If you are an expecting mother, THIS is the right plan for you! It  offers protection for you against possible Pregnancy Complications as well as death, terminal illness and disability before childbirth. And if you are also concerned about your newborn, PRUfirst gift also covers against selected Congenital illness as well as death. disabiility and terminal illness as well as offers Hospital Care benefits to the newborn =)

Basically Prufirst gift protects your child even while he or she is still in the womb. It also helps you give your child a real head start in life even before he or she is born and plan for his or her future needs.

PRUfirst gift cares for your bundle of joy through two plans that provide seamless protection for both mother and baby =)

If you feel that this plan is exactly what you are looking for, do contact me for further discussion or if you think that any of your friends who may benefits from this plan, do drop me an email!

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Allow me to share my personal health in general with you =):

In term of my wealth, i have started to live a more simple life. Meaning i buy what i need and have stopped buying branded goods that is for temporary show. I have taken quite some time in order to master this simple habits. Previously i have always wanted branded things and would go for high quality products and tell myself that it is for long term use. However after living in denial for 2 years plus, i came to realise the best things in life is FREE. Eg: being able to breath fresh air is the most amazing things to do! Having a chance to stay home to rest and reflect on your life is also free and it’s super important. I have saved money in both bank and insurance. I do unit trust and stock investment. I do invest in business too. Therefore with all these in place which i still need to improvise, i think i am being quite healthy.

Comes to body health, i think i am currently in the pink of health. From my latest body check from Sky Fitness Gym, everything inside my body is normal. Body fats are also in healthy range. In fact, i need to put on another 4 more kg on my lower body to be more proportionate. Have been doing cardio and weights training every wed morning and go for run at least once a week. Again in this aspect, i felt i am very healthy considering my job scope and years of working =) Some of my friends put on weights ranging from 5-15kg after their NS. Thank God for the wonderful body that He blessed me!

Perhaps last aspect on healthy will be on the mindset. Many people in my industry tend to fail to do well because of few reasons but the main reason that i gathered is this issue on mindset. Actually to be fair, mindset problem is one of the main reasons for people not doing well in whatever they are doing. Often than not, many of them have the ‘I-don’t-care’ attitude and ‘I-deserve-higher-pay’ mindset. Due to these two mindset, many of them find themeselves switching from one job to another and always complaining about their boss and job. I do feel for them some times but then again they could possibly deserve it. I mean do they ask themselves if they are adding value to their boss or companies? In today society, if you can’t add value to your boss, you are OUT OF THE GAME! Companies loyalty scheme are in place to keep people from staying and not be promoted. They don’t promote you based on loyalty but the amount of revenue or value you can bring in the company. It’s the ugly truth that all of us have to abide in. In this aspect of mindset, i felt that i am still on the right track of being very motivated and positive towards my job.

I believed strongly in adding value to your job and being always motivated by certain things. The one things that i find it hard to do is to find your motivational sources because it changes according to life stages. You need to constantly do reflection in order to find it. It’s a habit that you need to cultivate daily =)

Just my two cents worth of sharing. Hope to hear some from you too! =)

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That’s why today I decided to come to airport to chill =) Having a cup of latte whilst doing strategic thinking. I love such moments as I can slow down my pace and reflect on all the things that has happened in my life and learn from the experiences that I’ve had.

Let me do a recap of the experiences that I have gained in the past two months:

1)      During conversations with guys younger than me, I realized that the decisions made during the younger years have the ability to completely alter one’s fate. I made the decision to join the financial industry despite many objections while doing my part time degree and after 4 years, I have never looked back. If I had not made this move, I wouldn’t be where I am now and this website wouldn’t be in existence. I also wouldn’t have learnt so many valuable life lessons in life and met amazing people.

2)      After one of the major exercise that I had during my course, I was reminded that one’s attitude in life decides whether or not you’re poised for success. Eg: If you are always positive about things, you tend to make the best out of it and try to learn new experiences from it. Successful people that I know, especially my boss Merry Riana, has an excellent attitude towards life. She has been going around sharing with many others that the most important things in life can be achieved by having the right attitude. Losers, on the other hand, focus a lot on what they can’t achieve and blame anything and everything except themselves.

3)      We can plan but if the plan that you have is not what God has intended for you, it will not materialize. As a result, you need to see from this point of view and tell yourself that God breaks your plan so that HE can allow the bigger plan to materialize. Every failure in our life serves a purpose. It doesn’t happen without a reason. So seize the chance to learn from the mistakes and grow!

