Wow! A whole week has zoomed past since my last post. Time really flies when you are super busy and having lots of fun. So, here are some updates about what’s happening in my life and business…

A couple of days ago, I watched Adam Sandler’s latest blockbuster ‘Click’, I thought it would be Sandler’s usual mindless, slapstick and vulgar comedy (which I love to unwind to by the way!). To my surprise, it was not only funny but extremely philosophical and life transformational…if you actually look deep beyond just the comedy and into the message it is delivering.

The show was about a success driven architect (played by Adam Sandler) who like many people, looked forward to achieving his career goals of becoming a partner and a CEO one day. In his quest for career success, he had to constantly sacrifice his time for family and the hours of hard work that came with it. However he dreaded having to go through all the months and years of hard work, slogging and worry before he could eventually get his promotion. He wished that he could just skip through his family commitments 9when they cropped up) so he could just get his work done and achieve his goals.

So, it was a dream come true when a strange man from nowhere appeared and gave him a Universal Remote that could fast forward/pause/mute and rewind every part of his life that he did not like to go through. At first, it seemed like a dream come true when he could fast forward through his wife’s nagging, time he had to spend with his children and parents, hours working on his project and even fast forwarding through sex. He was so impatient on achieving his goal that he kept fast-forwarding through all the tough times so that he could only experience THE END RESULT, theta he thought would make him happy. During fast forward mode, his mind would go on ‘auto-pilot’ where he just ‘went through the motions’. He just wanted to reach his life’s destinations without having to walk the journey.

After fast forwarding through A WHOLE YEAR of LIFE and feeling the happiness of finally receiving his dream promotion to partner, he discovers that his children have all grown up and apart from him. His wife has lost her feelings from him as he acted like a zombie (his mind was on autopilot). After his constant habit of fast forwarding, the Universal remote develops a ‘habitual memory’ and keeps fast forwarding through all his family time, all his work hours to only arrive at his goals. The next thing he knew, the Remote fast forwarded TEN YEARS into the future within a split second, where he becomes CEO of his company. Except when he reaches there, he finds that his wife had left him, his parents have died and his children have all grown up and moved on. He was so fixated on getting his goal that he was not there to experience all these events. Soon after, he suffers a heart attack and his minutes away from death.

It was there that he realized that his whole life had passed him by in a blink of an eye and that he would trade all his goals for the chance to go back and experience every single event that he fast forwarded past.

In real life, many people do the same thing. We think that it is reaching the end of the rainbow and finding the pot of gold that would make us happy. We think that it is only the day that we make that $1 million or the day we become CEO that we become happy. So we miserably slog through each day or our lives, forgetting & ignoring the beauty of the people and events around us. However, the truth is that the happiness derived from reaching a goal may seem super exciting for a few moments. However, the next thing we know, we must pursue and reach another higher goal in order to feel that short happiness once again.

If you think about it, we spend 99% of the time chasing a goal and 1% of the time achieving it. If you only allow yourself to enjoy and feel happy when you achieve a goal, then you are only happy during 1% of your life. That’s crazy! You allow yourself to feel miserable 99% of the time in order to feel happy 1% of the time.

This show truly reminded me that success is about enjoying and savoring each and every step of the journey; the pleasant times and the bad. The easy and the tough times. I remind myself to enjoy every moment I am on stage speaking, listening to my wife (even when she nags), watching my children play, writing my books, dealing with huge challenges, training my participants and managing my staff. I find that when I truly enjoy each step of the journey that I am truly successful.

Some of you may already know that I travel around the region pretty frequently, having to visit and conduct seminars at my offices in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Su Zhou (China). I am in the airport almost every other week so I get to bump into many people who have attended my seminars or have read my books.

Recently, someone came up to me on a plane to KL and looked rather shocked. He asked, ‘How come a millionaire like you is travelling economy?’ My reply was, ‘That’s why I am a millionaire.’ He still looked pretty confused. This again confirms that greatest lie ever told about wealth (which I wrote about in my latest book ‘Secrets of Self Made Millionaires’). Many people have been brainwashed to think that millionaires have to wear Gucci, Hugo Boss, Rolex etc… (I shop at G2000 by the way) and sit on first class in air travel. This is why so many people never become rich because the moment that earn more money, they think that it is only natural that they spend more, putting them back to square one.

