Mental Woes Doctor

KUALA LUMPUR: Every month, at least five doctors are found to be suffering from mental illnesses, director-general of health Tan Sri Dr Mohd Ismail Merican said.

He said these doctors were either psychotic or neurotic but still managed to get into medical schools because these schools were not screening students meticulously enough.

“When the doctors complete their two-year housemanship and their applications are submitted for registration with the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC), they fail to get registered.

“Their supervisors do not certify them as fit to be registered because of indiscipline and poor attitude arising from mental health problems.

“The mental cases range from psychotic to neurotic. Psychotic cases include delusions and hallucinations, and neurotic behaviour includes anxiety, fear and anger due to the competitive environment,” said Dr Ismail.

These medical graduates, totalling about 60 cases a year, are unable to cope with their housemanship as they may have been pressured by their parents to take up medicine.

Dr Ismail said it was disheartening to note this emerging trend due to an inefficient selection process, adding that the mental cases were referred to the Medical Review Panel (MRP).

Since many of these graduates have spent a lot of money on their medical education, the MRP may extend their housemanship and at the same time send them for psychiatric treatment.

“In the event they are assigned to work, they will be thoroughly supervised and counselled by experts and given light duties until their mental condition improves.

“I am not so sure whether we can identify those with attitude problems during an interview unless such problems are obvious,” Dr Ismail said at a forum on Training Future Doctors: Have we got it right?”

About 2,000 medical doctors are registered annually from 21 local medical schools and 400 recognised schools overseas.

Different medical schools around the world have different selection criteria for their students, Dr Ismail said.

However, he said that the ministry was also planning some form of examination to check their attitude, knowledge and experience after they complete their final examination.

Most of the mentally ill students, he said, could have undergone pressure and depression while studying and faced difficulty in coping in a hospital environment.

The other weakness was a lack of proficiency in the English language.

Higher Education director-general Prof Datuk Dr Radin Umar Radin Sohadi said the ministry was currently reviewing universities’ curricula to ensure high standards in medical education and training for doctors.

“Uppermost on our minds will be the safety and well-being of patients,” he said.

Apa Nak Jadi Dengan Politeknik dan Klj Komuniti

Politeknik ditubuhkan sebagai sebuah Institusi pengajian tinggi yang bertujuan untuk melahirkan juruteknik dan pekerja mahir peringkat pertengahan untuk keperluan kilang dan industri. Sasaran pelajar yang memasuki politeknik adalah mereka mereka yang berkelepasan SPM. Namun kebanyakan yang memasuki politeknik adalah pelajar yang gagal melanjutkan pengajian ke Universiti. Jadi politeknik berfungsi sebagai penapis bagi golongan pelajar ini, manakala bagi mereka yang lain yang tidak berjaya memasuki politeknik, terdapat Institusi latihan teknikal yang lain seperti Kolej Komuniti, ILP dan IKBN. Sistem pendidikan sebegini dibuat supaya tidak ramai lepasan SPM yang tercicir.

Setiap tahun KPTM menerima lebih 100,000 pemohon daripada lepasan SPM untuk ditempatkan di seluruh IPTA. Dari jumlah ini KPTM mengambil tidak lebih daripada 20,000 untuk ditempatkan di politeknik seluruh negara. Kebanyakan kursus yang ditawarkan di politeknik adalah dari bidang teknikal seperti Kejuruteraan Awam, Elektrik dan Mekanikal. Selain dari itu terdapat juga kursus dibidang perniagaan dan perakaunan selain kursus kursus minor yang lain di peringkat sijil dan diploma. Malah baru baru ini telah dijalankan juga kursus diperingkat diploma lanjutan.

Di masa yang lalu, graduan politeknik menjadi pilihan utama kilang2 untuk mengisi jawatan juruteknik dan jawatan separa mahir. Bagaimanapun keadaan iklim ekonomi sudah pun berubah sekarang ini maka makin kuranglah peluang2 kerja untuk graduan politeknik dewasa ini. Perubahan dalam sektor industri gagal diikuti oleh politek menyebabkan graduannya tidak laku di pasaran. Dengan pengurusan politeknik yang lemah serta korup, korikulum dan silibus yang sudah ketinggalan zaman, pensyarah yang tidak cekap, mantap, mahir, tiada komitmen menyebabkan mutu graduan politeknik sekarang ini dapat dipertikaikan. Apa nak dibuat dengan pemegang sijil/diploma ini yang jelas lemah dalam komunikasi dalam bahasa malaysia dan juga bahasa inggeris, tidak paham konsep asas yang diajar di politeknik, tidak tahu bertanya soalan, belajar sendiri dan juga bersosial.

Walaupun tujuan asalnya adalah untuk membekalkan tenaga kerja separa mahir untuk industri, namun terdapat dalam 15% dari pelajar lepasan politeknik melanjutkan pengajian ke Universiti selepas tamat pengajian samada dari peringkat sijil atau diploma. Ada masalah yang timbul bila pelajar ini berada di Universiti. Dikatakan mereka tidak dapat berada seiringan dengan pelajar pelajar lain. Ramai dari mereka yang ketinggalan dan tercicir. Jurang perbezaan antara pelajar lepasan politeknik dan pelajar lain (samada dari matrikulasi atau diploma dari IPT lain) dari segi pencapaian akademik sangat besar. Banyak universiti telah highlight keadaan ini sehinggakan terdapat sebuah IPTA baru baru ini telah menutup permohonan dari pelajar politeknik disebabkan oleh kualiti graduan yang begitu rendah.

Pengalaman terbaru saya berurusan dengan pihak pengurusan atasan politeknik amat mengecewakan. Mengikut rekod pihak syarikat kami telah banyak memberi peluang untuk menjalani latihan industri atau praktikal. Antara politeknik yang terlibat ialah politeknik Ipoh, Seberang Perai, Kota Bharu dan juga Polimas. Bagaimanapun pada pertengahan tahun ini pihak kami menerima 3 permohonan praktikal dari pelajar politeknik kulim dan 5 permohonan dari Kolej Komuniti Arau. Seperti biasa semuanya berjalan lancar pada bulan pertama dan kedua latihan. Pada bulan seterusnya para pelajar mula menunjukkan sikap negatif mereka. Pelbagai masalah mula timbul, antaranya masalah disiplin, tak minta belajar, tak memberi kerjasama dan lain2 lagi.

Memang diketahui latar belakang pendidikan mereka ini yang agak lemah sebab itulah hanya diterima masuk ke politeknik dan klj komuniti sahaja. Bagaimanapun ini bukanlah alasan untuk mereka tidak berjaya dalam hidup. Semasa temuduga permohonan praktikal diadakan pihak kami telah jelaskan perkara ini. Jika para pelajar tidak yakin mereka itu boleh berjaya maka mereka tidak akan berjaya. Pemikiran yang negatif itu mungkin disebabkan oleh persekitaran keluarga, sekolah dan politeknik yang gagal memotivasikan semangat mereka untuk berjaya. Mereka hanya fikir cukup makan sahaja, belajar kat politeknik, lulus dapat diploma dan cari kerja yang ala kadar sahaja. Pemikiran yang sempit , mindset yang ketinggalan zaman menyebabkan mereka tidak nampak peluang2 besar yang lain selain menjadi seorang pekerja.

Bagi saya masalah ini menunjukkan kelemahan dan kegagalan sistem pendidikan di negara ini. Ramai pelajar yang tak nampak kehebatan masing2. Prestasi dan masa depan mereka di ukur dengan keputusan peperiksaan sahaja. Mereka tidak belajar dari sejarah yang membuktikan ramai orang yang berjaya dan kaya terdiri dari mereka yang masuk universti. Lihat sahaja Syed Mukhtar Al Bukhary, Richard Branson dan juga Bill Gate. Sebenarnya para pelajar yang tidak mendapat gred yang baik dalam peperiksaan SPM/STPM lebih mudah dibentuk dan dibimbing berbanding mereka yang lulus cemerlang yang semestinya merasakan mereka lebih pandai dan hebat.

Akan tetapi diatas kelemahan pihak pengurusan dan pensyarah Politeknik dan Klj Komuniti para pelajar menjadi golongan bodoh dan sombong. Dah la bodoh malah tak sedar diri yang mereka perlukan perubahan, perlu belajar bersungguh untuk berjaya. Para pensyarah telah gagal untuk menyedarkan diri para pelajar mengenai siapa diri mereka, apa misi dan visi dalam hidup mereka. Rata-rata pelajar yang datang untuk menjalani latihan industri tidak mempunyai matlamat hidup. Jadi apa yang mereka ada? Apa yang mereka bawa untuk menjalani latihan industri? Jawapannya tiada apa pun, kosong. Malah mereka tidak faham objektif latihan industri dan bagaimana ianya dijalankan, prosedur2 dan undang2 dan sebagainya.

Saya yakin pihak pengurusan dan juga pensyarah gagal menjalankan tanggungjawab mereka. Apabila pihak kami adukan kepada pihak berkenaan iaitu unit latihan industri, tiada sebarang tindakan berkesan dan kerjasama diberikan secara professional. Mereka bersikap acuh tak acuh, tidak serius dalam menyelesaikan masalah para pelajar , menyembunyikan masalah dan bersikap tidak ambil peduli. Akan tetapi bila para pelajar membuat aduan, mereka terus percaya bulat2 tanpa membuat sebarang siasatan. Beginilah sikap tidak bertanggungjawab kakitangan politeknik dan klj komuniti berkenaan. Kesungguhan pihak kami untuk membantu melatih pelajar berkenaan tidak dihargai langsung. Sebab itulah ramai syarikat2 swasta tidak mahu memberikan tempat kepada para pelajar politeknik dan klj komuniti untuk menjalani latihan industri kerana sikap mereka yang tidak bersungguh-sungguh untuk belajar.

