22 years: 27 posts

Mai Le

Updated as of April 2016

1st Edition

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Personal Confessions .................................................... 4

How I got my job ..................................................................................................................4
The people in your life and why youre the smartest being alone ....................................10
Want to be stronger? Introspection and Repeating Fears................................................. 13
What would I do if I weren't afraid? .................................................................................. 19
Be kind sometimes .............................................................................................................. 22
Can the excitement in love last forever? ............................................................................ 26
Airports, Not Being Average And The Key To Success ..................................................... 30
On Life Options And Three Steps To Become The Best .....................................................33
I am not . enough ............................................................................................................. 37
True Love ............................................................................................................................. 41

Observations ...............................................................44
How Can You Have A Lot Of Time And Money At The Same Time? ................................ 44
What Being Wealthy Actually Means ................................................................................48
How Do You Know What You Want In Life? ....................................................................50
But You Dont Have Big Boobs! .......................................................................................56
Getting Your First Jobs From Connections, Right Or Wrong? ........................................60
Error 404: Success Not Found. Or Is It Worth It? ............................................................63

Careers .........................................................................65
100 Bullet Points For An Investment Banking Analyst .................................................... 65
5 'smart' Tips For Spring And Summer Interns ................................................................69
Not getting that job offer after the internship ................................................................... 74
Student Seeking Advice .................................................................................................... 79
3 Months In The Job And This Is What I Learnt ............................................................... 85
If Someone Had Told Me These Things About Working Life .........................................87
"Being Important"... And The 10 Commandments Of Goldman Sachs ............................91

Appendix ......................................................................94
10 Ultimate Lessons I Have Learnt In 2013 ....................................................................... 94
10 Ultimate Lessons I Have Learnt In 2014 ......................................................................96
10 Ultimate Lessons I Have Learnt in 2015 ....................................................................... 99

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Personal Confessions
How I got my job
Toan the founder of How I got my job in the US - reached out to me as he once
stumbled upon my website. I have been immensely impressed by the inspirational stories
featured on the site. To continue the youthful fire of the dream-chasers across the globe,
here is mine. The post was originally shared by "How I got my Job in the US" on their
Facebook page and website.
Because there is no such thing as The Official Guide on How to Get a Job at Goldman
Sachs, I can only tell you my stories and hope it may resonate with some of you. These
details are by no means considered as advice or self-help principles, but rather a personal
story made up of personal choices.
Until Toans ask and until I now sit down in a small coffee shop by the Thames River to
write to you, I have never properly recollected my earlier memories of how my life has
developed. It is thus amazing for me to suddenly realise how far I have gone.
Every day we create and live thousands of different moments. Among those, some
experiences left stronger impression and memories within me than others. Certain
realisations over the years have been built into my character as the evolving principles of
the way I operate. I recalled the few most impressive pieces among these retentive
memories, and concluded that the three principles below have significantly helped me
advance in life. You will first question how these stories relate to getting a job but it will
all unveil and make sense in the end.

1/ A take-charge attitude: Do it like you are finding a place to rent

principle
I remember a bold piece of memory about the conception of this attitude within me. I was
10 years old and in my first year of secondary school. It was a period where everything bad
that could possibly happen did happened to me. My grades were falling at school. I fell
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sick several times, and had a few accidents on the road. Because the class of which I was
the class monitor did not listen to me, we were the worst performing at school. I could not
come back to my parents to complain or seek for help as they had to be away from me for
an extended period of time. This series of negative events built up such a high level of
anxiety within me until I felt gradually helpless and did not know what to do.
I remember vividly it was around 5pm on a sunny day approaching summer. I cycled
home after class in tears. The thoughts in my head screamed to myself Why is my life full
of troubles?; Why do all these negativity just come to me and I helplessly could not
predict them?; and Why do I always have to suffer several negative results without any
control over what will happen next? At that moment in tears, the 10-year-old me decided
that I would not suffer. I still remember the bold statement I repeated to myself again and
again on the bike at that time.
I will not wait for it to happen to me. I will confront it and take control from here on.
As a 10 years old, I started to tackle those problems one by one. I followed through until I
could tackle some problems successfully. For the problems I could not tackle, I apologised
to myself and others for my incapability, flagged it to the right person who could resume
responsibility and then moved on. This take-charge attitude has imprinted in me from
that moment and acted as the driving force behind my behaviour. It worked well in my
favour because it has toughened my charisma and built my resilience toward headwinds. I
have confronted all hurdles that come my way since then; and got a bit stronger every time
I manage to deal with new challenges.
If you find it rather difficult to consciously embed this attitude into the way you act, I have
a principle for you: The do it like you are finding a place to rent principle. This principle
was shared to me by a senior colleague of mine. To ensure the take-charge attitude at all
time, do everything in a way as if you are finding a place to rent. When you are finding a
place to rent, you are aware of the importance of the matter; you call up potential real
estate agents about possible listings; you follow up with the right people; you negotiate;
you have an urge to find a place as soon as possible and you will not rest until you have
found a place to live.
Every action in your life, if you abide to this do it like you are finding a place to rent
attitude, your leadership will be sure to thrive.

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2/ How to connect with anyone: The Old John principle

A hurdle I faced during my university years was that I knew too many people, but with
none of them I left a long lasting impression or built a proper meaningful relationship.
Friendship was fleeting to me. In addition, I could see a significant discrepancy between
my popularities among the Oriental fellows, compared to my Caucasian fellows. In fact, I
found hard to relate to my European acquaintances. I was also often cut off or not listened
to during my conversations with them. I remembered I was 17 years old when I took part
in the group discussions in some banks female recruitment initiatives. In the discussion, I
repeatedly try to raise a point but was cut off and ignored by other English girls from state
schools. At the time, I concluded that they were probably not used to the presence of a
small Asian girl with a big idea. However, in the following years, such situation happened
again on a few other occasions. Its not possible that everyone was not receptive to what I
have to say, I thought. I therefore was not sure how I could resolve this issue.
It took me a while to figure out that the problem all started in my head. In all honesty, I
did not admit that I was afraid and rather intimidated in my interactions with these
Caucasians. My confidence of my view and myself did not shine through. More
importantly, I think they are different. In my head, therefore, I treat them differently
compared to my oriental fellows. This subconscious division between them and me made
the interactions rather awkward and tense. I did not realise we are all human sharing the
same concerns. There is always something that I share in common with someone else. For
example, all girls concern about boys. All boys concern about girls. All parents concern
about their kids. All married couples concern about their marriage. All bosses concern
about their employees. All employees concern about their promotions and so on.
Finding a topic to talk about is easy if you think they are just like you.
For that reason, I have switched gear to employ a different approach. To everyone I met,
prior to meeting them or have any prejudice about them, I tell myself They are just like
me. We are all the same. Later, when I attended training on interpersonal
communications, I was advised to employ the old John principle. The key to connect to
anyone meaningfully is to talk to them like you talk to your old best friend John whom
you have lost touch for a good while. If you think everyone is your long-lost best friend,
the interactions start to become more natural, relax, and you suddenly find a meaningful
degree of mutual understanding between you two.

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For example, this is an excerpt of the conversation of me with an Uber driver (who is a
stranger) last week:
How was your night Gabriel? Long shift today?
Not too bad maam. I slept the whole day so I am well-rested for the late night shift.
How do you manage your social life then if you slept during the day?
We driver dont have social life maam. On top of that, I have a wife and two kids.
How is your wife lately?
She is doing fine She took care of the kids when I was sleeping though, I feel rather
bad
Oh, I am sorry to hear. How is she coping?
Then we talk about his wife, his marriage and his migrant life for the next 30 minutes of
the ride. He even gave me many life advices. I had an interesting ride listening to his
stories; he had an enjoyable time sharing stories and thoughts that he didnt even talk to
his friends about.
Everyone has problems and concerns; they all want to be heard and understood. You need
to create the atmosphere that allows them to express themselves. Such relaxed
atmosphere started inside your head. If you treat them like an old best friend, they will do
to, to you. This principle has helped me tremendously at work as well as in my personal
life.

3/ Self-love: Laughing at yourself and the Beyonc principle

Until I was 21 years old, I found myself a rather boring and serious person. I guess that
others who interacted with me at that time would have thought the same. My eyes lit up
when someone was talking about internships, jobs, wealth, achievements and
competitions. I was rather a competitive person who was interested in serious topics. On
the other hand, I felt isolated because I found emptiness and a considerable distance
between myself and peers.
I struggle to become a fun person - someone that others would like to have around and
befriend with. She is positively energetic and interesting. Others are drawn to her and
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what she has to express. Someone who not only knows a lot of people but a lot of people
also knows her. Someone who you may find intrigued about and would like to associate
yourself with and know more about.
In the midst of confusion trying to become this person, I asked a friend, Ms. Genius, on
how I can be fun. She dropped an accidental advice, which she now didnt even
remember that she did. This advice has changed my life forever and made me that fun
person I wanted to be.
Just always try to find ways to laugh at yourself, said she.
I was sceptical but I gave it a few tries since I did not have much to lose anyway. I then
slowly observed a gradual change on the kind of energy I release to the environment and
how others perceived me. I did not realise I was boring and serious because I had this
imprudent pride of myself, which creates a visible barrier on how others can connect with
me. I thought that this imprudent pride was the confidence I should have. Later, I realise
that it is the contrast. Such imprudent pride was a form of insecurity. Only when I am able
to laugh at myself, would I be truly confident about myself. Once I start to laugh at myself
and see myself as a flawed but improving creature, I slowly became more relaxed and
approachable. I became interesting because I admitted this confidence to others and
stirred up the environment with positive energy.
This was the first step of the journey learning how to love myself and truly see myself. A
lesson I have learnt, in both professional and personal life, is that others will treat you
exactly like the way you think yourself deserve. So if you dont love yourself, no one will
love you. To practice self-love, I have heard of this principle: the Beyonc principle. I
have read that if you act like Beyonc, you will be treated like Beyonc. I practiced that,
and it worked really well for me. Whenever someone wrongs you, it is because you let
them wrong you. As Eleanor Roosevelt rightly put it 'No one can make you feel inferior
without your consent.'
By having a standard of what you deserve and proactively express such standard through
your actions, you will be respected and treated in the way you think you deserve.
*****

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If you have read until here, you may wonder How does these three principles relate to
getting a job at Goldman Sachs? I will smile and murmur to you It all starts with you. If
you have these three principles well practiced, I promise you that you will advance far in
life.
The truth is that getting the job in any prestigious company is only a label to your
qualities, so is having high academic grades, having a lot of money or wearing branded
clothing. It is thus more important to see the true values, qualities and potentials within
you. Once you understand these things so well, nothing is impossible, whether it is getting
a job, starting your company or embarking on your next impossible missions.

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The people in your life and why youre the

smartest being alone
You have likely heard of this quote or many paraphrased versions of it:
You're the average of the five people you spend most of your time with
Jim Rohn - Businessman, Motivational Speaker
I have long agreed to this opinion, yet I underestimated the importance of it. Not until
very recently, did I understand the profound influence of my peers on me.
In my interactions with others, I genuinely deem everyone as an expert. My belief is that
each individual will be the most adept in what he or she spends the most time, whether it
is gaming, watching beauty videos on Youtube or listening to TED talks about psychology.
Every little action or inaction we take soaks our brain, consciously or subconsciously, in
information. Those who understand this fact direct the information absorption toward
whats relevant to their goals. The majority of us scatteredly direct our time toward
inapplicable actions. From these exciting yet uncorrelated actions, our brains are
constantly updated with new information, most of which are irrelevant to our knowledge
goal and personality goal, and force us to forget whats actually relevant and important.
The considerable distance between us and our success is the relevance of how we actually
spend our time vs. the image of who we want to become.
As we diversely spend our time on different areas, each individual are all expert.
Unfortunately, in early years, society sets academic excellence as a standard for success.
With success being defined upon ones ability to learn academics and theories, many
teenagers hence grows up believing they are failures because of poor academic
performance, whilst they are all experts, on diets and nutrition, on cars, on make-up
tutorials or on bicycle components.
Whilst my peers' expertise teaches me and shapes my understanding of the world, my ego
fools me to think that my strong stands and viewpoints of the world are sufficient to be
unsusceptible from others influences. I used to consider interactions with others purely as
a process of knowledge synergies between my insights and theirs. Such process reinforces

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some of my existing believes and challenges the rest. However, I have missed several other
components of human interactions that constitute my peers significant impacts on me.

Emotional influence
When we engage in emotional trauma, our brains do not function as rationally as we think
it is. It is common to drown ourselves into the mazes of suffocations and negativity. A
friends role is to offer a rational, clear and unbiased perspective toward the matter, which
is the kind of emotional rescue we will adopt in most time. What I did not realise, is that
especially for those who is coping with an emotional event, those advice are absorbed:
taken without cautions and with whole-hearted belief. Rather often we even believe the
peers advice as our own idea. Without your awareness, your peer could exert such
absolute influence on you in an event of your weakened state of mind. Therefore, choosing
who youd surround yourself with, after an emotional event, is vital. Such person should
not only have your best interest at heart, but should also have the capability to handle
such event gracefully and recommend you a rational, intelligent and unbiased solution
toward the matter.

Raw Intelligence
In the world of the raw intelligence, synergies between the minds are exponential. I
admittedly have underestimated the importance of surrounding myself with intelligent
people. Not street-smart, not book-smart, not knowledgeable people. The raw intelligent
people think lightning fast, approach problems in a structured manner, and analyse the
situations from a wildly accurate and unbiased manner. In addition, they have an
enviously brilliant memory capability. Spending a lot of time with such people, a profound
realisation comes to me that my brain muscle may have been slacked for a long time. I
thought I was smart, until I realise my insights were street-smart and unfounded. I
realised whilst I thought I knew everything, I know nothing of the world. Such realisation
is exhilarating to me.
Not everyone is born with raw intelligence as its largely genetic, yet with exercise you can
train your brain to become better in focusing, memorising and analysing. The first step to
realise how delusional we all are, due to our biases, is to read: You are Not So Smart:
Why Your Memory is Mostly Fiction, Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook and
46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself.

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Why you are the smartest when being (mostly) alone

Influence is immoral, yet inevitable. You will influence everyone you interact with, as well
as them influencing you. Being with the smartest and most successful people will drive
you, your insights and mental capability forward. However, its not sufficient to rely on
your peers excellence to improve your own. I believe to become incredibly extraordinary,
youll certainly have to spend a lot of time on your own. Lets recall some of the best
achievements in your life. Whether its passing an important exam, obtaining a highly
desirable job offer, being renowned for certain skills and excellence, your period of
training for such achievement was spent by yourself. You learn the most when you are by
yourself. Loneliness is not a consequence, its a choice: if you know where to go, focus on
the goal being by yourself is not a punishment, its an investment.
I view joining others company, such as social invitations, as a luxury, because its very
expensive in opportunity cost to my own learning. Beware that although social norms
appraises popularity and those who have abundance of others company, the only way to
mastery and excellence is by spending a lot of time on your own training and practising,
whilst reducing distractions and others irrelevant influence.
Be comfortable with the company of yourself, thats when you learn the most.

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Want to be stronger? Introspection and

Repeating Fears
People don't grow mature with time. They grow mature with experiences, in particular,
with handling experiences. In this article, I'll share with you a few thoughts on how to be
stronger and increase the "depth" of you and your understanding of yourself.
Our ability to handle life's adversities is not innate - it is trained. Some people take a few
days to get over a setback such as relationship rejections or a criticism; whilst it may take
others a few weeks, or months. Our approach to adversity defines our life outcomes, yet it
is mysterious as to how some people can cope and recover so well from setbacks whilst
others struggle. Within the limited scope of the article, my thoughts on how to be stronger
are based on two considerations: introspection and repeating fears.

1. Bring yourself to Introspection: Met the real "You"

Why a friend in difficult time is not always good for you
After every setbacks or anxiety attack, I used to talk to my friends in length about what
happened and the way forward. In most cases, this would be a normal human reaction to
difficult events or weak emotional states: We seek for comfort in others. It is in human
natural desire to be in a crowd, to be agreed with and to seek familiarities and sympathy.
It is therefore natural after such events to release the negative internal energy through
means of communications.
However, the smartest friend of mine (herein Ms. Genius), once after such conversation,
spoke to me of a profound thought. "I don't mind talking to you after these kinds of
events, but sharing will only make you weaker", said she. I have mentioned in one of my
previous blogs that having a weakened state of mind is one of the occasions where
surrounding yourself with raw intelligence really matters. In this case, such insight of Ms.
Genius has enlightened me about what is wrong with how I have been handling life
adversities.
The problem with sharing and communicating your unfortunate events is that it doesn't
give you the chance to introspect and reflect on what actually happened. It is too quick of a
relief of stress and anxiety that our mental and physical endurance is hardly stretched. As
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soon as the pain is relieved with the involvements of peers, the pain is too quickly
forgotten and buried, that we barely internalise and conclude any lessons to ourselves.
Such relief when talking to others is a feedback to your brain, which says: When
situations get tough, communicate to release!" This builds a dependency; so strongly that
sharing is almost the immediate first action to be taken, because confronting what actually
happened yourself is tough.
Any difficult situation in your life is a learning opportunity. It is similar to if life gives you
a difficult math problem, for which you will most likely struggle to find an answer
yourself. If you manage to solve such problem, you will know how to handle it next time
you are given similar problem. For example, having experienced recovering from one
heart-break, you will know the basic process of how you navigate through the next heartbreak, even if those two are not entirely the same situation. Over-sharing with others
without actually solving the problem only deprives you of the chance to face the difficulty
and solve it yourself. Even if you can manage to "borrow" your friends' answers to the
given math problem, and/or somehow get away with it, life will sooner or later give you
another similar problem to make you learn how to solve yourself.
So, how do you solve it, or face difficult events, by yourself alone?

