I BELIEVE.

I read this book "Millionaire Upgrade" by Richard Parkes Cordock recently which revealed the important attributes that self-made millionaires or successful entreprenuers possess. These attributes are depicted by the book as eight important principles for anyone who aspires towards being successful in life and business.

The eight important principles are listed in an acronym fashion namely, I BELIEVE.

I = I believe in myself.

B = Be passionate and want it.

E = Extend your comfort zone.

L = Lies and luck don't work.

I = Install goals.

E = Enjoy hard work.

V = Very, very persistent.

E = Expect failure.

I = I believe in myself

The first "I" sets the stage for these principles of success to work. In order to be successful, one must believe that he can become successful. This positive self-belief in making things work out is not based on an arrogant faith in oneself being the smartest in knowing everything and how to achieve success in having pride in one's way of doing things which always is seen to be superior than others.

This positive self-belief is instead a consistent belief in oneself that he can persevere through all odds and challenges, and keep on trying one's best without giving up until he succeeds in what he seeks to achieve. This is an entreprenuerial mindset, one that has great endurance and tenacity to strive towards the end-goal without giving up despite disappointments and failures along the way.

Easy said than done. That is why not many people pursue the tough route of entreprenuership which puts the hardest test to one's life in making tough decisions and actions, and accepting the many failures and sometimes small successes before seeing the final great success of one's work. I see entreprenuership as the toughest examination of all the many examinations one takes in his student and even corporate years. To graduate as a successful entreprenuer, he will have to face the failures of many papers in this examination and learn from each failure in order to proceed until the end of the whole series of examination to become a successful entreprenuer both in maturity of knowledge and spirit of enterprise.

B = Be passionate and want it

To be a successful entreprenuer, one has to be 100% passionate in pursuing a great entreprenuerial purpose. A successful entreprenuer is passionate in living out his life in providing a meaningful product or service to value add in other people's life. His great entreprenuerial passion is in always innovating better ways to answer people's problems and make life better for people he is serving (in the provision of products or services). Pursuit of money through going an entreprenuerial route is not a strong motivator. Passion in doing what one enjoys that will bring about benefits to others he serve is an enduring motivator.

I see this similarity of the principle of passion with the ideas from the book "From Good to Great" by Jim Collins. Great organisations have great culture of passion in all its people in serving a great meaningful purpose. They continue to be great as they have passion in living out and serving their great meaningful purpose, the purpose for their existence.  

As such, there is no point in doing something great and ambitious when one has no belief and passion in what one is doing. Find one's passion in life and become great in serving others through this meaningful purpose with an entreprenuerial heart.

E = Extend your comfort zone

Humans are creatures of habits of comfort. We have this tendency to keep repeating the same familiar habits that bring comfort to oneself. A successful entreprenuer needs to constantly extend beyond his comfort zone. It is through experiencing new things each day that one constantly learns. A baby who wants to walk the way adults walk has to extend beyond his comfort zone by actually trying to walk. He will never learn walking if he insists on his comfort zone keeping to familiar habits of doing a baby crawl.

To extend beyond comfort zone means conquering over one's fears and self-doubts. Everyone has fears of trying something new. It is the successful entreprenuer who is able to master courage to confront his fears head on and push boundaries to take on the new challenge and learn from it. Many great entreprenuers like Thomas Edison (in the constant invention of new things such as electric light bulbs), Henry Ford (in making available widely the automobiles to the masses) and the United State's project in puting the first man on the moon are examples of individuals and nations extending beyond their comfort zone not knowing whether what they aim to achieve will be successful or not. You never know until you try your very best.

L = Lies and luck don't work

If one thinks great entreprenuers are lucky chaps who got their way because they are simply born lucky, one will be extremely surprised. A successful entreprenuer does not rely on luck. What an onlooker views as luck is a duration of preparation which consumates with a great opportunity by the willingness and passion of the successful entreprenuer to pursue the opportunity that is presented. Tiger Woods, the world championship golfer did not got his lucky break all of a sudden to become world champion. It is through many years of preparation in golf training and taking part in many competitions that he manages to be known eventually as world champion. Thus, luck is the crossroads of preparation and opportunity.

Lies also has no place in a successful entreprenuer's belief. A successful entreprenuer does not hope for things to happen. He does not lie to himself and gives excuses that things will happen the way he hopes without taking any actions. Instead, he takes purposeful actions to make things happen the way he wants. Sometimes, things will not happen the way he wants after taking actions. However, he will still persevere on and keep trying different ways to reach his goals.

I = Install goals

To become successful, one needs to have goals and works towards them. Some have big goals. Some have small goals. Some have noble goals while others have more trivial goals. No matter what, it is important to constantly remind oneself of the goals one has passion in pursuing.

One can break down his goal into small steps and achieve one step at a time towards fulfiling the final goal. A successful person install goals and has clarity on what goals he wants to achieve in life. He is always taking actions to strain towards his goal in steps. A goal is thus fulfiling a dream with a disciplined deadline.