Yang jelas, tak ramai syarikat yang mempunyai kemudahan lengkap untuk melatih para pelajar praktikal. Ramai pelajar yang ditempatkan di syarikat yang tidak sesuai menyebabkan mereka merugikan masa hingg 6 bulan tidak dapat belajar, tiada pendedahan kepada alam pekerjaaan dan tidah mendapat pengalaman kerja. Syarikat kami mempunyai keupayaan, pengalaman dan kemahiran untuk melatih para pelajar untuk mencapai tahap tertinggi dalam hidup mereka dengan syarat mereka bersedia untuk berubah , berminat untuk belajar dan bermatlamat menjadi seorang yang hebat dan berjaya. Malangnya para pelajar berkenaan telah sesat dalam hidup mereka, tidak tahu menilai yang mana yang betul dan yang mana yang salah. Tidak mahu keluar dari zon selesa kehidupan mereka, tidak mahu mengubah status quo, tak mahu bersusah payah mencari ilmu dan pengalaman yang baru.

Terdapat satu lagi kes yang melibatkan pengarah politeknik kulim yang emosional dan menyalahgunakan kuasanya dengan menghantar adik beliau untuk mengugut saya supaya jangan melaporkan masalah2 para pelajarnya ke Kementerian Pendidikan Tinggi. Tidak pernah lagi berlaku perkara sedemikian dalam sejarah kami melatih pelajar praktikal. Saya tidak takut tetap agak terkejut kerana seorang pengarah membuat tindakan bodoh dan bangang seperti itu. Sepatutnya beliau mengambil tindakan disiplin kepada para pelajarnya yang membuat kesalahan semasa latihan industri di syarikat kami.

Inilah akibatnya apabila kerajaan dipimpin untuk orang yang tidak patut jadi pemimpin. Kebanyakan pemilihan kakitangan awam untuk jadi ketua dan pengarah dipengaruhi oleh faktor nepotisme dan korupsi. Kakitangan yang patut jadi ketua tidak lantik dan yang tidak layak jadi ketua telah dilantik jadi ketua. Jadi untuk itu saya berpendapat perlu diadakan reformasi dalam pengurusan dan pentadbiran kerajaan.

Akhir sekali kepada pengarah politeknik kulim saya syorkan ada supaya meletak jawatan segera kalau sudah tidak berupaya menjadi pengarah, tak perlu membazirkan duit rakyat sahaja untuk membayar gaji anda. Kepada pensyarah2 berkenaan, sila buat perubahan, kerja sungguh2, perihatin masalah pelajar dan bersedia menyelesaikan masalah pelajar dengan berkesan. Kalau tidak sila letak jawatan, cari kerja lain yang lebih relak.

Perlukah Sains dan Matematik Diajar Dalam Bahasa Inggeris

Ketika Dunia Islam mengusai ilmu pengetahuan (ketika Daulah Khilafah masih wujud), orang Eropah belajar daripada orang Islam ilmu-ilmu Sains dan Matematik. Mereka belajar bahasa Arab, untuk memahami Sains dan Matematik dari orang Islam. Tetapi orang Eropah tidak menjadikan bahasa Arab sebagai bahasa ibunda mereka. Mereka mengalih bahasakan buku-buku Sains dan Matematik yang ditulis dalam bahasa Arab ke bahasa Latin.

Sehingga sekarang beberapa istilah bahasa Arab masih lagi dikekalkan dalam bahasa mereka seperti:

Chemistry (yang berasal dari Kimia),
Sugar (yang berasal dari sukkar)
Alkali (yang berasal dari alkali)
Alcohol (yang berasal dari alcohol)
Algebra (yang berasal dari aljabar)

Bahasa Inggeris hanyalah bahasa, dan bukannya suatu cabang dari ilmu Sains dan Matematik. Oleh itu, sekiranya seseorang ingin belajar membina atau mencipta kapal terbang, roket, kereta, motosikal dan komputer, beliau tidak perlu belajar bahasa Inggeris, kerana kebanyakan buku panduan bagaimana untuk mencipta kapal terbang, roket, kereta, motosikal dan komputer ada ditulis dalam bahasa Jepun, Rusia, Korea, Jerman, Perancis dan sebagainya. Malah ada Microsoft Windows versi Jepun dan Korea yang menggunakan sepenuhnya bahasa Jepun dan Korea.

Bahasa hanyalah suatu medium (perantaraan) untuk memahami ilmu Sains dan Matematik. Sekiranya seorang itu selesa untuk belajar ilmu sains dan Matematik dalam bahasa ibundanya dan bukan bahasa Inggeris, maka itulah yang paling baik baginya. Pengajaran Sains dan Matematik di Jepun dan Korea dilakukan dalam bahasa Jepun dan Korea, dan mereka lebih maju dalam Sains dan Matematik jika dibandingkan dengan negara ini di mana pengajaran Sains dan Matematik dilakukan dalam bahasa Inggeris sekarang.

Menjadikan pengajaran Sains dan Matematik dalam bahasa Inggeris tidak semestinya menjadikan pelajar-pelajar lebih faham tentang Sains dan Matematik, tetapi mungkin sebaliknya. Saya merasa amat yakin tentang penguasaan dan kefahaman tentang bahasa Inggeris pelajar-pelajar sekolah, matrikulasi dan universiti secara amnya masih rendah. Sekiranya penguasaan terhadap bahasa Inggeris masih rendah, maka adalah amat tidak wajar mengajarkan Sains dan Matematik dalam bahasa Inggeris, kerana langkah tersebut hanya menambahkan bebanan pelajar untuk memahami Sains dan Matematik, malah lebih buruk lagi, pemahaman menjadi semakin merosot. Sepetutnya pihak kerajaan perlu mengubah teknik dan cara pengajaran bahasa inggeris supaya para pelajar lebih seronok untuk belajar, berkomunikasi dan menggunakan bahasa itu secara lebih maksimum di sekolah dan juga dirumah. Para guru juga memainkan peranan yg amat penting dalam menentukan kejayaan pelajar menguasai bahasa inggeris tanpa perlu melihat kepada keputusan peperiksaan semata-mata yang selalunya gagal membuktikan pelajar yg cemerlang mendapat gred A mampu memahami dan menguasai bahasa antarabangsa itu.

Ada juga pendapat yang mengatakan bahawa kebanyakan buku-buku rujukan dan research journals ditulis dalam bahasa Inggeris, maka oleh itu perlulah mengajar Sains dan Matematik dalam bahasa Inggeris. Memang benar, kebanyakan buku-buku rujukan dan research journals bagi Sains dan Matematik ditulis dalam bahasa Inggeris, namun hakikatnya, apakah guna mengajar Sains dan Matematik dalam bahasa Inggeris sekiranya penguasaan majoriti pelajar dalam bahasa Inggeris masih amat lemah. Adalah lebih sesuai sekiranya Sains dan Matematik diajar dalam bahasa yang lebih mudah difahami oleh pelajar-pelajar (tidak kira sama ada Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin, Tamil atau Arab). Pada masa yang sama, pertingkatkan kualiti pengajaran subjek bahasa Inggereis, degan penambahan subjek bahasa Inggeris untuk Sains (English for Scientific purposes) sebagai matapelajaran yang berasingan, untuk membolehkan para pelajar membaca dan memahami sumber-sumber saintifik dalam bahasa Inggeris.

Sekiranya anda ke luar negara seperti Eropah ke negara-negara Jerman, Perancis, Sepanyol atau Itali, rata-rata mereka boleh berbahasa Inggeris, tetapi jarang mereka akan melayan anda dalam bahasa Inggeris. Mereka mungkin akan melayan anda sekiranya anda bercakap dalam bahasa mereka di negara mereka sendiri. Keadaan yang sama sekiranya anda pergi melawat Jepun dan Korea. Sekiranya anda dapat perhatikan profesor-profesor dari Jepun dan Korea memberikan syarahan dalam bahasa Inggeris, anda akan mendapati seorang pelajar sekolah menengah di Malaysia lebih fasih berbahasa Inggeris berbanding profesor-profesor ini. Adakah ini bermakna mereka gagal dalam mengajarkan Sains dan Matematik hanya kerana penguasaan bahasa Inggeris mereka lebih rendah dari pelajar sekolah menengah di Malaysia?

Hakikatnya, Bahasa Inggeris bukanlah satu-satunya Bahasa Sains dan Matematik. Bahasa, dalam konteks ini hanyalah 'container' atau 'bekas' untuk menyampaikan idea-idea Sains dan Matematik. Mana-mana bahasapun boleh digunakan sebagai 'container' bagi Sains dan Matematik selama mana idea-idea tersebut dapat difahami sebaik-baiknya oleh yang mengkajinya . Ini adalah kerana Sains dan Matematik bukanlah suatu bentuk 'hadharah' yang perlu disandarkan kepada bahasa Inggeris semata-mata. Ini berbeza dengan bahasa Arab. Tanpa bahasa Arab, banyak perkara di dalam Islam tidak dapat dipenuhi; ijtihad sebagai contoh. Bahasa Arab adalah sebahagian dari hadharah Islam. Kesinambungan dari itu, bahasa Arab, setelah Islam menguasai 1/3 dunia, telah menjadi bahasa elit – tamadun dunia itu sendiri disandarkan kepada bahasa Arab sehinggalah umat mula melalaikannya.

Hasil kajian UNESCO menunjukkan bahawa bidang teknikal memerlukan pengajaran dilakukan dengan menggunakan bahasa ibunda atau bahasa utama sesebuah negara berkenaan supaya konsep dan pemahaman dapat dimaksimumkan. Saya merasa kecewa dengan kenyataan menteri pendidikan yang mengatakan hasil keputusan UPSR tahun ini membuktikan kejayaan mengajar sains dan matematik dalam bahasa inggeris . Kalau kita melihat keputusan semata-mata mungkin kita tidak akan sedar yang majoriti pelajar yang menduduki peperiksaan itu menjawab soalan dalam bahasa malaysia. Sikap ahli politik yang tidak bertanggungjawab seperti beliau akan mendatangkan kesan yang buruk pada bangsa dan negara Malaysia di masa depan.

Apa yang dapat saya simpulkan disini ialah sekolah kita harus kembali mengajar sains dan matematik dalam bahasa inggeris untuk meningkatkan kefahaman dan penguasaan dalam bidang teknikal itu . Dan membuat perubahan kepada silibus, korikulum, teknik dan cara pengajaran bahasa Inggeris di sekolah-sekolah dan juga universiti.

