It was the time when the journalists came to my house to interview my father and I did I really begin to remember how much he has done for me. I began to realize that without my father, I would not be where I am today. He has shaped my beliefs, values and attitudes not just in business but also in the way I raise my own children today.

It was not easy for my father to raise me. I was a highly rebellious, lazy, blur and underachieving child in my earlier years. At the age of 13, my parents divorced and my mother migrated to Australia where she re-married. At that time, it was not easy for my father to bring me up as a single parent. He worked really hard to build up his business and would spend whatever time he had left with me.

In fact, when he started dating again, he made sure that he brought me along on all his dates. Even though many of his girlfriends (there were some Japanese and Ang Moh ones too) weren’t too please that I came along with him on dates and even on their romantic holidays, my dad insisted that I be there and would never dump me at home. Once he met a woman who he really liked but ended the relationship because she did not like the fact that he spent more time with me on weekends than with her. I was always my father’s first priority.

Many people who know my Dad to be a very successful businessman and accomplished industry leader often ask me if he was the responsible for helping me become a millionaire and industry leader. The answer is yes, but not in the way that many people may think.

( My father founded and managed one of the top advertising agencies in Singapore and was also the President of the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents. He was also the chairman of Lasalle/SIA and a director on many listed companies and statutory boards like Sentosa Development Corporation, Primary Industries, Orchid Country Club etc…)

By seeing my father as a successful industry leader and self-made millionaire himself, I believe it shaped my beliefs that being successful was indeed possible. It was a standard he set and one that I should definitely match and even exceed one day. By growing up in a Bungalow (with a swimming pool) and being exposed to the tremendous wealth around me, it unconsciously helped me develop the attitude and mindset of a millionaire and business leader.

At the same time, the greatest gift my father gave me was the opportunity to develop my fighting spirit, self-reliance and entrepreneurship abilities. No. He never told me to start a business. In fact, he was against the idea and wanted me to take up the SAF scholarship I was offered and to go for a career in politics of civil service. No. He never gave me any business advice or lent me one-cent to start my own business. No. He never taught me about investing at all.

In fact, he did something most single parents would find very difficult to do. He purposely gave me very little money and insisted that anything I wanted to buy outside of books and food, I would have to buy myself. He kept telling me that I should not expect to inherit anything as he intended to give it all away to charity.

Most parents (especially single parents), out of guilt, give their children everything they want and more if they can afford it. They give them money, games, toys, handphones and even supplementary credit cards. My dad believed that the best way to kill a child’s hunger and motivation for success is to give them what they want. My dad had seen many of his rich friends give their children cars, money, credit cards…only to see them all squander it all away and become bums as adults.

My dad did the tough thing. He held back and refused to give me what I wanted even if it meant that making me unhappy in the short term. as a result of my father’s ‘stinginess’ (he gave me $2 a day in pocket money when my friends got $3-4 in primary school). I also got one of the lowest allowance in Secondary school and JC.

As a result, in order to get money to buy games and toys, I started working during my school holidays from the age of 14. I have worked as a waiter, salesman selling corporate stationery door to door, DJ, emcee, music technician, etc… The need for money also motivated me to start my own mobile disco business at age 15 and a training business at age 17.

It was all this part time work and entrepreneurial pursuits I did during my school holidays that really gave me the life skills that many of my other friends did not have. I learnt how to sell, how to speak in public, how to manage my own money, how to save and invest etc… It also gave me the hunger and drive to make my own money to get what I wanted.

Although my dad did not give me a single cent for any of my business ventures or give me any direct advice about business, I learnt a lot through observing how he dealt with people, how he networked and how he lead his own staff.

My dad believes in treating everyone with respect and creates a warm and family atmosphere in his company, where everyone (including the receptionist calls him by his first name…never Mr. Khoo). I now deal with people and empower people in the exact same way and I found that is one of the the success factors that have contributed to me building a team of highly motivated and empowered high-calibre individuals who work for me today.

His dedication and devotion as a father has also inspired me to be the very best father I can be to my own children, ensuring that I too do not spoil them but inspire them and instill in them the fighting spirit to make their own mark in the world. I have also recently become a member of the Father’s Action Network (FAN) committee, a workgroup of the National Family Council that aims to promote active fatherhood in Singapore. So, thank you Dad for shaping me into becoming who I am today.

