Saturday 7 January 2012

10 years on....

I realised time has passed 10.5 years since I had started out working. After receiving my long service award at a local polytechnic for 4.5 years and serving (wasting) 2.5 years of my time in national service mainly in light duties and excuse of heavy load, I went through the path of job hopping and finally settling down at a company where I am at still today after more than 6 years.
I envision my career where I would be working in a big office in CDB area, with a personal room and a sea view. 10 years on, I am sitting in a small cubicle with my female boss sitting in front of me at some ulu industrial area. It has not been that bad I thought, I went through the early phase of job hopping, trying to find my career path, but while doing so, I had the privilege to travel around the globe and expose myself to different company cultures. During my 20s, I had seen 2 company restructurings, but always being the eager and hungry salesperson, I always managed to find my ways out and still continue to earn a decent living.
What had I learnt for the past 10 years and what had I accomplished? I learn that everything has a price, if you want to earn more, you need to spend more effort. Finding good bosses is also very important, if you have rapport with them, works comes easier. Also, I realised that it is always important to continue to upgrade oneself. I decided to take up a external part time degree course as I felt inadequate when all my colleagues are armed with NTU honours degrees and MBAs. I managed to achieve a first class honours in my part time degree, but when I presented it to my boss, she told me the company does not adjust salary based on that.
Patience, I learn that being patient is a art and need to cultivate that in career or own life.
During the past year, I finally realised what I love and enjoy doing ; investments and about personal finance. Having been made fun by friends by giving me a "guru" nickname, as I have repeatedly encourage them to invest for the long term and plan ahead. You will be surprise that so many people are disinterested in personal finance and continue to spend spend spend. Among all my friends, I am probably the only one that is making plans on retirement and making passive income.
Talking about achievements, I have not made that million dollar yet in my bank account, but one of the big achievement is staying on at this company and being able to be recognised as one of the better employees.
Yesterday, I was presented with a promotion :)
Aside to work life, I achieve a million dollar wife, not cause she will make a million dollar for me, but for saving me million dollar, I am just blessed and lucky to find a good wife and will be staring a family soon. I will treasure them and they will be my number one priority.

What do I see in the next 10 years when I am 45? Career wise, I will continue to climb the ladder, work on my investments, make plans for retirement and enjoy the process of seeing my handsome baby son growing up with my wife :)

7 comments:

  1. Congratulations Guru!

    There you go! Get the foundations right - family and people first - the rest will come in due course.

    I so jealous. You got "bang fu" wife ;)

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  2. Thank you SMOL!!

    What does "bang fu" means? Tie the wealth? Haha

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  3. Congratulations on your promotion! I'm glad that you had introduced your blog on FSM. Thanks for this! I like your blog titles and entry titles. I'll be reading some of them today. Cheers,

    Ronian

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  4. Hi Guru, your blog is giving me many new ideas as well about what to write on my blog. Let's see...10 years on...what would I do? For me, I guess I don't spend as much time with money as I do with my interests. Having put money into unit trusts and moving money from my CPFOA into the CPFSA, I tend to leave the invested monies alone and let markets do what they do and also let compounding do what it does. Having done that, I tend to focus my time on my other interests such as the work that I do in the office, the cartoons that I draw (www.lightedlab.com), and the activities I participate with schools and universities to hellp contribute to a positive development of the Singapore education system. So in 10 years time, who knows. Maybe I will try to publish my cartoons in a book? Maybe I will do some part-time lecturing on engineering at the schools? Maybe I will invent a new piece of optics technology and head over to Spring to commercialize it? I'm not sure. The only thing I'm sure of is that I will be doing the things I love to do!

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  5. Hello Ronian,

    Thanks for visiting my blog and for taking the time to post your comments :) I appreciate it.
    I see you have already made plans on your finances, good job! Not everyone can pay up their housing loan that fast! Well done!
    You sound like a very clever person, I will be spending some time reading your blog too.
    I wish you success in your passion!

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  6. Hi Guru, I think this is the kind of post I will write in a few years time. Working class people who is frugal yet financially aware would be able to understand the sentiment you conveyed over here.

    LCF on Personal Finance

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    1. Hi LCF, I saw your profile and blogs, very impressive, you have a head start since you have acquired good personal finance knowledge when you are younger. I used to visit Penang very often for business trips and it is one of the nicest places I have been :) let me know if we can do a link exchange , cheers!

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