# 25 - FINANCIAL improvement - Protect Yourself First !

No One Plan To Fail But Many Fail To Plan

My main topic is about Protection and the sub-topic is about Planning. Let's talk about the subject of PLANNING first.

Planning means to be able to predict where you want to be in the future and by when and to think of ways how to get there! in a nutshell, if you're bad at planning, the chance are you're going to fail in life !

Planning is something I've been very good at.

At Maxwell I planned my study very well (despite coming from a very poor family) so that I could go to a boarding school with the ultimate aim TO HELP MY FAMILY. My plan worked to perfection when I got offered to study at MRSM Kuantan and Alam Shah (SAS) KL. I chose SAS.

Then at SAS I planned to make full use of me being there because I wanted so much to follow the footstep of my cousin (Abang Azhar) who had further his studies in the USA. I was active in co-curriculum and the height of my achievement was when our team won the PPM Debate (BM), in which my teammates agreed to a strategy which I had planned for the team in the first round !

Last but not least at SAS I continued to plan my studies and executed it very well until I came up as Top 5 student in SPM 1991 and secured a scholarship to fly to the UK !

I planned to be an accountant. But my plan FAILED ! JPA was not going to offer me do to accounting, for some strange reasons. So I had to accept the offer to do business studies instead. That was the point when I learned to adapt. I accepted that we don't always get what we planned for.

With a Business Degree in hand, I landed my first job at Maybank Credit Card Centre in 1997 (some 13 years ago !) as a Marketing Planning Officer. Observe the word in italic, P.L.A.N.N.I.N.G !

I was placed there because in the Placement Test (Essay Form) which all officers had to take, I wrote about My Master Plan. i.e. what I want to be and by when ! It all came to me in a flash, while writing the essay, when I happened to find a brochure about Career Path in Maybank.....

I excelled and loved that Maybank job. However due to a better offer (pay-wise), I had to leave. I worked in Maybank for 3 months only, yet there was a Farewell Party for me !

From then on my life had been a roller coaster ride ! There were many ups and downs. Mostly downs. But WHY ? Because I failed to plan. I did not plan to fail but I basically failed to plan. Most of the times I had lost my Planning Skill !!!!!

It was a rough ride for me and only these last few years that I started to recover my true self and my life back. After some long Self-Assessment (Muhasabah Diri) and Soul Searching....I concluded that Planning was one of my greatest strength and I must start doing it again..... Maybe it's a bit late but I hope it's not too late for me to start all over again. And the key for me to rebound is PLANNING !

Two years ago I had planned for most of the things I accomplished today. And now is the time to review and fine-tune that PLAN to achieve better things in my life.

And this week my first priority in my planning was to realise my planning from 2 years ago - i.e to PROTECT MYSELF as the head of my family against life's uncertainties.

In layman's terms, only this week I had managed to buy my Life Insurance + Medical Card + Savings ! Not that I never bought insurance before but life's hardships had forced to lapse the premiums and hence lose valuable time (because we pay higher premium as we get older). In fact I had put my family in danger by not protecting myself .

I'm proud to say that I've bought insurance from the best, i.e Prudential. And with the Medical Card, I feel more confident with my life because I know if something happens to me, I 'm covered and I won't trouble my family !

So that was my best improvement for this week and next week I intend to embark on a better improvement quest.....i.e I'm pondering a change in career path.....still in the line of Sales, but a much better and more meaningful Sales Job than the one I'm currently doing.....

So, till next week.....

Bye !

Amir Hamdzan

# 24 - TIME Improvement - STOP Wasting Time !

To Waste is To Befriend The Satan !

Harsh it may sound the above phrases, but that's what we Muslim believe !

And that' what my Quran teacher (Makcik Limah) sometimes told me & my friends every Thursday Night some 25 years ago when we had our Pot Luck feast after our Quran Recital Class...."Do not Waste Food or else You'll be The Devils' Friend"......something like that....

And that's exactly what I'm telling my kids...trying to instill good habits within them.....i.e. NOT TO WASTE anything....not to waste food, time, electricity, A4 paper, colour pencils, erasers, water etc etc....

Is it working? Are my kids listening to me? I don't think it's working yet because I can still see them wasting most of the things I mentioned above. Maybe because those things are ABUNDANT and easy to come by......in short they've become UNGRATEFUL....they take things for granted !

I always tell them stories of my hardships when I was a kid, and ask them to be thankful for what they are having right now. However my stories seem not to leave much effects on them because they don't seem to be able to imagine a family with no rice to eat, a boy with no books 1 month before a major exam, a bathroom with no tap water and a house without electricity ! It's just a fairy tale to them.....because they were born into this perfect and ready-with-everything world !

This situation where my kids are wasting things really makes me feel sad. BUT I'm not giving up on them just yet. I'll never stop educating and telling them to appreciate what they have !

This by itself I consider a big improvement in my own mental attitude and the day when my kids realise the importance of NOT WASTING things will be D-day as my GREAT IMPROVEMENT DAY !

So you may ask "What's ALL this story about your kids wasting things got to do with your topic today?".

My answer is this.....it is human nature to see other people's weakness and shortcomings whilst ignoring the fact that they might have the same bad attitude !
In this example, I must admit that I sometimes have the same attitude. Maybe not much towards food and other material things but mostly towards wasting time !