E = Enjoy hard work

A successful entreprenuer enjoys hard work. His work is not work to him but doing something he is passionate and believes in. As such, he enjoys what he is doing and does not mind going the extra mile to make sacrifices for what he is doing. Many a times, we have heard of great entreprenuers who put in many long hours of sacrifice into building up their business. For an onlooker, we may think such entreprenuers are overworked. However, to these successful entreprenuers, they just simply enjoy their hard work as they are working on their passion in life to serve a great meaningful purpose.

It is important to find one's true passion in life and then enjoy working hard at it until one reaches success in his goals (founded upon his passion). I read up elsewhere that successful people put in at least 10,000 hours of consistent hard work at learning and practising a particular trade in order to become an expert in the trade. This translates to approximately 3 hours every day of consistent learning and practice for 10 years to reach expertise in a trade.  One really needs passion in a trade to enjoy this level of consistent hard work!

V = Very, very persistent

Successful people which includes successful entreprenuers are very, very persistent individuals. Their passion in pursuing their goals is so strong that they will not give up until they reach their goals. They will not take "no' for an answer, but will find means and ways to reach their goals. They are passion driven people who will do what it takes (personal sacrifices of time, effort and confronting their fears, failures and disappointments) to reach their goals.

One great inventor and entreprenuer who displays such great persistence is Thomas Alva Edison who despite failing many times in his many attempts for every new invention, never gives up and continues trying until he successfully invented every new invention. One of the products of his extreme persistence is his greatest invention, the electric light bulb which has lighted up the world since his time. Had he given up easily, the world may not see an electric light bulb today (unless another inventor of great persistence comes along somewhere in ages past to discover an electric light bulb).

E = Expect failure

All successful people including successful entreprenuers have failed many times. Such people know that one cannot win all the time. Failures are part and parcel of the learning journey towards success. It is in failing that one can learn from his mistakes and better oneself. The more failures one make, the more opportunities of learning and growing in wisdom and judgement. A successful learned man has gone through a robust experience of learning from many failures. As such, he constantly learns from mistakes and do not commit his mistakes again while finding better improved ways to do things.

It is the ones who are afraid to fail that never extend beyond their comfort zone to become better at their trade. Failure is a great teacher. Learn to expect failure. But, do not forget to learn well from this great teacher who is "failure" so as to constantly grow to become better after each failure.

A magic ingredient that binds all 8 principles

In conclusion, I will also like to share from this book that there is an essential ingredient for success apart from these eight principles. This magic ingredient that binds all the above eight principles is teamwork. It is not enough for one person alone to embrace all these eight princples to have success. Every successful entreprenuer knows he cannot achieve success on his own. He needs a team to work together with him pursuing the same passion and belief.

In a team, there is synergy and everyone can leverage on one anothers' expertise, time, effort, capital and all other shared resources for a common meaningful purpose they are serving. A successful entreprenuer surrounds himself with successful people who can work together with him with common passion and belief. He can also learn from other people in a team as everyone has their unique strengths, areas of expertise and even weaknesses.

It is not an easy route to success, "Do I BELIEVE?"

So you want to retire in Singapore?

As I was going through my daily activities recently, the thought of retirement came through my mind. Do not get me wrong. I am not thinking of retiring anytime soon. Even if I do reach financial freedom before age 65, I will still find work to do, meaningful work especially. This is because I believe one should contribute his time to meaningful activities (providing a product or service) to help others since he is financially free with available time. Even if such work does not receive remuneration, as long as it is serving a meaningful purpose, I will still work for a meaningful cause.

Financial freedom is a blessing received and not to be taken for granted. I believe one who is in this special status of life should start living for others to commit his freed up time (since he is no longer financially burdened and need to restrict his time to working for a paid salary) to help others in need (in whichever meaningful ways).

Leaving financial freedom aside (which not many people eventually reach due to one reason or another), the more important issue of concern is retirement planning. Most people will live long enough to reach their retirement age. For Singaporeans, our retirement age is seen to be age 65 (at least by our government since the official age to receive our Central Provident Fund, CPF monies is at age 65). Assuming as a benchmark many people do work until age 65 and thereafter retire from work, how much does it cost to retire in Singapore?

I did an estimation of the cost of retirement in Singapore. I was shocked by my finding. This made me realise that it is difficult for many people to retire in Singapore, not to mention retire comfortably.

I provide a few case scenarios as follows:-

For a Singaporean aged 20 currently

Depending on individual's needs, let's assume an average comfortable living expense for an individual is around $2000 per month currently. When the individual reaches age 65, he will need around $7563.19 per month in year 2056 upon his retirement to continue living at his same living standards as of today. This is assuming an annual inflation rate of 3% over a period of 45 years until his retirement.

He will continue to live another 20 years of retirement (assuming the average lifespan is around 85 years). Assuming the same annual inflation rate of 3% over his retirement period, his total retirement funds needed is approximately $2,438,708.88. A $2.4 million sum need for retirement! What a staggering amount!

For a Singaporean aged 30 currently

Assuming the same comfortable living expense of $2000 per month currently, the individual will need around $5627.72 per month upon his retirement at age 65 (assuming an annual inflation rate of 3% over 35 years until retirement) for living expense to maintain similar living standards.

