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There were a lot of theories on how culture and environment can affect outcome of ones life…successful or failure. How it can overcome hurdle, and how can cause 2 people of the same IQ ended up in totally different path.

But until recently I just read bit and pieces, and maybe hear bit and pieces of it now and then. Now there is an actual book talk about this and I just finished reading it - it is the Malcom Gladwell’s new book “Outliers”.

To me the book contains a very interesting reading, and a lot of things that we can learn from it. The last chapter on how the people who are in charge of the education system in the USA are blinded by the root cause of the difference in learning scores between high, middle and low social group in the USA - the difference is mainly caused by the long summer holiday….yes. It also went on and discuss how a school in the US took this finding and do something about it and has proven this fact.

I just hope some one from my own country…the Malaysian Educational Ministry also read this book…and maybe look at the education system from our own cultural, and environmental view instead of proposing the common things - revamp the syllabus, upgrade the infrastructure, give a laptop to each student…all these might work, and they are also expensive way to use up our tax payer money and the solution might be a much-much cheaper method….

If you want to know more , please read the book.

More than 10 years ago I worked in a company…among the best company that I have worked for. But after 2 years, the division that I was in was shut down..it was purely business decision. Bunch of us, the workers were given options - to stay or leave the company with a very generous compensation package. I opted to leave the company…yes I need the money. There were 20 of us who opted to leave.

Now…more than 10 years after the event, where we are….most are still working with a company. Most went back and joined that same company again after completed their contract of can not return to the company (if they took the compensation benefit) within duration less than 2 years. As for me I have been around - but in different companies and totally different areas. Out of the 20 there is 1 person that I considered really outstanding.

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This method is useful when you are studying something that is dependent mostly on memorization. Not much of logical thinking behind that can help with the memorization.

Memorizing something that have meaning behind or story behind it is easier - example when you are trying to learn something like geography. Subject on different climate around the world - the tropic, the tundra, the artics etc. You are not memorizing the facts blindly. You can attach certain scientific facts on how the world axis is tilted, world rotation, relative positioning to the sun etc. to slowly bring you the to the final fact about the different weather and climates.

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I’ve not written to this blog for quite some time. I can give a lot of excuses…but I dont think its matter to you.

2008 has been a colourful year for me…good things, bad things…or things that I can learn from happened directly to me or my immediate family members.

Few days ago…on Dec 26th, I celebrated the one year annivessary of my new job. Yes I moved to a new job after more than 7 years of staying with my previous company. I think I have made the right decision, even I was not that sure in the beginning. There were questions of whether the minor salary increment justify all the hardship of moving my family to new place, new organization, new people, different type of job task. But at that time I remembered one saying…which I’ve forgotten by whom….”If the step that you are about to take make you uncomfortable because of the unknown, it might be the right step to take…this is how you can grow yourself”. Now I understand this saying clearly - and agree with it.

During the year, I have learnt a lot of new things, and know a lot of new people - on the job, and also off the job.  Some of the acquiantances have exposed me to totally unexpected area…some of which I believe even redefine my entire future.

Overall I thankful to Allah, for giving me the courage to take this unchartered road.

And I believe you should do it too….if you have not yet.

I think most of us have heard about the Havard study how the 3% of successful people are differentiated from the rest of the population just because they have goals.

The number does not lie, but still after knowing this a lot of us still struggling to be part of the 3% population. We follow the steps: figure out our vision, write it down, figure out our goals and all those that come with it…specific goal number and the dateline……buuuut at the end we still fail. When this happen most of us are just clueless….what happened. Where can I improve? We dont know…and I doubt it if any one else also know why you can not achieve your goal.

At first thought we can say there can be thousand of reasons why we fail to achieve our goal - just plain lazy, its too tough, things has changed, death in the family…death in my neighbour family, loss my job…..etc. But….if we just rethink and look at these possible reasons then we can categorized them into main categories below:

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When I first involve in hiring process long-long time ago….I knew less.

I had too high expectation of the college graduates. I over estimate their minimum knowledge. I ended up interviewing a lot of candidates with blank stares when I asked questions. I learned my lesson. I proposed a simple over the phone interview to screen out those “no hope” candidates. Over time our department even trained the human resource staff on how to conduct the technical interview.

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I’ve read thousands of resumes/CVs. I’ve interviewed hundreds if not thousands of job seekers over the years.  One of the most common claims that keep appearing on candidates resumes and during interviews is the ability to be able to work with minimum supervision…and most of the time it proven as a false claim.

Job seekers always claim that they can work with minimum supervision….yes all of us can work with minimum, or even no supervision, but the question is will the result is good or not. You can be sleeping all the time with no supervision at all. There are a lot of areas of working with minimum supervision - and they follows the common PDCA cycle. Plan-do-check-action…

Just imagine if you are a supervisor. You give a subordinate of yours a task. Before he left, you reconfirmed whether he understood the task requirement or not. Once he says that he get it, then you let him go to execute the task. OK, for you subordinate out there….during this time the evaluation on your capability is started. You are under monitoring…off course with a good supervisor, you might not even feel that you are being watched.

OK,,now as subordinate where do you start? PDCA - yes, plan do check action. So you just go about planning your stuffs, then executing them, then recheck whether your execution is correct and act  on it if any corrective action needed. So is this enough ?

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I watched a movie aired by one of the local stations titled “Tokyo Friends” last night.

To me even this is a teenage movie, but it contains a lot of things that can be learned and shared. I want to write about one of the scene about a band called Sabakkan which are part of the important character in the movie.

The scene is where the lead singer, a girl (which name I’ve forgotten) want to leave the band temporarily (because of personal reason…to find her boyfriend in NY) just when they just started a major campaign to promote the band. The manager immediately responsed by showing his anger and scolded the girl as some one that is not committed.

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You can read the other parts here:   Part 1  and Part 2

In the last part I wrote about the time management section in this book. Now after getting your time managed properly what is the next characteristic of millionaire mindset ? In the book the author wrote how this mental trait actually transform his life way-way earlier during his high school…

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I stayed up late last night, reading this book.

So what is most valuable resource that need to be managed and use wisely if you want to be a millionaire….make it more generic …successful (what ever your definition of success is) ???

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