4)      Saving is a virtue! Being able to save and possessing the willingness to save isn’t easy. This is especially so in Singapore where things are so expensive coupled with low wages, it can be quite taxing on normal folks. It takes great determination to weather out temptation and remain as normal =) Although it may seem very extreme but that was what I learnt. We can save money if we really take a step back to reflect on our wants and needs. You have to ask yourselves whether you deserve to buy these items and whether the purchase value adds to your life.

5)      What kind of lifestyle do you desire? Have you asked yourselves why you are  working so hard? Do you desire a relaxed lifestyle when you retire? If the answer is yes, then I suggest that you should migrate overseas =) After I came back from Australia, I learnt that it doesn’t take much effort to lead a relaxed lifestyle there. The culture is such that anyone can lead such a lifestyle. The per hour wage is about A$15-20 and working hours are from 9-6pm. After work time is meant for family bonding whereas weekends are meant for gathering with friends or colleagues. Even if you are unemployed, the government will also provide you with social benefits. So basically it is a choice of abandoning everything in our home country or to migrate to another place to start all over again. We need to find a purpose for working hard. We can’t just work without a reason because one of these days, you will just wear out and find life meaningless.

Well that’s all for my two cents worth of sharing. Hope you can gain some insight through my experience. It’s always good to leverage on others than to go through itself.

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But then again if we really sit down and think, is buying insurance that simple?

In my personal opinion, getting an life insurance is a simple task but not easy. Other than there are many things that you must understand before you make a decision. Eg: what’s the term and conditions, any exclusion, pros & cons, interest rate and guarantee or non guarantee portion.  I have to say that maintaining the  budget to keep the policy in force is also another factor to consider. Hence i need to say that it is not easy simple because for generally, most people doesn’t view insurance as their most important expenses. To them, buying insurance is good to have when you have spare cash and when they got retrenched or pay cut, the first thing to cut is insurance!

The same theory goes for driving a car. It is simple to drive on the road since you only need to step the accelerater and it will drive automatically however you need to master all the road signs and understand all types of road condtions to be able to drive safely. It is not easy though. Buying a car is simple. Just go to showroom and select a car that you fancy and pay the deposit to drive off.  However is it easy to maintain the car? No! Many people i know are struggling to keep up with the expenses. They have became a ‘car slave’

In driving, we hire a private or school instructor to teach us how to drive and in the insurance context, we engage a financial consultant to share with us all his knowledge and understanding of the products so that we can make the whole process a breeze. Therefore i must emphasize that the financial consultant that you are seeing (bank, tied agent or IFA) must make sure that he does a fact find with you first and follow by introducing and explaining all types of suitable products for you before you sign anything with him. Another important aspect that you need to take note is whether did he disclose how much commission is he getting from the plan he is recommending you? However if you notice that this person only has one plan for you and never tell you anything about his reason for recommendation then you should know what to do with him(dump him!) Sometime if the agent doesn’t bother to even ask you about your spending habits and are only concerned about how much you can save, you know that this person is just another salesperson out there.

A good financial consultant in my personl opinion is someone who bothers to upgrade himself constantly in this industry. Be it taking CHFC or general insurance, it will definitely value add the client in one way or another. Sometime by attending outside course where it increases general knowledge, it is also benefical to the clients. He/She must also be willing to be open with his own financial habits because at least you know that this person practises what he preachs. He must also possess a spirit of listening and understanding your whole financial situation and constantly follow up with you. If the person after one appointment never bother to follow up then again you can move on looking for other sincere consultants. Most importantly the consultant itself must believe in its own products. Ask for his own policies and see how much he/she is covered. If he can’t show you then i believe he himself also doesn’t believe much in insurance planning.

So after looking from the other point of view, do you still think buying insurance is a difficult task? It is a difficult task if there is no proper consultant advising you on all aspects (logic & emotional) when choosing a plan. The million dollar question right now is whether have you been able to find ‘the one’ to help you to make the process more simpler =)

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Before you get the wrong idea, i am not getting married by any means but it is just that i will be taking over the ownership of my current house due to some reasons. This is actually quite a good news for me because it will mean that i will finally own an asset which will be providing me passive income and an opportunity to make capital gains when times is good. I felt that it comes at the right time because currently i am single and not having much commitments therefore by putting my money inside the house will be considered as a good investment.