Bringing yourself to the best states for introspection

A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved., said Charles Kettering, the famed
inventor. The first step to solving any adversity is to define it well by inspecting yourself of
what truly happened, cutting through the midst of our cloudy emotions and cognitive
biases. Having another peers opinion on the matter is helpful in this way i.e. such
opinions are not subject to the participants cognitive distortions. However, if you can
learn how to see truly what happened by yourself, not what you think happened, it is a
powerful improvement of your ability to stay intact with rationality without external
assistance.
The few specific steps below are suggested to frame yourself into the best condition for a
successful introspection.
The above side-by-side pyramids are my own model of my mental states. At a given point
when necessary actions and decisions are called for, I usually aim to determine where my
state is in this 3-d construct and aim to pull the state toward the Center and toward the

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highest point of peace. Post-adversity, when you are at the peak of anger/anxiety, your
level of consciousness is low. To allow yourself to be back to the high level of
consciousness (peace), there are a few simple applicable actions laid out below.
Since the anger/anxiety is constituted from two components: physical and mental
frustrations,

To ease your physical frustrations:

First, breathe. Stop everything you are doing and simply engage in very deep, frequently
timed breath. Breathing will regulate your heartbeat, temperature and signs of nerves.
Next step to ease physical frustration is to focus on the senses. Wherever you are,
whatever you are doing, put really high focus on and engage with all the five senses:
sound, sight, touch, smell and taste. What do you hear? What can you see? How do your
fingers, arms, back and feet feel? What does it smell like? What is the taste in your mouth
right now? If you re-connect and put your sole focus on the five senses, the positive energy
builds up in your body fills you with the sense of liveliness. You will feel alive, and you are.
You are so much of a complete living entity that none of these adversities can undermine
you. Only death can separate you from your physical senses, but before then, you are alive.

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If convenient, be with nature and with yourself. Find the nearest park, river, fields or even
just soaking yourself in water of a bath will improve your connectivity with your senses
and ease your physical frustrations.

To ease your mental frustrations:

Think of nothing. Have you ever tried thinking of nothing? It is surprisingly difficult to
think of nothing and will require an enormous amount of practice to be able to think of
nothing whenever you want. Usually, when you are focusing 100% on the physical side,
such as when you are wholly with your senses, you will be able to let your thoughts go.
If you cant think of nothing, think of the positive. A mentee of mine has once told me of
her techniques to build unshakable self-confidence. You start off writing a list of the proud
traits, achievements or the qualities of yourself that regardless of what happens, will stay
with you. Repeat/read this to yourself on a frequent basis. Those items will stay with you
in your mind to the point you can remind yourself of your own value, without a need of a
peer or external influence. In such circumstances when you tell yourself to think positive,
these items will pop up and left your mind with lesser negativity and more confidence.
By the end of this process, you will be able to bring yourself closer to peace (high level of
consciousness). The introspection process can now begin.

2. Introspection Process: Befriend the real "You"

When you have achieve a peaceful state of mind, you would realise what happened was
not actually a significant matter. You are still alive, complete and whole, with all the
qualities, achievements and traits in your list.
It is important, however, to examine what happened not to necessarily take any action
but to learn from it.
What was the cause of the difficult events? When did it start?
What was the outcome?
What did you do that contributed to that outcome? Dont focus on
others interactions and actions, focus on your share of the outcome.

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You can do this simply by starting all the sentences of the answers to
this question with "I".
Is there anything in your past background, childhood or recent, that
could explain why you did what you did? Or anything that is
inherently in your values and core belief that could explain?
Could you have done anything differently? Will you do it differently if
a similar event comes up in the future?
During this process, although difficult, try to admit vulnerability and recognise your
cognitive distortions. If you can explain using your past and belief why you did what you
did, it will be easy to see your cognitive distortions and bias in moments of low
consciousness. It will be difficult to confront yourself to have answers to all of these
questions, yet if you can, it will be easier to overcome, solve this problem and any similar
problem in the future.
The process of introspection is essentially a way to get in touch with, understand on a
deeper level, and befriend yourself. Seeing what actually happened will make it easier to
solve the problem, or forgive and let go.

3. Repeating Fear: Train Yourself

The more difficult event or exposure to adversities you have, the stronger you will be
therefore dont be afraid of putting yourself in unfavourable situation. As a learning
process, the challenge of facing these unfortunate events will be vast at the beginning, but
you will get accustomed to how to handle/solve it to the point it becomes intuitive.
If you have the chance to be in solitude, try to understand what your greatest fears are. It
is hard to know because your brain will consciously bury your fears in your sub-conscience
as confronting them is tough. However, you can make educated guesses of what your
greatest fears are, based on your past and believe. Especially, pay attention to your
childhood recollection: psychologists have suggested that our experience during childhood
has an incredible explanatory power toward our behavior.
With the educated guess of what your fears are, to train yourself, you should put yourself
in situations where you will most likely encounter them. Repeat your fears several times

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until you are trained to be accustomed with it. Do what you are afraid of thats the
ultimate key to a stronger self.
The relationship you have with yourself is the most important relationship you will have in
your life. By learning how to solve difficulties and adversity by yourself, you are
strengthening such relationship and hence, the real you.

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What would I do if I weren't afraid?

I remembered the years of the 1990s when I grew up in a small village in Vietnam. In
those years, one of our childhoods trophies were Coca-cola - the soft drink. Soft drink was
considered a treat to kids, reserved only for special occasions such as weddings, family
gatherings or new year celebrations. If a kid in the neighbourhood could have soft drink in
his daily meals, His family must be very rich, the other kids rumoured. Instantly, hed
find himself with a lot of new friends who wished to visit his home and stay until the meal
time for the soft drinks.

A can of Coca-cola still remains exactly as it was 15 years ago; however, I have grown up.
What I wanted so much 15 years ago is no longer a luxury to me due to its abundance. In
recent years, I even despise soft drinks and no longer consume it. Economically, in a
typical vending machine these days, a can of Coca-cola could be cheaper than a bottle of
water. The Coca-cola phenomenon reminds me that even when the quality of the matter
could remain exactly as it is, my perspective of it could change drastically depending on
my view of its abundance and my standard of living.

When I was a kid, having a can of soft drink could give me lasting happiness for a day or
two. My family was poor and struggling; nonetheless I was fulfilled with the satisfaction
from the smallest things in life. As my standard of living improves, to obtain the
equivalent lasting happiness is much more difficult. Overtime, I recognised my decreasing
satisfactions on material possessions or achieving certain milestones. To my conscious
awareness of this trend of drifting satisfactions,I would be so much happier if I have x
no longer applies.

I would be so much happier if I get into LSE. I did. I thought I'd be so happy but

then moved on to the next goal. Life goes on.

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I would be so much happier if I get into Goldman Sachs. I did. I thought I'd be so

happy but then moved on to the next goal. Life goes on.

I would be so much happier if I won the LSE Generate Competition. I did. I

thought I'd be so happy but then moved on to the next goal. Life goes on.

This pattern repeats. As a kid, I thought I would be much happier if I had the ability to
buy Coca Cola cans whenever I want and consume it whenever I want. Now I do, yet
nothing changes and life goes on. It turned out that a can of Coca Cola is actually not as a
big deal as I imagined.

I therefore now question all the desires I have. Does it really matter to my well-being or is
it an excuse for my greed? What have driven me to be longing for x ?

Similarly, I question the conditions that I place on myself to delay certain actions. I
would do x if I have y.

I would write a book if I have enough time after work would I really?

I would travel the world if I have enough money would I really?

I would speak to my parents more often if I have more things to share would I

really?
Do I really need y - whatever y maybe - or is it an excuse because I am afraid?
Instead of saying I would do x if I have y to myself, I now ask myself What would I do if
I were not afraid?. What would I do if I have everything I wanted? What would I do if the
best things that can possibly happen to me actually happen to me? With that question, I
have shifted my mentality from focusing on the constraints to focusing on my potential.

The importance I placed on a can of Coca Cola changed. I understood it will be the same
for most of my desires in life. No material possession or certain achievement would fulfil
me unless I already have that lasting happiness within me.

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I would not be happier if I have x, whatever x maybe. I only have the presence I

only have now.

I would not do x if I have y. Even with y, I could always find another excuse

because I am afraid. I must not be afraid because I am not here to live a life of fears or a
life full of conditions and constrains that only exist in my imagination.
Understanding that x - whatever x maybe -is a part of what I drive to achieve for a better
life, but not a condition of my happiness, has fundamentally made me satisfied with this
very moment, and with who I am.

!21

Be kind sometimes
One late afternoon over the weekend, I was sitting in a crowded underground train on the
Piccadilly line heading home. There was 6 more stations until my destination. As the train
door opened, countless people was rushing in to fit in the already-crammed space. A
mother, who was carrying her young daughter in her arms, managed to squeeze in the
space in front of my seat. The moment I caught her struggle to carry her child among the
crowd, I spoke to her earnestly without hesitance. Would you like to sit down?, said I.
A happy spark in her eyes momentarily lighten up her expressions. For a second, when my
mind was isolated by this lightened expression, I realised she was beautiful. Her child and
she had golden, luscious, wavy hair like the rippled water under the bright sun. She then
looked at the childs tiredness and looked at me. Yes, please, murmured she. No one in
the crowd cared as we swapped our places. As I stood up, she said to her child Mary, say
thank you to this kind lady. Mary glanced at me with her round blue eyes, then turned
around and asked her mother What is kind?
Maybe it was her blue eyes, or maybe it was this question that has ignited my thoughts
around kindness.

Kindness is not nice

Among the daily language I hear, one of the most frequent misapprehension is the notion
of being kind vs. nice. I observe that these two words are frequently used
interchangeably. However, their implications are miles apart. I believe being kind is not
the same as being nice. The root of the two behaviours are indeed in contrast.
Being nice is rooted in passiveness and submissiveness to a higher order.
Nice . adj. pleasant, pleasing or agreeable in nature, socially or conventionally correct;
refined or virtuous. (Source)
On the other hand, being kind is an assertive and dominant act that is characterised by
mercy, and compassion.
Kind .adj. having or showing a tender, considerate and helpful nature; tolerant and
forgiving under provocation (Source)
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On the surface, it seems like there is hardly any difference between the two. However, I
feel there is a pressing need to make the distinction because it is mistakenly believed that
success cannot be achieved with kindness. (See Guardian's article Sometimes
unfortunately being an asshole is the way to get ahead). The submissive actions referred
in these kinds of articles are niceness but often confused by the author to be kindness.
The nice person proceeds with the agreeable, pleasing actions in order to be perceived
highly by others and with the conditional expectations of returns. Niceness is rooted in
fear: the fear of being disagreed with, the fear of being unpopular and the fear of not
obtaining what he wants. For example, a search on Quora with the key words nice guy
results in an endless amount of questions on the topic of why nice guys are treated not
as well as they expect. Why dont people/ girls do x when I am really nice (to them)? I
believe the question answers itself - because they are nice. Placing expectations of
returns on others is one of the quickest way to emotional slavery and dependency on
others for happiness.
Take the topic of why the nice guy Harry suffers from being friend-zoned as an example.
The frank answer is because Harry chose to proceed with the agreeable, pleasing actions
in order to be perceived highly by his mating choice, and with the conditional
expectations of returns that these submissive actions would yield him the relationship. In
reality, this is rarely the case.
Being nice and expecting a return from niceness is simply not "nice" at all - it is
manipulative. Being the nice guy, Harry may (subconsciously) think of an exchange of
his niceness for the success to secure his mating choice. This is simply deceitful, which
women, consciously or subconsciously, are held guarded against. I use the biological term
mating choice here to say the naked truth that, whether Harry is aware of it or not, he
does not consider the person he desires as a human-being, but only a target. Instead being
upfront about what he wants and engages in an open conversation about his feelings,
Harry is manipulative in thinking if hes nice to his mating choice, hed get something in
returns.
A lesson I have learnt over the years is there are two sources of power in life. Power is
gained using others wants or fears. You are powerful when you either have what people
want, or have what people fear of; or in some cases, both. In this case, Harrys strategy is
usually a loss-making game because Harrys mating choice has what he desires hence she
!23

holds higher power in the interaction. When Harry fails to acquire such power, he turns
around to complain of why his exchange has no returns i.e. why others are not nice to him
despite of his niceness. What Harry did not understand that niceness, being rooted in
fears and conditional expectations, never win and almost always cause anxiety.
What should Harry do? First, Harry should understand his best alternative to a
negotiated agreement (BATNA), stop playing the manipulative act and be upfront/ firm
with the woman about his feelings. If hes rejected, he should show the woman that he has
a higher BATNA. To do this, Harry should thank her for the feelings she has given him,
then immediately stop hanging around her and move on. Leaving is extremely important because by doing this, Harry has regained the power onto his side. There is no fear or
wants on his side he seemed not to be able to abandon, leaving the other party to think his
BATNA is higher than theirs.
What is more interesting is that this act is not a nice act, but this is a kind act. Harry is not
nice to this woman in the sense that he did not commit to be pleasant, pleasing or
agreeable by abandoning the whole interaction. However, he was kind to himself and
herself because he was tolerant and forgiving under provocation to her after the
rejection and had shown a tender, considerate and helpful nature in the sense he
accommodated the fact she did not want him; and leave.

Kindness is a continuous practice of altering perspectives

The distinction through this example shed some lights into how I view kindness - an
assertive and dominant act that is based on courage, not fear. One of the key differences
between kindness and niceness is the conditional expectations of returns. Expectations of
returns create dependency and can drag you into a spiral of anxiety over others actions.
Kindness is a continuous practice of altering perspectives into someone elses. Kindness
comprises of three steps: Empathy, sympathy and compassions - all of which requires you
to step into the other persons point of views. Being able to alter perspective is crucial for
interpersonal success and can take you very far in life. I therefore disagree with many
articles which said that a kind person cannot rise to the top. In fact, in the book The
Charisma Myth, the author discussed at length the kindness charisma among the four
charisma types (focus, visionary, kindness and authority) and how kindness charisma can
help you succeed. Princess Diana or Dalai Lama were mentioned as the evident examples
of kindness charisma.
!24

Kindness is peace
I recently changed the motto of this site to The art of everyday elegance. To me, elegance
is not about wealth, your possessions nor your status. Elegance is a lot simpler and easier
to achieve, because it starts from within you and begins with kindness. Kindness is the
core of elegance. Look at a woman who is kind to others, you see surrounds her the glow of
grace, positivity, peace and respect.
It is difficult for people to be kind when they are in a turbulence of their emotional states.
It is difficult to be kind when their mind are occupied with the burden of lives, of putting
food on the tables, of worries about tomorrow. It is difficult to be kind when they feel the
insufficient resources to help, first themselves, not to say helping others.
It takes extra efforts to understand others and their problems, which most of us know
nothing about. Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle. - Plato. The
reason why the act of kindness are not as abundant as some of us would like, is because
kindness is the display of the most desirable and stable mental state: Peace. You are kind
to yourself and others when you are at peace with yourself and others. Recall the latest
time when you was kind to someone else, and take a close look at how you felt. Was it
peace?
***********
That is rather a long explanation to Mary of what kindness is. Right when she asked What
is kind?, I just got lost in her blue eyes with a big smile on my face. She then turned to her
mother with excitement Mom, she is pretty!
At that moment, little did she know she was kind to me, because she stepped into my
perspective.I felt exactly the same way about her.

!25

Can the excitement in love last forever?

In this very rare occasion, I decided to write about romance. It is rather a dangerous
change of topic due to the highly subjective nature of the matter. I am, however, writing
about it because I have recent discovered a sensible answer for a prolonged question I
have had.
Can excitement in love last forever?
If you have been exploring the dating scene for a while, you may have realised the cyclical
pattern of excitement. When you first met and dated someone, your world is suddenly
filled with desire, hope, mutual chemistry, curiosity and positivity. You looked at their
replies and subconsciously smile. You thought about them, the mutual memories you
shared, and wondered about what they were doing. You talked with them everyday over
texts or phone. You looked forward to the next encounter and had visions and hopes for
the future. However, things changed when the honeymoon period is over. After having
been with the person for a while, or officially enter a relationship, you realised the
butterflies in your stomach feelings no longer last. You panicked thinking the excitement
is gone. What is love if you are no longer excited about the company?
I, like many others, believe in true love. I, like many others, panicked on several occasions
about the loss of excitement as if it was a kiss of death - The death of the hopelessly
romantic true love I envisioned. Previously, there were parts of me that believe the true
love is to be found and there is someone out there who is destined for me. The
excitement being with him, I thought, should be perpetual as we understand and behave
like the mirror of each other, similar to two strings that vibrate in the same frequencies.
Not until recently that my opinion on this matter has changed. A while ago, a monsieur
responded to my panic with a profound insight The excitement is not lost. It simply
changes forms. This statement has got me to challenge my naive thoughts. With the
afore-mentioned nave view of true love, I did not listen when my 80-year-old
grandmother told me years ago Life partner is your best friend with great sex. (Yes I
know - my grandmother is rather liberal!) What she said was more than right. It takes as

!26

much efforts and attentions to build a fulfilling love as it does to a friendship. Excitement
can last forever if you keep building it, and realise that excitement changes forms and
evolves just as fast as the development of the relationship. As I mature with more longlasting relationship experiences, I have learnt that true love is built, not found.
In a recent occasion when I panicked of What is love if you are no longer excited about
the company?, I decided to do something about it. I try to clearly define to myself what
love is, and try to see for myself if that definition associates with excitement. After
some introspection (more on how to introspect), I formed a view of my own definition of
love. Love, or unconditional love, is when you put the other persons interest above your
own, in both intentions and actions you take. My mom, my dad and my siblings love me
that way. I love myself that way. I would hope a partner, who is born a stranger and not
blood-related to me, will love me in the same way. Love is selfless and probably is the
most beautiful thing that happens to anyone, including myself.
As soon as I define this clearly, I found that excitement is more of a consequence to love,
but not as a goal itself. I was excited because I truly cared, and loved. The opinion of
excitement being a derivative of love was echoed when I stumbled across this interesting
question and answer on Quora:
How do people stay in long term relationships? You do everything together, know
everything about the person and things are just not so fun anymore.
Answer by Franklin Beaux

If you're in a long-term relationship and things are not so fun any

more, it's not because long-term relationships are boring. It is
because you have chosen to make things be not so fun any more.
Maybe you don't know you're making that choice. Maybe you're not
even aware that it is a choice. But make no mistake: you are
choosing to let things get that way.
In the beginning of a relationship, when you're all excited, you make
choices that make the relationship exciting. If you have a date
scheduled but you've had a crappy day and you're tired, you go on
the date anyway--hell, the date might even be an antidote to your
crappy day, something you look forward to.
When you're in the new stages of a relationship, you do things
together. You go on adventures. You turn in toward each other.
In a long-term relationship, if you're like many people, you start
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making different choices. If you've had a crappy day and you're

tired, you take the path of least resistance. You sit in front of the TV
watching reruns of old sitcoms instead of engaging with your
partner. You forget that engaging with your partner used to be
something to look forward to, something that could make a crappy
day brighter. You stop having adventures. You stop turning in
toward each other and start taking each other for granted.
Then you wake up one morning to realize that the magic is gone.
But you don't think about the fact that the magic is gone because you
drive it away; instead, you think "we had magic when we were new,
so the solution must be to find somebody new."
If you want long-term relationships that aren't boring, don't do
that. Make other choices. Don't stop having adventures. Turn
toward each other.