Top 3 Mindsets That Every Successful Person Adopts

Everything starts from your mind. It is your belief system and your mindset that will shape your life today. If you are living a mediocre life today, it is because of the poor decision that you made in your life. And the decision you made is because of your mindset and your beliefs.

Therefore, if you want to achieve great success today, you have to start from your mind. Learn and model the mindset of successful people, and you will achieve the same amazing results just like them.

1. Every successful people are responsible. No matter what happened, successful people seem to have all the responsible for it. They will never blame the economy or someone for making their business down. Instead, they will take the responsibility by saying that it is their fault, and they have to come up with some ways to get it better. Successful people know that if you blame on others or you put responsibility on others, you will lose the power to control the situation.

2. Every successful people are committed to what they do. Success will not come automatically; it is not going to fall from the sky. You have to be committed and put on 100% commitment to achieve the things that you wanted the most in your life. A lot of people are just plainly dream about success, they hope to success, they wish to success but they never committed to success. The moment you are determined and put in 100% commitment, you will do whatever it takes to achieve what you want.

3. Every successful people have the courage to make the decision to success in their life. You know, success require courage. If there is an opportunity lies in front of you, it requires your courage to take that opportunity. This is especially true in financial success. Before you decide to start a business, you need to take the courage and to say yes to start your business. Therefore, I hope you have all the faith and courage to do what you suppose to do in order to be successful

How To Improve Your EQ ?

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is a personal quality that you possess which if you leverage can improve your on the job performance by 60% besides helping you in every other aspect of your life including your health.

Most people are aware of what EQ (Emotional Intelligence) is but suffer from the mistaken impression that this is a static quality that one is either born with or not and that it cannot be improved.

Emotional Intelligence is made up of four intelligences: self awareness, self management, social awareness and relationship management. Self Awareness

This is the ability to be conscious of your emotions as they happen.

This requires that you think about your feelings while they occur. Emotions are a cue that something that you deem important has happened in your surroundings be it with people or situations. Emotions do not arise from nowhere even though that is what some people with poor EQ might think of. By understanding where your emotional reaction is coming from and why it is coming you will be in a strong position to stay on top of your emotions. Self Management

Self Management is the follow up to self awareness.

It is acting on your self awareness and adjusting your behavior based on an awareness of your emotions. Together self awareness and self management make up the personal competence of an individual. Social Awareness

Social awareness is the ability to read other people. It is to be aware of what the other person is thinking and feeling. It is putting yourself in the other person's shoes and becoming aware of their perspective. Relationship Management

Relationship management relies on the preceding three skills and has to do with how you build and maintain interpersonal relationships. By becoming aware of your emotions and that of the other person and managing your own behavior you are in a strong position to develop and nurture relationships.

Skills To Improve Your EQ

The reason you can learn EQ skills is that your brain is plastic. It can grow new connections. Learning leaves a physical change in the brain.Every thought creates a pathway in the brain. The more often the behavior resulting from a given thought pattern is practiced the more pronounced the pathway becomes. Once the pathway is sufficiently strong the associated behavior starts occurring naturally without any conscious effort or discomfort.Building up emotional intelligence then is a matter of following certain habits.

Improving Self Awareness

It is very uncomfortable for most people to recognize and understand their feelings. Rather than face the discomfort most try to repress by avoiding them. Lean into your discomfort and confront your feelings. This is the only way to get the best of your feelings.

Improving Self Management

First reflect on what behaviors you tend to follow when faced with emotions. This will help you discover opportunities for improvement. Prepare in advance. Plan ahead for situations that will cause a behavioral problem and decide in advance on an appropriate behavior to adopt. If there are situations that you cannot plan in advance, and there will be plenty, where your emotional reaction will take you by surprise, pause before you react.Sometimes all you need is to pause for a few seconds. Sometimes you may need to wait for a couple of hours or days or even weeks.Pausing will give you a chance to think and let better counsel prevail. Another strategy is to put the situation that is causing an emotional reaction in you in perspective. Finally the most powerful determinant of our behavior is self talk. Thiis is not the talk that others can hear but the talk that we cotantly have in our minds.Whether we realize it or not we are always indulging in self talk.Done the wrong way self talk can sabotage us. Done the right way self talk is a very powerful empowering tool that strongly influences our behavior.

Improving Social Awareness

Listening is the most important skill you need to build up your social awareness.

When you listen you must stop trying to anticipate the person's point or prepare a response to send out as soon as the other person has stopped talking.

Improving Relationship Management

The quality of relationships will determine the effectiveness of your communication.

If you have a good relationship you will be able to get your point across successfully. The quality of the relationship is determined by the depth, frequency and the time spent in interactions. Emotions play a significant role in relationships. Unless the emotional aspect of a relationship is addressed not much progress can be made. So tune in to the emotions.

10 Most Common Investment Mistakes

No.1 Investing at the peak of an economic cycle

It is always easier to invest when everything is rosy, when confidence is high and when your friends tell that they are making money. Worse of all, when you join in the fray, the bubble burst, so what do you do? You decide to stay out and let the investment value ride backup to recoup your capital. The problem is if you invest at the peak of cycle, It maybe another 5 years before you could see the peak again.

No.2 Taking advise from an ‘accurate source’

Most investment losses can be attributed to following third party “hot tips” and advice without doing homework. Some even claim they had insider information of that the news came from the horse’s mouth. It sounds too good to be true, it is usually not true

No.3 Afraid to value cost when returns are negative

Value cost averaging is one strategy to average your cost and lower your investment’s breakeven point. For this strategy, you must have enough capital to value cost. You will give your investment vehicle enough time to come back up again, and most importantly, your investment vehicle must have the capability to rise in value eventually.

No. 4 Unaware of the status of investments

Many investors know exactly when their fixed deposits are maturing but have no idea when it comes to their more volatile and growth-oriented investment. Investment must be tracked more regularly than fixed income vehicles knowing their value and how they have performed over time helps you to seize opportunities to sell or accumulate more for value averaging purpose. However, do not monitor too frequently as it can cause you to panic and sell your winners too soon

No.5 Not having a required rate of return

Investors do not often set a target of return for their investment. Even if they do, they shift their targets as greed sets in, especially in bullish market. This can be dangerous as sudden event in the market can wipe out profits. What one needs to do in a bullish markets is to sell the profits when the desired rate of return is met and continue to monitor the capital for further market upsides. However, if you are new or conservative investor, it is better to realize your capital and profit once your target rate of return is met.

No.6 Not Rebalancing Portfolios (switching)

During the 2003 war of Iraq, an investor announce that his investment planner had told him to switch his equity portfolios to bond as the war could be a potential danger to his equities. I met the same investor again at the end of year 2003, he said he had lost about 15% in his bond investment in the 2003 bond market crash

Unfortunately for him, rebalancing portfolio was done a single isolated event. He had forgotten that rebalancing must be done consistently in different cycles under which specific investments are exposed to. It is a good practice to rebalance the portfolios at the most twice a year, unless a sudden expected event occur

No.7 Focus on popular investment

Investors feel comfortable when they had invested in highly published. Some of these are good investments and are worth looking into but do your homework. Check if they suit your investment goals and time frame

N.8 Focusing on guaranteed investment?

Having your capital guaranteed but you need to realize what they are guaranteeing, capital or returns? This promise of “capital guarantee” usually devices in our understanding of balancing the cost of other investment opportunities during the holding period against the security of not losing our capital at the end of tenure. Putting money into capital guaranteed fund is only suitable if you do not need the funds within the holding period and you have a diversified investment portfolio

No. 9 Not having an investment philosophy

It is just a simple statement of your style and taste. What allocations you have set, which type of risk you want to adopt and the time frame you have set to seek return in your investment portfolio . Having an investment philosophy will prevent you being overly greedy or overly fearful

No. 10 Transactional type of investment

For most of us, the only purpose of investment is to make the money. After that, what is the next, Your investment must be purpose driven, for example , to clear debts, funds a comfortable retirement or send the kids to college. Remember, greed, short term return is not a purpose

Investment Strategy During Economic Crisis

When market was high, many investors were careful and avoided jumping onto the bandwagon. Now that the market has fallen, and fallen sharply, many investors are still wary about investing. There is nothing wrong about being careful with one’s hard-earned money. Not unless our interest rate falls to 1%, like in the case of US or close to zero in Japan.
The only problem with extremely cautious investors is that they kept their money in banks most of the time. They sighed with relief for not being caught by the market. While they escaped the bear, they also missed the bull. Many Malaysians witnessed the bear and bull during the ups and downs of the economy. Nothing happened to them as they did not suffer any losses and neither did they gain anything from these cycles.

No crystal ball
Many investors were cautious because they do not have a crystal ball to predict where the bottom of the market is. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a crystal ball in the investment world.

Everyone is faced with the same dilemma. Even the professional investment fraternity cannot predict the market accurately. The only difference between a layman and a professional is that the latter is equipped with a bit more information and some knowledge about investing. But their vision is also limited.

They can only see a few feet ahead. Their vision becomes hazier further away from the target. Beyond certain circumference, they probably cannot predict what will happen. Whatever they forecast is purely based on a set of assumptions which may or may not be valid. As such, the predictions of many analysts and fund managers are nothing more than their own assumptions.

Travelling on rainy night

Investment is like travelling in the rain at night. Some may park their cars by the side of the road during thunderstorms while waiting for the rain to stop. This is especially true for those with astigmatism and poor night vision. They know they can only travel on a rainy night if they have their vision corrected.

Some will drive very carefully in the downpour due to poor condition of their wipers. They know that they are not equipped to speed before changing the wipers.

For those who are well equipped and familiar with the road conditions including the bends and nooks, they can drive on with reasonable speed. Hence, they arrive home early and safe. Getting home safely is important, but getting home early is definitely an achievement. For those who are less equipped, it is better to get someone who knows how to drive to take over the wheel.

In investment, one must be equipped with the basic investment knowledge and familiar with the investment conditions. Otherwise, the road ahead could be treacherous.

Let the savings work

The ability to grow one’s money is definitely crucial especially if we look at how inflation has eroded our savings over time. Gaining a higher return over one’s savings not only can help overcome the erosion due to inflation, it also helps to build up a higher reserve for retirement.

