Money and You

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April 18, 2007

The coolest M&Y

Posted by Joe Lee under Money and You, Personal
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Back from M&Y Apr 2007. Previously I posted on what is my purpose or intention to be there. I got my answers.

After 3 years of being in the logistics team, this is the best team. Synergize team, without a bit of drama behind the room.

This is the team that I will remember forever, a team that will be with me in my memory lane.

The most synergize team that I had experienced. The most emotional team that I’ve ever been to. The most fun loving team that I ever involved.

My purpose there: To be part of this amazing team. Experiencing the essence of synergy and team. I don’t feel it elsewhere, only in this team.

It’s so hard to see me break down, but I did this round. Adelene was sharing the team are so fortunate to see me break through. Well, I would say because of the team, I had that break through.

Experiencing a different aspect of being a Logistic Supervisor may be another purpose. Usually the perception of an Logistic Supervisor is busy, always in his doingness. What if there is actually a beingness in the Logistic Supervisor?

It was an amazing experience to feel the beingness of an LS. This is probably my greatest distinction this round. Compare to previous rounds, this round I handle things very differently.

First time in logs, I go around having in depth conversation to some of the members, something that I don’t do previously. I received so many love notes from the members.

While I’m writing this, I am tearing right now. I had never felt this way when a M&Y ended. My dear friends, thank you for making me feel.

Dressing up as a drag is my dedication for to this team. This is the first and the last time. Only and only for this team.

I am grateful for the love and support from the team. It is my utmost honour to be part of this awesome team.

Thank you my dear friends.

 

March 29, 2007

Money & You Revisit 22/3/07

Posted by Joe Lee under Money and You
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Discussion on:

Most People Spend Their Time Earning A Living Rather Than Designing Their Lives

It started off with discussing of the word “success”. What is success mean to individual? By the standard of the society, success is the amount of money that you make. But is that correct?

Success is a subject term. Different people hold different definition to it. Then we swung to the topic we were discussing. Success is the ability to design our lives today. Today? Not tomorrow, or next five years? It’s TODAY.

A distinction for me here. Designing your life in the future is like setting goals. You have not achieved it yet, hence you won’t feel success. Resulted in struggle.

Designing your life today means you achieve what you planned today. It can be anything. It can be a 20 laps swimming, chit chat with friends in a coffee house. These do not come in accident, but you planned for it to happen, with a purpose.

Too many people are caught up in the money game. Designing their life means to earn x amount of money by when. That is not wrong. However, by setting this goal, struggle creep in, gradually they realize they are left with little freedom.

For example, someone wants to own a huge house with plasma TV and a swimming pool in it. When he achieved it, he got to work harder to make payments to the house. This caused him to lose much freedom, and unable to enjoy that plasma TV and swimming pool.

This is not to imply that you do not plan for the future. It’s to strike a balance in life. While working and adding value to others, design your life in such a way that you get to enjoy along the way.

While you are working hard, stop by taste some strawberries, so that you won’t miss life. There are a lot more things in life other than working and achieving your goals. Design your life so that you can taste those strawberries daily.

Discussion about Bucky’s in this flip chart: Bucky is a living by this principle. He designed his life exactly the way he wanted it. He went on to do his experiments even though he was broke. That was what he wanted in his life, that was what he thought was important.

It takes courage and faith to design your life the way you want it. While most people are going to work for somebody, you must have that courage to step out and say, “I’m gonna do what I feel that is important to me.”

One of our members here decided many years ago to close his shop on Sunday, so that he can conduct Bucky’s discussion group on Sunday morning. It seems to be a huge sacrifice, but he is designing his life the way he wants it.

Designing your life is not about struggle along the way. It’s about enjoying your life. Are you designing you life today?

 

March 12, 2007

M&Y Revisit 01/03/07

Posted by Joe Lee under Money and You
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The group had an interesting discussion. What can be more interesting than to discuss about PRECESSION?

And to meddle with Joo Hock’s toys (bought from Buckminster Fuller Institute) is simply amazing. Understanding the concepts of this Universe from those toys is an eye opener.

Precession happens in 90 degree when object is in motion. What if the object is not in motion?

If an object is not in motion, 60 degree is its natural state, look at a equlibrum triangle.

How do we apply precession? Precession happens in a 90 degree angle, our thoughts can also happens in 90 degree. Thoughts that happens in 90 degree is called lateral thought.

Instead of thinking what other are thinking, following what others are doing, you can have a lateral thought, thinking something different, or out of the world.