What Franklin said was extremely insightful: long term

relationship is boring not because of our familiarity with each other,
but because of our active choices taking it for granted.

So the question of the longevity of excitement, tracing it to its root, quickly becomes, How
can I continuously love this person?. I have recently discovered the three keys to build a
long lasting relationship through observation and my own practice:
Appreciation
Connection
Comfort

Appreciation
Appreciate 1) who he or she is as a person (their core) and 2) what he or she does (their
behaviour). In the end of the day, this individual has chosen to spend a significant amount
of time and share a significant part of their life with you. Be grateful of this company you
have been gifted with, because he or she has also treasured your core and your behaviour
in the same way. Its well known in scientific research, e.g. in this article by Harvard
University, that constant gratitude and appreciation will make you happier.

Connection

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When you first started dating, your constant communication and desire for engagement
was derived from the needs for connection. You built stronger and stronger connection
and bond with him or her in a meaningful way. Overtime, as you settle, the effort to
connect is suddenly slacked as your understanding of the person becomes stagnant. We
assume we have sufficiently understand the person and pay less and less effort in
understanding them further, although the person also evolves and change everyday as fast
as we do. Lets compare this act with friendship. Have you ever felt that a friend became
distant after a long period of less engagement and communication? With that friend, did
you feel you ran out of topics to talk about? The outcome of loosening connection in
relationship is the same. With a lack of connection, you start to feel like the partner
become more distant, and that you both ran out of topics to talk about. Where was the
days when you can talk on the phone for hours? Here I give you the remedy to such
symptoms: Rebuild connections. Connection requires active mutual engagement dont
slack it.

Comfort
What does comfort have to do with excitement? In a stable relationship, comfort is the
new excitement. Excitement is simply not lost; it just transforms itself. The foundation of
this new form of excitement is acceptance and mutual understanding: You are fulfilled
with a sense of comfort being with the partner as they accept you. In the beginning of the
relationship, you strive for acceptance - the excitement of such process could be thrilling.
However, how strange it is - when you have finally be comfortable with the partners
acceptance and mutual understanding, you panicked because of the seemingly lost
excitement. You are on the great path of building your life together and upgrade your
relationship. There is no reason for panic because the interactions have just Level 2 itself
where the excitement has transformed.
Excitements transform itself. Love, and continue to love, is the key to the perpetual
excitement.

!29

Airports, Not Being Average And The Key

To Success
*Written at Zurich airport
I remember the day when I left Vietnam to the UK 5 years ago: 8 September 2009. I was
16 and had never taken a plane before in my life. It was frightening somewhat to step away
from the warmth of family, although I have lived by myself for 7 years prior to that, since
second grade.
The journey to the UK 5 years ago began on my own. Since then, I have been to a countless
number of airports. It always brought me the same feeling: The eager feeling of new
ventures/destinations and the nostalgic feeling of leaving things and people behind.
Surrounding me are the new strange faces around the waiting area, the crowds rushing
through the gates, and the distanced announcement on the airport radio. All brought me
back to that first day, the first time that I embarked on the journey on this foreign land.
I remembered the last night before my departure. My parents' exact words to me were:
"Mai, the amount spent on your education is more than most people's life fortunes. A
farmer, an average worker or anyone working for an office job here can only dream or
work hard for their entire life, to earn how much we are investing in you. Make it worth
it."
I cried, and cried so hard like I never had the chance to cry. I knew how fortunate I was. I
knew I can never afford to be average, and I promise to myself I won't.
These words of my parents resonated in my head as the plane landed on September 8th,
2009. It was a cold, foggy day, yet I looked through the glass window seeing a new shining
promised land.
Since then everyday I have strived to be a better person than I was yesterday. I have learnt
new skills. I have broadened my circle and taken a step to understand everyone I cross
path with. I have read and I have practised. I have reflected honestly on my emotional and
psychological deficiency to improve them until I'm stronger. I understand my limitations
all the time but I never give up striving to reach new levels.

!30

I tried. I failed. I tried again until it's no longer a try but a success.
To me, the formula of not being average is very simple. Do, or do not. There's no try.
There's only Yes, or No in life. If you settle for Maybe, it won't happen.
I have chosen to live life in these extremes as I actively choose to be different. I either do
it really well, or I don't get involved at all. Most of the time I give up 95% of what I could
do to focus on the 5% I can do really well. There's no maybe. It's difficult for others to
understand this binary way of thinking. However, I am confident in this choice of how I
live or action because it's who I am.
Not everyone lives this formulas and I won't recommend everyone will. If everyone does,
life will be either a 0 or 1 and there's no in between. Everyone will either want to be
unemployed or be the boss, and no one will settle to be the worker. There must be a belt
curve distribution with the majority surrounding the average, to allow for the success and
scarcity of the 1%.
If you know this fact, use it to your advantage. Appreciate people who are better than you
in some aspects because you can learn from them. Appreciate even more people who are
not as good as you in those aspects because they can work for you (and they will, if you
actually can persuade and earn their loyalty). It's about moving up the distribution by
utilising the necessary leverages.
Every action is a decision. Every inaction is also a decision. It must be your active choice
to be different. It's comfortable to be with the crowd. And hidden in the crowd. If you do
what everyone else does, you will get what everyone else gets.
The disadvantage of living the extreme is you may well live "below average", or you will be
a 0. The advantage of living the extreme is, with the right combination, there's a high
chance you will be 1. The one.
What's the right combination? I learned this from a talk of a CEO three years ago.
Someone asked him what his key to success was. He said, very concisely, in three words.

Ambition
Discipline
!31

Purpose

You need ambitions to envision your success. However, too many dreamers station at the
imagination stage and "talking big", without executing the tasks it take to realise it, hence
stuck at being a zero. To swing to be the one, they will need rigorous disciplines to
constantly moving forward and slowly build the dream one step at a time.
That's what it takes to be in the 1%. However, if you want to take it further with the desire
to be in the top 0.1%, having a purpose is the key to step it up. Your purpose, whether it's
from your philanthropy or ideology, will keep you moving from one success to another as
it will drive you forward.
Now you have it. The key to success in three simple words.
Think of life as a plane. Your ambition maps where it flies. Disciplines is like the engine
that will start it off from stationary. And purpose is what will keep the plane going,
through turbulence and extreme conditions to new ventures in Promised Land.
And here I am, catching the plane, again :)

!32

On Life Options And Three Steps To Become

The Best
Many people wish to be a millionaire, and spend a good deal of their lives practising
different paths to get there. When men look at millionaires from the view point of
admiration, good stories are often made up about how their success came about. Little do
people know, that there are always two versions: the good stories, and the real stories. The
good stories always tell you about how all the dots in these peoples lives magically
connect. You only need to get it right once. And everyone can then tell you how lucky you
are. (Mark Cuban)
However, the real stories, which remain untold, hide their struggles, failures, confusion
and loss in their way to pursue the path to success. In this article, Ill propose two
thoughts on plotting your the real stories, or strategies, of how one man can stand out
from the crowd and become extraordinary.

Thought 1: To become a millionaire, there are two simple paths:

Option (1) You make 1 of value for 1 million people.
Option (2) You make 1 million of value for 1 person.
You might interrupt me Oh wait, Mai. What about Option (3) Ill make a million in value
for a million people - and become a billionaire? To become a billionaire, youll first need
to be able to make your first million. Therefore, let us discuss about these two options for
now. If you recall any self-made wealthy individuals that you are aware of, their wealth is
almost always obtained by either one of these options.
Option (1) represents the type of value-add that appeals to the mass such as Facebook,
Google, top chart songs we listen to, the app we bought from App Store and the best-seller
books that we read. Because their owners create a small amount of value for each of us but
are able to offer it and attract the public to use it, collectively they obtain a handsome
exchange for the total value they create.
Option (2) represents the irreplaceable traits one person can offer to a selected group in
society. Successful investment bankers, hedge fund managers, biomedical professionals
and artificial intelligent researchers are among these people. What they offer is so highly
!33

specialised, irreplaceable and have such high value add to a small group, who can afford to
pay them a handsome amount in return.
Which option you choose will define your strategies for this pursuit. If you choose Option
(1), you dont need to create an enormous value, but more importantly you need to ensure
the small value you create reaches and attracts at least a million people whos willing to
pay for it. If you choose Option (2), you should focus on improving your expertise till you
can create 1 million in value using your talents or highly specialised set of skills or
knowledge.
People who are lost are those who try to create 1 million for 1 million people (too difficult
to achieve to the point its impossible), or create 1 or 1 person (this person is usually
themselves - by doing nothing at all)

Thought 2: How to become the best

Assuming you have chosen Option (2) and want to become the best in something. What is
that something? What could I be best at? Such questions are asked in introspection of
many twenty-something in an attempt to refine their life goal.
I could suggest an answer, or more rightly, a rough guide around it - purely based on
theory on probabilities. To become the worlds best in something, the probability is
extremely slim, if not close to impossible. For example, what is the chance for you to
become the worlds best programmer? A study by IDC in 2014 estimates of 29 million
professional ICT-skilled workers and 18.5 million software developers around the world,
making a population of 47.5 million professional programmers (excluding hobbyists). To
defeat all of them, thats a probability of 0.000000021 assuming everyone has an equal
amount of resources and ability - which is obviously a false assumption. In reality the
probability is much lower than 0.000000021, if you want to become the worlds number 1.
Imagine if its a game of 47.5m programmer in a competition. Each of them pays 1 to
enter the game. The winner will win 47.5m. However, the probability of winning this for a large number of the entrants - is much lower than a fair lottery, since the resources
and abilities are not evenly distributed. This explains the reason why Roger Federers
accumulated prize money amount alone is $92.4m - probability adjusted for his rare
talent.

!34

How do you improve your probability of becoming the best in something? Of course, dont
focus on becoming the best in one thing. Diversity your expertise to at least 2-3 fields or
even more.
Let me explain. For example, if you are the world no. 30 million-ranked programmer
(worse than average), but you are *also* an expert in dolphins (e.g. PhD in Zoology) what is the probability of someone else in that 47.5m people knowing about the same two
fields and can fairly compete with you? Because of the low correlation between the two
fields (dolphins and programming), chances are extremely low. Even if a person with the
same two expertise exists in that population, its unlikely that they are within the same
geographical context, or market, to compete with you. Since you are fairly confident of
your monopoly, you can find ways to create value using these two expertise e.g. making an
app to track dolphins, or using programming languages to study the communications of
dolphins. You can then provide these value add to those who are willing to pay for it (e.g.
dolphin preservation organisations or zoology research centres)
In summary: To become the best, Id suggest: Pick three (or more if you like)
- 1 skill
- 1 field of knowledge
- 1 secret sauce
Step 1: Choose to focus on one skill you can master (e.g. writing, programming, drawing
etc.), and one field of knowledge you know inside out (e.g. history, criminology, finance,
physics etc.) Remember, the more uncorrelated/rare are these two picks, based on
probability theory, the stronger monopoly youd have.
Step 2: Combine these two expertise into tangible value add, such as a product, with the
extras of using your secret sauce; such as your life experiences, your motivation/desires
and the people you know.
Step 3: Ensure it reaches people who will be willing to exchange your value-add for what
you want (not necessarily in monetary terms but in the forms of rewards you desire).
Voila! Three simple steps to pick the field that you can be best at.
P.S:I made a free speech-to-text voice journal app -Join to become its early adopter!

!35


If you are interested in the content of this article - Id recommend that you read a series of
articles on Financial Times called My First Million where a number of self-made
millionaires was interviewed on how they made their first million of fortune. We are too
often dazzled by stories of billionaires, instantly recognised tech founders and overnight
successes. The articles of "My first million" are good reminders of the baby steps to
acquire and create wealth - by first, making your first million.

!36

I am not . enough
Five years ago, as a high school senior, I was applying to read Economics at universities in
the UK. Even with the predicted grade of A*A*A*A A for Further Maths, Maths,
Chemistry, Economics and Physics, a senior leadership position in the school Student
Union, a 8.5/9 score in IELTS and two medals in mathematics competitions, I did not
dare to apply to Cambridge.
I did not even attempt to apply to Cambridge because I thought I was not good enough.
There are two sides to every stories in life: there is a good reason; and there is a real
reason. This is the politically correct version I have told people about why I did not apply
to Cambridge I needed a change of environment and thought London would be a better
fit. It is of course true - I had been living in Cambridge for two years of high school by
then because my high school also happened to be located in Cambridge.
Now, that is the good reason - a reason that sells, or looks good on paper. However, the
real reason is because I did not have the audacity to believe that I am enough. This belief
of the 17-year-old Mai makes no sense whatsoever to the now-22-year-old Mai. How
different would my life be if I even attempt to at least pursuing the opportunity? At the
time, I did not master the art of being enough - an art that took me almost 5 years of my
life to slowly realise.
As one of the most important lessons I have learnt, I am glad to have realised the
significance of being enough. The true perception of enough is not only the key to
maximising performance, but also confidence, self-fulfilment, inner peace and real
happiness.

Enough in performance: 80/20 Principle - do the minimum to

achieve the maximum
I was introduced to the the 8020 rule (also known as Pareto principle) from reading
Economics at university. Pareto principle states that 80 percent of your outcomes come
from 20 percent of your inputs. At first, I underestimated the importance of it, similar to
how I overlooked many other statistical Economics theories. Not until I started working

!37

extensively, did I see its real life applications and the way it profoundly changed my work
outcome.
The reason why this principle is important is because you, as many other human do, have
a finite amount of time and energy. On average, youd have 16 hours being awake every
day, or 10 possibly productive hours after subtracting the time for personal maintenance
activities such as meals, showers and commutes. The output of these 10 hours is subject to
a Law of Diminishing Returns, where at a certain plateau point x, the marginal rate of
increase in the output is zero. Beyond this point, the more you try, the less youd get back:
This plateau point is the enough point.
For a prolonged period of time in the past, I was the slave of myself. I wanted to have
more, and achieved more; therefore I planned more and expected more, which in turn
drove me to do more. If I could not achieve everything I set out to do or expected, I
became anxious and dissatisfied with my own performance. This expectation beyond my
capacity consumed me and diminished my own ability to realise that plateau point.
This mindset of mine changed when I started working. I listened to a respected female
senior colleague speaking in a conference.
Over the years, I realise that in this place, we always have more work than all of us can
handle. If you want more work, we will always have more work for you. However, slaving
yourself is not why you are here. It is not what we hire you for. Set your limit to achieve
the best efficiency. Believe in yourself that what you do have been enough, and tell
yourself it is alright to go home early., said she.
At the time, her revelation made me seriously think about my approach to believing in
enough. Let me tell you a key secret - a simple but profound secret, that changed my life.
All of your anxiety in life arises from your own expectation.
Every sadness comes from an unmet expectation. Every anxiety comes from the
anticipation of a negative outcome.If you want to perform at your peak, learn more about
yourself to find out your plateau point; and dont let anxiety get in your way. If you want
to fix your anxious feeling, fix your own expectation. It will take a lot of time and attention
to yourself to correctly estimate where that plateau point is.

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If you are often like me in the past, believing that you have not done enough, try the
80/20 principle. One of the habits I tried to slowly cure my anxiety for more was that
every time I set out 5 things to do, I focus on doing only one- the most important thing very well. When I am done with the most important thing, I take a break and reward
myself. If I have more time, I then move on to the rest; however, if I dont finish those, it is
alright because I have done what I set out to do. I have done enough.
More secrets to adhere to this principle can be found in this book: The 80/20 Principle:
The Secret of Achieving More with LessYour actions do not result in equal outcomes. By
doing the minimum of what gives you the maximum outcome, you have brought yourself
the most important commodities: Peace.

Enough in life: Remove redundancies and dependencies

One of my most significant goals in my twenties is to remove all dependencies. It does
sound simple, doesnt it? I strive everyday to remove all the dependencies of mine on
people, on things I consume, on high income, on social titles and others expectations and
opinions. The list goes on. It has been really effective in the construction of my own
satisfaction and happiness. By being independent from consumerism, I am not driven by
higher income and not slave myself to my own greed. By being independent from people, I
am not emotionally attached or contribute my values to the presence of another humanbeing. By having no dependency, you are self sufficient to your own well being. You,
yourself, are enough.
Three weeks ago, I had one of the best Sunday I have ever had in a long time. I set myself
doing just one thing on that day; and I completed it well. For the rest of the Sunday, I
enjoyed peace of mind, a calm day and the joy of achievement. I recalled the worry-free
life of being a kid.This brought me to question why I had to be so rushed in every other
weekend, when I had different appointments to meet 6-8 different people in one day. I
was constantly on the run from one meeting to another with the anxiety of being late.
I then realised I did not have to do that to myself. The majority of the activities on my
planners are not essential and will not result in outcome that last for months or years. I
concluded that I can achieve peace of mind by removing the redundancies.

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When you remove redundant consumptions and redundant activities, you have the ability
to focus on what is the most important. Redundancies and Dependencies are the key
distractions to the belief of being enough.
That concludes this article - I probably have written enough :)

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True Love
At 00:24, I finished watching The Danish Girl. My brother and The Monsieur refused to
watch it with me so I watched it on my own. Admittedly, I have cried. Since I last watched
Les Miserable the musical for the fourth time last year, no other performance has made
me cried like this one does.
Touched me was not only the profound pain of a woman who cannot live as who she truly
is, but also an ideal and very different portrait of love. Like many other confused human
being, I sometimes wonder what love meant. In the search of love, I have stumbled and
fell through many cracks of my own insecurities and to the collision of trying to
understand another human being. My new open wound repeatedly cut onto the old scars
to the point this question seemed a meaningless pursuit.
I have stopped trying to comprehend the state of love; yet today I learnt something new
from this refreshing performance. I have not wasted my tears to this great movie because
from the deep connection with the characters, I realised what he meant by "But I love you"
to his wife, even when he has already found out that he is a woman. Because love is
detached from sexuality and physical needs, the state of mutual love is essentially
meaningful companionship, constituted from the best traits that made us human.
I realised, true love is an eternal friendship built with trust and security.
Your true love is your one true friend you will not leave.
My grandmother often told us how her arranged marriage made true love possible. She
said if you forced two strangers to be with each other for long enough, and that if they
constantly put more effort in trying to understand, work with, and live with each other,
they'd eventually love each other and appreciate the companionship. I always dismissed
this opinion of hers and thought it was backward thinking. This opinion changed in one of
the rare nights when I stayed over at my grandma's place, I woke up to the sight of her, by
my deceased grandfather's picture, drinking with him and talking to him about her day.
She missed him, her true dear friend. My grandfather passed away before I was born.
Little did I know how great of a companion he was to my grandmother. Little did I know
what true love looked like.