Most financial planners encourage people to save and save early so that the compounded return on the savings can accumulate to a substantial amount leading to financial freedom.

While it is true that early compounding is crucial to amass a pile of wealth, having a higher average return from the investment allows us to achieve the target earlier. The question is how to get our savings to work harder for us.

Crisis means opportunities

The prevailing financial crisis in US may provide the much-desired opportunities. The Chinese character for crisis means danger and opportunity. These meanings must have been coined many years ago based on the Chinese’ experience. The explanation can be seen as a clue and it has helped many successful people to make huge profit.

“Buy when markets hit the point of maximum pessimism.” — Sir John Templeton

For those who have been keeping their savings in the bank, the opportunity arises during a crisis. Their patience eventually becomes fruition. The day of recognition finally arrives and their prayer is answered. Ironically, many who have patiently kept their savings in the safe cradles become more protective of their savings and they just stood by the sidelines, watching the crisis comes and goes. It happened in the past and it is happening now and it may also happen in the future.

Market chaser — a loser

On the contrary, there are also certain groups of investors who always chase the market. They get excited whenever the market runs. They are overwhelmed whenever the bull is in town and they tail behind the bull. When the bull is gone and the bear returns, they become fearful. They hide at home and cuddle whatever balance they have in their savings.

“The public buys the most at the top and the least at the bottom.” — Bob Farrell’s Rule No 5

As a whole they put in more money during the bull market than in the bear bottom. Some even cut lost after a substantial fall in prices. In a way they “buy high and sell low”, whereas the basic rule of investment is to “buy low, then sell high” — a simple investment tenet understood by most people, but not being widely practised. Although we may not know where the bear bottom is, buying in a down market may still lead to losing money. This is definitely true. As long as the purchase is not at market bottom, it may still result in losses for the time being. This is likely to be a short-term loss but compensated by a probable long-term gain. Even if we cannot time the market perfectly, we are definitely better off to “buy low and sell high” then to “buy high and sell low”.

Prices fell but value intact

Presently stock prices have fallen sharply. Banks are trading at 1x book value, property stocks sold at 50% discount from net asset value, utility stocks trading at single-digit price-earnings ratio providing an earnings yield of more than 10% net of tax and there are many good stocks trading at dividend yield of 2x bank interest rates.While prices have fallen off the cliff, the values of these companies are still very much intact. The present financial tsunami in the US has its impact on many Malaysian companies. It will cause a slowdown in our economy and affect earnings over the next one to two years. But isn’t this part of business risk? Established and proven companies have weathered this many times as in the past and they will eventually end up bigger and stronger.

Prices may fall but the value of a good company is still very much intact. The value of a company comprises the brand name, business contacts, the team of suppliers, the network of clienteles, the internal management control, the technical skills and etc.

Warren Buffett is busy buying

Warrant Buffett, the second richest man in the world who makes his fortune from stock investment, is busy buying undervalued companies. He sees the value and he also sees prices detaching away from the intrinsic values. He said: “I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month — or a year — from now. What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turn up.”

Although we may not be able to imitate exactly what he is doing, we can still follow some of his investment strategies. There are a few strategic moves that he has employed in the current financial crisis:-

• He is able to buy those shares which he likes in the past at a huge discount to the net worth, which means his safety margin at this point is very good.

• He aims to hold the investments for several years for huge profit margin as he is unlikely to sell for a small profit.

• He does not rush in to buy, he is very selective on the stocks he bought.

• He buys gradually. Thus far, he only uses about half of the cash balance in Berkshire Hathaway, his flagship company.

While others witness the collapse of banks in the US and wonder which one will be the next to fall, Buffett discovers many cheap buys. When Alan Greespan said this is a once-in-100-years financial crisis, Buffett believes this is a golden opportunity to accumulate undervalued stocks for his collection.

Catching a falling knife

Some may argue that buying now is like catching a falling knife. If you are not careful, you may be hurt and suffer more losses from falling stock prices. There is no doubt that we may incur short-term losses as long as we do not buy at the bottom. On the other hand, who can determine where and when is the bottom. As long as there are still unknown events or hidden problems, an apparent bottom now may not be the eventual bottom. Since we do not have all the information in the market, it is almost impossible to guess where the bottom will be.

In most cases, we only realise the bottom after it is over and by that time stock prices are running high with much improved market confidence. Market bottom could be there only for a short period. In most cases, market did not stay at the bottom waiting for investors. It will just move on.

Since market moves ahead of the economy by about six months, the market bottoms out when the economy is still gloomy, news are still negative, analysts are still calling underweights and most investors are staying at the sidelines.

In the absence of a crystal ball and in order not to miss the market bottom, it will be more profitable if we learn how to catch a falling knife. The good thing about a falling knife is that, we know it is a falling knife. So, we only need to use some precautionary measures to avoid being slashed by it. Handling something we know is definitely much easier than dealing with the unknown risks, something which hits from behind without warning. When we invest during a crisis we actually go in with our eyes open. We know it is definitely risky but we also know it could also be very profitable. If we can handle the risk, the risk-reward trade-off will be very rewarding.

Emphasise strategies

What we need is to buy near the bottom, not right at the bottom. Investors’ frequent question now is when to buy, that is where is the bottom? Perhaps it is more intelligent to ask how much to buy now since nobody will be able to guess where is the market bottom. Even if someone provides advice for market timing on when to buy, how can we trust he knows the answer. He is probably doing it as a favour in order not to disappoint the enquirer with a negative answer — “I don’t know” (which is a fact, unfortunately), or he is probably guessing based on some assumptions.

Staggered buying is preferred over bullet purchase which is taking the risk of timing the market bottom. In staggered buying, a pre-determined amount will be set aside for investment over time, say in 10 equal portions.

One common method of staggered investment is dollar cost averaging, an investment scheme made in equal portions periodically, either by a small amount monthly or larger amount quarterly. There are also several variations of staggered investment.

The investment portion can be modified to x percentage of cash balance, say 10% of available cash balance. An investment of RM100,000 will start off with RM10,000 in first purchase, then RM9,000 in second purchase (ie 10% of the RM90,000 cash balance) etc. This method will stretch the money over a longer period.

Other than equal interval investment outlay irrespective of how the market performs, timing of the next staggered investment will only be made if the market dips by say 5% or by 50 points.

For more aggressive investors, a 10-equal portion of investment could be finished before market hits the bottom. This could happen if the market takes longer-than-expected time to recover. On the other hand, a more conservative investor may be investing too slowly and the market may have rebounded before he or she has invested half of the money set aside for investment. This could happen if the market rebounds faster than expected.

Anyway, staggered purchase is a preferred method to avoid the anxiety of market timing and the mixed feeling of fear of further downside and worry of missing the market rebound. As long as the market is undervalued, the strategy of staggered investment ensures that investors are in and are benefiting from the undervalued market.

15 Reasons to Become an Affiliate Marketer

There are HUGE benefits to promoting affiliate programs with your own home-based Internet business, and I've come up with a list of 15 great reasons to become an affiliate marketer.

Let's look at each reason separately:

1. No Production Costs - The cost to develop and produce a new product is prohibitive for almost anyone who wants to start a home-based business. With affiliate programs, production costs aren't an issue. The product has been developed and proven - all on the merchant's nickel.

2. Low Cost Set-up - Compared with building a brick and mortar store, starting a home-based Internet business is relatively cheap. You probably already have a desk, Internet-connected computer and word-processing software, which is all the equipment you may need.

3. No Fees for Joining or Licenses to Buy - I often compare doing business as an affiliate, with distributing a line of products in the real world. The biggest difference is that the distributor must often pay for a license to distribute products within a limited geographic region. Affiliate programs, on the other hand, are usually free to join, and geographic market reach is limited only by the affiliate's ability to promote his web site.

4. Choose From Thousands of Products and Services - What isn't sold online? That list must be shorter than the one describing all that IS sold online. There are thousands and thousands of affiliate programs selling every product under the sun. That makes it easy to find products related to your current or planned web site.

5. No Sales Experience Needed - When I started my affiliate business, I had absolutely no sales experience. That wasn't a problem, however. The companies I affiliated with provided excellent marketing material. Using their sales copy, I was able to get my first affiliate site up in less than a day.

6. No Employees - The largest expense of most businesses is employee salaries. Although there might be times when you need or want someone to work for you as an affiliate, it's doubtful you'll ever have to worry about hiring full or part-time employees. When you have a project you want to hire out, it is easy to find specialists in every computer- related field who can work for you from the comfort of THEIR own homes. You pay only for the project, and never have to worry about ongoing employee-related benefits and deductions.

7. No Expensive Merchant Accounts Needed - Setting up a merchant account for any business is a time-consuming and costly business. It's even more tedious for Internet businesses. However, merchant accounts aren't a concern when you're an affiliate. The merchant bears that cost and handles all processing of payments. You never have to lose sleep over potential chargebacks, fraud or losing your merchant account when you're an affiliate.

8. No Inventory to Carry - Even if you live in a small one- bedroom apartment, as an affiliate you can sell large items without storage concerns.

9. No Order-Processing - Forget the problems associated with collecting and storing names, addresses, credit card numbers, etc. The merchant does all that!

10. No Product Shipping - The cost and hassle to prepare and ship products to customers worldwide could be staggering. Affiliates never have to worry about packaging supplies or postal rates.

11. No Customer Service Concerns - Do you hate the prospect of dealing with nasty people or customer complaints? Don't worry about it! The merchant handles the snivelers.

12. Make Money While You Sleep - What other business allows you as a sole proprietor to keep your doors open and keep making money even when you take breaks or after you go home for the night?

13. The World at Your Doorstep - The Internet is the world's largest marketplace. You can drive more visitors to your online store in a day, than many small-town merchants sees in his or her brick and mortar business in a year.

14. Minimal Risk - The product you chose isn't making money? Dump it. Take down your links and promote another! It's that easy. There are no long-term contracts binding you to products that don't sell.

15. High Income Potential - If you have a job, your salary or hourly wage is probably pre-determined. Maybe there's not much, other than working overtime, that you can do to increase your income. With your own affiliate business on the Internet your income potential is limited only by your desire, effort and imagination.