My plan is to do a small renovation and after that will rent out the whole unit to let me earn some passive income and i will move out to rent a small place to stay. This way, i will not have to worry about the loan repayments since it will be covered by the rental and i also don’t have to fork out extra money to pay for my room rental too. Tho it’s going to be quite different staying alone but for the sake of future investments, i think it is a small price to pay =) Hopefully by 3 years, i will be able to save up to buy my first condo. And if i do so, i will be renting it out and i will stay in HDB together with my wife (if im married). The thought of dreaming about having my own condo excites me so much!

Another thing that i wanted to do this year as i mentioned earlier is to save up to 40% of my earning per month. To do so, i have listed down what are the neccessary adjustments that was needed in my current lifestyle:

1) Cut down on restaurants with my date to once/twice a month
2) Get busy so that i have no time to spend money!
3) No more expensive things for myself for at least next 6 months
4) Cutting down on entertainment activities to once a month
5) Less cabs taking

Well i believed that by strictly following these five things, i will be able to save up quite abit of my earnings and do regular investments. I’m also going to be more active in investing in unit trust to build up for my future. 2010 seems to be a good year to do regular investment since there are prominent signs of recovery. I believed that as a financial planner, we have to abide by the rules of saving and investing before we can preach what we believed strongly in. At least that is my motto when i’m handling business with my clients.

I often shared with my clients that it is not really how much you earn but how much you save! With that in mind, i am going to drill it deeply in me at least for one year and i will see how much can i really save. Good luck to me in saving! =)

The above two are part of my 2010 resolutions! I still have others that i will share soon!

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Its been 13 days since we entered into the new year and I just came back from my incentive trip in Korea. I really had a great time over there especially when it snows because it was my first experience in snow country. As mentioned earlier, i will do a short write up on my trip and here is it:
During our first day, we actually experienced the worse snowing in korea for the past 40 years! The total height of the snow was more than 30cm and it caused huge traffic jam! As a result, we took about 5 hours from the airport to the Coex Hotel where we were staying. It was totally freezing but it felt awesome with the kind of weather. Something that I never get to experience in my whole life.

Well after the 3 days 2 night with my company, I continued with my post trip tour to Jeju Island and Seoul where I get to try skiing! Again it was an amazing experience skiing together with the whole bunch wonderful people from my company. Everyone was so sporty and all of us had real fun time. Jeju island is really a beautiful place for honeymood couple to go due to its scenery. Even went to one place where the owner grows a tangerine garden! So beautiful!

Before the ski, I was fully geared up and thought it was going to be real cold since the weather has been about -15 degree. But God knows that after 2 hour of skiing, I was literally sweating inside my body! It was damn hot and first time that I sweated in korea especially out in the cold. I did also tried out hourse riding in Seoul! Riding in snow weather and it was so cool =)

The last day was really crazy for most of us because we all spent ALL our money in 3 shops and some of them went on to swap their credit card to purchase more! We were really out there to stimulate Korea economy! Many spent S$1000-3000 on famous Korean Gin Seng and I can tell you that the people were all into impulse buying because of the lack of time and peer perssure. But it was fun seeing people carrying big bags out of the shop with the smile on their face.
Next shop was Faceshop where it was even more fun because it was where the products are cheap and affordable to everyone! It’s where you can see men and women went illogical when it comes to cheap cosmetic. Most of us were amazed by the demonstration done by the sales-girl on their Korean brand ‘OBDO’ Even I also can’t resist the temptation to buy many products for myself! Haha…
Well last stop before we headed to airport was at the Supermart where they sells kimchi, seaweed and local manufactured products. Things were not that cheap but again because we were in Korea for the last hour, people went on to their final crazy shopping spree! Boxes and boxes of the seaweeds and chocolates crunch were being carried on to the bus. I can only say that our people are all quite rich!
When it comes to the food, I had only one comment and that was an Excellent choice to go with the tour because they chose all the nice different type of korean food for us to try. Every meal was good and everyone of us just keep asking the people to add rice, kimchi, meat etc. We ate till we were so full to be able to keep our body warm for the next 6 hours Basically I tried the BBQ, steamboat, gin seng chicken soup, and many others local food. Thumbs up for the food experience! 