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We often pursue the movie-like instant romance and forgot that life partner are first and
foremost, a friend. Getting sexually attracted is easy and quick, building a friendship is
difficult and slow. Hollywood hype made love looks easy and instant. The reason why true
love is not portrayed in blockbuster movies is because true love is difficult, slow,
confusing, full of occasional arguments and misunderstanding. True love do not make the
best selling story as the act of love lies in the smallest details of how we resolve differences
and understand each other, work with each other as a team, and tell each other about our
days and the concerns that bother us. The movie hype make people, especially young
people, believe they ought to therefore "find" love. Finding love is an easy and quick fix who would not like such convenience? When in reality, there is no such thing as "finding"
love. You may find the partner you believe is right for you at the time, with the best
information you have, and hoping it is an optimal choice. Then you begin the process of
"building" love.
As true love is an eternal friendship, it needs to be built, not found.
Try finding a friendship, and that will explain to you why finding love never works.
I am not perfect. I am full of confusions of my own existence and identity, and so is The
Monsieur or other men who I may encounter. My first relationship was at 16 when I was
fully devoted to a guy to the point I lost my own identity in a storm of anxiety and
insecurities. My second relationship fostered me to grow as a person, both intellectually
and psychologically. Yet again, we separated over the difficulty of a long distance
relationship. Loving is risking. However, all these scars of an imperfect heart are the
evidence of learning experience that allows me to handle similar future problems better.
Every setbacks, arguments or pains with another person make me stronger,know myself
and my behaviour a bit better.
Here I am with close to 6 years of full time being in relationships. It is not to be proud of,
but I certainly consider how far it has helped me grow. I become much better at handling
myself, and in building that "friendship" with the special companion. This "skill" is a
result from all the pains, tears and suffering in my teenage years. My ex-boyfriend's sister
is over 30 years old. She has never been in a relationship or had a boyfriend. When I
observed her interactions with men, I almost saw a 14-year-old in the body of a 30-yearold woman. She may be going through the struggle now to learn how to handle another
human-being in her life, but she has my best faith that it will all work out wonderfully.

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Love is like anything else in life, that requires learning by making mistakes, and suffering
from failure to become better. Everyone will go through the states of learning to love at
different times in their life and there is nothing wrong with failing, or being hurt. It will
make you better and strengthen you as a person.
You will truly appreciate great companionship once you experience an eternal friendship
with complete trust and security. Knowing that you are both a complete, independent and
secured human being but choose to be with or spend time with each other, choose to share
and build this life together regardless of up or downs or the unpleasant things of life. A
special partnership that requires a lot of effort, but at the same time feel effortless, that is
true love.

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Observations
How Can You Have A Lot Of Time And
Money At The Same Time?
I have been travelling a lot lately. One observation I find, particularly true for long haul
and international flights, is that the elder travel a lot. In fact, on most long haul flights,
you'll often find more elder (50 years old and beyond) traveling than youngsters.
One explanation for this, I thought, comes from the trade-off of owning time and money.
Pre-working age, such as when one pursues education, he is in total control of how to
spend his time. However, he wouldn't be financially capable to afford many amenities of
life. In another world, he doesn't have money. The reverse is true once he starts working:
he is now financially capable to afford his wants, yet loses the freedom/control of his time
to the institution he belongs. One may view that we have both the control of time and
money during retirement period. Since you have guaranteed income and the freedom to
control your own time, retirees would spend more time on enjoying life, such as going
traveling.
The questions that immediately pop in my mind: Can we reverse this time and money
trade-off? Why do I have to wait until retirement to live like that? How can we enjoy life
like a retiree right now?
Who wouldn't want this? We, as human, always want more. By owning your own time
whilst having the financial capability, you can be the engineer, the painter of your own life
and happiness. Sound ideal, isn't it? I don't promise to give you an answer to the above
questions on a silver plate. If I have a straightforward equation to reverse this nature, I
would be a millionaire by now by making profits from the answer that everyone wants.
However, I may bring you one step closer by suggesting a few thoughts below:

1. Realise time is limited and wealth is limitless

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In this article I refer to money frequently. Let's me fixate the meaning of money in this
article: I meant wealth, not cash. It's easier for readers if I write money instead of
wealth, which is why I wrote it that way. However, there is a clear distinction I must
make between the two.
Many people grow up with a limiting belief that there's a fix amount of wealth in the
world. Someone is richer means someone else is poorer. Like a pie that can only be cut to
so many pieces, these people with limiting belief fights for their own share thinking when
others have more they have less. The domination of the 1% is what the politicians want
these people to believe as an excuse to why they are less well off.
These people just don't understand the distinction between wealth and money. This
limiting belief will preclude them from getting rich. The first mindset to embrace to
become rich is being generous with others and creating as much for others as possible.
Let me explain why wealth is limitless. I understand the reasons for the limiting belief of
these people. The amount of money, or cash, is indeed limited in the short run. Typically,
you get a fix amount of income stream every calendar period. You can borrow to a certain
limit from credit cards and personal loans. Hence, there are indeed financial constraints
faced by most in the short term. How well you manage your resources against the
constraint represent your liquidity efficiency.
Liquidity efficiency does increase your financial capability. In some sense, you can live
comfortably on an average income stream if you can manage your money well. However,
liquidity efficiency doesn't increase your financial capacity i.e. it may make you richer in
satisfaction terms (how much satisfaction you get from a fix mount of income) but doesn't
make you richer in monetary terms (it doesn't increase your overall income).
Who believes in the pie theory is probably confused between money and wealth. Money
is limited, yet wealth is limitless. What is wealth and why is it different from money?
Wealth is what people want.
Let use an example of barter trade to make it clearer. There's a hairdresser and a wine
maker. All of them have some wealth as they have some thing others want e.g.
hairdressers' wealth is the haircuts he can operate. Money is just a medium of exchange,
for them to trade their wants with each other. If the wine is more wanted than the haircut,
then the wine maker is wealthier than the hairdresser by the unit. The hairdresser can
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always create more of what others want i.e. haircuts, to becoming wealthier without
decreasing the wealth of others. If the overall amount of wealth i.e. the products/services
demanded in this economy increase, more money can be created (such as in form of IOU
or loan notes) to facilitate the increasing wealth.
Wealth can always be created, and it's unlimited as human's wants are unlimited. There's
no such thing as the fixed pie as some imagine, as everyone is better off when their desires
are satisfied and more wealth are created.
The moral of the story is: there's no limit to being rich. As long as you continuously and
sustainably have something people wants, how wealthy you can be can be close to
limitless.
However, back to the original thesis, your time is limited. Or at least we haven't figured
out how to live forever yet. You must realise your time is incredibly limited compared to
how much wealth you can/will make, in order to tackle the time/money trade off. Which
brings me to my second point.

2. Don't convert your own time into money. Or don't use your time as
the sole source of income.
If you use your own time as the main way to obtain our own wealth, a very straightforward
derivation would be: with this method, since your time is limited, your wealth is also
limited. To make it clearer, let's talk of the hairdresser earlier. Assuming he doesn't eat
and sleep, purely giving haircuts all day to a maximum of 50 haircuts a day, his daily
wealth is limited at 50 xPrice of his haircut.
Most people converts their time into money, hence they face the money/time trade off.
When they don't use their time to make money (such as spending time on leisure), they
don't obtain any income.
The key for your is to figure out, how can extra wealth be created for you without you
spending more of your time on it. That's when you can truly defy this trade-off.
One way could be through asset appreciation. For example, the wine maker's wealth can
increase just by leaving the wine to age over time. He doesn't need to spend more of his
time to create this extra wealth.
Another way could be through the seamless accessibility, replicability and distribution of

!46

your products. For example, famous artists make thousands of dollars overnight when
they are sleeping, as people around the world buy their songs.
Fundamentally, the key is not to use your own time to create your wealth. As alternatives,
for example, you could use other people's time (e.g. hire them) or use other things (e.g.
your name/ reputation, or appreciating assets) to increase your wealth. There are many
other ways that you may think of for yourself to suit your own circumstances.

3. Don't belong to an institution

We were told, growing up, to follow rules. One of the rules that society set is for us to join
an institution. As young as toddlers, we join kindergarten, then going to schools. Finishing
schools, the expectation is that you start with a job, again by joining another institution.
The difference between retirees and youngsters is that retirees don't belong to an
institution. An institution rules over how their members spend their time (think of an
university, any governmental organisation or any well-established company). This control
over how your time is spent will be directly correlated to how and how much of your
wealth will be made. This could be beneficial to you; such as in university, when the
wealth you are creating is your knowledge. The rules set by the educational institution is
to ensure you acquire this wealth in the most disciplined manner. However, this could also
be constraint to you creating your wealth, such as in government administration jobs
where you work from 9am-5pm with no rewards for further working hours.
I'm not suggesting you quitting your job or liberating yourself from the institution you
belong right now. However, I hope you are now aware of this limitation, especially when
the pay-off of giving someone else the control of your time is not as much as how much
you could make by liberating yourself from it.
Remarkable people break rules, and question the status quo.
I have some additional thoughts on this matter, yet this article has reached quite a length.
If you are interested for more, as an additional source to figure out how you defy the timemoney trade-off, I recommend reading The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live
Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss. This best seller book offers a
different-from-the-above, yet insightful perspective on this matter.

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What Being Wealthy Actually Means

Wealth is among the most prominent desires that human spent their life in pursuit of. It is
paid with blood, tear, anger, efforts, ones own happiness and sometimes ones own life.
However, little were discussed why we actually sacrifice a great deal of our life pursuing
wealth.
Theres a difference between being wealthy and being rich. I focus on discussing about
being wealthy here, i.e. the abundance of materials and resources. Being rich maybe
interpreted in many different ways that are non-material, such as being rich of thoughts,
of life experiences, of physical capacity and of skills. Ill narrow this down to a simple
question: Why should we, or what is the main aim of, acquiring such increasing level of
material wealth? Are we interpreting what wealth can do for us in the right way?
I believe clarifying the aim of material wealth is an important distinction to be made.
Peoples confused minds to pursue wealth blindly have slowly taken over them with such a
burning desire. In other words, without knowing what they actually acquire wealth for,
they have let their wealth, or at least the idea of it, control their purposes and life. This
may even escalate to a high level of severity where ones define themselves, their values
and their identity, by their wealth. As most tangible assets, material wealth may come and
go, and the identity crisis they face was a result of the reliance on wealth as a purpose, an
ultimate pursuit, and a meaning of life.
One should learn how to be the master of their wealth, not the other way round. Many
aspire to be wealthy, not so many knows the true purpose of what this pursuit is actually
for. I dont claim to have the absolute answer to this thoughtful question. However I may
suggest one that I believe is the fairest, which I was told by many well-off people. This is
the answer that an average earner or low income would never expect nor understand in
the first instance.
Wealth is not to make you happy. Wealth is to create the opportunity for you to
acquire happiness from other non-material sources. I usually think of wealth as freedom.
Although many have said that freedom is priceless, I believe the price of the wealth pursuit
is the closest measure to the price of freedom.

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Being wealthy gives you the freedom to use your constrained resources in the most
effective manner. More specifically, being wealthy means financial freedom, time freedom,
relationship freedom, spiritual freedom and physical freedom.
Take time as an example. The wealthy places a huge value on their time, usually in
monetary terms. Being wealthy means that you are comfortable to trade your financial
wealth to free up your time, in order to do what gives you more enjoyments. Take chores
as an example. Being wealthy means youd rather hire a cleaner to free up three hours of
cleaning to see your family. Being wealthy enables the highest authority of yourself over
how your time is spent, and you can tailor it to the schedule you wish.
Other types of freedom are, in a similar way, explanatory. Spiritual freedom is when you
buy peace of mind with wealth. When concerns of money and making ends meet are no
longer a bother, one has more mental capacity to be thoughtful, creative and
philosophical.
Relationship freedom is when you are free to hang out with most people of all types
without feeling the constraint of keeping up with them financially. Physical freedom is
when you buy health with wealth, e.g. keeping fit and eating healthy because you have
total choice of your lifestyles. Financial freedom is when you may spend on what you like
without second doubt of your enjoyments from it.
Thinking of wealth as freedom will give you a drastic change in perspective. Because in
that way, being wealthy is a way of life, not a destination. Its about the relative wealth. If a
person with a lower net worth can achieve all those freedoms, hes considered much
wealthier than a millionaire who cant.
You may have met many people who are loaded with jewellery, branded bags and
expensive clothing. Some of them never made you feel like they are wealthy. For example
those who spend thousands on a newest branded bag, but still spend half an hour
bargaining in a market over a few dollars. They might have high level absolute wealth,
however in relative term, they are very poor. Wealth should be internalised as a way of life
i.e. freedom; Being wealthy is never about showing off. Externalising its influence is the
fastest way to slavery to money.

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How Do You Know What You Want In Life?

One of the most frequently asked questions that I received from readers of the blog in
writing is How do I know what I want? How do I know who I need to become? One of
the letters I lately received was of a confused gentleman in his mid-twenties, telling me
that hes lost.
I dedicate this piece to those who feels like they havent quite figured out what they want.
Ironically, I dont feel more qualified than anyone writing this. I am not qualified telling
you how to know what you want because Im also in the process of finding out mine.
However, the below are some thoughts of mine surrounding this topic. Im fully aware you
may disagree but controversy/argument is more interesting and constructive, isnt it?
Id love to learn.

1. Reality matters: Your background, your strengths and your

limited resources
I wish I could tell you: you can be anyone you want. I wish I could tell you: you can be
whoever you dream of. However, the cold hard truth your mom never tells you is that
those dreams had better be realistic. Would a mom tell her child that he would never be
able to become an astronaut because hes short sighted? In order to become an astronaut
for NASA, your near and far vision must be correctable to 20/20 in each eye. Of course she
wont tell the kid such truth, and he grows up believing he can be the greatest astronaut.
Many of us are like such mom, living in denial and telling ourselves we can be whoever we
dream of.
Of course - you can be anyone or achieve anything you dream of with a considerable
amount of time and considerable amount of resources. For example, the kid with
short sightedness can get the expensive LASIK operation to recover his eyesight to 20/20.
If I myself, with no talent whatsoever, want to be a rock star and make it to Hollywood, Id
better be willing to put in years of practice to change my voice, learning electric guitar and
also have the financial capability to relocate. Another cold hard truth is, most of us dont
have that level of patience that is prone to time nor the amount of financial/ non-material
resources spent on the dream pursuit.

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So the reality matters: Your background, your strengths and your limited resources should
all act as the leverage for your dream. Most people focus on thinking of their dream as
what they wantto do. I think it should be a balance of what you want and needto do.
Along the line of pursuing your dream, any dream, you will encounter things that you
hate to do. For example, if you dream to be a millionaire by starting your own business,
you might have to live without any income for years, or sleep on friends houses floor for
some time. If you dream to be the best financier on the street, you almost inevitably start
out doing the most boring, clerical tasks. For those who spend their entire life believe that
dream pursuit should be about what they wantto do, they will start wondering what on
earth they are doing when encountering the tasks they hate. However, dream pursuit is
not all about what you wantto do; its also about what you need to do to get there. Many
will give up at this stage. If you build your dream around your background, and your
strengths, this will act as the engine to help you carry on and overcome the tasks that are
not so fancy.
By building a feasible dream (incorporating your background, your strengths and your
limited resources), you have the best chance of achieving what you want within a
timeframe that is meaningful to your life.

2.

Your biggest enemy: Time, and yourself

The greatest obstacles to figure out what you want are time and what you tell yourself. You
have limited time to try out things, make mistakes, be broke, race against the evolution of
technology, fall in love, and learn new skills. (Trust me, big responsibilities like marriage
and taking care of your parents retirement will kick in at some point) In addition, you tell
yourself you cant do it. You tell yourself someone else is better. You tell yourself its not
the right time. You tell yourself you dont want to fail. You tell yourself you will do it
tomorrow. And countless other things you tell yourself that make you live your life based
on your fear and comfort but not actually what you are capable of achieving.
Learn to be in control of your own time and yourself. Know what drives you and what not.
Ignore the voices in your head and move forward. Dont follow your heart - follow what
needs to be done.

3. Release the inner child: Experiment and, know what you dont
want to do instead
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What works well for me, is instead of trying to figure out what I want to do, I aim to figure
out what I dont want to do. Only by experiencing it, youd be qualified to have
the opinion whether you like it. Without testing the theory out by going on a
particular path or actually do it, you wont know if thats for you. And if you try and
absolutely hate it, brilliant! It may mean you like the opposite.
Shifting from looking for that exact path to success to employing elimination approach
(try out many paths to eliminate what you dont like) is a more practical approach. You no
longer have the pressure of finding your passion or the fear of failure, because you
expect failures at some stage.
Expecting ourselves to know what exactly we want, or passionate about, is unrealistic.
Because we, like many other people in our life, change every day. Remember what you
were so into 3 years ago? I bet such passion of yours has cooled down since, or change into
some other forms. We wake up every day as different people compared to who we were
yesterday how can we expect our desires, wants to remain the same? Therefore, dont
focus on finding your passion. It will surely disappoint. Passion is to be made. Life is
more like an experiment than a scout.
Just do something. Just like Facebooks motto Doing is better than perfect. Test out your
theories of different paths you may embark on. Life happens when you are outside of your
comfort zone.

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Youll Be Richer Acting Like A Living God

Jealousy and selfishness can be significant problems. I am not interested in the morality
aspect of it, I am talking in economics sense. If you can be just a little more selfless and be
less jealous of what others have achieved, I can guarantee you will wake up tomorrow
richer than you are today.