For all those of you who are reading this post, I hope that you too will remember the impact that your own father has made in your life and to take this opportunity to appreciate him on this special occasion. Give your dad a call, buy him a gift, write him a note of appreciation and make this his most memorable father’s day ever!

They said, “I bet they’ll never make it”
But just look at us holding on
We’re still together still going strong

These are the lyrics from ‘Still the One’, one of my favourite love songs from Shania Twain. This week, I was really happy to sing those exact same words to my wife. Why? The 8 of May 2010 marked a really important milestone in my life. It was the 10th year anniversary of our marriage and we celebrated it by taking a romantic getaway to Bali. Time really flies indeed. Ten years ago, on the 8th of May 2000, we got married after going out together for 6 years. I was 24 and she was **censored**. Now, ten years later, we have two wonderful children and are as happy and in love as ever.

The reason that I am really proud in reaching this milestone is because I know that staying happily married after 10 years is not easy at all. Nowadays, a happy marriage is the exception rather than the norm. We all know that less than 10% of businesses that start make it past the 10-year mark. Marriage isn’t all that different. From my informal observations and surveys of the thousands of people that come for my seminars, I have found that less than 20% of people stay happily married after the first five years.

So many friends I know, including my own parents and my wife’s parents, have ended their marriage in divorce. And many of those who decided to stay together have lost the love and passion somewhere along the way. I can name many who are married but are miserable. They are just staying married because they feel obligated, staying for the sake of their children or because they are too fearful or shameful to make a change.

After being married for the first decade, I now know that a successful marriage DOES NOT happen by chance. Many people have the illusion that as long as they find Mr./Mrs Right who they love, everything will be plain sailing, the birds will be singing everyday their love will automatically last the test of time. Sorry to say, it does not happen that way.

No matter whom you marry, the road to marriage is fraught with challenges and problems. There are going to be disagreements and fights over children, money, in-laws, holidays, parenting methods, life choices etc- Unless you use the right communication strategies and manage your thoughts and emotions in the right way, these inevitable events will destroy any relationship.

At the same time, love, like any human emotion does not last unless you make the effort and spend the time to cherish, appreciate, pamper, delight, surprise, entertain and serve each other every single day. You cannot marry someone and expect to be still happily in love after 10 years without working on your relationship on a consistent basis.

I have observed that the main reason why most relationships fail is because couples take each other’s love for granted and never worked on building and nurturing their relationship once they got married. Whatever you don’t nurture consistently will slowly and surely die. And when things go wrong, they find someone to blame, especially each other. Many of my friends who end up in divorce tell me that it is because they married the wrong person, because their mother-in-law broke the marriage up, because of money problems or because the children killed the intimacy in their relationship.

The reason my marriage has successfully made it for 10 years is not because we were perfect for each other and that we are lucky enough to have no problems.

In fact, we are as different as night and day. She is a vegetarian and I love to eat meat, She loves shopping and I hate it (I think it’s a damn waste of time). She wants to watch Chinese movies and I want to watch English ones. I love massages and she hates anyone touching her body. I wanted to live in a Bungalow and she wanted to live in an apartment-you get the message.

So, what the heck do we like about each other? I don’t know about her, but what I love about her is that she has a really kind heart. She won’t even harm an ant (literally!) She goes out of her way to help strangers and is extremely honest with her thoughts and feelings. She doesn’t play games and goes straight to the point. She’s the kind of person who I know will stick with me through thick and thin. If I ever lose everything I have, she will be standing there by me. She is also an amazing mother to my children. That’s what I love about her! So despite our inherent differences, our love for each other has driven us to always find a way to make it work.

At the same time, we have gone through our fair share of huge challenges and emotional ups and downs. We have disagreed over everything and almost anything you can think of. There were times when we felt like killing each other and calling it quits. They have been some very low and even near breaking points in our marriage. However, what allowed us to bounce back and strengthen our love was the fact that we chose to put in 100% effort to make it work and to apply the right communication strategies that we read from hundreds of books on relationships, NLP, psychology etc-

Here are five lessons I have learnt throughout my 10-year journey that I would like to share with you. It has helped me on my journey of marriage and I hope it would do the same for you.