The truth is that most self-made millionaires (not those lucky bast**ds who inherited money) are frugal and only spend on what is necessary and of value. That is why they are able to accumulate and multiply their wealth so much faster. Over the last 7 years, I have saved about 80% of my income while today I save only about 60% (because I have my wife, mother in law, 2 maids, 2 kids, etc… to support). Still, it is way above most people who save 10% of their income (if they are lucky). I refuse to buy a first class ticket or to buy a $300 shirt because I think that it is a complete waste of money. However, I happily pay $1,300 to send my 2-year old daughter to Julia Gabriel Speech and Drama without thinking twice.

When I joined the YEO (Young Entrepreneur’s Organization) a few years back (YEO is an exclusive club open to those who are under 40 and make over $1m a year in their own business) I discovered that those who were self-made thought like me. Many of them with net worths well over $5m, travelled ecomony class and some even drove Toyota’s and Nissans. I noticed that it was only those who never had to work hard to build their own wealth (there were also a few ministers’ and tycoons’ sons in the club) who spent like there was no tomorrow. Somehow, when you did not have to build everything from scratch, you do not really value money. This is precisely the reason why a family’s wealth (no matter how much) rarely lasts past the third generation. Thank god my rich dad (oh no…I sound like Kiyosaki) foresaw this terrible possibility and refused to give me a cent to start my business.

Then some people ask me, ‘What is the point in making so much money if you don’t enjoy it?’ The thing is that I don’t really find happiness in buying branded clothes, jewelry or sitting first class. Even if buying something makes me happy it is only for a while…it does not last. material happiness never lasts, it just give you a quick fix. After a while you feel lousy again and have to buy the next thing which you think will make you happy. I always think that if you need material things to make you happy, then you live a pretty sad and unfulfilled life.

Instead, what make ME happy is when I see my children laughing and playing and learning so fast. What makes me happy is when I see by companies and trainers reaching more and more people every year in so many more countries. What makes me really happy is when I read all the emails about how my books and seminars have touched and inspired someone’s life. What makes me really happy is reading all your wonderful posts about how this BLOG is inspiring you.This happiness makes me feel really good for a long time, much much more than what a Rolex would do for me.

I think the point I want to put across is that happiness must come from doing your life’s work (be in teaching, building homes, designing, trading, winning tournaments etc…) and the money that comes is only a by-product. If you hate what you are doing and rely on the money you earn to make you happy by buying stuff, then I think that you are living a life no better than a prostitute.

It has been quite a while since I wrote a post about updates on the US Markets.

This is because in the last couple of weeks, the US market as been moving more or less sideways with not much conviction on either side (bulls or bears). Once in a while, there was a brief rally after some good news here and there (e.g. Ben Bernake’s indication that interest rate rises will pause). However, volume was low as so there is nothing really significant to report. The market is still in a short term downtrend BUT we are in an overall long term uptrend (if you look at the S&P 500 1yr-3yr chart).

As a result, I have been focusing purely on value stocks and picking up some good deals along the way. I have liquidated ALL my momentum stocks (once they hit 8% below buy point) and taking very insignificant losses (only 10% of my total stock holdings are in momentum plays). I will resume the momentum hunt once the US market turns back into a confirmed uptrend. August-Oct have traditionally been lousy months for the US market so I don’t see any significant pick up until after October. Again, always remember that no one can really predict the market and it is just a hunch so I won’t bet anything on it. I am always on the constant watch every night to watch for price and volume turnarounds.

Anyway, I just did my usual Quarterly updates for the core Value stocks I am holding and made a few new purchases today…

Singapore Stocks
1) HTL’s 2006 half year report will be out 10 Aug so I will be keeping a watch on whether it is still maintaining its strong earnings and cash flow growth. As some of you would remember my earlier posts, I picked it up at about $1.09 and more at about $1.16. It is currently trading at $1.16 (Intrinsic value is about $2.34 based on 10% cash flow growth rate). If the report is shows earnings on track, I will probably pick up even more.

2) JEL Corp. As some of you may know, popular value investor Curtis Montgomery (wallstraits.com) has invested $1.9 million of his own money into JEL. This represents about 79% of his total portfolio. Now, when someone invests 98% of his portfolio into ONE STOCK. It either means that he is nuts or he knows something that the market doesn’t. Initially, I hesitated in buying a lot of JEL stock (I bought relatively little) as for the last 3 years, revenue has increased dramatically, but costs have been rising dramatically & margins have been dropping just as fast, and as a result profits hardly grew!