Bucky had all the lateral thought, allowing him to invent numerous inventions.

We heard this many times, “Knowledge is power.” Then you heard, “Applied knowledge is power.” Have you heard of “Imagination is more powerful than knowledge.” A statement from Albert Einstein.

Albert Einstein imagining himself travelling in the speed of light, and realize that time is relative that made him one of the greatest scientist in the world.

It was these imaginations that Bucky came up with the six degree of freedom which include precession.

Remember when you are young, did you ever play the spinning top. A top which you coiled the rope around the spin, and threw it on the ground. It will stay upright as long as it is spinning. This is precession. Once it stops, it will topple.

Another example of precession, riding a motor bike or cycling. When the bike is moving, it will be balance. Once it stops, the bike can’t be kept at a upright angle.

As long as human are moving, we will not fall. If we stop moving, we will topple. Continue to participate in life, keep moving to allow precession to take place in your life.

 

February 22, 2007

Money & You Revist 15/2/07

Posted by Joe Lee under Money and You
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An amazing discussion we had. Ideas, distinctions, lessons flow like the hudson river.

The Most Powerful Force I Have Is What I Say To Myself And Belief

Why is this particular discussion an interesting and a meaningful one?

For many sessions, the discussion hovers around business and money due to the nature of the flipchart. Most of the time, we are discussing outwardly.

This session made a turn on that. It shift from business to self, turn outward to inward. This flip chart is obvious that we are going to discuss within not without.

Another reason it makes it interesting, is that it went way off the flip chart. The discussion went all round, probably fly to Mars, Jupiter and back to Earth. Yet, everybody was recharged, and gain some distinction back.

What do you say to yourself is extremely powerful. Do you say “it’s difficult” or “it’s not easy”? Do you know that there is an effect on you with which one you choose?

A kid who hated science told the the teacher, “I hate science”. This child never score well for science. The teacher asked her to write affirmation. Changed “I hate” to “I love”. One month later, the same child asked the teacher to revise science with her.

When you didn’t reach your goal, do you use “I failed” or “I didn’t pass yet”. The use of words changes the perception of the mind.

“I failed” shift your mind to the failure mode. You feel lousy, discourage, unmotivated when you failed. Because this is what your mind perceived as failure. Our mind link failure to all these emotions.

“I didn’t pass yet” shift your mind to the victor mode. You’ll do again to make sure you pass the next time. You will put in more effort the next time. You learn from your mistakes. It shifts your perception.

“Failure” is only a word, and we put meaning into this word. “Failure” means nothing to someone who doesn’t know “failure”. Take for example a baby who is learning to walk.

Where does “failure” comes from? This question is for you to answer.

Bucky states “Nothing wrong with making mistakes. I made more than anybody, that’s why I know so much.”

The key to the flip chart is the word “Belief”. Say to myself and belief. How often when we say to ourselves, “I can’t do it”, we actually believe?

However when we say, “I can do it”, there is doubt in you. Why do we easily believe the negative phrase?

This is the most important key of this flip chart. The essence of belief, do you have it when you are encouraging yourself?

Do you know an interesting way of looking at BELIEF? Belief can become

BE-LIVE

Be the real you, the real person behind all the mask, Be who you are, Be the person you want to be.

And Live your life the way you want it. Live the life of who you really are.

That is call LIVING.

*All the above is contributed by Joo Hock, Jeffrey, Jean, Kelly, Brendan.

Do join us for the next interesting session.

Date: 1st March 2007
Time: 7:30pm - 9:30pm
Venue: 1 Coleman Street The Adelphi #B1-10 (Singapore)

Flip Chart: Emotional Intelligence (It’s a piece of drawing)

 

February 9, 2007

Money & You Revisit 8/2/07

Posted by Joe Lee under Money and You
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Once again the Revisit
group had another mind blowing discussion. The Flip Chart we discussed is
“Scarcity”.

“Scarcity” flip chart appeared during debrief of X-Y Game. This
exciting session brought out the root of scarcity.

It all started in 1800s, with Thomas Malthus’s Principle of Population. He
predicted that human population will increase in an exponential rate, while
food will decrease. If that’s going to happen, why not take care of yourself
first.

Because of this prediction, it created that the belief that there is not enough
for centuries.

This belief created World War 1 & 2, caused so many deaths and suffering.
In fact most wars are caused by the belief of scarcity. Country invades another
country to get more resources.