Lesson #1: Love Your Partner The Way They Want To Be Loved
We have all heard the phrase ‘Treat others the way YOU want to be treated’. I discovered that this advice does not work in a relationship. Instead, we need to treat others the way THEY want to be treated.

We all have different love languages. Some people feel loved when they are physically touched (hugged, kissed, touched etc..). However, some people do not feel deeply loved through physical touch. They may like it, but they don’t feel deeply loved by it. Instead, they feel loved only when they hear the words ‘I love you’. For others, they only feel loved when you do things for them or when you spend time with them.

When I first got married, I expressed my love primarily through physical touch and by saying how much I loved her. These were my two love languages. Unfortunately, I neglected spending time shopping with her (since I was always working) and spending the time just talking. This made her feel really un-loved as ‘quality time’ was her primary love language. Imagine my frustration when I gave her hugs and expressed my love through words and she did not return the affection. It was only after reading the book ‘The Five Love Languages’ that I began to change the way I expressed my love-in-.her language. As I started to spend time with her doing what she loved did she feel totally loved and the sparks began to fly again. The lesson I learnt? If you want your partner to show you love, first make him/her feel loved by expressing love in THEIR language.

Lesson #2: Remember the Compliments, Forget the Insults
In any relationship, there will be times when you get into a heated disagreement and start saying nasty things to each other- ‘ I hate you’, ‘get lost’, ‘you’re so stupid!’, ‘what’s the hell is wrong with you’, ‘are you mad?!’ etc- There will of course also be times when you say the sweetest things to each other.

If you are the kind of person that remembers all the bad stuff like an elephant and keeps replaying those hurtful images in your head and keeps those lousy feelings at the back of your heart, then your relationship may not last too long. Every time you get into an argument, you will tend to recall and bring up the past, reinforcing and intensifying all those lousy feelings all over again. Pretty soon, looking at your partners face will trigger all those bad feelings. This is known as ‘anchoring’ in NLP.

I have learnt that no matter what painful things you may have done to each other, you have to learn to let go. Learn to forget and forgive. Disassociate emotionally from it. A technique I learnt in NLP (known as the scramble) has really helped me to do this. Know that when our loved one is in a bad state of mind, they will say things that they do not mean. Don’t take it personally. They are not a bad person, but merely in a bad state of mind. Instead, remember the great moments and the loving words they say and keep playing these great feelings in your mind until it gets fully associated to your partner. Every time you see them, you will feel amazing. This love conditioning is what makes love in a marriage grow over time.

Lesson #3: Choose to Be Happy
Many of us make up mental rules in our head of when we should/should not be happy. Many of these rules involve our partner having to do something that meets certain expectations we have.

Here are some examples.
When he/she buys me something-then I will feel happy
When he/she hugs me-then I will feel happy
When he/she does xxxx-then I will feel happy
When he/she says xxxx-then I will feel happy

Here’s the problem. People do not always act/say or behave the way we expect. When they don’t, we get angry or upset. If you are constantly in a lousy mood, your partner will not enjoy being around you, as you will make them feel lousy as well. No one enjoys being around a grouchy depressed person. That is a sure way to kill the relationship. Take charge of your emotions and choose to be happy!
Even if you partner does not act in the way you expect, focus on what you love about the person and put yourself into a positive happy state of mind.

People love people who make them feel good about themselves. What my wife loves about me is that I constantly choose to be in a happy and positive state. Whenever she is around me, no matter how bad she feels, she feels my happiness and that makes her feel good as well. Constantly think of how you can light up your partner’s life.

Lesson #4: Win Arguments By Avoiding It
The next lesson I have learned is that you can never win an argument with your partner. Even if you argue and prove that you are right, you have ‘lost’ the bond and the love… the very thing that is the most precious to you. You would have made your partner lose and feel bad. That should never be the intention in a relationship.

Whenever my views clash with my wife (which is pretty often) and we feel an argument coming on, we avoid it by focusing on what is the outcome we really want. We focus on our ‘good intentions’ and what we have in common. This way, we never bother about who is right or wrong. Instead, we focus on compromising to get what we both want.

Lesson #5: Act Like It’s The Last Day on Earth

What I find kills most relationships is when partners start to take each other for granted. We stop doing special things for each other. We stop saying, ‘thank you’. We stop writing love notes and surprising each other with it. We stop telling the person how much they mean to us.

