Finally!!
It has been almost a month since my last post, and this is wholly attributed to my increasingly hectic, yet meaningful lifestyle. Work commitment and new tuition assignments are starting to unfold before me, leading me to a whole new array of experiences and elevating me to a higher temple of thoughts.

Just yesterday, I was invited to a corporate event organized by Prudential in its effort to increase awareness and credibility of its company. I felt comfortable with the light settings at the Singapore Arts Museum where the event was held. It didn’t seem like a mass recruitment campaign where managers and new agents were out there desperately trying to paint us a bright picture of the career prospects in Prudential.
I would not have attended if not for Adam Khoo, the star speaker for the event. Unveiling a slice of his background, he was one of the youngest self-made multi-millionaires in Singapore who is currently managing his education business in the region. He is paid to give motivational talks to many affiliates, schools and organizations, and has written some of the best-selling books which I have read through some.

He is a very energetic and experienced trainer, and every audience of his would definitely have felt the kind of positive energy that he radiated. Probably because I have read a couple of books and attended other seminars in which the insights resonate with his speech, the effect I felt might not be tantamount to what others felt.
Nevertheless, I shall share a few key points that he so effortlessly brought out. It is interesting, yet unfortunate to hear of cases of people who do not want to succeed in life, who do not have dreams and just hope to lead a stable life. After all, we have to die, so why go through your life without a purpose?

It is imperative to have a goal in life and also strategies mapped out to eventually help you achieve it. A study conducted in Yale University many decades ago found out that only 3% of Yale graduates in that particular year had a goal in life, while the majority didn’t. 20 years later, the 3% of the same graduating cohort earned a combined income that was 3 times that of what the 97% earned! That is the power of goal.

I shall end this paragraph with a story illustrated by him to create an awareness that job security no longer applies today like it did 20 years ago. Instead, he is actively promoting the spirit of entrepreneurship that he so strongly advocates.

“The villagers in a town have been threatened by the presence of monkeys and one day, they set up a trap to eradicate them one by one. Some peanuts were dropped into a coconut that had been cut open, and sprinkled along a straight path leading to the coconut. This led one of the monkeys who followed the trail of peanuts to the coconut. It eventually reached out its hand into the coconut and was trapped by some kind of mechanical tongs placed in the coconut. The villagers, on hearing the scream of the monkey, rushed over and captured it.”

We are just like the monkey in the story, very determined to work our way up the corporate ladder and not willing to let go of the “peanut income” that we so dearly hold to, just like a monkey who will not never let go of its peanuts. We don’t know what lies ahead of us, which is analogous to the booby trap in the coconut. We are not in control of our lives by working for others, let alone the income we desire. We are clouded by the concept of job security, an idea once highly-regarded after the Industrial Revolution. We carry a price tag of $2500/month with a Bachelor’s degree, yet satisfied that we spend 4 years and $25000 to achieve it.

I am not encouraging people to quite their corporate job or to give up their college years. But it certainly raises one’s eyebrow at the thought of going through a systemic life planned out by others and not by you. We live in the new age, and change is the only constant. Need me to say more? How to change? I am still in deep thoughts….