There you have them - all the good reasons to start your own online affiliate marketing business. Start today and benefit from this incredibly simple, cost-effective business opportunity known as affiliate marketing. The time is right, and the time is now.

Top 3 Success Mindset

Everything starts from your mind. It is your belief system and your mindset that will shape your life today. If you are living a mediocre life today, it is because of the poor decision that you made in your life. And the decision you made is because of your mindset and your beliefs.

Therefore, if you want to achieve great success today, you have to start from your mind. Learn and model the mindset of successful people, and you will achieve the same amazing results just like them.

1. Every successful people are responsible. No matter what happened, successful people seem to have all the responsible for it. They will never blame the economy or someone for making their business down. Instead, they will take the responsibility by saying that it is their fault, and they have to come up with some ways to get it better. Successful people know that if you blame on others or you put responsibility on others, you will lose the power to control the situation.

2. Every successful people are committed to what they do. Success will not come automatically; it is not going to fall from the sky. You have to be committed and put on 100% commitment to achieve the things that you wanted the most in your life. A lot of people are just plainly dream about success, they hope to success, they wish to success but they never committed to success. The moment you are determined and put in 100% commitment, you will do whatever it takes to achieve what you want.

3. Every successful people have the courage to make the decision to success in their life. You know, success require courage. If there is an opportunity lies in front of you, it requires your courage to take that opportunity. This is especially true in financial success. Before you decide to start a business, you need to take the courage and to say yes to start your business. Therefore, I hope you have all the faith and courage to do what you suppose to do in order to be successful.

By following through all these top mindset of successful people, I believe that you will be able to achieve much more in your life.

How To Make Money With Your Blog?

Here's how to have a blog that makes money. As with virtually everything else in Internet marketing having a blog that makes you money is a combination of the two main Internet marketing ingredients; targeted traffic and a good, compelling offer. You can start your blog for free using blogger or one of the other free blogging platforms out there, but I don't recommend it for two main reasons.

The first reason that I would eschew free blogging platforms, such as Blogger, is that when your blog is hosted on Blogger, the domain, traffic and content is theirs, not yours. Google, who owns Blogger, really doesn't need any more free hands up, do they?

The second reason that you should steer clear of free blog hosting platforms when you're building your blog empire business is that, because of the first reason, you're not building your business, you're actually helping to build someone else's.

The first thing you should do when starting a blog that you hope will bring in a healthy income for you one day is actually plan things out. That's right; you should actually sit down for a few hours and make a business plan. That will help make sure you don't miss any of the details you'll need to be successful. Be sure you include everything, such as what the main theme of your blog will be, the monetization strategies you'll use, a financial plan, a growth plan, and an oft forgotten part of many business plans, the exit strategy.

Most highly successful blogs are tightly themed. That means they focus closely on a certain subject or niche, such as local residential real estate, working from home income techniques, '60's muscle cars, or needlepoint. This focus will help you build a core base of loyal readers and subscribers. These are very important for the immediate and long term success of your blog. In addition, having a large, vibrant subscriber list adds a large amount of value to your blog should you want to sell it. If you're having trouble choosing a theme, look for one with a large profit potential. There will be more on this later.

Decide on what you'll call your blog and get your own domain name. These are very affordable, and will help you sidestep the problems of using a free hosting platform. You will own the domain and will be free to do with it as you please. You blog will actually be an asset that you control.

The next decision you'll have to make is what blogging platform you'll use. The two largest are Movable Type and Wordpress. Wordpress is open source, meaning basically it's free. Because it's open source, many developers freely create things for Wordpress, so there are a huge number of add-ons, widgets, templates, and plugins available for it. You can even publish your Wordpress blog from your iPhone now!

Movable type is not open source, but you may still be able to get it free, as many web hosting companies offer it as part of the hosting package. It too has many different things available to enhance the functionality and appearance of blogs published with it. I've used both frequently. You can have many fantastic, and profitable blogs with either publishing system.

So you've got your blog up and you're posting to it with reckless abandon. How can you make some money for your efforts? That's sort of a balancing act. You want to blog about a topic that interests you, or keeping up an aggressive posting schedule will become very difficult. You also want to blog about a topic that is profitable, or you won't make any money.

To help find what blog subjects can earn you some decent profits, head to Google and see what keywords are going for these days. Use the free Google keyword tool in Google Adwords. You can type in keywords and keyword phrases and the tool will show an estimate of cost per click that advertisers are willing to pay for ads targeting a given keyword or phrase, and an idea of the number of advertisers that are advertising using them.

Keywords that are relatively expensive and have substantial competition mean that many advertisers are willing to pay fairly large amounts of money for those keywords. In theory that means that there is profit to be made by creating content that features those keyword phrases.

Remember that it is only an idea, and there are two schools of thought on earning money from your blog. You can try to find a narrow niche with little competition, and dominate it. The other approach is to head to a very large, but profitable niche and try to get enough traffic to skim some profit from the niche. Basically you'll either a small fish in an ocean, or a large fish in a pond. There are successful bloggers using both strategies.

Next you'll want to decide on a monetization strategy for your blog. In most cases you'll use a combination of them to bring home the bacon. The three main strategies are:

1) Sales of your own products or services
2) Affiliate marketing
3) Advertising. This is usually contextual advertising, but some bloggers are successful with other forms, such as banner ads.

With affiliate marketing you'll be paid a commission for referring a visitor to a company's site. If the person you referred does the desired action you'll earn your commission. In the majority of cases the desired action means the visitor buys something, or fills out a lead form.

Contextual advertising automatically places ads on your site that are targeted to your site by the context of your site. The ad publishers have algorithms that look at your blog and decide which of their advertiser's ads would best go with your blog's content. In most cases, you're then paid a percentage of the advertising fee when one of your visitors clicks on the link in the ad. This is known as pay per click advertising. The leader is this is Google, with their AdWords / AdSense program.

To have a blog that makes money, you need to have targeted traffic, the more the better. That is largely a function of the content. A large amount of good, original content (not content scraped form other blogger's RSS feeds). Some on page search engine optimization techniques won't hurt either, but good, high quality content will get you both search engine visitors, and repeat traffic from people that just want to read your stuff.

Make sure you target the proper keywords in your posts and post titles. You're looking for profitable keywords that have relatively low competition. By optimizing for words and phrases people are actively searching for, you'll do better in the search engine rankings, and you'll be giving your readers exactly what they were looking for. That double whammy is a true recipe for blog money making success.

What's The Secret To Building Real Wealth

What would your life be like if you doubled your income this year? What if you doubled your income AND you doubled the time you spend doing what you love with the people you love?

How can you go from dream to reality?

Think it's impossible in this economy? It's not! In every shift of the economy -- down or up -- there are winners and losers.

Even in the Great Depression, people came out new millionaires. Today will be no different.

The Secret You Need To Know
The key to being successful in life and with your business is focus.

Focus? What am I talking about?

The key to being truly successful is knowing how and where to focus your time and efforts. For example, just yesterday I was talking with someone who sells fiber optic cables and computer hardware. He wanted to know if I thought it was a good idea to diversify and try to resell self-improvement programs online.

Here was someone who was doing fairly well with one business and about to take his eye off his primary source of income and try something he knew nothing about. Bad idea!

If you want to be successful, the key is finding something you're good at and focusing your efforts to help people...and become rich doing it.

For example, every successful business owner knows they need a marketing strategy to attract new clients and make more money. But most don't know how and where to focus their marketing. They try a little of this and a little of that and get little in the way of results.

Knowing how and where to focus your efforts is the key to success.

With a proven system for getting prospects' attention, generating leads, converting leads to clients, maximizing sales and generating repeat sales you can easily double your income while cutting your time on the job in half (or even more).

4 Options For Achieving Your Dreams
Try copying what others are doing This could work. Anything is possible but most new businesses fail. Even if you try copying one that appears to be making money, it's impossible to know what's working for them and what's not. You could easily end up copying one of their failed strategies.

Wait for lightning to strike in the form of a revolutionary product or service and then hope you get featured on Oprah. Your odds are slim but again, this could happen. Counting on it would be a mistake.

Maintain a positive attitude
I'm sure you've heard it before: your chances of success are higher when you focus on creating opportunities...but at some point you're going to need more than just a positive attitude. You're going to need guidance and tools to reach your dreams.

Find a proven system, one that shows you exactly how to become a sought after expert, how to grow your business, and how to maximize your profits so you have a steady stream of leads, sales and profits (so you can make more money).

RM1 billion up for grabs by shoplifter

MALAYSIAN shopkeepers, department stores and others in the retail industry will be faced with a RM1 billion loss -- to theft by customers, employees and even suppliers.

Half of it, or RM500 million, will be lost to shoplifters while employees will steal goods worth nearly RM200 million.

A survey on shoplifting estimated that suppliers will also shortchange their clients by nearly RM80 million in the amount of goods invoiced but not delivered.

The RM1 billion loss is estimated to occur in the 12 months to June next year, and represents a 15 per cent increase from a year earlier.

"This is a very conservative projection. It could be worse," managing director of Checkpoint Systems Sales (M) Sdn Bhd, Polly Tan, says.

Checkpoint in Malaysia is a subsidiary of US-based Checkpoint Systems Inc, sponsor of the Global Retail Theft Barometer 2008. The survey was conducted by the Centre for Retail Research.

The industry term for retail theft is retail shrinkage.

Findings from the Global Retail Theft Barometer were released recently for the period between July last year and June this year.

The survey, carried out in 36 countries, revealed that global retail shrinkage for the July to June period amounted to US$105 billion (RM378 billion).

Of this, retail shrinkage in Asia-Pacific covering countries like Australia, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, amounted to US$15 billion.

In Malaysia, 18 retailers with a 252-store network and a combined sales of US$1.2 billion participated in the survey.

As a percentage of total sales, retail shrinkage in Malaysia was 1.53 per cent -- the fifth highest among the 36 countries surveyed.

What do Malaysians steal?

Top on the list are apparel and accessories, followed by auto parts and hardware products.

These were followed by cosmetics, perfume and health and pharmaceutical items.