I don’t know about you but I have come to realize that life is really very very short. In the last two months, I have experienced the death of two friends who are not that much older than me. Like the blink of an eye, 10 years have come and gone and the next 10 will equally zoom past as fast. Through these experiences, I have come to realize that our time together is so limited, so why waste it being unhappy or arguing over petty things?

This has always reminded me to live each day as if it were my last. To treat my wife as if it was the last day we had together. So even though we have been together for 16 years, we don’t take the time we have together for granted. We still make each other feel very special with ‘love notes’, ‘surprise gifts’ and the playfulness of a young couple.

So, whether you are married or in a steady relationship, I hope what I have shared can be of value to you and I wish that your relationship journey will be as happy and enriching as mine.

I would like to wish one and all a very successful, fulfilling and happy 2009!

Another whole year has passed like the blink of an eye and another new year begins. It is that time of the year where I do a very important ritual-exercise and I would like to share it with you and encourage you to do the same

I believe that at the beginning of a new year, it is important to audit the year that has just passed. Time to reflect and write down all the key accomplishments you have made, the important lessons you have learned and improvements you have made to yourself. I’ve always loved to listen to the old christmas song ‘So, this is Christmas- by John lennon’ where the lyrics go ‘So this is christmas, now what have you done? Another year over, a new one’s just begun…’

Ever since I was 15, I have been keeping a SUCCESS JOURNAL, where I write down all my achievements and insights for every year that has passed in my life. My philosophy is that if life is worth living, it is worth recording. This allows me to look back at my life for the last 19 years, year by year to see how I have grown and what I have achieved so far. Success is a process of continuously moving towards the goals you have set for in your life. So, if you do not keep a record of how you are progressing each year, then how do you measure your success?

At the same time, keeping this success journal is a way which I constantly motivate myself to keep going further. That’s right! Yours truly Adam Khoo also gets demoralized once in a while, so I need to motivate myself by reading all my past achievements and read all the letters of appreciation that people have sent to me.

I invite you to do the same thing! I invite you to share in this BLOG (through ‘comments’), what you have learned, achieved, improved in for 2008! Maybe I can start the ball rolling by sharing what is in my own 2008 Success Journal. In 2008, I am proud to have done the following:
1) Wrote ‘Nurturing the Winner & Genius in Your Child’ that hit #5 of the National Best-Seller’s list
2) Conferred the NUS Business School Eminent Alumni Award
3) Successfully Launched the First Millionaire Business Academy(MBA) Programme
4) Wrote the book ‘Secrets of Building Multi-Million Dollar Businesses’
5) Wrote the book ‘Profit from the Panic’ where all royalties will be donated to charity
6) Adam Khoo Learning Technologies Group Sales Revenue Hits Over $20 million & Employees surpass 100 people DESPITE the financial crisis!
7) Received the Toastmasters International Communications & Leadership Award
Officially Opened one of the largest training offices and venues in Jakarta
9) Successfully ran the first ‘I Am Gifted’ program for students in Hong Kong
10) Successfully ran the first ‘ I Am Gifted’ program for students in Bangkok
11) Featured in Young Parents magazine, Executive Magazine and the New Paper
12) My group of companies trained in total over 55,000 students, parents, teachers, entrepreneurs and working professionals in 6 countries
13) Brought my family to Korea for a great holiday
14) Put on 10 kg so I look just right (I was too skinny before)
15) Brought my children to the zoo 6 times, swimming every month, science centre > 3x, playground countless times. Helped teach my kids how to read, count, add & subtract (my wife did most of the work though)
16) Read 65 new books (including ‘Snowball’-Warren Buffett’s autobiography which is damn thick)

The next step, is to set specific, measurable goals with deadlines attached to them for the New Year. I am not talking about New Years Resolutions, but GOALS! Let me tell you why New Years Resolutions never seem to work. First, they are too vague, general and non-committal. For example a resolution like, ‘be a better person’ will not work. To make it a powerful goal, t could be stated like, ‘Do one good deed a week for a stranger’, ‘ pay sincere compliments to the people around me’ or ‘stop complaining and criticizing’.

