Dr Michael Leong

bigfatpurse review of dr michael leong's book.
Dr Michael Leong has recently passed away. I agree with most points in bfp's review of his book.

Wish to add that not all criteria/metrics of his philosophy can be met by the market at all points during a person's life. Time horizon is very crucial in this aspect because: are you only going to start at age 55 when everything happens to fulfill your criteria at that point in time?

Dr Michael Leong fought cancer.

Dr Leong's reply: "As shared in my article, I have been very careful with my diet and yet, I got the cancer. Hence, I doubt diet has anything to do with it. At this stage, I want to build up my body and frankly, will eat anything that I want. I know of lots of cancer patients who will swear by their new diets and I wish them well. At the end of the day, it is what you believe that is more important to you than to anyone else. 

"All of us have cancer cells in our body. In some, these develop into full blown cancer, in others, they just lurk in the background. No one knows why. Somethings we cannot explain and best not to think too hard about it and just live life as is."

R.I.P. Dr Michael Leong. Read his post on "When you have enough money..."

Money is very important when you start off in life. You need money to be comfortable in life. However, when you have enough money, you should thank your lucky stars as much of business is about luck. Also, after a while, any more money really does not make much of a difference. In fact, more money then can actually create more work, more stress and more unhappiness. Life is being contented with what you have and yearning for more may be asking for trouble.

Things Explained Simply

Click the image to see the research on whether Einstein said this.

I love the beauty of a complicated subject explained simply. But most things are simple.
It is just a few things that led to simple things explained in a confusing and difficult to grasp model.

• people want to appear smart and didn't want things they know to seem easy.
• some stuff are knowledge stacked up on top of each other (thing explainer)
• people don't know how to explain stuff simply
• people don't want to make the effort to explain stuff easily.

People who explain things well are loved by almost everyone.

Smart people can tell if you are just trying to make things seem tough. They can tolerate it now and then but sooner or later, they are not coming back to you for explanations.

Because things explained simply are more easily understood and less a waste of time.

So in exchange of you making things seem complicated, you probably lose a whole lot of chance and opportunity.

When you make things easy to understand, there is a certain flow that follows, people are able to follow along your line of thought because it is easy for them to understand at every point along the way. And it certainly makes it easier to get them excited!

Michael Porter's 5 Forces

Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun's Principles

雷军把它总结成七个字，号称七字决，即“专注、极致、口碑、快”，雷军坚信只要按照这个方法去做就会战无不胜，攻无不克。

第一是专注，很多站长有时候喜欢办一堆站，但是每个网站办得都不精，很多时候“少即是多”，其实现在像很多微博站每天没有很多更新，但是文章质量好很多，现在是信息过多，怎么样把东西做的很精致，很有价值，才是问题关键。

为了更形象解读“专注”这个词语，雷军举了一个苹果公司的例子。苹果公司成立这么多年只出过5款手机，但是为什么苹果公司的推出的手机每次都那么的抢手，其实就是因为专注的因素。据了解，深圳的三个厂一天就能出100款，但是每出一款你需要有莫名其妙的自信，如果你不自信就做100款，如果你自信就做精一款，但是这个事情是说起来容易做起来难。

雷军表示，当自己做手机的时候真的觉得大到至简的重要性，其实越简单的东西越容易传播，越难做。当大家把一个书从薄读厚，从厚读薄的过程当中就明白了简单的东西是最具力量的。在这方面乔布斯的iPhone给我们做了一个很好的示范，你不需要做几百款手机，你只需要做一款，只要坚信你的东西是最好的就具备了一个成功的前提。

第二条极致，极致就是做到你能做的最好水平，他同事也是做到别人达不到的高度。谈到极致雷军表示这同样是一个说起来容易做起来难的事。他同时举了个例子，比如PC电脑的充电器，由于每天都要用，但是整个市场上的设计都非常难看，为此他还曾当面联想的相关工作人员提过这个问题。在这一点苹果又再一次证明了自己的极致属性。

雷军同时表示，极致就是要做到别人看不到的东西，而且要做的非常好。对于外界说小米山寨iPhone的时候，自己真的不知道怎么表达，他认为伟大的作品是根本不可能抄袭的。如果小米还会被别人抄袭，那因为我们做的不够好，好的东西是不可能被抄袭的。他坦言，自己根本不怕别人山寨，虽然知道自己与极致还差距很大，但是并没有绝望，还是希望通过我们每天脚踏实地，一步一步努力，能离偶像再近一点，再近一点。