Jealousy
Economic models assume people are rational and hence jealousy should not be in the
equation, which is why economists assume that our utility are purely constituent from our
own consumption and choices that are formed by the information available to us. What an
ideal world when we can be so self-centric and care less of what others are doing. This is
not the case in real life with jealousy, for a significant number of us, our utility depends on
others. You see your ordinary primary school friend winning renown awards, you
attributed his success to luck. Remember the ex-boyfriend you dumped in 10th grade?
Hes a millionaire now. I bet youre not very happy. Your Facebook friends posted pictures
of their vacations while you are buried in library studying, you reassured yourself they will
fail their exams.
Those feelings are human nature. But is it of any good? No, if your welfare is a function
with negative correlation to the welfare of your haters, your ex-bf/gf, Mr. Always-thesmarter-one, Ms. Always-posting-happy-things-on-Facebook, Ms/Mr. Always-travelling
and so on. There are so many reasons people can piss you off, and many of those reasons
have nothing to do with you, sometimes they are even unintended for you to feel anything.
You may realise, that since you attributed these factors into your utility function and its a
negative component, most of the time you are losing welfare/happiness in real terms.
Because you have no control of others life, youll have little control of the unexpected
emotions if you do let them interfere in your decision making and level of happiness.
What kind of losses in real term would jealousy bring about? As you invest time and
emotions into jealousy, youll receive a negative return because those time and emotions
are not productive. Think of your friend Cherry from high school. She used to be so fat and
ugly, but her latest Facebook picture was like a C-cup model with like hundreds of likes
and comments. Do you care? Yes you do, because someone else has improved so
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drastically when youre still stuck at the same you as of yesterday. Would you make
positive return from those feeling? The chances of Cherry knocked at your door, hand you
10 and say, Thanks for your hour being jealous with me. Here is your 10 return as of
the market rate of your working hour, is pretty low.
Some can argue that jealousy can sometimes be productive because it may initiate
motivation. Now that youre done being jealous with Cherry, maybe those feelings will
drag you to the gym. However, I believe jealousy is not a good source of motivation. If
your motivation comes from the achievements of others, youll never be as good as them
because youll forever chasing their shadow while they are moving forward. And the stress
that youll always behind will drive you crazy.

Selfishness
Who can be purely selfless? No one nor at least no rational cognitive human being. Surely
no one expects you to be a living god, I am just discussing about the benefits of you to act
like one, more specifically, be more selfless to others at the right time and in the right
place.
What is the selfish mind-set? There are two types of people in the world the baker and
the eater. The eater believes that if they dont eat fast enough and with large bites they will
lose out and that their share of the cake will get shrunken. The eater believes that the
partners who are sharing the cakes with them have the same desires as himself to occupy
as much as possible of the pie, then come the Cake War.
On the other end, we have the baker. The baker believes there is no rush in sharing the
pie, if it is finished he can bake more! The partners can take as much as they wants and
that the baker is happy that at least the guests are enjoying his pies. Then come the Cake
Corporation.
If you want to get rich, be a baker.Because rewards in life is not bounded within one
cake. It comes in multiple directions, multiple forms, from multiple people and in multiple
points in time. The eater cannot control the outcome of the game because its a hostile
one, and because he is not productive. The baker can be sure the outcome of the game is
peace, satisfaction and reciprocal benefits, because he shares with others and that he is
productive.

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When one person X asked you if you can give him the contact of Mr. Big-Name that you
know, if you say No and keep it to yourself, youre thinking like the eater. A baker in this
case would understand that by introducing X to Mr. Big-Name, now suddenly there is a
new link in your network. You make X happy, and next time he is willing to return you a
favour. When you meet Mr. Big-Name, you can talk about X when you both run out of
topic. Its a win-win situation.

Youll be richer acting like a living god

Perception creates reality. If everyone else believes you are the nice guy who will go extra
miles for others, youll be one to anyone new to you. Why does it make you richer?
Because people:
1.

Like to deal with those with good reputations

2.

Believe that you wont take advantages of them (at least from your reputation)

3.

Are selfish and jealous and is tired of interacting with other selfish and jealous

individuals.
Nothing in life comes for free. You either have to work for it, or make others work at it for
you. The cheapest commodity we can exchange for others trust is the sense of selflessness
and that you dont judge or are jealous with them. So thats one way you can make others
bring values to your life, whether its opportunity, new contacts, good reputation or
gratefulness. Think of your time is worth 50 each (or at whatever multiple you like) and
stop wasting it on unproductive feelings like jealousy. And selflessness teaches us that if
you value your hour at 50ph then you should value (or more importantly, appear to
value) others at 100ph or more.
Just a smarter way working around things.

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But You Dont Have Big Boobs!

In this article Ill talk about skill specialisation and doing what youre best at. The title
seems to be unrelated to that for now, but Ill explain the context of it later.
I am currently doing my 2,000 word summative Philosophy course work essay on Ricardo
trade theory. In short, Ricardian trade theory said that in free trade, if a country
completely specialises in what they are best at producing, everyone will benefit from trade
and be better off.
If you draw an analogy to real life, if everyone focus on one single thing they are best at,
would it make a better world?
I recently read an article where the elder audience gives advice to 30-something of how to
make the best of their 30s.Rule number 5 is that You Cant Have Everything. Focus On
Doing A Few Things Really Well. This is also the same idea that is presented throughout
a really good book by Garry Keller - The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth
Behind Extraordinary Results. By observation, I am amazed to realise that there is
one thing that many people fail to understand: If you want to be the best at
something, you will be the worst in many other things, whether intentionally or
unintentionally, as a by product of that. It is because every precious moment of your life
you spend on something comes at a cost of not doing the second best thing you could be
doing. Moreover, once you are really focused on something, your mindset and life will be
shaped in certain styles that may not be applicable for other fields. For example, imagine a
point in time where your skill-set and knowledge enables you to become: either the world
famous historian or an internationally renowned gamer. Say, you chose the gamer route.
Every moment you spend practising for the coming gaming tournament means a
deduction from your time reading history books. Overtime, as you play CS for long, your
mind is trained to think and react in short time intervals that is no longer applicable to
reading history papers. In the long horizon, you completely lost the ability to even become
an average historian; you have become totally a sucker at it because of your chosen path of
pursuing professional gaming.

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But who cares? Once you become world class gamer like Patrik Lindberg(f0rest) in CS, no
one would even mention or care of the fact that you are now so horrible at history study.A
quote from my favourite entrepreneur Mark Cuban illustrates the point You only have
to be right once. And then everyone can tell you how lucky you are. The public
is biased towards success and is inclined to believe that there is a linear path to it.
Perception creates reality, you just need one success and everyone will assume youre the
one, that your path has always been smooth without failures. Look at Steve Jobs, he is a
perfectionist and may be consider the best in his field, producing the line of electronics
product that changes our lives completely. Those who read bibliography books and do
extensive research about him would know that he is a pain to deal with as a manager and
partner, as well as having several failures pre-Macintosh such as being fired from the
company he himself founded. But who cares? Steve Jobs is still Steve Jobs, hes still a life
changer no matter how bad he is as a person behind the scene.
The problems attributed to the non-successful is that you either spread your time out
trying to be the best in multiple areas, or that you give up too quickly.

Scenario 1: You spread out your effort into too many areas.
The rule developed by Malcolm Gladwell, the author of best selling books
Outliers, states that in order to become an expert in something you need to spend
10,000 hours in practising it. Assuming you can practically spend a solid 10 hours on it
every day (deducting sleeping, eating and all habitual routines), thats equivalent to 1000
days which is almost 3 years.
Now switch to the possibility where you try to practise to be the best in two different
things (assuming no synergy between them, e.g. trying to be the best economics
researcher and at the same time, a marketing expert) Thatll take you twice as long i.e. 6
years to master both given that you practise both rigidly for 10 hours a day without
exception.
And you can self-calculate for the scenario of three, four, five, six areas and so on. The
problems of non-achievers is that your effort is being too scattered into too many areas
that it will take you a multiple of 3 years and more to be able to master it. Since it takes
you so long, it brings us to scenario 2.

Scenario 2: You give up too quickly

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Imagine Patrik Linberg, on his way to become a world-class professional gamer, thought
of giving up gaming. He is one and a half year in to the practising schedule of the 10,000
hours rule, and now he thinks about switching back to become a historian again. The
immediate loss he will have is:
1.

Hell lose the possibility of achieving the best outcome of the current efforts, as well

as loosing out on all of his effort so far.

2.

When he restarts as a historian, his chance is no longer to become the world best

historian. Since he had spend long time practising gaming, someone else might already
advance themselves in the historical research fields. Moreover, his thinking, skill sets and
life routine does not apply to become the best historian anymore.
3.

Switching from one choice to another, he might, in the end, becoming both an

average player and an average historian. Low risk, low rewards: the pay-offs for being
close to the norms is too little.
Moral of the story: Once you choose a path, you should be aware that there is no going
back if you are determined to rise to the top. Switching from one area to another, back and
forth and U turn just make your chances of being the best narrower and your ability
weaker to excel in that area. And if you do insist on switching to another area, be prepared
to put in additional effort to get yourself up to the level you were before and catching up
with your competitors - who spent all those time perfecting themselves and focusing on
this area while you are doing something else.

So whats up with the title?

When I was in my secondary school, in one of the breaks, some classmates and I were
talking about who we want to become one day. When its my turn, I said I want to be
known by the world one day. And one guy said But you dont have big boobs!, and the
crowd burst into laughter. I rebutted You dont have big boobs neither, does it mean you
will also be nobody?
There are many ways to become the best in something. The funny thing is everyone HAS
the capability to be better than everyone else in something, just that some of those
potentials are NEVER realised. The narrow-minded attributed success to a fixed set of
qualities, just like how my guy friend attributed world-wide influence to big boobs.

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Nonetheless, the most successful ones are more open to unconventional thinking. A recent
Ask-me-anything on Wallstreetoasis is of aformer trader who quit his job to now own a
food truck. You must wonder what the hell is he thinking? But who knows, he might be
the the world most successful food truck owners that produce more P&L than if he were a
trader.
If you do what everyone does, youll get exactly what everyone else get. Nothing more.

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Getting Your First Jobs From Connections,

Right Or Wrong?
The Right Way, With Nothing Left? Or The Left Way, With Nothing
Right?
Many people have been through it: The difficulty of getting the first jobs when your CV has
barely got any impressive names on it. Some find their first experiences through
volunteering or unpaid works. Others find them through 'networking', the privilege that
'outsiders' thought of as a fall-from-sky asset to those who are well-connected, or to those
whose parents are. Is it fair, many have asked? But very few have formally put this in
writing: these are some of my thoughts on this matter.
I shared a humble family background like many others. Since I was young, my parents
have taught me to observe the act of the wealthy people around me and learn from what
made them successful. Whether you accept this or not, 'The rich do make themselves, and
other rich people, richer" In my mind, I usually regard it as 'The Club', an anonymous
term for the circle of well-connected, successful individuals with prosperity and
opportunities exchanging hand to hand.
'The Club' can take many different forms in different societies, and sectors. Should you
recall from your experiences, you might find that you came across some forms of it
regardless of you being consciously aware of it. Parents who is in 'The Club', exchange
opportunities, skills and wealth, recommend their kids to each other to make their next
generations becoming as prosperous as they are. These kids grow up with prosperity and
the initial support from their backgrounds, get entitled to be the members of 'The Club'
and again support their children. This cycle is perpetual.

Robert Kiyosaki: the Richest People In The World Look For And
Build Networks, Everyone Else Looks For Work.
Back to the question of whether getting jobs through networking is right, I believe there
are two types of opportunities through networking. One is 'second degree connection'
opportunity, where you got your placement because of someone else's connections (your
parents', relatives', teachers'..) and another is 'first degree connection' opportunity, where
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you get opportunity by utilising your own network. First degree connection opportunities
are usually well-regarded and encouraged by the public: There are dozens of books/media
channels that teach you how to network your way. The former kinds of opportunities
receives mixed public opinions: most of the 'outsiders' of 'The Club' regard it negatively as
a sign of unfairness and inequality.
Your peer got the position you dream of, through his dad's friends. Your blood might be
boiling because at least you think he is no better than you anyways. Wrong. His dad might
have worked really hard to get in The Club, gain that friend's trust since early day, and
spared more time than your dad on meeting other relevant people to seize these
opportunities for next generations (instead of spending it with family or on leisure). Your
peer may have visited his dad's friend's family a couple of times, written a few Christmas
cards and sent them Easter presents every year. Have you done that? No.
It may sound like I support second degree connection opportunity, however, I believe
everything has it prices. Put it simply, easy come, easy go. From my experiences, people
who got their place through second degree connections usually dont appreciate and get as
much out of it as those who networks on their own for it. Hence, the former usually
approach it more passively and got treated 'just as an intern' whilst the latter is more
active and can further his route to the company after the placement.
Life is unfair. Live it anyways. Perhaps the most rational thing you can do is to either
change your conception of fairness, or if you insist on your beliefs, then use that
unfairness to your favour. We have all observed some forms of the perpetual 'The Club', it
will always exist in society despite all the complaints. Instead of being an outsider
moaning 'Why', we can ask ourselves 'Why not'. Why have I not been in it? Hence, instead
of thinking whether it is fair that your peers got their first jobs in a bank through their
parents, perhaps should you think how that can work to your favour.

Keith Ferrazzi: the Currency Of Real Networking Is Not Greed But

Generosity.
Keith is my favourite author. In his book, he portrays networking not really as a tool, but
more like a lifestyle. I personally believe that, before you can successfully ask someone for
1, you need to do 10 for them. That is one way to gain the most important asset in
networking: trust. The people in 'The Club' trust each other because they are of similar

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level of prosperity. If one trusts in your ability, they'll be able to put their name forward to
recommend you to others for opportunity. It's not about what you know, who you know,
but 'who knows you'. That's why I never believe in the act of collecting dozens of business
cards in networking events - in the end, the business reps still dont know you anyway.
I would probably write about my thoughts on 'How to get into 'The Club'?' in another blog
entry due to its length. To conclude this entry, let me just put an imaginative picture in
your mind. Imagine you and many other peers are running for a marathon of life. You
must remember, no one has the exact same start. Some are behind you, who you usually
dont care of, and many are ahead of you. Even if you and those who are ahead of you are
of equal ability (running at the same rate), since they are placed at a further starting
points (due to many factors e.g. family prestiges and access to opportunity): they will
always be ahead of you. In this case, you'll either need to run faster than them to catch up
and abandon them behind. Or you can find out, learn and utilise the factors that place
them ahead, so that you can get the same lift.
Another way to further your position is to help people behind you to get to be where you
are. (Some may think: Aint nobody got time for that?) This is one of the most underrated
route to success, which I would discuss in my next piece. "Real networking was about
finding ways to make other people more successful" as Keith once said.

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Error 404: Success Not Found. Or Is It

Worth It?
For many twenty-something, their youth were exhausted on pursuing success. Some
defined success as fame and money; some defined it less tangibly, probably just by 'being
better than others'. Eventually many hit the point when the ultimate goal is achieved; they
ended up with an empty feeling of accomplishment and ask themselves: Whats next?
For many youngsters on Wall Street in particular, success is defined by a particular route:
Bulge bracket for 2-3 years, then business school for 2 years and then PE/VC and rise to
partner at these place. Or some committed to the career they started with, as they promise
in the interview, and define success as getting to MDs or highest ranked title. Fame in IB
is less about being known on the media, but more about being respected with certain
titles. About being able to afford what you want without looking at the price tag, and enjoy
the conveniences of lives such as having cleaners every fortnight. About the pride of
saying, Keep the change, or having a conversation about high-class topics with each
other.
However, have you ever asked yourself, would all of these matters if you have a deadly
accident tomorrow?
What would have happened if on 9/11/2001, instead of attacking World Trade Centre and
taking several innocent lives, the terrorists have aimed for Bank of America Tower, or
Citigroup Tower, or JP Morgan Chase World Headquarters, or HSBC Bank Building, or
Goldman Sachs Jersey City Office? Would America, and the world, pay such deep sorrow
and tributes for the bankers?
The above definition of success gives a delusional approach to career. That its always
about Whats better? What's on the other side? Someone has complained to me that
banking juniors these days jump too fast and always worried about Whats next? They
feel insecure thinking they have settled and stuck in one place for too long. And they are
always on the run.

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Maybe its due to the inflated Find your passion syndrome, populated by mainstream
media. You must find a career youre truly in love with to be happy. And people jump from
one place to another hoping they will find their true passion.
Forget about it. Passion is not to be found. It is to be made. Most accidental seniors have
told me that they end up in their high rank position by chance. When you stick around
long enough, you get really good at doing something, and thats when you feel good about
doing it. Thats when passion comes along. Its not by switching that you find your
passion, its when you commit to it that you start to enjoy the fruits of it in the latter days.
Living on the run of what society expects us to become has been so popular that its almost
a norm to forget that there are true love. There are genuine relationships to be kept, but
not for 'networking' purposes. There are rewards of taking risks of the unconventional
change in life such as quitting everything and starting over. There are drastically different
lives in countries that one may never heard off. And that behind all the fame and money,
one should treasure those in our lives who care of us when we have nothing, but bare
hands and sweat.
By the dead bed, all men are equal. Regardless of their pay checks or social titles or
whatever is the so-called success. However, a few have tributes, sorrow and tears paid by
others.
On the other hand, just like Gatsby spent his life entertaining others, achieving the
uttermost wealth and fame, but with no one coming to his funeral: many of us die alone.
Money don't cry, if that's all you have.