Now, usually this is BAD NEWS. However, management’s explanation was because in the last 3 years, they made a lot of new acquisitions and built lots of new offices and hired lots more staff. However, it takes at least a year for sales to kick in to their new outlets. Hence ,costs increased but new sales have not kicked in. Inside sources have hinted that 2006′ first half earnings have already shown a dramatic increase, which will be officially announced on 14 Aug. Since, Intrinsic value is roughly $0.90 and stock is trading at $0.26, I added more lots today on top of my initial purchase a few months ago at $0.22

3) My core holding Osim is still mainatining its growth forecast very well having risen to $1.70 since I re-bought it at $1.45 a few months back when the Singapore market had a bad knee jerk reaction to Wall Streets downtrend. I initially sold off all my OSIM stock at $1.80 after holding it for 4 years (at an average cost of $1.20).

US Stocks

All my main US holdings like AIG, BUD (Anheuser Busch), PFE (Pfizer) and BRK (Berkshire Hathway) have been rising amidst the screwed up US market though increase has been very little. The good news is that value stocks tend to hold up even during bad market conditions.

Only two of my holdings dropped slightly over the last few months. They are TYC (Tyco) and WMT (Wal-Mart). The very weird thing is that WMT’s earnings INCREASED by 14.67% and 8.62% in the last two quarters! Also, TYC’s last quarter results INCREASED by 444% (yes, there is no typo). Since both stocks are way below intrinsic value (I value TYC $36 at and WMT at $58) and growth is still on track based on cash flow forecast, I decided to take advantage of the market’s stupidity and increased my position in these two counters, buying TYC at $25.45+ and WMT at $44.61.

For those of you who have read my book ‘Secrets of Self Made Millionaires’, you would be familiar with my Value Investing Strategies (of which 90% of my investments are based). I only teach Momentum Investing at Wealth Academy. Momentum Investing is only used when the market is in confirmed rally and when you are looking at hot stocks that will jump 50%-300% within 6 months-year.

Note: This post merely reflects my own personal opinions and is NOT a recommendation to buy or sell any of the above mentioned securities.

My final Patterns of Excellence Training for 2006 is coming up soon (24-27th August) and the seats are almost all filled up! This is one of the favourite training programs I run every year as it really feels great and inspring to seem how people can create tremendous transformations within themselves within a short period of time.

For those of you who have no idea what the Patterns of Excellence is all about…it is a 4 day Training Program where I teach people Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a powerful personal transformational tool that allows anyone to re-program their neurology in order to overcome limiting neurological patterns such as procrastination, fear, negative emotions and so on. NLP is powerful in that it provides you the means to develop the focus, motivation and drive to consistently move towards your goals and produce exceptional results.

When people ask me how I have managed to achieve so much at such a young age and excel in so many areas, I always credit it back to the fact that I had the opportunity to learn NLP at the age of 13, where I was first exposed to the concept by reading Anthony Robbins Book (In 1987, he was well known yet). I then went to the US to be personally trained by Dr. Richard Bandler, the founder of NLP and also Anthony Robbin’s teacher. Celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, fomer President Clinton, Andre Agassi have all credited NLP as one of their key secrets to achieving success despite experiencing severe challenges and adversities.

People always ask me how learning NLP relates to learning other skills such as Options trading, business building, public speaking, Internet marketing and so on… Well, learning a strategy or a skill is like installing an application software into your mental computer. However, how well you are able to run that software depends on the power and stability of your OPERATING SYSTEM. Learning NLP is like learning how to install a powerful operating system (i.e. like Windows XP or Mac OSX) into your mental computer. Only when you have a powerul operating system can you then make full use of the application software which you install (i.e. Internet marketing, Options trading, public speaking), kind of like Microsoft Word and Excel which you install.

This is why there are so many people out there who keep ‘trying’ so many different areas of work or business but keep failing. I know people who have languished at their job. After awhile, they think that the job is not for them or that their company/colleagues are no good, so they quit for another promising job. Sure enough, they experience the same failures and lousy results in their next job. They go to a seminar on insurance, property or network marketing and get excited. So, they go into it only to experience disappointed and failure….again! So, they look around for the next exciting thing that will change their fortunes. They hear about Options Trading, go into it and lose money. Next, they read about how people make thousands of dollars in Internet marketing so they go into this new area and once again are disapointed. What’s their problem? The main problem is that they have not first sorted out their Internal Wiring. Their neurological patterns of being lazy, unfocused, procrastination and fear keep coming back and sabotaging their success no matter what they do. They LACK the right operating system. So no matter what kind of new sofware they install is going to result in a crash!

If you have always wanted to learn NLP, then come down for one of my last introductory seminars this coming wednesday 2 August at 7pm at AKLTG Office. However, you must call 62740105 has seating is very limited. Do not miss out on this final NLP training I will run this year!