This was followed by employee theft at 22.5 per cent (US$58 million) and supplier or vendor theft at nine per cent (US$23 million).

The remaining 19.2 per cent of financial loss amounting to US$49 million was due to administrative errors.

More preventive measures should be taken to control this, for example, using source tagging and surveillance system to help monitor internal systems, Tan says.

"With the release of the data, retailers are now aware of the source of theft and can boost efforts to enhance security."

Retailers have, in fact, indicated that they want to invest further as more people are stealing.

She says security cost in Malaysia was US$34 million last year but investments could increase this year.

Thinking Out Of The Box

Improve the Quality of Your Thinking
Human beings are mental organisms. Everything we are or ever will be, will be as the direct result of the way we think. If we improve the quality of our thinking, we must improve the quality of our lives. And, there is no other way to do it.

Youth and Creativity
In one series of I.Q. tests given to children age 2 - 4 years, 95% of the children were found to be highly creative with curious, questioning minds and an ability for abstract thinking.

When the same children were tested again at age 7, only 5% still demonstrated high levels of creativity. In the ensuing years, they had learned to conform; "If you want to get along, you had better go along," is what they had discovered.

The Dangers of Conformity
They had learned to color between the lines, to sit in neat little rows, to do and say what the other kids did and said, and to do as they were told. Over time, they lost the wonderful fearless spontaneity of youth and learned to suppress ideas and insights that were unusual or different.

Aggressively Seek New Ideas
Most of us have had similar experiences. The "Not invented-here" syndrome in many large companies is simply the adult version of "not rocking the boat." But fortunately, since creativity is your birth right, a fundamental part of your nature, you can tap into it at any time, no matter how long it has been since you really used it.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to start thinking outside of your mental box.

First, imagine that there was a vastly better, cheaper, faster way to do your job - and somebody else had already discovered it and was going to put you out of business.

Second, imagine doing exactly the opposite of what you are doing today. Allow your mind to float freely and consider how current trends will change your business.

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The Law of Investing

The Law of Investing - investigate before you invest. This is one of the most important of all the laws of money. You should spend at least as much time studying a particular investment as you do earning the money to put into that particular investment.

Check Every Detail
Never let yourself be rushed into parting with money. You have worked too hard to earn it and taken too long to accumulate it. Investigate every aspect of the investment well before you make any commitment. Ask for full and complete disclosure of every detail. Demand honest, accurate and adequate information on any investment of any kind. If you have any doubt or misgivings at all, you will probably be better off keeping your money in the bank or in a money market investment account than you would be speculating or taking the risk of losing it.

Money is Easy to Lose
The first corollary of the Law of Investing is: "The only thing easy about money is losing it." It is hard to make money in a competitive market but losing it is one of the easiest things you can ever do. A Japanese proverb says, "Making money is like digging with a nail, while losing money is like pouring water on the sand."

The Best Rule of All
The second corollary of this law comes from the self-made billionaire, Marvin Davis, who was asked about his rules for making money in an interview in Forbes Magazine.

He said that he has one simple rule and it is, "Don't lose money." He said that if there is a possibility that you will lose your money, don't part with it in the first place. This principal is so important that you should write it down and put it where you can see it. Read it and reread it over and over.

Time Equals Money
Think of your money as if it were a piece of your life. You have to exchange a certain number of hours, weeks and even years of your time in order to generate a certain amount of money for savings or investment. That time is irreplaceable. It is a part of your precious life that is gone forever. If all you do is hold on to the money, rather than losing it, that alone can assure that you achieve financial security. Don't lose money.

Be Smart About Investing
The third corollary of the Law of Investing says: "If you think you can afford to lose a little, you're going to end up losing a lot."

There is something about the attitude of a person who feels that he has enough money that he can afford to risk losing a little. You remember the old saying, "A fool and his money are soon parted." There's another saying, "When a man with experience meets a man with money, the man with the money is going to end up with the experience and the man with the experience is going to end up with the money." Always ask yourself what would happen if you lost one hundred percent of your money in a prospective investment. Could you handle that? If you could not, don't make the investment in the first place.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to apply this law immediately:

First, think back over the various financial mistakes you have made in your life. What did they have in common? What can you learn from them? Accurate diagnosis is half the cure.

Second, invest only in things that you fully understand and believe in. Take investment advice only from people who are financially successful from taking their own advice. Play it safe. It's better to hold onto your money rather than to take a chance of losing it, along with all the time it took you to earn it.

Multinationals in Penang preparing for the worst

GEORGE TOWN: US-based multinational companies (MNCs) in Penang are adopting various cost-cutting measures as they brace for the anticipated impact from the global meltdown.

Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers northern branch chairman Datuk O.K. Lee said several factories have shortened their working days from five to four days.

“Some have frozen employment while others have shut down operations for Christmas and New Year,” he said, adding that a few companies are quietly offering a voluntary separation scheme.

A check revealed that at least two electronic giants here – Agilent Technologies and Jabil Circuit – will shut down their factories in Bayan Lepas for Christmas and New Year.

Employees have been asked to take their annual leave for about a week because of a drop in product demand.

“The global directive is a two-week shutdown but individual plants need not follow strictly. I think precautionary measures like these should be able to help cushion the impact,” said an executive of one of the affected factories.

“Most of my colleagues are happy to go on a break first before we ponder over the future,” she said, adding that the last time the multinational company had a year-end shutdown was during the last economic slowdown.

A Jabil employee said the company’s shutdown would take place from Dec 24-30.

“Usually, our Christmas break is one or two days only.”

An ASE spokesman said the company was shutting down for four days in November and December while a Fairchild Semiconductor employee said the factory would be closed from Nov 21-24.

Between 35% and 50% of the MNCs here have their headquarters in the United States and over 60% of the products made are US-bound, according to an industry insider.

“We are experiencing low export demand. Some MNCs are taking the opportunity to conduct their usual attrition exercise,” he said, noting that the first and second quarters of next year is expected to be “very soft”.

Commenting on the impact of the global credit crunch on the country’s technological sector, US ambassador to Malaysia James Keith said it was “very difficult to predict”.

“The global picture is dark. Even for the United States, we cannot make a prediction (of what’s going to happen). Obviously with slower global flows, bilateral trade will also fall.

“Every company is under pressure to reduce costs. We all have to tighten our belts. The United States has not seen such a situation in a quarter of a century.

“Companies would rather look at measures to reduce cost than lay off employees so hopefully the Federal Government can help us,” he said, adding that the United States was committed to ensuring a “sense of confidence” in Malaysia.

“But there must be give and take in bilateral trade. That is why we hope to conclude the final rounds of negotiations over the Free Trade Agreement soon.”

“US companies are always looking to reduce cost. No doubt this year, Malaysia has been getting many contracts but the future will depend on the decisions made today,” he said, adding that every country has to continuously re-evaluate itself to attract investors.

He was speaking at a press conference after the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce Penang annual summit with Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng yesterday.

Robert Kyosaki's Advice to Entrepreneurs

"We go to school to learn to work hard for money. I write books and create products that teach people how to have money work hard for them." - Robert Kiyosaki

"I retired at 32," says Jason Wells, thanks to what I read in Robert Kiyosaki's books. "A friend of mine introduced me to Rich Dad, Poor Dad." Wells sees Kiyosaki's books as a "real road map to financial freedom." He states "if you look at Rich Dad, Poor Dad's Cashflow Quadrant and Rich Dad's Guide to Investing, there is a tremendous amount of valuable information . . . (that) I have analyzed and actually applied these concepts to get retired." Wells has analyzed these steps:

What the poor and middle-class and wealthy buy on payday is different.
Brilliant Compensation: Understand why wealth comes to those willing to help others.
Rich Dad Business: Robert Kiyosaki, author of bestselling Rich Dad Poor Dad, offers his advice on where the average person should start to build wealth.

Wells finds this information above the most helpful Kiyosaki offers, but entrepreneurs have found Kiyosaki's advice to invest in real estate most useful. Buying real estate is "good debt." It makes you money--as Kiyosaki says "Most investors say 'Don't take risks.' The rich investor takes risks."

Kyosaki and Donald Trump wrote Why We Want You to Be Rich because entrepreneurs need to change how they think about money. Thoughts lead to actions and actions lead to results. The successful leverage their time by using the resources around them (including employees). Business owners set up systems in many enterprises. Selling the systems (or businesses) frees them to build more assets--or as Kiyosaki puts it, "The rich build assets they use to purchase other assets. The poor only have expenses."

If you do not have a lot of experience, Kiyosaki suggests investing in network marketing. The education programs will train you and the business is meant to help many owners become wealthy. Kiyosaki sees it as a better paradigm " Inside of every problem lives an opportunity." Traditional business education is built on only one or two people succeeding on the backs of others. Don't learn the academic models of business success. Learn the financial wisdom of the wealthy. Kiyosaki says "Fortune favors the prepared mind."

Both wealthy men want you to learn new ways of thinking about money--key to putting the goals and ends you desire in motion. "If you can grasp the idea that money is not real, you will grow rich faster."

Seems awfully philosophical? Get reading and see a way to wealth. "Your future is created by what you do today," Kiyosaki has written. Who would argue with someone whose books have been 4 years on the bestseller lists?

Bruce Willis sues Petra, Tunku Imran as green venture turns sour

LOS ANGELES, Nov 21 — Hollywood actor Bruce Willis of “Die Hard” fame is suing Malaysia’s Petra Group and Tunku Imran Tuanku Ja’afar over a “green rubber venture”, Bloomberg news reported today.

The actor is demanding the return of US$900,000 (RM3.2 million) of the US$2 million he invested in the venture.

According to court papers filed in federal court in Los Angeles, California, Petra's chief executive Datuk Vinod B. Shekhar and Tunku Imran had induced him to invest in a company that was developing a non-toxic and recyclable rubber.

Willis had a put option, whereby for a specified period time he could get a full refund of his investment, according to the complaint. He exercised the option on March 17, Willis said, according to the Bloomberg report.

Willis said in his filing that he was told former US Vice-President Al Gore and actor Mel Gibson had also invested in the company, Elastomer Technologies Ltd.