第三个要讲的是口碑。在雷军看来海底捞并不比五星级餐馆好。他认为，口碑的本质是超越用户的希望值。因为海底捞在一个很破的地方，当我们走进去的时候他超越了我们所有的期望值，我们觉得好。当我们去五星级餐馆的时候我们期望值很高，怎么可能超越呢。

他还表示自己在做小米创业的初期时候一直强调保密的重要性。当公司第一个产品出来的时候，只是在几个论坛里发了几个帖，靠“米粉”口口相传，甚至传到全世界去了，还被翻译到20几个国家版本，前年年底还有一个美国博客站提名小米公司的产品为年度产品，那个褒奖支持让雷军自己都感到汗颜。至于当很多人说我这么努力，为什么我的产品还是没有口碑啊？很简单，你的产品没有做到极致，你真的凭着老命做的吗？如果你真的做到了，我相信你能做好。

第四个就是快。雷军坚信“天下武功唯快不破”，在互联网的今天，从刚开始琢磨互联网的时候，到小米用了4年时间才做到今天规模，确实太慢了，他表示自己每天都在焦虑，希望自己可以更快一些。怎么在确保安全的情况下提速是所有互联网企业最关键的问题。有时候，快就是一种力量，你快了以后能掩盖很多问题，企业在快速发展的时候往往风险是最小的，当你速度一慢下来，所有的问题都暴露出来了。

7 Buckets of Stocks

• Aggressive Growth for counters with earnings growth of at least 15%
• Cyclical names with compelling valuations
• Special Situations stocks (buyouts/mergers /restructuring)
• Asset Plays with large discounts to underlying assets
• Steady Growth for those with a predictable steady stream of earnings growth
• Moat counters with strong franchise and competitive advantage
• Yield plays with high but sustainable dividends.

So which do you specialise in?

Pull marketing

today's world is not so conducive on push marketing but rather pull marketing. all of us are getting it every day: in facebook, twitter, instagram, whatsapp, wechat. and almost all of it are social in nature.

from seth godin:

Three changes in marketing

1. Advertising and marketing are no longer the same thing.

2. The most valuable forms of marketing are consumed voluntarily.

3. The network effect is the most powerful force in the world of ideas.

(The last assertion is based on the fact that culture changes everything about how we live our lives, and culture is driven by the network effect... society works because it's something we do together.)

Just about every big organization ignores all three. 

Schedule DAILY

So. Today I made a commitment to myself. 

Sometimes, it happens. When you first graduate or when you first embark upon your career, for the more focused, you can lose yourself to your focus and never gain it back for long periods of time. Whether be it engineering, accounting, law, medicine, any other kind of discipline, you just lose yourself and days, months, years can just pass you by. 

Until you hit your first insurmountable wall of complex difficulties. 

OR

until you hit your first career stride and you start to cruise.

Things get comfortable. Unlike when you first started on your career, you no longer have to ask basic questions on a daily basis. Colleagues start to look for your time to gain insights (or more cases, answers) from you. 

You then notice that the days start to get longer. 

You find that problems are no longer interesting and seem to follow a certain template of resolution.

You divert your attention to other things.

You have hit your Competency Plateau.

You start to realize that certain things that are important to you have fallen by the side along the way. 

You see your parents older, you have missed your children's milestones, you haven't spoken to that childhood friend of yours for 10 years and you now have a beer gut with greying hair with teeth stained and discoloured from years of cigarette smoke (maybe, maybe not).

You do a review of your life and finances: your children are still growing and time cannot be fastforwarded (neither can it be clawed back), your finances hasn't grown to the point where you can just concentrate all your focus on your family life.

What gives? 

You have been working hard on your career your entire life. But though you are ahead of your peers, it feels as though they have enjoyed and lived a better life than you did and the difference in money didn't feel like there is a difference.

You have gotten to the point where the rocks pebbles sand in jar story is most apt for you.

source: startupswami.com

So what do you do? 

You go back to the schedule. And you start with the things that are important to you and you schedule them first. DAILY.

You find the things that are important to you next. And you schedule them. DAILY.

You keep scheduling them DAILY in order of priorities in the time of the day that they are supposed to be done until your day is filled. 

And here's how it works:

1. You check your schedule DAILY and do the eaxct items scheduled for that time.

2. If you can't do it for some reason (frivolous example being stormy day not a good day to dry clothes), you either do the next item on that day's schedule or the adhoc item that just came up.

3. If an adhoc item comes up, decide if that is more important or not. Or if you are really good, check if it contributes to your life goals at all.

So. I have come back to the important things in my life that has fallen by the side this entire career and I'm going back to them. DAILY.

"The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities."
- Stephen Covey