For example, Germany started the war because they want to control iron.
With iron, they are able to build more powerful weapons to invade more
countries.

The discussion was led to; we playing the money game. The effect of scarcity
trickles down to individual. Some people create a scarcity environment; control
it, so that they are able to make more money.

Some organization limits their supplies to the market to create a demand, in
order to push up the prices. There are even some who planted their own people
to influence others on the scarcity mindset.

The news mentioned that Indonesia found the cure for bird flu, but they are not
going to share the rest of the world. Why is that so? Aren’t we belong to one
human race? Seems like the belief of scarcity wins again.

Someone mentioned that US ban certain drugs that are able to cure cancer. Why?
Because those drugs cost only $0.20 per pill. If those drugs are allowed, all
pharmaceutical can call it a day.

Some uses their money power to hide some truth from us, so that we can continue
to buy those expensive drugs.

It seems like most hold the belief of scarcity.  So how do we reverse
that? How do we shift that belief from scarcity to abundance?

According to Buckminster Fuller, or Bucky in short, “synergy” is the
key to shift that belief. The outcome of synergy is doing more with less. Can
you see that we are doing more with less? It is extremely obvious especially in
this information age.

One example that someone gave: Three different metals have different tensile
strength.

Iron: 50k   Bronze: 30k   Copper: 60k. Add them together,
we will have 140k. We can mix them together, become alloy, having a tensile
strength of 200k. An additional of 60k. Synergy happened. (The figures are only
for illustration purpose, they are not the real figures)

We have the ability now to create more with less. There is don’t need to
compete with each other. And our wants are the main culprit in creating all
those competitiveness and unhappiness in us.

We had the impression that if we buy a new condo, car, plasma TV or mobile
phone, we’ll be happy. Do we really feel happier after we got those things? Do
we need external things to make us happy? Or happiness is already with us?




 

December 22, 2006

Money & You Revisit 21/12/2006

Posted by Joe Lee under Money and You
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Last night is another Money & You Revisit.

Date: 21/12/2006
Time: 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Venue: 1 Coleman Street The Adelphi #B1-10

It was an insightful session with everyone contributing. This session we were discussing on “RIGHTEOUS”

Such a simple flip chart, “how do we discuss it for 2 hours?” That was my thought.

Yes, you should have guess correctly. I have to stop the discussion, everyone has so much to share. The session could have easily gone beyond 2 hours. The Great Spirit works in its wonderous way. Something seems so simple yet become so profound after 2 hours.

Aftermath of session:

The session started off with when did this flip chart appear? As a reminder to some, it appeared after X-Y Game.

What is righteous? In the context of the game, it is being right in the wrong environment.

Hmmm. ..so many views and ideas were going on in the session. It’s really hard to pinpoint a spot on what to share. I’ll just share my own distinction.

Why does righteous exists?

From the session, someone pointed out righteous exists when I need to be right. And I’m going around making others wrong. However, others will also think they are right and I’m wrong. In cases like this, it become a matter of belief and reality of individual.  What seems right to me, may be wrong to others.

For example, someone mentioned that it is ok for him to wait for his habitual “lateness” friend. But another felt it is wrong to be late all the time. It simply frustrate him to wait for friends who’s always late for 30 minutes.  Both are right, isn’t it?

This leads to being righteous, there might be some level of negative feelings involve. Anger, frustration, upset etc. Because someone may think that he is being taken advantage of, he’s being ‘X’.

Interestingly, those who threw an ‘X’ may not even know that they are throwing an ‘X’ on you. Just like the game, those who threw ‘X’ doesn’t know they are ‘X”-ing others. They are playing the game in a way which they think is serving them at that point of time.

One way of overcoming the negative feeling is to confront the person. Express the feeling, resolve the issue by reforming the environment.

The session goes further to the the word “frequency” or “time”.

Someone can only have the negative feelings when he has been taken advantage a number of times. First time when he’s being ‘X’, he won’t feel a thing. But try ‘X’-ing him a few more time, he’ll start to have negative emotion coming out. He’ll start to want to feel right.

Someone shared the last point that hit me. ‘If you think you are right and other wrong, and you go about in your life to make others wrong. It just doesn’t serve anyone” It’s a statement from Bucky.

Ok, folks, that’s all I can remember.

Come and be part of the discussion to gain insight of those flip charts for yourself. The next Money & You Revisit is on 4 Jan 2007, 7:30pm - 9:30pm. Block out this date to join us.

Next session we are discussion “PREDICTABLE”

See you…

 

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