"Despite the defendants' obligation to immediately refund Willis' investment in April 2008, the defendants continued to provide different specious excuses for the retaining of Willis' funds," the actor said in the complaint, quoted by the Bloomberg report.

Andrew Murray-Watson, a spokesman for Kuala Lumpur-based Petra, told Bloomberg in the report that Willis was due to be repaid the remaining US$900,000 in the next couple of weeks.

"We're very surprised Mr Willis is taking this action," Murray-Watson said in a phone interview.

According to an earlier Bloomberg report, Green Rubber Global Plc, named then as the Malaysian tyre-recycling group partly owned by actors Gibson and Willis, could sell shares in London by the year-end if the market condition improves.

The report said the company was looking to raise between US$20 million and US$50 million in a pre-IPO fund-raising.

Bloomberg reported that Green Rubber was expanding its existing plant in Kuala Lumpur and planned to lease a facility in China or scout for a partner in the north Asian nation.

It was also reported that the company is set to tie up with US rubber product manufacturer Apachi Mills, which supplies to retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

The company is said to be able to make rubber compound through its recycling process at a cheaper cost than creating new compounds, saving costs and the environment.

Email From Stephen Pierce

Hey zen,

Yes, it's true!

None of us were brought up to earn on the
Internet. We weren't taught it in schools,
or by our parents.

In fact, you might say that we were all
"pretty much" taught the same way... which
was to grow up... get a job, or... go to
college and build a career.

Trading your time to work for dollars is
the American way. Or at least it has been...
This email's purpose is to get you familiar
with what is happening now.


A smart person will have an open mind.
However, this doesn't mean that you have
to be gullable to everything that is out
there.

It doesn't hurt to educate yourself... nor
does it hurt to talk with some people who
are already earning income via the Internet.

You have the right to say "no", as much as
you have the right to say "yes".

Don't get conned, instead... get educated.
It's only when people start spending a lot
of money, that they feel like they've been
scammed.

Our advice to you is to look before you leap,
but while you're looking, look deep.

Don't glance at the cover of a book and make
a quick decision.. instead, .. roll up your
sleeves and do some scratching beneath the
surface.

You may really like what you see, and it may
open new paths in your mind to a new way of
business, or... It may steer you into a whole
different direction.

But the only way to find out is to try. If
you don't try... well then... that is when
you lose in more ways than just your finances.

Do you agree that getting educated is an
important thing for you to be doing right
now? Let me know.


Sincerely,

Stephen Pierce
CEO & Founder
Stephen Pierce International, Inc.
support@piercesuport.com
Toll Free 866-272-1410

Wealth Is Created With An Idea

You can have all the money you want, if you know how to make use of an idea.

Every money making opportunity starts with an idea. The monitor screen you are looking right now, the keyword in front of you, the internet browser software you are using to read this article, even the blog and the post you are reading right now, was once an idea in somebody’s mind.

Let’s face it, everyone wants to be rich, everyone wants to be a millionaire and everyone wants huge money. The main problem with most people is that they don’t know how they can create the wealth that they desire.

Have you ever heard of this guy called Moe Siegel? Moe is the founder of the Celestial Seasonings tea. Before he created all his wealth, when he was picking seeds and herbs, he would tell his fellow friends, “Someday I’ll have a tea company to rival Lipton.” Everyone always said, “Yeah, sure, sure.”

Well, he started by selling his little teas to health food stores. Then he began expanding, and before long he was selling them to every chain in America.

The moral of the story is this, did Moe start with money? Did he start out with big factory or warehouse? Did he have a giant corporation behind him? Was he negative?

The answer to all the questions above is NO! So what does this mean? It means that creating wealth start from an idea, a vision, a goal, or a dream.

If you don’t believe this, simply read the biography of every successful person and you will find that they all started with absolutely nothing. In fact, many of them started broke. All they have is an idea and a vision of making it big.

If you are going to be a millionaire, you must start with an idea, nurture it, cherish it like helpless little baby. It will grow. You’ll have other idea flash into your mind that will tell you how to can do it. Then you do it!

This is the real secret how to create wealth!

Do you still skeptical about the statement that wealth is created from an idea or a vision?

After going through this favorite story from Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, I believe that you’ll agree with the statement…

It’s wintertime in Cincinnati long ago. A cold wind chills the crowds hurrying along the busy street. A young boy, at the age of around 11, has stopped outside the building that houses the city’s newspaper, the powerful and respected Cincinnati Enquirer.

One figure particular has caught his eye: a burly man in shirtsleeves seated at a central desk. An unlighted cigar is clamped between his teeth. His desk bristles with scraps of typescript impaled on spikes. Papers overflow from wire baskets. But power emanates from that desk, and the boy in the street can sense it. He knows that this man is in command.

A policeman saunters past, twirling his nightstick. And the boy turns to him, and ask, “Officer, who is that man in there? The one with the eye shade and the cigar?”

“Him?” The policeman answers. “He’s the editor, sonny. The editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer, that’s who he is.”

The policeman moves on. Finally the boy goes down the street, looking just as he did before. But he is not the same as before. He is changed. He’s no longer aware of the cold wind or the hurrying crowds around him. Inside his head a scene is forming - not just a vague or casual daydream, but a vision of the future that has all the reality, all the intensity of the present.

Intuitively, the boy knows that sooner or later what he is visualizing will come to pass. He is sure of it. The scene in his head is a replica of the scene he has just witnessed behind the plate-glass window, with one all-important change. The occupant of the editor’s chair, thirty years hence, is himself.

This boy is Roger Ferger, a poor youngster with no connections, no advantages, nothing except an image so powerful that it will bend all the laws of probability until they conform to an even stronger, though hidden law.

This is how you can create wealth, with an idea and a vision in your mind. Ideas are everywhere. Once an idea comes across your mind, write it down. If you think that you’re not creative enough and you don’t have any money making ideas, don’t worry, a vision will do the job.

So do you have a vision? Have you ever came across a sport car on the road that truly caught your attention, and then you said to yourself, “One day I’m going to own it.”

Well, that is a vision. I believe that everyone here has a vision. If you think that you don’t have any vision, it is most probably because you’re not aware of it.

Pay close attention to what you think everyday. Find out what you really want in your life, look for your vision and start to develop that idea.

Having an idea of generating wealth is not enough, you need to focus all your energy on making that idea or vision comes true. Too many people dangling in nowhere because they just dream of becoming rich, but they never really take action to make their dreams come true.

Remember, nothing is going to happen automatically. There are reasons for everything that happens in your life. So make the dreams of yours, the ideas in your head, the vision and the goals you had in your mind the reasons for you to be rich.

Problems Are Opportunities In Disguise

“I’ve got a problem.”

The young man had just come up to Dr. Norman Vincent Peale on Fifth Avanue in New York City, grabbed him by the lapels and said, “Dr. Peale, please help me. I can’t handle my problems. They’re just too much.”

Dr. Peale said, “Look, I’ve got to give a talk. If you’ll let go of my lapels, I’ll show you a place where there are people with no problems.”

The man said, “If you could do that, I’d give anything to go there.”

Dr. Peale said, “You may not want to go there, once you see the place. It’s just 2 blocks away.”

They walked up to the Forest Lawn cemetery and Dr. Peale said, “Look, there are 150,000 people in there. I happen to know that none of them has a problem.”

This is one of Dr. Peale’s favorite stories. There are ‘problems’ anywhere in our life. Unless you’re dead, you’ll face with problems everyday. The thing is, problems are a sign of life. If you have a big problem, be thankful for it. It proves that you’re still alive and functioning.

Some say, in fact, that the best way to judge a person is by the size of the problems he or she has. So you see, it is all about dealing with problems. If you know how to deal with problems effectively, you can achieve much more in your life.

Problems are often opportunities in disguise. Let me tells you another great real-life story about dealing with problems and having the lack of confident in life. This story, happened on one of the great author and self-help guru, Mark Victor Hansen (the author of Chicken Soup For The Soul) and a guy named Malcolm.

Mark was given a talk in Vancouver, a few years ago, and he happened to notice a man sitting in the front row who had the most mangled face he’d ever seen. He had stitches all the way across his face. One eyelid was stitched shut. Even his mouth was three-quarters stitched shut.

Mark remembers when he was talking about the importance of hugging, and at the break Malcolm came up and hugged Mark. With a raspy voice he said, “My name’s Malcolm.” Mark could tell from Malcolm’s tone that he expected to be recognized, but if Mark had seen him before, he didn’t know where or when.

He said, “I’m the guy who wrote you that letter.” He started telling Mark about it, and Mark remembered immediately. He had written that some ten years ago, he and his fiancee had been walking one weekend through the north woods of British Columbia minding their own business.

Somehow they had gotten between a mama bear and her baby cubs. The mama, just wanting to protect her cubs, had grabbed hold of his fiancee. Malcolm is just 5 feet 2 inches tall and the bear was enormous, but he felt courage and managed to disentangle his fiancee, whereupon the mama bear grabbed him and proceeded to crush every major bone in Malcolm’s body.

She finished by sinking her claws in his face and ripping straight across it, back toward the scalp.

It’s amazing that Malcolm lived. He was in restorative surgery for the next 8 years. By that time the doctors had done all the cosmetic surgery they could do. It hadn’t helped much, and he saw himself as an ugly person. He didn’t want to expose himself to society.

So he went in his wheelchair to the tenth-floor roof of his rehabilitation center and was ready to push himself over the edge when his father appeared. His father had heard an intuitive voice telling him to go see his son.

Just in time, his father came running up to the top of the stairs and said, “Wait a second, son.”

Malcolm turned around in the wheelchair. “What, Dad?”

His father said, “Malcolm, every human being has scar tissue deep inside him somewhere. Most of us wear it under a smile, some cosmetics and nice attire. You get to wear yours on the outside. But we’re all the same.”

Malcolm could no longer thrust himself off that building.

A short time later a friend of his brought him tapes of Mark’s public appearances. He started listening and heard the story Mark tells of Paul Jeffers, who lost his hearing at age 42 and has now become one of the most outstanding salesmen in the world. Mark heard it when Paul said, “Setbacks are given to ordinary people to make them extraordinary.”

Malcolm said to himself, “That’s me, I am extraordinary!”

