My Blog Objectives and a 2017 Year End Round Up

Yes, Dec is already here. What a year for me. Lots of new experiences and forward-looking moves to prepare for my second half.

I started this blog in Apr last year, beginning with daily entries and now on a weekly basis. To date, I had written about 180+ blogs and counting. There were a few key reasons I wanted to start this blog :

1.  To improve my writing skills. I find that with regular practice and the help of auto-correction software, I am (hopefully) able to write better.
2. To help me focus. By having to think of a topic to write every week, it has forced me to crystallize my thoughts more clearly. The added advantage is that it makes it easier to then bring them to action (eg. cryptos investment). I want to stop being a NATO (No Action, Talk Only) guy.
3. To keep an online record of memorable things that happened in my past, life learning thoughts and future ambitions. If my 2 boys like to know more about their old man in the future, they can just refer to this blog to get into the inner workings of my brain…
4. Venturing into new technology. You cannot say that you truly understand the new world until you dip your feet into it. With age comes risk aversion and the fear of new things. This is one of my ways to try to break out of that cycle.

If anyone stumbles onto my blog by chance and finds it interesting/amusing, then that is an added bonus for me.

Anyway, back to my other topic for the week. What events stood out for me in 2017? The year began with a promising start of a new job for me and I was committed to working my butt off. Things went downhill shortly after in Feb when my new boss lost his job. By May, it was inevitable that things were not tenable for me and the new person I was reporting to, with a mismatch in expectations. Subsequently, I went on gardening leave from Jun till Sep, with more time to reflect on what I want to do next.

Going into my 3rd break in my working life, I came to the undeniable truth that age is working against me and that perhaps banking is a sunset industry for PMETs like myself. I really needed to pivot myself into something different and try to leverage on my past work experience if possible.

Ironically, my timing may have been good because the government was also pushing a more aggressive agenda of skills upgrade for PMETs like myself via the SkillsFuture initiative. By now, I was less fearful of taking exams since I had to redo all my bank exams again earlier this year (7 CFMAS related certifications) as they have lapsed when I left the industry for more than 3 years. By planning my time well and being focused on the task at hand, I was able to pass the exams and convinced myself that nothing was impossible if you put your mind to it.

On the learning front, the more I researched, the more I realized that there were so many things out there I do not know. There is still so much to learn from a constantly moving world. I had some experience here already as I was doing a lot of online elearning last year during my 2nd break from work (hashtags, affiliate marketing, media optimization via FB, Google).

Things fell into place and in quick succession, I completed 3 courses by Nov – Science and Business of Wine, Intro to Business Analytics, Starting a Small Business. The latest one is my most ambitious – Specialist Diploma in Business Analytics, a 6 months course in a local polytechnic.

Lifelong learning is now my goal going forward. This focused approach to anything that interests me and then doing a deep dive learning process has sparked a revival of energy for me. It has opened doors for me to explore and sharpened my focus.

On the investment and trading front, I managed to fine-tune my portfolio to be in line with my overall macro views, starting with an initial top-down review followed by a bottoms-up analysis, complemented by technical analysis for entry levels. It has also finally made me jump into the world of cryptocurrencies. Being a firm believer of blockchain as the next wave of innovation that will Uberize everything we touch, this was a natural step. I also had the opportunity to explore doing voluntary work (sitting on NGO boards) as well as a possible Myanmar consultancy project.

There is no fear of the future anymore, only excitement. So much to do and so little time. You are what you make it out to be. You die if you stop learning. Live each day as if it was your last on planet earth.