once you have made such a decisive action that will offer excitement, enriching and enhancing mobility, keep moving forward with massive action toward your goals.

Be mindful that mature companies oftentimes are stacked up with many layers of management, and newcomer like you basically have to wait for people to retire or die to move ahead.

Young and rapid growth companies tend to offer you the best opportunity. Such opportunities will open up for those who are capable and motivated to take up challenges, and it is naturally offer extremely rapid career advancement too.

Even if you eventually leave for another job you will be coming from a successful company that will endow you with a halo effect — people coming from good careers in successful companies are generally viewed as smarter and more competent and capable than others. This is the common perception of people.

Once you have identified such an opportunity; make things happen in your favor. It is lots and loads easier to get your dream job from inside the company once you have proven yourself.  It would be a huge mistake to forsake the opportunity to join the right company in the right industry by choosing a higher paying job for the sake of the paycheck only. By doing so, you need to strengthen your belief and be better prepared to take more calculated risks than others.

It is of great benefit to think about your future and decide what you want to be ultimately. Having such self-knowledge will determine and guide your decisions and actions. What matters most is your own intuition or GPS and not what others think.

These decisions are central to quality, attitude and your professional development which you need to be shaped accordingly. You should take ownership as you have only one life to live, so make it meaningful and a fulfilling one. You should always keep your own GPS and craft your own personalized path, strategies and vision that conform to the specification you were created in the first place.

In short, this is the best advice I ever received and give this exact advice to my three children!