Every one of us is granted 24 hrs per day by God. No one is given more hour than the other ! So precious time is, that if God decides to take it away from you means that you have it no more ! Even then not may of us seems to appreciate the short and so little time they have on this earth !
I just realised that I waste too much, way too much time...
- on watching the TV (the remote control is like being glued to my hand!)
- on the internet (FB in particular - this one I'm taking a BIG STEP to overcome!),
- on doing petty/unimportant things (like reading Junk Mails),
- on chatting away about unimportant topics (be it online or offline),
- on daydreaming (about various things)
- etc etc etc

So my biggest improvement for this week is to realise the time I have wasted and my aspiration to make full use of the balance of my uknown time left on this world.....and the best way to do that is to LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST (borrowing Great Eastern's tagline) and to LIVE LIKE YOU'RE GONNA DIE TOMORROW !..........and my biggest step this week is to STOP using FB during the weekdays and to use only a couple of hours in the weekends ! The times saved from this activity will be used to do more work, to spend more time with my family and to LIVE LIFE ! Yeeehaaaa!

So that's all for today......Keep Improving My Friends ! Include Me In Your Improvement Quest If You Have One Coz I'll Surely Support You ! Let's Make this World A Better Place For You And Me And The Entire Human Race !



Sincerely,

Amir Hamdzan

Our First Rented House (2004) .....small, hot & stuffy, but we were grateful !

# 23 - SOCIAL improvement - Show Some Love

Treat OTHERS The Way YOU want to be treated



How many times have we heard the expression above? More than 10 times I guess. But have we given serious consideration to its true meaning or not? Let's ponder......

Although the expression has a very deep and important meaning, how many of us really practice it? How many of us show our love to our family members the way we want them to love us? How often we tell our loved ones that we L.O.V.E them??????



How about at work, do we offer help to colleagues as we would like them to help us? Have you ever felt like being left out just because your friends do not include you in a conversation or a lunch trip?

Those (family & friends) are the people we know or love. Even them we sometimes failed to treat nicely, how about total strangers, such as people we ride the LRT together, people who queue in line with us at the bank, people who serve us food at KFC, those who gives us their service at the banks, and many more people....Well, too many people we need to consider taking care of their feeling that any real attempt to do so is futile !

What I mean by futile is when we TRY to be nice to everybody. My point is that we SHOULDN'T TRY to be nice to everyone ! We should be NICE naturally, that's the answer. Don't try because once we try, we may fail. If we just put ourselves in their shoes and treat them the way we want to be treated all the times, then we should be fine.

Now let's hold that thought about being nice NATURALLY to strangers, and let's get back to our beloved ones. Because they're even more important in our short life on this world.

As for our family, I sincerely believe that we MUST TRY VERY VERY VERY hard to be nice to them, because if we don't try then we'll never do it and we'll never be nice to them.

Why is family & friends different from strangers? Simply because Love Starts At Home. If you're caring at home, you'll carry the same attitude outside, don't you think so !



For example, if you want your kid to study instead of playing games...imagine you are your own kid, how would you like to be told? Would you like to be shouted at or be whispered in a soft and smooth voices to your small ears? .......you just imagine you are them........you'll know which one's you'll listen and internalise forever !!!!

I for one is practising soft approach to my kids as opposed to the hard approach I used to practise and I'm seeing some positive results both to my kids and myself.....they tend to listen better to my instructions/requests and I tend to be more loving towards them !

What's your opinions my friends?

Sincerely Improving Every Day, For Self, For Family & For The Mankind

AMIR HAMDZAN HAMZAH

# 22 - OVERALL improvement - Challennnnnnnge !!!!

Your Greatest Enemy Is YOU !!!



It was Sept'09 the last time I wrote in this Blog, with the aim to improve on my aquarium, i.e. to make it better/cleaner/brighter !!! - the sad thing is that the aquarium has never been touched, let alone being cleaned ever since !


An even sadder reality is, that last entry was about 6 MONTHS ago !!! Wow ! Time really flies and it has left me behind. Leaving me wondering what went wrong ?


The intention was good - to improve on my life. The momentum was also good - I managed to write some decent entries and I had BIG plans ahead. Then somehow it stopped. Procrastination started to take over, leading me towards my old self.....futher confirming that OLD HABITS die really really hard !


I've been meaning to KICK START a new me, but never succeeded. And who or what to blame?


Well, I can blame many people or things....but one thing I remember from my CIMBWA days is NOT TO BLAME OTHERS because if you point 1 finger to others, you're pointing the other 3 back to yourself !!!


And the single most important thing I learn from Mahadi BZ at CIMBWA was this mantera -"CHALLENNNNNNGE !!!!!" - which is uttered in such a powerful way, starting with holding your fisted right hand up, shake it to and fro and shout it aloud, very loud, whenever you face an obstacle and insya'Allah you'll be more determined to face it head-on! (Kudos and Credit to Mahadi BZ and The Milionnaire Sisters !)


My true enemy has been MYSELF all along. And I'm not ashame to admit that. In fact I believe that this confession will make be a better/stronger person in pursuing my quest for a better life for my family.


So HERE comes the new me, re-energised and fully recharged !



Improvement Is the Key !



Amir Hamdzan