The other reason resolutions do not work is because people only write them down and look at them once. The next time they look at it (if they ever do) is one year later! In the meantime, they get so distracted and sidetracked by all the day to day demands of life that their resolutions are always shelved aside! For goals to work, you must
1) Write them down on a big piece of poster
2) Stick it up all over your home, work area, computer desktop
3 Make a public commitment by putting it up on your BLOG, facebook or telling your friends about it
4) Reading it out aloud EVERY MORNING when you wake up
5) Reflect upon them EVERY NIGHT before you sleep
You have to develop this as a HABIT just as you would brushing your teeth or bathing everyday (I hope you brush your teeth ; ) )

THIS is what it takes to ever achieve the goals you have set. So again, I invite you to share your goals in my blog. I will start the ball rolling my committing and declaring MY GOALS. So, if I don’t achieve them by end 2009, you can write in and laugh at me! (that will be MY motivation). Here are my 2009 Goals:
1) Launch new book ‘Secrets of Successful Teens’ by April 2009
2) Launch new book ‘ Secrets of Learning Geniuses’ by Sept 2009
3) Launch second edition of ‘Secrets of Self Made Millionaires’ by March 2009
4) Launch second edition of ‘Secrets of Millionaire Investors’ by March 2009
5) Invest in 3 more rental properties to take advantage of the crisis by Dec 2009
6) Adam Khoo Learning Technologies Group to reach out to and train more than 70,000 in 7 countries (about 40% increase over 2008) by Dec 2009
7) Start the third ‘Adam Khoo Learning Centre’ in Singapore by June 2009
Launch the ‘I Am Gifted’ program in Amsterdam, Holland by Oct 2009
9) Bring my family on a great vacation Aug 2009
10) Read 65 new books on self-improvement
11) Spend as much time as I can teaching my children how to improve their reading, writing and Math skills a d build up their self-confidence
12) Write ‘Secrets of REal Estate Millionaires’ by teaming up with the top real estate investors in Singapore

So, those are my goals for 2009! I hope I have inspired and challenged you to do the same!

You may have realized that I have not been blogging my philosophies for the last two months. Well, the reason is because I have been spending the last 60 days intensively writing my 8th book ‘Secrets of Building Million-Dollar Businesses’! Yes!!!! It is Completed!!! I would say that among all my other books, this is the one I am most passionate and proud if. It reveals all my insights and learnings on how to build successful businesses. It draws the lessons I have learnt from the time I started my first mobile disco business at 15 years old to the $30 million group of businesses I own today.

So, why am I so passionate about this particular book? Well, So, why did I write this book? Well, in the last ten years, I have seen so many of my friends start businesses with full of hope and dreams, only to see them crash and burn. And these were intelligent, hardworking and passionate individuals, many of them with business degrees.

So, why did they fail? Well, simply because intelligence, passion and hard work is simply NOT ENOUGH to build a successful business. I have found that to become a successful entrepreneur, you have to possess a specific set of mindsets and skill sets. Unfortunately, these mindsets and skill sets are something you can never learn in school or even in university.

You may have heard that less than 10% of businesses ever succeed. I am telling your from experience that it is NOT because these 10% were smarter or luckier than the rest. It is just because they did business THE RIGHT WAY. Well, in this book, I am going to show you the right way…step by step on exactly how you can build a multi-million dollar business starting from scratch.

Now that my manuscript is done, there is still a whole lot of work to be done before you will see it on the bookshelves. Here is the process of getting my manuscript into print…

1) Send for editing (my mum is doing this for me)
2) Get my illustrator (Aik Cher) to draw some cartoons and illustrations for the book
3) Send to a designer to design the cover and layout
4) Get an ISBN number from MITA (ministry of information and the arts)
5) Work with my distributors and the bookstores to get it launched
6) Get my publishing division to organize a book launch, author signing and get lots of publicity in the newspapers and magazines

The whole process is going to take at least 2 months+. In the meantime, I will tease you with extracts from my chapters and show you the book covers, layouts and pictures as they come out.

P.S. Those of you who are graduates of my programme will get the opportunity to buy this book at a super duper discount that you can never get at the bookshops by pre-ordering the book ad getting the very first collector’s item print

Just want to share a recent proud moment in my life. I was extremely honored and humbled to receive the Eminent Alumni Award from NUS Business School last week.