!64

Careers
100 Bullet Points For An Investment
Banking Analyst
In 2013, when I first interned at GS, I was given the below list as a hand-out, titled 100
Things I Learnt as An Investment Banking Analyst. This article was written by another
former GS analyst, containing the concise advice for the incoming analyst class.
3 years have passed and I have grown up significantly since. Recently, I have been asked
for advice by a few people with regards to their incoming IBD analyst positions. For their
benefits,I tried to find this helpful-but-lesser-known piece.I originally thought I have lost
this piece of paper, but eventually managed to retrieve this hand-out. Re-reading this
information with an eye of a now-experienced IBD analyst, I agree with these advice
wholeheartedly.
In addition to this list, I recommend all the incoming analysts to read "Barbarians At The
Gate" by Bryan Burrough, which narrates the largest and most dramatic corporate
takeover in American history. This is the best business book I have bought, which sheds
more lights into the intensity and strategy side of corporate finance. With more
experiences,I recognise more and more aspects of Barbarians at the Gate everyday.
1. First impressions last a long time
2. Never be late
3. Know your place
4. Believe nothing is beneath you
5. Don't wait for someone else to replace the toner
6. Never complain
7. Do everything with enthusiasm
8. "I don't know" is a good answer
9. "I don't know, but I will find out" is even better
10. Knowing where to find an answer is often more important than knowing it
11. Never talk business in the elevator
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12. Never promote yourself; let others promote you; promote others
13. Under promise, over deliver
14. Prioritize
15. Ask for deadlines
16. Organize
17. Keep a to-do list
18. If you think about it, there is usually an easier way
19. Anticipate
20. Be proactive; don't wait for someone to tell you what to do
21. Know your limitations; ask for help
22. Give updates
23. Manage expectations
24. Manager your manager
25. Know when the form is more important than the function and vice versa
26. Attention to detail is critical because someone will notice
27. Be perceptive
28. Listen carefully; read between the lines
29. Ask questions
30. If it's a stupid question today, it will be even more stupid tomorrow
31. Read, understand, and practice the Firm's Business Principles
32. Intellectual boredom is the enemy
33. See out greater opportunity and responsibility
34. Consider how you can add the greatest amount of value to the greatest number of
people
35. Take a step back and attempt to think of the usual things in a new, different way
36. Be creative; pursue your curiosities
37. Investing your own money is one of the best ways to learn about the markets
38. Initiate projects which are of interest to you and of value to others
39. Quality is more important than quantity
40. Seek out mentors
41. Choose them wisely
42. Be teachable
43. A good mentor will answer all of your questions - asked and unasked
44. He or she will correct you
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45. Build relationships

46. Some of the most overlooked people are the most helpful
47. Treat everyone with respect
48. Be humble
49. Ingratiate yourself to everyone, but don't brown nose
50. Take an assistant to lunch
51. Do no envy
52. Make an extra effort to build relationships with those whom you find difficult
53. If your colleagues want you to succeed, it will be difficult to fail
54. Never discuss your compensation with your colleagues
55. You reap what you sow
56. Build your relationship broadly
57. The more people that you know throughout all parts and offices of the Firm, the
greater your resources and opportunities
58. Be a relationship builder; introduce people to one another
59. If you're thankful, write a thank you note
60. Be a team player
61. Be reliable
62. Be approachable
63. Share information, resources and insights
64. Help everyone
65. Volunteer
66. Perceive when others need help
67. Pick up the slack
68. If someone needs to be corrected, do it privately
69. Communicate effectively
70. Know your audience
71. Utilize all means: memos, voice mail, fax, email, etc
72. Be concise
73. Utilize technology
74. Learn how to use it
75. Create new applications
76. Teach others how to use them
77. Recruiting is rewarding
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78. The candidates you recommend reflect on you

79. Mentor your candidates through the process
80. Diversity is achieved one recruit at a time
81. Appearances are important
82. Be well groomed
83. Learn how to dress appropriately
84. Keep a toothbrush and toothpaste in your desk
85. Keep one umbrella at work and one at home
86. Nothing substitutes for a good night's rest
87. But if you're tired, caffeinate yourself
88. It is much easier to dress inappropriately on a casual day
89. Unethical behavior is unforgivable
90. If you see something suspicious, tell someone about it
91. Know and practice compliance procedures
92. Admit error, don't try to cover up your mistakes
93. Be honest with yourself and your colleagues and yourself
94. Live a balanced life
95. A successful life is more important than a successful career
96. Set your priorities
97. Have the discipline to live by them
98. Care for your family
99. Make the time to fall in love
100. Read at least one book per month that has nothing to do with what you do

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5 'smart' Tips For Spring And Summer

Interns
Over my three years at LSE, I have done so many internship and work experiences that I
now deleted many of them from my LinkedIn profile because it has become too long. The
workplace became a severe obsession that some of my friend called me the Internship
Queen, an irresistible distraction from studies and also a reliable source of income that
made me financially independent from parents in the past few years. As I have tried so
many different things, from teaching to NGOs, from technology to charity to banking, I
am grateful to land the job that I love, the team that I like and the firm I am so proud to
work for.
Along the way I have also mentored many others. Just about this time of the year, my
inbox started to be filled with enquiry for general advice for Spring Internship and
Summer Internship from the young, eager students who was like me a few years go. After
replying and repeating these advice again and again, I decided to write a more detailed
version of it in a more organised manner so one can refer back to it if its useful to them.
I will be brutally honest and there is no attempt of sugar coating. These are true hand-on
advice of someone who was, on many occasion, an intern, and will be particularly
applicable for those looking into a career in IBD:
Rule 1: An internship does not make or break you. It will make your life easier because
there is a high chance of a return offer and you wont need to reapply again, but if you fail
to get your desired one, it doesnt mean youre bad. It just means the bank who didnt get
you have lost a great potential talent. I only applied to five banks (MS/GS/CS/DB/HSBC)
and got to IBD ACs for all five. The first three rejected me, it was painful because it took a
lot of effort and interview rounds to get to ACs. But I get back on my feet quickly, learnt
from these three failures and get my first offer. I then use this offer to leverage to GS. Now
I think of it, thank God the first three rejected me! Because if I were to get their exploding
offers, there is no way I will get GS because that year they did not open ACs before
Christmas. So its all about being in the right place at the right time, if you dont get this
one that just mean they are not the right one for you. Failure at this early stage seems to
be painful and so significant right now, due to what they call the "present bias preference",
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but when you look back, it will be one of those "Ah ha" moment when you see how all
those failures are destined for you to come to the eventual success.
Rule 2: The single competitive edge of one intern over another is how much they know.
Not about how technically smart they are, how hard they work and how much they are
liked. There are three things you need to know:
-Who matters
-What matters
-When matters
If you want that return offer, deliver what matters in *high quality* to who matters and
within the time that matters. Thats all you need, try to find *every possible means* to get
to know these three elements, whether from your trusted mentor who know the team well,
or by observations, or in some cases, by overhearing.
Rule 3: If you want a promotion, be that person you want to be promoted to long before
the promotion is due. If you want to be a full time analyst, you need to display all the
qualities of one during your summer internship. If you want to be an associate, you need
to take responsibility, assume leadership, take initiatives and perform all the tasks of an
associate during your analyst year long before you get promoted. This rule works in every
single desk, every single division in every single firm with no exception. Perception creates
reality, you need to implant the perception that Oh, this guy will actually make a very
good associate into your boss and your teams minds long before the opportunity arises,
and once there is a chance for promotion comes by, youll be the first one to be considered.
Rule 4: Treat your immediate boss like the one and only God. If they ask you to do
something, by all means:
DROP EVERYTHING AND WORK ON IT.
Ill tell you about time management in a second. This is so important that I need to repeat
it again:
When your immediate boss asks you to do something, drop everything
*IMMEDIATELY* and work on it.

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Lets talk about how you can manage your time if you have *multiple* immediate boss.
The one who wins in banking are not those who work hard, its those who work smart.
Imagine a situation when its 3PM, you are working on desk research given to you by
analyst X due this afternoon at 5PM. Associate Y comes along with a task of creating a
power point presentation that is due at 10PM. According to the above rule, you should:
Drop everything and work on Associate Y tasks.

Does it mean you need to abandon Analyst X task? Of course not. What will happen is:
-2 minutes later, you responded to Associate Y. Thank you for the assignment. I am
working on it straight away and will revert back within the next 15 minutes. You think it
will only take you 5 minutes to pull out something for associate Y but surely you want to
under promise-over deliver so you set it at 15 minutes.
-5 minutes it take for you to pull out the tittle, three bullet points for each slides and a
good layout for the PowerPoint.
-Another 5 minutes it takes you to check everything to make sure there is no silly obvious
mistake.
So in total, 10 minutes later, you send Associate Y a preliminary draft and say:
Attached is the outline of the presentation based on what I understood of the tasks.
Please let me know if there is any correction or change of direction, otherwise I will work
on this template and get back with a more detailed version in the next couple of hours
after dinner time.
What you just did was:
1.You bought yourself sometime. Associate Y will take some time looking at that layout
and make changes, say at 4PM he got back to you with a more detailed version. Now the
longer you take, the more hard-working youll appear to associate Y. You make
him believe that, even if you turn in the work at 9PM that this guy have been working on
that PowerPoint for the past 6 hours. In reality, you only work on it for 10 minutes before
4PM and however long it takes in real term after the 5PM deadline.

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2.You made someone feel good. Associate Y felt like he is in your top priority, he did not
need to follow up to remind you of the task. You brought him peace and pride. Who will he
turn to next time when he has some big important thing? Its an easy answer.
3.You at the same time satisfy Analyst X as you turned the work to her on time.

Rule 5: Over communicate, over observe, under promise, pack your ego and throw it out
of the window.
1. Over communicate: You always want to keep everyone in the deal posted of what you
are up to, how long it will take for you to finish, any concern or clarification. It's best that
you get the task right the first time, and that you understand fully what is asked of you,
rather than spending 10 hours on it and find out that's what you're not supposed to work
on. Not asking questions when you should is just sheer stupidity. Asking a stupid question
today is better than being stupid tomorrow.
A benefit of over communicating is that people can have peace working with you, and that
they know you're on top of things. So if you disappear for one hour going to the gym no
one will freak out not knowing your progress or where you are.
2. Over observe: Many things about team culture can be learn just by observing. How early
does people start arriving in the morning, and in what order? Does your MD usually drink
black coffee or one with milk? What is in the post-it notes on the desk of your analysts?
Why doesnt your associate wearing any make up today? By observing more, you can
sometimes surprise and give people the comfort that you understand and care about them.
3. Under promise: this one is self-explanatory and has been discussed in great details else
where. The idea is that you set the expectation lower than what you are capable of so when
you exceed it, and exceed it often, it makes your performance more outstanding.
4. Pack your ego and throw it out of the window: When someone criticises your work, do
not take it personal. This is another important lesson that interns just dont get it:
WHEN SOMEONE CRITICISES YOU, DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONAL.
That's just how banking works. It's a world of perfectionisms, so 9 out of 10 times your
work will be corrected, criticise and/ or throw to the bin. Do not take it personal and
throw your ego out of the window, what you should remind yourself is that you are serving
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at the best interest of the firm. The more criticism you receive, the better your work will be
at serving the client and the firm. There is no place for ego in team work and once you take
it personal, people will avoid you and avoid working with you just like avoiding a
contagious disease because taking things personal is the number 1 No, No on the street.

!73

Not getting that job offer after the

internship
The title, albeit painful, is obvious. HR has just called/emailed you with some kind words
wishing you the best as you did not get that job offer you yearned for after the internship.
As soon as you heard they murmured the word Unfortunately, the months ahead for
you were suddenly clouded with saddening uncertainties. This article hopes to provide you
with some clarity of the next sensible actions to be taken after a missed job offer.

Step 1: Slow down and take a step back to think

1.

You have your lifetime to work

The situation you are in is difficult and admittedly, no one shall wish to be in this shoe.
You have worked very diligently to obtain the internship offer. You may also have burnt
yourself throughout the 3-month summer internship with the desire that your job search
shall be put to rest with the eventual job offer. Yet, the result you heard is rather
disappointing and saddening. Rejections are challenging as they affect the way we see
ourselves and set us to a different path than otherwise envisioned.
However, the storm of disappointment that you feel has potentially exaggerated the scale
of this set-back. You might currently feel a staggering peer pressure as everyone, but you,
seems to be on track to a definite and certain path. Your desire for the comfort of a
guaranteed job after graduation is not letting this rejections bitterness go.
The question that you may have missed in the midst of all these emotions is Why so
rushed?
Once you start working, you will realise that you have the rest of your life to work. Your
professional development is a life-long journey where this challenge you face is just the
very beginning of it. In a typical adulthood, you shall be working for the next 40 years of
your life, with the likely potential of facing more significant set-backs. An example of more
significant set-back could be when you are suddenly laid off with zero income, whilst
having the duty to make ends meet and take care of a family. Lets compare that example
with the current situation. Without having this job offer, you still have a university to
come back to, still living for free on the finance of interest free student loan, or funds from
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The Bank of Mom and Dad. More importantly, it costs you nothing to try again and reapply. It doesnt sound too bad, does it?
It is indeed a privilege to having only spent a salaried three months and already knowing
that this path may potentially be not for you. Most people in your parents generations
only recognise the need for a career change after having wasted years in the job as they
didnt have the luxury of such internships, or such rejections.
Putting into perspective of your life-time journey, this challenge you are facing is not
significant. It is actually a blessing to have rejections and realise the need for change
early.

2.

Get to state of peace for best evaluation/ decision making

It is important, however, to evaluate what happened to learn from it, and ensure the same
mistakes are not being repeated. My previous blog has outlined the specific steps to how
to feel better, overcoming the emotional storms and getting to state of peace for best
evaluation/ decision making. I shall recommend you practice these specific steps outlined
in that article to achieve internal peace, before starting the evaluation process.

3.

They may change their mind but its time to move on

I had two mentees who did not get the job offer post-internship initially. However, they
were contacted by the banks a few months later suggesting if theyd like to take up the
positions. Therefore, there is a chance that they may change their mind, especially if you
were in the marginal Maybe buckets in your end-of-internship valuation. However, in
both cases, the two individuals have moved on and had other offers elsewhere, hence
rejected the banks which rejected them.
Although the possibility of the banks changing their mind is not zero, dont wait for it.
Even if they do, most likely theyd only contact you around Mar-May the following year.
The reason for the employers to change their mind is simple: Higher-than-expected
number of analysts leave after bonus season (which is usually in February). The employer
then has a sudden lack of staff which were not envisioned during the recruiting season the
months earlier. Hence, for such short-notice hire, they scout for the ex-interns whose
performances were deemed marginal, or those they werent able to hire previously due to
headcount issues. Because waiting for the employer to change their mind is such a long
wait with a very slim chance, itd be too risky to bet on this event. Therefore, please accept
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and move on. Things did not happen the way you wanted, but you always have another
tomorrow to make a better future.
You may say Everyone has told me to move on - but how do you actually do it? The rest
of the article outlines some specific actions to take, to reverse this circumstance.

4.

Evaluate what happened: Is it the bank, the job or is it you?

No one likes looking into the ugly past; however, it is important that you perform some
introspection into the cause of this unfortunate event. The question that provide the most
clarity to the reason for this break-up between you and the employer is Is it the bank,
the job, or is it you?

Was you not hired because of bank-specific reasons? (e.g. no headcount in specific

teams, teams currently being down-sized and restructured, culture/ people do not fit you,
your nature or your expectation)
If not:

Was you not hired because of job-specific reasons? (e.g. product too technical,

specialised or require an opposite skillsets than what your nature/ strength can inherently
offer)
If not:

Was you not hired because of you?

The last question is rather difficult to admit or assess. Unless there is a certain and
obvious logistical reason why the employer could not admit you, most of the time the
reasons for rejection is because of you, your lack of skills or corporate exposures, your own
work ethics, lower-than-expected output quality, your attitudes or that you seem not to fit
in/ people dont like to work with you. This is nothing against you personally they are
right but you are not wrong neither. You are just being yourself. Think of your job/ team
selection like a marriage (It is indeed similar to a marriage because in most finance/
banking jobs, you spend more time with your team than your life partner). In your life,
you may have been rejected by the opposite sex or went through break-ups sometimes. In
those occasions, you have your reasons and they have their reasons; in the end of the day,
no one is wrong. It was simply not a compatible match.

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It is hard to assess your own areas for developments because we as human have the
tendency to see what we thought have happened, not what you actually happened. To
eliminate bias and hear the truth, if you have an advocate or a person whom you trust in
the team whilst you were working there, call them up.

Tell them in advance the purpose of the call is for your learning and personal

development.

Ask them for the negative feedbacks and the very specific details of why they think

you are not hired.

It is surprisingly difficult to get negative feedbacks out of employers: they rarely give
honest negative feedbacks these days. Dont ask feedbacks for the formality of asking
feedbacks and be complacent with general comments such as You are doing great, do not
worry. You must walk away learning something about what you can improve, hence being
really aggressive on chasing them for the really negative feedback that is specific,
actionable and quantifiable. Not many ex-interns who call up their ex-bosses and asked
for feedbacks, if you do it right, you may leave a long lasting impression on them and
increase your chance of being called up when they change their mind later (See section 3).

Step 2: Accelerate and taking actions

5.

Looking elsewhere and evaluate your best options

This step depends on the best answer that youve obtain in section 4. Is it the bank, the job
or is it you? The course of actions is rather simple:

If the answer is bank, and assuming your interest in the job still remains, your

best chance is apply to the same job in another bank.

If the answer is job, and assuming your interest in the bank still remains, your

best chance is apply to another job in the same bank.

If the answer is you, the course of action is not so simple. The following

paragraph may be able to provide some lights.

When I encounter someone and make an overall assessment of a person, I usually
separate them into two components: the person core, and their behaviour. The core of
you is contains of elements such as your personality, your values, your morals, your beliefs

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and your life purposes. Your behaviour changes all the time depending on external factors
such as moods, environments and mental states; however, the core of you is quite stable
and difficult to change over a short period of time. An opinion on someone is best formed
on their core, due to the unstable nature of behaviour. As you consider these two
elements:

If the reason that you were rejected is due to certain behaviours (e.g. slow response

on emails), you can change or consider revising them in your next post.

If the reason that you were rejected is due to the conflict between the core of you

and the job/ employer/ industry (e.g. what they do is against your morals), its suggested
that you consider a different job/ employer / industry.

6.

If you are back to university

If you are back to university after the internship, I urge you to consider two goals.

First of all, please get a good grade. Regardless of how disappointed you may feel

now, your study should still be attended to. This undergraduate degree may be the last
and only degree you shall complete, hence the grade will stay with you for your life time. A
setback like no job offer may be completely forgotten 5 years down the road. However, if
someone writes a biography of you 30 years later, they will still write on the fact that you
have graduated with First Class from university.

Second of all, although its tempting to take some time out after set-back like this

by, e.g. taking a gap year, beware of taking a complete break. Potential employers do
scrutinise any employment gap. Unless you can provide an excellence example of a year
full-packed with opportunities that vastly improve your employability, any blank gap in
your employment history usually works against you in future endeavours.