Some pictures to prove =)

Alright that should be all for my korea trip. =) Will be looking forward to my next trip which is Perth! Meanwhile i will have to work hard for my Barcelona and Yokohama!

Jia you!

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Well previously i have never thought of spending time with family but don’t know why this year i felt that i must at least have abit of quality time with my mother. It’s been a super busy year for me and as a result most of the time i’m always outside. I only go home to sleep and bath. Well that was my life for past 1 year but i truly enjoyed every bits of it tho tiring =)

As i am home resting, i’m also doing some reflection of what had happened this year and what i can do better next year. Early on this year, i remembered i set some goals and declared it in my blog here. At that point of time, i was very excited about it and was very optimistic about my future. However life is like that. When you expect something good to happen, there will always be something from somewhere happened that try to lure you away from your goals. Life is like a rollar coaster! To me, i do have my fair share of not being able to clear some of my goals this year.

Let me just do a short recap on what happened to me in 2009:

1) Starting of my recruitment drive early this year. Went to many job fairs and managed to get lots of contacts for recruitment. Done quite a number of interviews though not all are good.

2) Ignored my final last two modules to focus on my business here and ended up failing the two of them. Downgraded one honours class as a result But the good thing is that i don’t have to repeat because it’s my last year and they are not allowed to keep me for long.

3) Economic crisis has also resulted in the loss of all my investments funds. Most of my funds dropped at least 40% during the lowest peak of this year(march) . Thank God that i managed my emergency fund properly that i don’t have to liquidate out my investments or else i would have realised all the losses.

4) Coming to 2nd half of the year seem quite optimistic for my recruitment and i have already one agent under my care with few others taking exams.  I was also lucky enough to be selected by CPF board to be one of the bloggers in their newly website: www.imsavvy.sg Being selected really boosts up my confidence level and motivates me to do more things to build up my branding.

5) Somewhere in August was really a bad time for me because i was having a relationship problem. In fact, the r/s ended on the last day of August after two years of being together. During that point of time, it was really very heart-broken as it was one of the best relationship that i ever had. However due to some stuff, two of us didn’t seem to work things out. But the good thing that happened was that we are still good friends now and on good talking term.

6) Despite feeling down for one whole month, i managed to pick myself up again. This time i managed to get my booklet published finally =) It was quite nicely done and i gave it out to my clients and friends. Planning to distribute to more people next year.

7) Had my first driving test in Oct but i FAILED Though sad but i still tell myself that it is a blessing in disguise because if i pass, i will spend more money to buy a car and who knows, i may get into an accident due to my lack of skills. This is what i called ‘ positive thinking’ Hahaha

Last 3 months of the year was quite challenging for me because i will need to clear my own personal sales target by end of Dec. With the incentives given by my company and agency, i was really quite motivated to fight for it. So far so good, i managed to get most of the incentives and i am into the final lap of the race. That is to get more from my company and to increase my bonus =)

So after doing a recap, i will give myself a 7 out of 10 for this year performance. Although many unhappy things had happened to me but i still managed to make the best out of it and still stay positive. I would said that i am now on my way up the rollar coaster wave.  Things are definitely looking better for me now. Next year, i promise myself that it will be better and i will make sure i do it. Next one week will be spending time to do some strategy thinking on how to build my business in 2010 and how i can upgrade myself even more and provide more value to my clients!

I will be back to share with you on what is my new year resolution for 2010! Stay tuned! Cheers =)

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During my first 25km, i ran as per normal and things seem quite ok but however when it comes to 26km onwards, my legs are really giving me headache. My leg muscles are literally bursting and can’t take any more jogging. I had to stop every 1km to do stretching and make sure i walk instead of jog. Time were passing really slow if i walked and most of all, i felt that i have a whole lot of distance to cover. I still remember vividly that i wanted to just give up and sit there to rest but each time i looked up the crowds, i saw many ladies and also old people still running. From there, i told myself that no matter what, i die die will have to complete the race. The mind will have to be very strong so that it can overcome the  fatigue level.

So i struggled with every 1km abit by abit and eventually walked till the 39km mark when i decided to start jogging despite the pain because i did not want to take more than 7hr to complete my race. At last, i managed to complete within 6hr and 50 min =) Although that is not a good timing but i think it is quite good for a first timer and based on the fact that i have only trained up to 14km only.