I still find it hard to believe that I could have been selected as one of the most successful business leaders among a class of thousands of elite students who have passed through the doors of NUS Business School in the last few decades.

Adam Khoo receiving the award from Mr. Lee Yi Shyan, Minister for Trade and Industry

What amazes me the most about receiving this award was the fact that two decades ago, nobody ever believed that I would qualify for a tertiary education (not even myself), let alone the National University of Singapore.

As a student in my teens, I was a slow learner and an underachiever. Fights in school had gotten me expelled in Primary four. I did so badly for my PSLE that I was rejected from all six secondary schools that I had applied for. Back then in Ping Yi Secondary School (a neighborhood school in Chai Chee), I was told by my friends that I would be lucky to qualify for a polytechnic and that going to university was an unrealistic dream.

Then at the end of secondary one, something happened that would change and define my life forever. After attending a motivational program for teens, I learnt about the power of positive thinking and began to discover accelerated learning techniques that would allow me to learn five times faster than before.

Empowered and inspired, I leant to dream big. I set the audacious goals of becoming one of the top students in Singapore and making my first million by the age of 26. That was the time when I set the goal of going into NUS Business School, where I would get the best business education I needed to pursue my entrepreneurial dream!

While I started by first business at the age of 15 (a mobile disco business I founded in secondary three) and a training business at the age of 21, NUS Business School helped to give me the essential knowledge, skills and opportunities that gave me the competitive edge in building Adam Khoo Learning Technologies Group to become one of Singapore’s largest education and training company.

Indeed, dreams do come true. However, I have learnt that you have to first start by believing in yourself and daring to dream big. If a once hopeless underachiever like myself can rise to become a top student and among the top business leaders, then anyone can! All of us have the phenomenal potential to design our own destiny. I am very proud to say that NUS Business School has played a significant role in helping me to design mine!

Wow! Thank you Citran for your very special letter. It really touched and inspired me so much that I just had to share it with the world (through my blog).

It just goes to show you never know when you’re going to touch and change someone’s life, and the people around them, with your thoughts, words, and actions.

So go out there and start living a fantastic life and BE an inspiration to the people around you!

I am really proud and honored to be featured as an ‘Expert Dad’ on this months issue of Young Parents. But the credit has to really go to my wife Sally who is truly an excellent Mother. My kids are really lucky to have her as a Mum.

Before my first child was born, Sally would go to the bookshop and pick up all the books that were available on parenting, child development, accelerated learning and children’s health. She spent nights reading over 38 books to ensure that she had the best knowledge to create the best environment for my childrens’ learnings. She even poured through over 50 issues of Young Parents magazines, cutting and filing useful articles on parenting tips.

Today, she spends hours enriching my daughters by reading to them, playing educational toys and exposing them to as many things as possible. This article is really dedicated to her!

Last week, I had a similar experience. When I went to Changi Airport Terminal 2, I noticed that there were at least 10 automated check-in machines for Singapore Airlines customers. The funny thing was that it was completely unused!!! Instead, there were long queues of people at the manual check-in counters.

Although I have never used it before and has no clue how to work it, I just thought I would give it a shot. Afterall, I was late and did not fancy joining the long queue to get checked-in. I must say the machine was amazing. It first asks you to insert your credit card and passport for identification. Then you able to select your own seats on the plane just like booking a movie seat online…COOOL!

In less than 2 minutes, the machine prints out my boarding pass. As for the check in baggae, you just drop it into a bag-drop and its in! In under 6 minutes I had checked in and had gone through immigration (automated machine of course).

So, why is nobody using these super cool technology? Are people afraid of doing something new? Must someone tell them to do it? What do you think? Where is the proactive spirit? Have you seen those machines yourself before? Have you used it? Why not?

I think people are fed up of all these typical ‘you can make money’ books in the bookshops that give you are the crap, bullshit and fluff about making money WITHOUT actually teaching you HOW TO DO IT. One good example is a recent book written by two world famous gurus who want you to be rich but honestly I felt like puking when I read the contents. No substance whatseoever in my opinion. It was more like a big PR stunt to cross sell all their related products.