Over his retirement period of 20 years, his total retirement funds needed is approximately $1,814,627.21 (assuming an annual inflation rate of 3% over his retirement period). Ok. This is slightly better compared to the younger folk mentioned earlier who needs more in total retirement funds. However, a $1.8 million sum is not a small sum either.

For a Singaporean aged 40 currently

Assuming the same comfortable living expense of $2000 per month currently, the individual will need around $4187.55 per month upon his retirement at age 65 (assuming an annual inflation rate of 3% over 25 years until retirement) for living expense to maintain similar living standards.

Over his retirement period of 20 years, his total retirement funds needed is approximately $1,350,252.36 (assuming an annual inflation rate of 3% over his retirement period). This $1.3 million sum is not a small sum also for a slightly older folk currently to retire at.

Conclusion

As we can see, the older the Singaporean is currently, the lesser the total amount of retirement funds needed for his retirement. However, even at age 40 currently, the total retirement funds (approximately $1.3 million) needed to set aside is by no means a small sum to be overlooked.

I leave the reader to draw your own conclusion whether it is an easy feat to retire in Singapore or not. Are we prepared for the better or worst to come upon our retirement days? It is no wonder why our government keep increasing the retirement age (now already standing at age 65) and encourage Singaporeans to continue working as long as they are able to till they die. This leaves one thinking whether this is just a passing statement for the government to say encouraging older workers to stay active in their golden years by working, or that the harsh realities of retirement living dictates one's neccesity to keep on working until one drops dead.

Downgrade one's living standards during retirement days with whatever limited savings left? "Continue working" during "retirement days" to maintain current living standards or just to meet basic living needs? Be not financially burdened during retirement days by saving up and investing early during younger days? One needs to consider carefully his choice now as the consequence of his choice will unfold definitely in time to come.

Assumptions in my estimation

Please note the following assumptions in my estimation of the total retirement funds needed.

1. An average annual inflation rate of 3% at least over the next 65 years.

2. An average monthly living expense of $2000 currently for decent living standards.
3. Retirement age of Singaporeans at 65 years.
4. Average lifespan of Singaporeans at 85 years.

Level 5 leadership: A necessity for organisations to go from good to great.

We have examined according to Jim Collins and his research team what the good qualities that good to great organisations possess, as well as the poor qualities that organisations on decline possess.

A large part of the success or failure in any organisation depends on it's leadership. It is necessary according to Jim Collins and his team's research findings that any organisation that aspires towards lasting greatness have level 5 leadership at their helm.

What exactly makes a level 5 leader?

There are 5 levels of leadership, namely:

Level 1: Highly Capable Individual.

Level 2: Contributing Team Member.

Level 3: Competent Manager.

Level 4: Effective Leader.

Level 5: Level 5 Executive.

Level 1: Highly Capable Individual 

A level 1 leader is a highly capable individual who makes effective contributions at work through own personal knowledge, talents and skills. Such individual also possesses good working attitude and habits. However, the amount of contribution is only limited at an individual level.

Level 2: Contributing Team Member

A level 2 leader is an effective contributing team member. Such leaders are able to work effectively with other people in a group setting to achieve group objectives. As such, the level of contribution is higher at a group level.

Level 3: Competent Manager

A level 3 leader is one who is a competent manager. He is able to effectively plan and organise people and resources in the achieving of work objectives. His level of contribution is thus higher as he is not only a contributing team member, he is also the team leader of his team.

Level 4: Effective Leader

A level 4 leader is an effective leader. He not only fulfils the ability to lead his people and use resources to achieve work objectives and tasks. On top of that, he is able to drive and excite his team towards a clear vision. When directing his team towards a strong vision, he is also able to constantly stimulate his team towards giving their best to high performance standards. Such a leader contributes at even higher level in having a clear vision and taking his team towards fulfiling this strong meaningful vision while executing at high performance standards.

Level 5: Level 5 Executive

A level 5 leader is one who possesses a strong professional will in building his team of people and organisation towards lasting greatness. His ambition is not small but is great beyond measure. He aspires for his organsiation to be the best in the world that they can be and to have enduring greatness through time. Such great leaders are humble, for their ambition is never for personal interests or gains but only for his people and organisation to become the best they can be at serving their great meaningful purpose.

A level 5 leader is one who thus brings out the very best in his people and organisation in fulfiling their great purpose that the organisation is serving. He is a builder who builds lasting greatness into his people and his organisation. He builds greatness not for himself, but for his organisation to continue through time to be great and even better at serving their great purpose, the very purpose for the organisation's existence. His contributions to his organisation will carry on through time (even for many generations of leaders after him) even as he is gone.

Conclusion

An individual can proceed through the 5 levels of leadership to become a level 5 leader of greatness. This progress may not necessarily be through each level in sequence. A level 5 leader will possess all the capabilities of the other lower levels of leadership. In addition to these capabilities, he also possesses the special characteristics of greatness evident of a level 5 leader.