Anyway after running this marathon makes me realised a couple of things. First of all, life is really like a race. Everyone of us starts from the same point and some will go fast while some will go slow. Some like to overtake people and some like to run alone all by the side. Many of us experience different things in life and we do take things in a different approach. There are no hard and fast rule but most importantly is whether do we get the result that we want. We must endure till the end point and anything can happen along the way and we just got to adapt to the situation and change accordingly.

Secondly, it really doesn’t matter how you start and most important how you end. Some people started fast but end up having leg cramp along the way and as a result not able to run. While there could be someone who started slow but managed to jog all the way. Therefore never ever judge a person by the first impression. You can never know what is ’slow’ person can actually achieve.

Third is that running a marathon doesn’t require you to have a fit body but rather a strong will mindset. I saw many elderly uncle running the race and i totally respect such people. After experiencing myself, i know what it really takes to do one marathon. Can’t imagine people who do Ironman and other more tedious activities. Their will-power must be very strong. In fact, i dare to say that even tho a successful person in life may not be able to take such pressure.

Lastly i reckon that if you can set your mind to complete a marathon, you can conquer anything. That is because if you can overcome your mind over body so it means that a person can tell the mind that anything is possible to achieve. Even physical pain can be endured so what is mental pain/stress. It’s a matter of whether do you want it anot? Many of us run this race because we like to wear the finisher T-shirt and not because we really like to run. So if you really set you mind to achieve something that you think will worth alot to you, you can do it!

Just my two cents worth of thought of the day!

Here is some pic taken half way =)

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Well tho it is kinda of tiring after working non-stop for 7 days in a week but i guess it’s all worthwhile because i am enjoying all the rewards and satisfaction from my work. Recently i have been doing a lot of investments for my clients and most of them actually do make quite abit of money from the investments that i have shared with them.

This really makes me quite happy and most importantly they have also get themselves insured for all kinds of risk although it may not be sufficiently to cover all their shortfall. Well at least that is the best i can plan for them within their budget =)

I have also just completed two of my General insurance papers and i am now left with one more to go before i can go apply my GI licence next year! Yeah, i will be able to be a one-stop agent for all my clients =) That is something that i have always dreamt of doing since the first day of my career! Haha..seriously my vision in my career is to be the one and only adviser in my client’s financial planning process. Till today i have not stopped dreaming of that and in fact, i’m proud to say that many of my clients have at least 4 policies with me. Even if they want other company policy, it will also be done through my recommendation.

Now i am left wth another 6 more weeks before we come to the brand new year. I am going to make full use of the time left to do many things that i wanted to especially in my business here. There will be a miracle happening. Don’t ask me what is it but i am working hard on it! It’s something that i can’t see but i just know that it is happening. Miracles always work when you believe it! Every year there will be one in december and i am looking forward to see what’s in it for me this year!

Keep you guys updated again! =)

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However this year is a very special year for me as i am going to celebrate my 28th birthday together with my whole family by having picnic at the beach. It’s including my 4 cute nieces and 1 new born nephew =) What is even unique is that this year my birthday falls on the actual Mid-Autumn festival (zhong jiu jie) Personally it means a lot to me as it’s my first time celebrating with my entire family.

If my memories never fail me, the last time i celebrated with my sibling was during my childhood time and it was without my parents as they were busy working at that time.

Well i’m not blaming them because without them i will not be where i am today. It’s just that the feeling of celebrating with family is quite different from friends.

For me, i make it a point to have dinner with my few groups of close friends every year because i believed that best friends are hard to come by and we must make effort to maintain contact. Again that is why this year is quite special to me. We went to Hardrock cafe for a good dinner and chill out. Here is the pic of my group of friends whom i known them since 10years old =)

Well enough of saying how special is my birthday and  i like to share about my birthday wish here! I heard many saying that if we share our birthday wish then it will not come true. Anyway none of my wishes ever come true all these years hence decide to take a different approach

From today till next year my birthday, i want to have a break-thru in all aspects of my life. In work, i want to build up my team of 10 consultants and to have at least 60% doing well. In family, i want to be able to provide $1k per month for my mother as pocket money. For my health, i aim for a well-toned body and able to run for another marathon. Lastly in my relationship, i like to establish more stronger relationship with my clients and friends by calling them more often to build ties. Not planning to seek for a girlfriend because i believe strongly in fate. What is yours is yours. No need to seek high and low for it =)

Group shot!

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