So anyway, enough griping! I said a few posts ago that I will write a series of Wealth Books under the ‘Secrets of Self Made Millionaires series’ that will contain real, no bullshit, no holds-barred strategies that I personally use to create my multiple streams of income. The first in the series will be ‘SECRETS OF MILLIONAIRE INVESTORS’ that I am targeting will be launched in bookstores by 24 June 2007. And I know that the only way I will write it is if I put myself ON THE LINE and announce it to ALL OF YOU OUT THERE!

For those of you who think 7 months is a really long time to get a book out, let me tell you the list of things that must be done…

1) Come up with the table of contents (Just got it done!!!!)
2) Write each chapter. I have listed 9 chapters and each will take about a week to complete! This is given that I write 4-5 pages everyday amidst my training schdedule (which you know I speak every day for average of 4-7 hours) and running my companies and spending time with family and of course trading the US and Singapore markets
=> Total time will be about 9 weeks
3) First round personal editing => about 2 weeks
4) send for editing & corrections=> this will take about 4 weeks
5) Get copyright permissions from the websites that I quote from => about 2 weeks
6) Get someone to do illustrations and design the cover and layout => About 6 weeks
7) Select a printer and go through the printing process => 2 weeks
Liase with distributors and bookshops on the launch campaign => 2 weeks
9) Meeting with my marketing team to dream u all the necessary advertising and promotional materials (ads, flyers, contests, book launch, media release, talks) => 3 weeks

Of course, some of these things can be done concurrently but all in all, I see it on the shelves in June 2007! I will you guys updated about the ongoing progress. Cheer me on! I need the morale support!

For you guys who are wondering why I am making this announcement it is becasue I have learnt that over the years, human beings WILL ALWAYS procrastinate on heir goals and NEVER get it done. ‘I will do it later…’, ‘I still have time…’, ‘ even if I don’t finish, it does not matter…’ The secret of achieving a major goal or project is to PUT YOURSELF ON THE LINE by making a commitment to everyone you know. That way it becomes a MUST to achieve and there is no way you can give yourself excuses anymore.

‘ Human beings will never ever achieve anything until and unless it becomes a must for them.’ The main thing that motivated me so much when I was a kid to score straight As and top my school was because I put myself on the line by telling all my teachers, friends and even tutition teacher that I WILL TOP MY SCHOOL and GET INTO VICTORIA JUNIOR COLLEGE. At that time, for a kid like me from a neighbourhood school to dream of getting into VJC seem crazy, but with enough passion and commitment, EVERYTHING is POSSIBLE.

Recently, one of my graduates from Patterns of Excellence Program (who also happens to be my personal insurance agent) achieved her Court of the Table (COT) (an award given out to the top 1% of insurance advisors in the world). BTW, COT advisors typically earn at least over $300,000 a year in income. Although she achieved the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) for a couple of years (which is no big deal), she was never able to hit the COT, which requires a production of triple that of the MDRT. Like most people, she lost her momentum after a while. So how did she finally achieve her COT after my program? Well, she put herself on the line by making a personal commitment to her team mates and support group. I also put her on the line by constantly announcing to everyone that she WILL ACHIEVE COT last year and this year. And guess what? She did it! Her name is Lorraine Koh from Prudential.

Stay tuned for my next post on the progress of my latest book!

This post is specially dedicated to the 112 graduates of Wealth Academy Oct 2006! Training two major programs (Patterns of Excellence and Wealth Academy) has been extremely intense but hugely rewarding. Thank you all for your wonderful emails, testimonials and comments. I am really glad that all of you really pushed yourself past your mental and physical limits…sleeping 3-4 hours a day (maybe even less), going through 54 of non-stop wealth training and games and being able to come up with a business within 8 hours!

You should be really proud of yourselves. I want you to know that all of you have learnt and experienced more in 4 days than what most other people learn over a lifetime of trial and error. You have learnt…
1) How to identify the best undervalued stocks in the market today
2) How to track the investment decisions of the richest investors in the world
3) How to create mutliple streams of income through intellectual property, Internet marketing, business and so much more
4) The winning habits and principles of self-made millionaires
5) How to build a business that will be among the top 10% of its industry
6) How to double your sales and business profits through the power of advertising and marketing
7) How to to maximize your market value and personal income

The most important thing is to continue to push yourself as you return to your daily lives and keep taking massive action. And I guarantee that you will see the fruits of your labour.

If you happen to be reading this post, feel free to leave a comment on your experience in Wealth Academy right here!