He wrote down what he wanted to do. He dreamed about it and told everyone about it. Then he went out and got a job in insurance sales, a job where he has to expose his appearance to people everyday. He puts his picture on his business cards, hands them to people and said, “I’m ugly on the outside, but I’m beautiful on the inside if you just get a chance to know me.”

In 1987, Malcolm became the number one insurance agent in Vancouver. Fate had dealt him a terrible hand to play. But he turned it into a golden opportunity.

You see, what Malcolm learned was that his looks weren’t his problem. It wasn’t his appearance that held him back. That was just an excuse. In life, one has excuses or results. It was his vision of himself that was the problem. If he saw himself as beautiful. Then he was beautiful.

Once Malcolm ’saw’ what he really looked like, his scars became irrelevant. Once he broke through his fears by opening himself up to others, he was able to move forward with astounding results. So can you.

This is an inspiring story. Do you dare to fail? Do you have what it takes to achieve the things that you want in your life?

Or do you give excuses and not doing anything to achieve your dreams? All the problems happen on you are problems only because you ’see’ them as problems. If you ’see’ them as opportunities, then they will become opportunities.

When something bad happen on you, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to fail. Sometimes when something bad happens, it turned out to be an opportunity.

I hope this story inspired you and drove you into taking more action to create a better life. Remember, problems are opportunities in disguise, you need to have problems to prove your ability and show that you’re still alive.

Investing In Global Economic Crisis

A lot of investors lose their money for different reasons but to stay on top of the market you have to be a knowledge investor. The question you will ask me is that who is a knowledge investor? A knowledge investor is someone who understands the stock market. He is willing to read books and articles on investment, he goes for investment seminars at least twice in a year, he takes into consideration the news and the events particular to the stock exchange. The reason investors lose their money could be as follows;

Greed

If you buy a stock for $5 an your goal is capital appreciation and you set your exit strategy for 100% returns on investment, then you have to discipline yourself to sell the stocks at $10. Always act on your exit strategy if you want to be an intra day trader

Lack of investigation;

Before buying a stock always investigate about the stock. Find out the last time they release their earnings result, the current price compared to the 52 weeks high, management, product creation if there is any, the latest news and reports coming from the company, the quarterly result etc.

Buy stocks during the bearish period;

The best time to buy stocks is when prices are low and current global financial crises are an opportunities to buy stocks for long-term purposes. The reason why the bearish period presents itself as an opportunity to buy is because most of the listed companies are selling far below their 52weeks high.

Lastly hold on to stocks during the bearish period don't sell your stock until the bullish period returns to the market.

10 Rags to Riches Billionaire

Feeling the need for a little inspiration on the road to wealth building? I always love to read about people who have beat the odds and made a dramatic rise in their financial situation.
What follows are the stories of 10 billionaires who started with nothing and now have it all.

Ingvar Kamprad
Net worth: $31 billion
World’s richest retailer and founder of furniture store Ikea.
Kamprad began to develop a business as a young boy, selling matches to neighbors from his bicycle. He found that he could buy matches in bulk very cheaply from Stockholm, sell them individually at a low price and still make a good profit. From matches, he expanded to selling fish, Christmas tree decorations, seeds and later ball-point pens and pencils. When Kamprad was 17, his father gave him a reward for succeeding in his studies. He used this money to establish what has grown into IKEA.
The acronym IKEA is made up of the initials of his name (Ingvar Kamprad) plus those of Elmtaryd, the family farm where he was born; and the nearby village Agunnaryd.
Kamprad has admitted that his dyslexia played a large part in the inner workings of the company. For example, the Swedish-sounding names of the furniture sold by IKEA were originally chosen by Kamprad because he had difficulty remembering numeral stock-keeping units.
Reputed to be quite frugal: flies economy class, frequents inexpensive restaurants, furnishes his home with Ikea ware.

Li Ka-shing
Net worth: $26.5 billion
Li fled turbulent China in 1940 and resettled in Hong Kong. Li’s father died in Hong Kong.
Shouldering the responsibility of looking after the livelihood of the family, Li was forced to leave school before the age of 15 and found a job in a plastics trading company where he labored 16 hours a day.
By 1950, his hard work, prudence and his pursuit of excellence had enabled him to start his own company, Cheung Kong Industries. From manufacturing plastics, Li led and developed his company into a leading real estate investment company in Hong Kong that was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1972.

Roman Abramovich
Net worth: $23.5 billion
Orphaned at age 4, Abramovich was raised by his uncle and grandmother. He dropped out of college and eventually made a fortune after taking over Russian oil giant Sibneft, which he later sold.
Roman, was gifted with a talent for business and being in the right place at the right time as he started his career as an entrepreneur just as Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms permitted the opening of small private businesses.
He began his business career selling plastic ducks from a grim Moscow apartment but, within a few years, Abramovich’s vast wealth spread from oil conglomerates to pig farms, and secured his place within Yeltsin’s inner circle. However, even today, his task force of bodyguards and armoured Mercedes testify to the high-risk nature of capitalism in post-Soviet Russia.

Sheldon Adelson
Net worth: $26 billion
The son of a Boston cabdriver, he borrowed $200 from an uncle to sell newspapers at age 12. Later, he dropped out of college to become a court reporter. Now a casino and hotel magnate, Adelson took his Las Vegas Sands public in December 2004.
He worked at a young age selling newspapers on local street corners and owned his first business by the time he was twelve. In the years that followed, he worked as a mortgage broker, investment adviser and financial consultant. He started a business selling toiletry kits, and in the 1960s he started a charter tours business with two friends. He went to college at City College of New York but did not complete a degree there.
The basis for Adelson’s wealth and current investments was the computer trade show COMDEX, which he and his partners developed for the computer industry; the first show was in 1979. It was the premier computer trade show through much of the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1988, Adelson and his partners purchased the Sands Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, the former hangout of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack, in order to bring Las Vegas to a new phase of business centricity through the exhibition industry.

Amancio Ortega
Net worth: $20.2 billion
Son of a railway worker Ortega apparently got started as a clerk in a shirt store. With $25 and help from his then wife Rosalia Mera, now also a billionaire, he began making gowns in his living room.
In 1975 he opened the first store in what would grow into the enormously popular chain of fashion stores called Zara.

Kirk Kerkorian
Net worth: $16 billion
Son of Armenian immigrants, he dropped out of school in the eighth grade and took up boxing.
Kirk Kerkorian was born on June 6, 1917 in Fresno, California, to Armenian immigrant parents. Dropping out of school in 8th grade, he became a fairly skilled amateur boxer under the tutelage of his older brother, fighting under the name “Rifle Right Kerkorian” to win the Pacific amateur welterweight champion.
After the war, having saved most of his wages, Kerkorian spent $5,000 on a Cessna. He worked as a general aviation pilot, and made his first visit to Las Vegas in 1944. After spending much time in Las Vegas during the 1940s, Kerkorian quit gambling and in 1947 paid $60,000 for Trans International Airlines, which was a small air-charter service which flew gamblers from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
He then bid on some war surplus bombers, using money on loan from the Seagrams family. Gasoline, and especially airplane fuel, was in short supply at the time, so he sold the fuel from the planes’ tanks, paid off his loan - and still had the airplanes. He operated the airline until 1968 when he sold it for $104 million to the Transamerica Corporation.
Later, he made billions buying and selling movie studio MGM. Today his MGM Mirage owns more than half the hotel rooms on the Las Vegas Strip.
“I just lucked into things. I used to think that if I made $50,000 I’d be the happiest guy in the world.” Kirk Kerkorian

Oprah Winfrey
Net worth: $2.5 billion
Born in rural Mississippi to a poor unwed teenaged mother, and later raised in an inner city Milwaukee neighborhood, Winfrey was raped at the age of nine, and at fourteen, gave birth to a son who died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19.
Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.
Winfrey became a millionaire at age 32 when her talk show went national. Because of the amount of revenue the show generated, Winfrey was in a position to negotiate ownership of the show and start her own production company. By 1994 the show’s ratings were still thriving and Winfrey negotiated a contract that earned her nine figures a year.
Considered the richest woman in entertainment by the early 1990s, at age 41 Winfrey’s wealth crossed another milestone when with a net worth of $340 million, she replaced Bill Cosby as the only African American on the Forbes 400. Although blacks are 12% of the U.S. population, Winfrey has remained the only black person wealthy enough to rank among America’s 400 richest people nearly every year since 1995.

Micky Jagtiani
Net worth: $2.5 billion
Jagtiani flunked out of accounting school in London and took up driving taxis and cleaning hotel rooms to pay the bills and support a bottle of whiskey a day habit. He then lost his entire family to illness in the span of one year.
Just 21 and alone in Bahrain with $6,000 of his and his family’s savings, he took over the retail space his brother had leased before dying of cancer and started selling baby products. Chain is now one of the most profitable retail groups in the Middle East.
Thirty years after he landed up in Bahrain the Dubai-based CEO of Landmark group has built himself one the largest and most profitable retail chains in the Middle East, with more than 280 stores, 6,000 employees and an estimated $650 million in revenues.

Richard Desmond
Net worth: $2 billion
After his parents divorced, Desmond lived with his mother in a garage apartment. Quit school at age 14 to become a drummer and worked in a coat-check room to help pay the bills.
His first job was for Thomson Newspapers, working in classified advertisements. He moved on to another company and by the age of 21 he owned two record shops. He acquired an interest in publishing and in 1974 published a magazine called International Musician and Recording World.
Started his first magazine at age 22 and now owns dozens of titles, including celebrity rag OK!.

J.K. Rowling
Net worth: $1 billion
British writer and author of the Harry Potter fantasy series.
Rowling moved to Portugal after the death of her mother from multiple sclerosis. She returned to the U.K. a single mother and lived on welfare while finishing her first Harry Potter story. Now one of the world’s most successful authors, she published the seventh and final installment of the boy wizard series last July.
She progressed from living on welfare to multi-millionaire status within five years.
I hope you found these stories inspiring. It is difficult for me to relate to people who are wealthy but started out with family money or won the lottery. But these stories prove that anything is possible and it is interesting to see how each rags to riches story is unique.