Step 3: Maintain velocity

Events like rejection make you stronger. They are also valuable chance for introspections.
Setbacks are usually the junction where your life turns into a new page, appreciate this
chance and use it wisely. For whatever course of action you shall take next, make an
informed decision, stick to it until outcome is obtained, review the outcome and evaluate
feedbacks for the next decision, and repeat.

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Student Seeking Advice

Having put my email address on the internet as well as actively fostering an online
presence, I receive a significant number of Student Seeking Advice kind of emails and
LinkedIn messages. In most of the cases, I dont reply to such unsolicited contact. I hope
and wish I could but theres a reason to such ignorance, which Ill explain. Having received
many and replied to none, my guilt urges me to express to you what I have observed and
the best practises in order to actually getting a reply for unsolicited communications.

Most Student Seeking Advice emails or messages I receive consistently follow the below
format with a surprising similarity among all. The below language is excerpted from an
actual email I received, therefore I have censored all the personal identifiable information.
Dear Mai Le,

I came across your website and profile on LinkedIn and hope to get
in touch with you.

About myself: I am an Undergraduate student at [...]

university, aspiring to work within the Investment Banking industry
upon graduation. I completed a Spring Week at [] within IBD a
couple weeks ago, will be commencing a First-Year Summer
Internship with [] this summer, and [insert more CV-related items]

[ ] have confirmed IBD is the correct career path for me since I

found myself to be more suited to the proactive nature found in this
division with the long-term projects [insert more reasons about
why an Investment banking job]

I understand you must be extremely busy; however, I would really

appreciate it if I can ask you a couple questions about what it is like
working at Goldman Sachs and to hear your story about breaking
into one of the most competitive industries in the world, and any
advice you have to offer with regards to my penultimate year
Summer applications.

I look forward to hearing from you.

!79

Why I dont reply to such emails

I remember the days when I was a student. For every emails that supposedly would go to a
professional in the industry, Id spend at least 30 minutes, or even hours on composing
them: adjusting the languages or have them triple checked by myself and my friends. I
know first-hand how much effort is put into such cold emails. Speaking out of guilt, I
therefore should probably explain why I wouldnt reply to the email above or other similar
emails. Although what I say here in hindsight may sound harsh or dress with an air of
arrogance, I hope to show you frankly the thoughts that come to my mind. I cant speak
for others but believe this will help you improving your success rate of getting a future
reply.

The two main problems with the above email are as follows:
Problem 1: I dont know what hes asking for
The ask is too vague. There are millions of advice I can give in many different aspects of
the applications, millions of things I can share about my job, millions of details I can say
about my career story. How I am supposed to share anything you have to offer. To type
all of my experiences up, itd take days. I wonder if it ever comes across his mind that he
seems to assume I will help him by selecting the best among those millions things myself.
An analogy of this situation would be as if he walks into a butcher shop where I am the
butcher. It is meant to be a simple and quick transaction: he tells me what he wants, I
respond, he takes it and walks out (Notice that in this transaction, I am not paid).
However, the only thing he says here to the butcher is that he wants meat, and expect me
to do all heavy lifting of figuring out what to give him and put it on a pretty plate for him
(when theres nothing I benefit out of this transaction). I cannot make the choice for him
about what he wants to know. I also dont want to spend anymore of my time on
investigating from a stranger what he specifically wants - when he should have told me
that in the first place.
Its meant to be a simple and quick transaction. He only complicates it by not stating what
he wants. He does not help me help him. This means that I rather spend my time
doing something else than replying.
Problem 2: He has not yet earned the right to my time
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Because the ask is too vague, itd take me too much time to reply to this email. Typing a
typical email response of about 80 words will take about 5 minutes. Typing an email with
good advice and some quality substance, as well as explaining the idea well and thorough
at length will take me at least 30 minutes. If I take that amount of time to reply to one
unsolicited email a day, Ill spend 3.5 hours every week on replying to unsolicited emails
alone. The reason for this excessive waste of my time is because by proposing a vague
ask,these people dont help me help them.
On top of that, he does not anywhere mention why this is worth my time. Its all about
him, his needs, what he wants nothing about me, my needs, what I want. How is he
going to persuade me doing something for him if he says nothing about why this is
relevant or beneficial to me? Too many people who send this sort of emails do not seem to
get this rationale that it takes a lot more than listing your CV related items to
convince someone to do something for you.

As my time is so valuable to me, if someone put a gun in my head and force me to respond
to this, my reply will be as follows:
Whats your number? This is best discussed via a call.
Mai

I much prefer calling them and speaking in real-time instead. This is because with a call, I
can guarantee of how much time itd take: it usually only takes me 15 - 20 minutes to
extract specifically what they want. I can also end my time commitment when I like by
excusing myself to hang up.
Whilst I am surprised by some of the asks for advice, I am even more surprised by the asks
of some people for a meeting.
Hi Mai,

I came across your blog through [] who frequently shares bits of

the Internet that he finds inspiring. My name is [], I am from [].
After a bachelor degree in [], I am completing my accounting
degree in the US, and in the past three months I have been interning
with [] [insert more CV-related item]

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Would you like to meet? Please let me know.

Enchanted,
Following the similar thought process above, I wonder if it ever comes to his mind that the
default assumption should be that I don't want to meet him and there will be some degree
of persuasion needed.I don't think he assumes so, because there is nothing in this email
that tempts me to meet or addresses to my needs personally. It is all about him. It is not
convincing. If I am wary about even spending 30 minutes replying to an email, what could
possibly motivate me to spend even more time meeting someone I barely know? It is
surprising to me how many strangers automatically assume Id want to meet them, hence
offer little saying into why I should. To be clear: If he wants to meet me, it does not
automatically mean I want to meet him. If he values highly his time meeting me, it does
not automatically mean I value highly my time meeting him. Its his job to persuade
me otherwise because he wants something from me. The persuasion seems to be
failing in this case as nothing in the email is relevant nor appeals to me.

I actively refrain from meeting people unless I am certain of the quality and the mutual
beneficiary of the meeting. Here is why: Every workday I work for about 12+ hours. With
8 hours of sleep, thatd leave me about less than 4 hours for myself every day. Excluding
the personal maintenance time such as bathing, night-time routine or exercising, thatd
leave me with about 2 hours for myself every day. With 32 awake hours over the weekend,
it means I have only 42 hours a week to do what I want outside of work.

If I agree to meet with him for 1 hour, it does not mean it'd only cost me 1 hour. Id need
to travel to the designated meeting places, e.g. if close by, thatd be 20 minutes each way
or 40 minutes back and forth. Id need to get myself looking decent (quick shower, iron
clothes, make-up) so itd take me another 20 minutes to put myself together. Therefore,
although on paper it costs me only 1 hour to meet, which sounds fairly reasonable, it
actually costs me double that amount i.e. 2 hours. This is equivalent to 100% of the spare
time I have on a work day or 5% of the 42 hours I have every week.I spend the majority of
these 42 hours on educating myself: reading books, listening to audio books, enrolling on
online courses, or working on my project. If I am convinced that meeting him is a better
educational opportunity, or promise more values than self-studying, I would do.

!82


In summary, my time is the most valuable assets that someone can ask for. I value it above
all else. If someone wants some of it, they better make sure I am convinced fully of why
what they want is worth my time.

How to get a reply

I cant speak on behalf of others; however, how to get a reply from me is fairly
straightforward: just dont do the two things above. An unsolicited email stands the best
chance with a short, specific question and language to show that the sender has earned the
right to my time (i.e. why is this request relevant to me, whats in it for me, if he knows
someone I know, or if he has something that can benefit me for example, my project
Next Speech)

This is an example of a good cold email. It does not only have a reply but also gain the
sender the opportunity for $2m seed funding from investors.

!83

The reason for such splendid results are: 1/ The ask is specific and short: "Do you want a
web crawler that can help you gain more customer?". In term of length, there are only 5
sentences in this email. Short email gives the light-hearted impression that the recipient
can also reply with a short answer, therefore increasing the chance of a response. 2/ There
are several hints in this email to convince that it's worth the recipient's time e.g. "several
of my friends pointed in your directions" means the sender have mutual connections with
the recipient, "do you think information like that would be valuable for your company"
suggests the sender is offering something that the recipient may want, or may consider.
The language is not heavily crafted and fancy, but it serves a purpose of initiating a good
discussion based on mutual beneficiary. I'd reply to this email if it was me.
Cold emailing or initiating unsolicited contact is an etiquette that needs to be learnt. I
have learnt it by mentoring a lot of people. When I am a mentor to others, by receiving
several questions from my mentees, I understand how my own mentors will feel. By
observing how the mentees treat me, I understand the best practice for me to become a
better mentee to others. Mentoring to me is not only about giving back, but also about me
putting myself in my mentors shoes to understand how I best interact with them. Id
recommend you to mentor and help others to learn the same etiquette of how to reach out.
I hope the language in this article is not too blunt and arrogant. If I really don't care about
these emails, I wouldn't have written at this length. Do my guilt a favour by helping me
help you.

!84

3 Months In The Job And This Is What I

Learnt
The below are actual lessons I learnt from the mistakes I made in the past 3 months as an
investment banking analyst:

1. Read or listen to the instructions carefully (Listen and note down words for words, or
read it words for words. Because otherwise, you might over-do it or under-do the ask.
2. When your boss asks you to send materials to client/internal party - asking him if it's
the final version yet. If yes, rename the file do not include version number.
3. Learn how to book a timeslot for printing production instead of printing the book
straight away.
4. When Excel cells are left empty and you are copy value over the table these cells will
be copied over as 0. Make sure to delete, because empty cells is definitely not the same as
cells with 0.
5. ALWAYS save up a version, regardless of how small is the change.
6. On emails:

Be on top of all the emails. Literally take every email as an action items. Reply or

forward to person in charge. Action on it immediately if the task takes less than 5
minutes.

NEVER left an email unanswered. If it's not addressing you - MAKE SURE to

follow up with the person who's supposed to answer it if it's not answered after a while.

Read emails every morning when you wake up and every night before you sleep.

Check if it's referred to you (read all the way until the end of the conversation, dont be
lazy, because your name maybe dropped down somewhere).
7. When cut a cell/columns on excel, make sure to check all the formulas reference
because it will for sure get messed up (Its hard to notice because error text may not
appear, but all the rows/column especially the sum will get misaligned). Better practise is
to clear content/ or delete instead of cutting rows.
8. If you want to leave early and the rest of people/team are in meeting - send emails to
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check with everyone if it's okay to leave.

9. CHECK and CHECK and CHECK your work again and again. Print it out and read
words for words. There is no limit to checking, there is no limit to being right. Once
things go wrong, it can go really wrong.
10. Learn people's working styles
11. If Excel output is hard coded from email source, add email contents as comments in
excel to find sources later.
12.

Read the output - not just copy paste! When executing the task with better

understanding of the content it makes the output 10x better

!86

If Someone Had Told Me These Things

About Working Life
I have graduated and embarked on my work life for almost a year. The transition from a
student to a full-time employee is not always as smooth as I have imagined it to be. When
I was in my third year at LSE, I was very eager to start working and envisioned several
fantasies of what it would be like being a working adult. I almost believed of graduation as
a switch: I thought once I started earning my own income, I would have immediately
immersed myself in the adult life style that I designed in my head.
I couldnt be more wrong. Fast-forward a year later, I am still in the process of learning
how to be a working adult. There are several things I wish someone had told me about
growing up into a working life.

1. Managing Finances
To be frank, this is probably one of the considerable struggles of mine. Learning how to
manage ones own finance is one of the most important life skills that are not taught at
school. My parents havent been near me since I was very young, so I had to learn how to
do this myself. I am very generous with others and myself; hence my wallet suffers
constantly - although I had a relatively high starting salary.
Personal Finance is a whole extensive topic for discussion on its own, but I will focus on
my experience and what is currently working for me in term of managing my finance. If
you know you constantly go over your budget, you have only two choices: either you spend
less, or you earn more. For me, I have always been a big spender, so my solution at
university has been to work more and more to increase my income. However, as I now
have a fixed monthly salary, I need to learn how to spend less. The following are some
methods I use:
Try to use cash more often than card: I find the hassle of using cash makes me more
conscious of my spending.
Wait until tomorrow to buy something: This works wonderfully to eliminate impulsive
spending. Tell yourself: if you really need that new gadget, or that item on sale, your need

!87

will be the same whether you buy it tonight or tomorrow. The difference is, with impulsive
spending, the urge for the purchase greatly reduces once tomorrow comes.
Set up a direct debit to put away a portion of your salary into saving account, as soon as
the salary is received: Having lower bank balance makes you more conscious to spend less.
Have considerable amount of savings or rainy day funds: I cant stress enough the
importance of savings. My immediately saving goal is to save for 6 months of income if I
am unexpectedly out of work (rainy day funds). My longer saving goal is for more
significant investments, such as a deposit for a mortgage.
Ultimately, managing finance is about self-control over material desires and balancing
generosity with disciplines.

2. You are not a student anymore / the importance of having

better tastes
Focusing on quality instead of value is a lesson I have learnt in adulthood. The difference
between being frugal and being cheap, is that: being frugal means you focus on getting the
most quality for a certain price tag that you can afford. Being cheap is to focus on the price
tag itself i.e. on getting the item at cheapest price tag as possible.
Someone taught me about the importance of having great tastes of consumptions. She told
me You are not a student anymore when I told her about my spending habits. As a
student, its almost typical to consume instant noodles and fast food, buy cheap clothes,
and go to noisy bars and messy clubbing places. As a working adult, the focus should be on
quality i.e. having better tastes. You dont have to spend a lot, but once you do, get the
most quality for what you can afford. For example, with the same amount of money, I
learn to buy 3 times less clothing items, but each item is 3 times more expensive than what
I would originally buy as student. Same applies for experiences: I now go out less, but
every time I do, I go to places with the most pleasant environment, with greatest services
and wines.
Having better tastes is a way streamline your consumption to whats most necessary and
delivers most quality. For example, one of my great investments lately is on a really
expensive but high quality mattress. I therefore cut down on all unnecessary spending on
other furniture. I know many people who spend a fortune on general house furniture but

!88

only purchase an average-quality mattress. My thought about it: Practically, I spend 1/3 of
my life on the mattress and probably less than 1 hour on my couch or other furniture hence the budget should reflect this relative importance. I now have high-quality deep
sleep and very much looking forward to my bed every day, which I think is well-spent
money. If you spend less but on higher quality items, youll develop slowly an appreciation
for quality, and wont go back to the days of unnecessary spending on items that will only
clutter your house.
Having better tastes is also a way to gain more respects from other people. If you go out
less but each time to more expensive places, for example, youll learn more about the
appropriate behaviours in such expensive environment. You will learn more about wines,
cuisines and dining/ drinking etiquette. These are all helpful skills and great practice for
when you are put in a more practical situation in such environment, such as in formal
dinners for work. In addition, when you bring other people out, the places you choose has
a great reflection on you. If you bring me to a cheap noisy bar, it says something about the
kinds of things you value, and you yourself. Having tastes is like setting a standard for
the high quality that you wont go below. If you introduce people to your pleasant and high
tastes, they will see the high standard you set for yourself and pay you their respects.

3. Taking care of myself

I never paid attention to my physical health when I was at university. I consistently sleep
less than 8 hours a day. I didnt focus on the quality of the food I eat. I didnt take care of
the health of my hair, my skin and my body as a whole.
I watched beauty videos on YouTube about Evening skincare routines. I found these
videos very foreign to me. Why do I need to take an hour every night for these pampering
routines when I have other more important ambitions and goals?
I couldnt be more wrong. Over time I realised, when I dont have sufficient sleep, my
brain is less sharp. In turn, my learning process is slower and its harder for me to focus.
When I dont exercise and eat unhealthy food, my feelings are negatively affected as my
mood changes due to hormone levels. There are many other occasions when I realised I
am not at my best, because I didnt develop a system, a routine or a habit to take care of
my physical self.

!89

Fast forward, now I even have a sticker on my desk saying, Drink water - to remind
myself to drink enough water. In the end of the day, I need to co-operate with my physical
body, to execute tasks to get closer to my goals. Before I can take care of the bigger
problems in world, I need to take care of myself. If I dont treat myself right, no one else
can.

!90

"Being Important"... And The 10

Commandments Of Goldman Sachs
When I was an IBD intern in 2013, we listened to a talk from Lloyd Blankfein who shared
several advices for summer interns.(YouTube Link)One of his advices, which I followed
religiously, was to study the bibliography of those who I consider as in position of power,
money, admiration and respects, to learn from them. Ive studied politicians,
philanthropists, public figures and successful entrepreneurs and managers; some are alive
and most are dead. This study may seem like a redundant activity, some argue, as no two
lives are the same. However, Ive found extraordinary lessons shared by extraordinary
people really meaningful and insightful; almost as if they are alive again and become my
mentors.
One of the person who I studied bibliography is John Whitehead, who recently passed
away on February 7th 2015. Hes one of the few men that brought Goldman Sachs from a
small shop trading commercial papers to the global powerhouse it is today. His brief
obituary is here on the FT.His short bibliography (~20 pages), in his own words here, is
much worth a read.
I remember when I attended the A Level Girls program with Goldman Sachs in my high
school year; we had a session where we study the 14 Business Principles of the Firm,
which are also publicised widely on GS websites and marketing materials. John wrote
these 14 Business Principles. Little did I then knew there was an earlier version of these 14
Business Principles that John wrote, called the 10 Commandments of Goldman Sachs.
These 10 Commandments were the guiding principles for Goldman through the late 20th
century - when they grew from a small shop to the world's powerhouse.
10 Commandments of Goldman Sachs
1. Dont waste your time going after business you dont really want.
2. The boss usually decides not the assistant treasurer. Do you
know the boss?
3. It is just as easy to get a first-rate piece of business as a secondrate one.
4. You never learn anything when youre talking.
5. The clients objective is more important than yours.

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6. The respect of one person is worth more than an acquaintance

with 100 people.
7. When theres business to be found, go out and get it!
8. Important people like to deal with other important people. Are
you one?
9. Theres nothing worse than an unhappy client.
10. If you get the business, its up to you to see that its well handled.

I may speak about other principles in other articles; for this time shall I focus on
commandment #8.
Important people like to deal with other important people. Are you one?

What do you meant by important?

When you consider someone as important, its often in references to either their
significant value or status/influence. In Vietnamese, for example, important is
translated to quan trng. Quan means authorities/officials or people with great power
in the ancient time, and trng means heavy weight, or respect. Overall, the
commandment means people who have significant values; status or influences like to deal
with each other, and urge the reader if they are one of them.

Why is this? Isnt this somewhat superficial?

Its mostly a matter of trust, and is constituent of the desire for mutual beneficiary. Why
important people like to deal with other important people, mostly because first, I trust
on the less likely probability you will rob my wealth/resources/health or harm me
physically/emotionally/financially - because you are in a position with less incentive to
do so. Second, as you are in a position of some importance, the matter of us dealing with
each other will most likely result in mutual benefits for both you and me.
Everyone likes to consider himself or herself important. And most reaches out to other
people with equal level of importance that they think deserve their trust, attention and
business. Of course, in a relative scale, it cant be that everyone is more important than the
average. Some will fall into the median area and some will fall below median area. In the
world with most people being blinded of their own arrogance, the people who recognize

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their deficiencies has their ultimate strengths and competitive edge to excel among the
crowds.
For people in median area of the belt curve distribution, it may be more crucial to first
appear important than being important themselves. People buy in the dazzle of someones
positive mysteries, image, great tastes and reputation. How important you think of
yourself can decide how successful youll be in appearing important.
However, this method of appearing importance will only buy some short-lived respect
unless you truly have what other needs.
1. Appearing important will brought more people to you as the rest are attracted to, and
believed in, the dazzle of you being in great height among the crowd.
2. Over time, as people deal with you more, they can slowly adjust their belief to who you
truly are. Only appearing important but offer no true value will drift people away once
they realise the discrepancy in their belief and reality.
3. Having true value is when you have something people need or want. Thats the ultimate
way to make you important to most people.
Remember: the eyes of the others price values and respect, and others judge how
important you are and determine your market value.

Are you one?

A lot about being important is how you project your view of yourself to the world. Many
people dont have a lot of what others want or need, but they can sell what they have very
well and vice versa. Everyone thinks of himself or herself as (more) important (than
others) and would like to be treated as an important person. Being able to persuade
someone else to think as highly of you as you do to yourself requires a firm belief of your
own position and height.
Commandment #8: Important people like to deal with important people. Are
you one?

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Appendix
10 Ultimate Lessons I Have Learnt In 2013
1.

Think first: Whatever song on guitar, no matter how difficult you can always find

an easy tab to work with. Same for most things in life, if you pause and think for a
moment, there is usually an easier way to do it.
2.

Luck matters: sometime a lot, in your career. And getting along with your boss is

like a leverage, sometimes it can make your life 100x easier. ALSO first impression lasts.
Reputation lasts longer. And both are hard to change, whether they are good or bad. No
matter what they said, people judge, don't ever forget.
3.

Last minute revisions: It's easy and seemingly unavoidable to pull last minute

revisions, but it doesn't usually end well. Last minute revisions can get you a 2:2,
remembering the entire year materials can earn you a 2:1 and only understanding it will
get you a 1st.
4.

Book is your best friend: There's an answer to everythingin books. Just need

to keep on reading (or search for the right title).

5.

Managing Finance: Eating out everyday is the easiest and fastest way of burning

money in London. Never manage finance using bank balance - Your bank balance is the
pretty little liar that is usually 3-4 days lagged of what it actually holds. A woman's wallet
of size 20cmx10cmx5cm can be reduced to 10 essential items that fits a card holder of size
5cmx4cmx2cm.
6.

Helping people: If you have helped many others, there are others who are willing

to help you. However, the favor usually (and almost always) doesn't come from the same
person nor immediately. And there exists many how are you people who never talk for
you in years but only comes to you when they need help - help them anyway if you have
the resource. But to an extent only, remember, too much philanthropy at young ages kills.
As Joker says if you are good at something, never do it for free.
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7.

Stay away from toxic relationships:those that drag you down, upset you and/

or your loved ones, or bring you on a one-way road of going no where. In the end our time
are too limited to be wasted on ones that don't appreciate us as much as we do to them.
8.

Christmas:No where opens on Christmas Day including China Town and Chinese

supermarket, except Indian restaurants. You can also order Indian takeaway online at
3-4-5am on usual days. (Tried and tested)
9.

Sport: Golf bears a resemblance to life.

The more relax your hand is hitting the balls, the further it goes. Living an intense

life keeping scores can get you nearer to your ultimate goal, but won't you hit the exact
hole that matter.

To become a good golfer you must hold great imagination (of what your shot will

look like even before hitting), just like in life when you need to achieve something you
must dream/imagine your paths.

No golfer can hit the ball, not to say to control its direction, without perfect balance

and a calm mind.

And to contribute to the success of a golfer, there are usually partner and caddy.

Same in life, crucial to your success are two types of people: one that is your trusted
adviser and one that is capable of handling your mess and support you in the background.
10. Finally:
The greatest asset that a man can possess is the ability to fix himself: self-criticise, truly
understand his weakness and do something about it. In the end, remember the 3A rule:
the difference between ambitions and achievements is actions.
2013 was a good year. 2014 can be better.

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10 Ultimate Lessons I Have Learnt In 2014

The below are lessons I learnt in my personal life in 2014.For the lessons that I learnt on
my job, I have written a separate blog here.
1. On Identity: Ones job and background are a part of their identity not the identity
itself. We often too easily label people with what they do, their income and the university
they go to (mostly facts); hence forms quick judgements of a person. One thing to
remember is that those background facts will change as people evolve. I have learnt to
identify others by their passions and wills, as well as their drives. It gives me great
enjoyment exploring and learning about their growing personalities and the paths they
take to get there.
2. How to talk to anyone: Think different to achieve what others cant achieve. But
think indifferent in term of self-perception to make friends and create support base. In
order to achieve what others cant achieve, once must have originality in their thoughts to
identify what the crowd misses out. However, no great success will come by without
external support, either emotionally, physically or professionally. In order to socialise,
make friends and gain support, one should try to believe he/she is of no difference in
background and personality than the person they are talking to (neither superior, nor
inferior). Of course the reality is there are always differences between individuals; but if
you can omit this in your mind, this removes the mental barriers and allows you to talk to
anyone, including strangers, with ease, as if you know them for years. The more you think
that you are super different than the rest of men, the more you'll have problem in social
interactions.
3. To defeat impulsivity - wait until tomorrow: There are activities that give great
short term enjoyment, such as shopping/spending and playing games. To defeat
impulsivity and the strong desire to act on something just because of short term
enjoyment, wait until the next morning to see if the urge/desire is still there. Unlikely it
will be.
4. To defeat procrastination - do it now: Specially, if something can be done in 5
minutes, do it immediately. If it can be done within hours, do it on the same day. If it can
be done within days, do it on the same week.
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5. On failing:It will be bitter. Very bitter. The acceptance, acknowledgement of failure is

the hardest stage where I realise my own incompetence and that Im not perfect. However,
if you view failure as a delayed success, that all the lessons of picking myself up after
failure will be useful at later stage, you will realise its more like a learning process and
stop keeping scores.
6. Passion: Some passions are more realistic and achievable than others. And not all
passions are worth the pursuit. When you are carried away by a particular passion, do a
reality check: asking friends, family, co-workers, mentors and investors as well as doing
your own research. AND your passion will change over the years/ months. So dont
commit too much on one passion, time, financially and emotionally, unless you are 100%
sure that it is the right path to sacrifice for (e.g. using the reality check)
7. Most confuses optimism with arrogance: The most successful people are those
who are aware of their own arrogance. We hate those who deceive us but never realise that
the person who deceives us the most is our own self. The difference between being
optimistic and being arrogant is that those who are optimistic still believes they will fail
and be well prepared for situation where they fail.
8. Care of your family: They are the one and only people who love, forgive us
unconditionally and would never lie to us. At some point in our life we are too attached by
new accompany and material pursuit that we forgot of our family and those who truly
care. We usually only come back to family when we are in trouble; but family is always
forgiving, care and talk to us as if nothing has changed. Treasure your family, especially
your parents, as they wont be there forever.
9. On being nice: Most of the time the problems with those who care too much,
including me, is the fact that we feel great being nice to others, but at the same time, we
expect the same treatment from others. Most of the time we wont get the same returns
and it will disappoint. I have learnt that I cant be nice to everyone, because my time and
resources are limited. Cares of those who cares; helps those who appreciates. Treasure
reciprocality; dont disappoint once reciprocality is not met, that just mean the person is
not worthy of your time and effort. Help and be nice to those who reciprocates, and
sincerely treasures you; and walk away from those who dont.
This brings me to my last point:

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10. Love yourself. You yourself are the only true companion you have in life, beyond
your family, life partner, and friends. Learn to be yourselfs best friend.

People only truly love you once you love yourself. "We accept the love we think we

deserve." (My favourite quote from an old movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower
starring Emma Watson) Have you ever wondered why the most selfish people get treated
nicely? Because they dont settle for less than what they think they deserve.

People only truly respect you once you respect yourself. In contrast to popular

belief, respect comes from within, not from externality. Once you feel important, you are
important.

People only truly realise your value once you realise your own value. "No one can

make you feel inferior without your consent." I learnt this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt a
few years back and its still evident in most interactions of my life. You get no less than
what you believe you are worth - more importantly, your actions should reflect this value
that you place on yourself.
This is a sequel to the note "10 ultimate lessons I have learnt in 2013"

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10 Ultimate Lessons I Have Learnt in 2015

Every year-end, I write a post about the 10 ultimate lessons I have learnt throughout the
year. This is the third sequel to the 10 lessons I have learnt in 2014 and in 2013.
Shout-out :

Ill be in Ho Chi Minh City from 31-Jan to 4-Feb and Hanoi from 5-Feb to 12-Feb.

Hit me up!

I am aware I have been MIA for more than a month so this post will be slightly long

to compensate for my absence.

Some lessons here may have already been obvious to you. That probably means you

are a bit further ahead of me in the Department of Life. :)

1.

About being right: You need to get it right. Not casually right, but completely and

100% right. The reason why we get paid more than other professions and other firms is
NOT because we are better than others, but because we dont do things that are 99% right.
We ensure everything we produce and every action we take are 100% right ALL THE
TIME. Your pay premium is because of that 1%. It does not take more intelligence and
superiority, but only more diligence and integrity, to be right. If all of us in finance do
things of only 99% right all the time then 2008 will happen again. This is not optional but
mandatory. We cant be casually right. We have to be definitely right in what we do and
the things we produce. This is one of the most important lesson I was taught personally
that shapes my analyst years.
2.

Learning meditation: A friend introduced me to the concept of guided meditation

through the app Headspace. I self-diagnosed with ADHD, which means my brain has
attention-deficit issues. In general, it is really difficult for me to focus. Learning
meditation on my own is impossible. Guided meditation is much easier for my brain to
handle. It has helped me to focus better, helped to achieve peace and also cleared my mind
for better thought process. If you have watched Sherlock Holmes and got to know of his
mind palace, meditation helps me achieve near that state.

3.

Not speaking every thought in my head: I once told a friend of my concern that
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my thoughts were too transparent with others. I am too expressive, predictive and lack of
that degree of sophistication, maturity and elegance. My friend told me The key to
adulthood is not to speak everything in your head. I realised this was true at that
point, but the significance of this advice was only recognised in several occasions later.
Speaking too much of your thoughts is like playing a poker hand and revealing your cards
at the same time. From then on, I tried put in a lot more effort to be less vocal and listen
more. However, trying to speak less was very difficult to me personally. As mentioned
earlier, my brain is influenced by ADHD, which means if I try to think silently in my head,
my thought are usually disrupted and distracted. It became apparent to me that I love
speaking or writing because that is when I can think in a coherent, uninterrupted way.
Therefore, I was looking for months for some solutions where I can speak to myself in
order to think and keep these thoughts organised.
After a long search without results, I decided to build something myself for my own needs
(Hence the disappearance for the past month). I build a free speech-to-text voice journal
app which automatically transcribes my voice recordings into texts and beautifully
organises them in a journal. I have been using the app for some time and have
accumulated a decent voice diary of my thoughts. I now can speak my thoughts out loud
without revealing too much to others, and can review these thoughts myself in an
organised way. To thank you, my readers, I will be releasing my work for free in a few
weeks on App Store. Join to know when my work is released.
4. Foster my senses and take care of myself: It took me 22 years to slowly attend to
myself. I neglected self-care until my twenties with constant chases for spiritual and
intellectual growth. It was rather appealing to live like a rebel or a free-spirited idealist
Why would I need those girly acts like having a night time skincare routine when I can
use my time to save the world? It takes years to realise that such idealism was wrong and
pretentious. I missed out the strong association between my physical self and the spiritual
self by thinking my spiritual self was who I solely am. Part of this was attributed to my
strong belief in Ren Descartes - I think therefore I am. Not until my body screamed for
attentions after some sickness, I realised everything would not have mattered if my
physical senses were not sharp enough to experiences life. Since then, I started recording
my physical activity and sleep using a Fitbit! It is now apparent to me that if I want to
change the world, I need to start being at my best capacity, both physically and mentally,
to both think and act.
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5.

F-all days are important: I used to be one of those people who fully booked her

weekends with 5-8 meetings and social invitations. I used to be one of those people who
are scared of doing nothing. The anxiety arose when I kept count of the output and
constantly questioned myself What have I done today? When I felt it was not enough, a
voice constantly screamed inside my head. I cannot be doing nothing! I must do
something!.
Ms Genius once asked me What did you do in your free time as a child?. I drew, wrote
poems and read., said I. She continued Do you still do it now?. That was when it struck
me that adulthood had deprived me of the hobbies that fostered myself as a person.
Striving for social acceptance made me negate the time spent on my own doing something
that is not commercially useful. This realisation forced me to spend a solid period of 2
months in the summer of 2015 not actively meeting people during the weekends, but only
just invest time in activities with myself.
A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post on the value and importance of being alone. I
found the time spent with myself in solitude is key to unwind and unload any negative
energy. I was too busy with other people and distracted from getting to know the one
person in the world I should definitely know: myself. After this 2 month period, I learnt to
relieve my anxiety of doing nothing and have a f-all day every week or two - because
doing nothing is not optional, it is essential.
6.

Source of Motivation and Defeating Procrastination: People who know me

are often amazed by my execution mode, when I get an extremely significant amount of
work done in a relatively short period of time. In such mode, I always get things done
promptly and well. As a result, others can trust on my reliability, which has helped me
very much advance in life.
I am often asked how I can endure not to procrastinate. This question has been difficult
for me to answer because it was very vague to my understanding how this attitude of mine
has developed. Only until recently, the source of my motivation slowly made sense to me
and hence I am now able to answer this question.
In my opinion, motivations come from two sources: Wants or Fears. You are
motivated to do something when you want something or are fearful of something. It is

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now clear how I always get things done. When there is an opportunity for procrastination
to arise, I immediately use either my wants or fears to extinguish it.
Most people aim to motivate themselves using their wants. However, the majority of us
react more intensely to fears than our wants. Fear is therefore a really effective instrument
for motivation. For example, if you fear you will miss the interview tomorrow if you dont
wake up on-time, it is almost certain that you will wake up hours earlier than your usual
wake-up time. Same for assignment submissions or exams if you are fearful enough, you
will get it done on time and well. Mastering the art of creating artificial fears is
essentially generating the eternal source for motivation. Of course there needs to be a
strong emotional control in place to avoid this artificial fear to develop into anxiety, which
is where meditation helps to bring me back to calmness.
In short, my secret is that I alternate between wants and fears to motivate myself. The
result is excellent.
7. It only brings more good deeds when I strive to talk to strangers. A goal of
mine in 2015 was to talk to as many strangers as I can. I have practised this throughout
the year. I talked to all Uber drivers when I was on the ride with them. I talked to waiters
and waitresses. I talked to people at train stations or waiting areas. It has only brought me
good deeds so far. I get much better service, more friends, better conversations and learn
amazing new things about another human being in the least expected occasions.
8. Eternal sense of security, self love and trust in myself. This year brought me
the best gift of my life - the eternal sense of security and self-love. I became completely
detached to dependencies on other people and removed all insecurities about myself. I
believe this eternal sense of security may have started from this TED talk. I relate to it a lot
because I share similar childhood experiences with the speaker. Right now it is not so
clear to me how this gift came to me and developed throughout the past year. I will give it
more thoughts and write about this process another post.
9. Personal investments: I have read that on average, millionaires have 7 sources of
income. They are:

Earned Income - Money that you earn by doing something e.g. salary.

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Profit - Money that you earn by selling something for more than it costs you to

make.

Interest - Money you get as a result of lending your money to someone else to use.

Dividend Income - Money that you get as a return on shares of a company you own.

Rental Income - Money that you get as a result of renting out an asset that you

have.

Capital Gains - Money that you get as a result of increase in value of an asset that

you own.

Royalties - Money you get as a result of letting someone use your products, ideas, or

processes.
So far I have tried to acquired some income from 3 out of these 7 streams. 2016 will be the
year of learning to venture in the other 4 streams.
10.

Making optimal choices: One piece of the childhood memories that boldly

imprinted in my mind was the first time I saw traffic lights in Hanoi. I grew up in a small
village in another province in Vietnam. Only until my first time visiting Hanoi did I saw
roads with traffic lights. With excitement, I observed the pace of the traffic going through
the series of consecutive traffic lights. My realisation was that the people who managed to
get slightly ahead of our car at a few traffic lights went multiple times further ahead when
the light changed, and were out of our sight at a fraction of time.
Such observation of a kid did not sound ground-breaking to you, but it was almost lifechanging to me. My naive mind concluded at that time If I want to move fast, first and
gone, I got to be the first at every traffic light. The incidence of traffic lights made me
believe that every time I am stopped or have set-backs in life, I always need to be at a
position to be ready to go faster than everyone else when lights change and overcome
the next traffic lights faster.
This "philosophy" has developed into an attitude of making optimal choices. It is difficult
for me to understand how many people are contented with making sub-optimal choices.
Even in every day actions, I observe many people who make sub-optimal choices like
accepting average education, do what they are told and do not ask questions, accepting an

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average job, talking about average topics like dating, diet, clothes, gossips of other people,
choosing a boyfriend/girlfriend that deteriorate their life quality, watching instead of
reading or soaking their brains with low-quality content. Maybe many people are not
aware that the choices of where they position their car in front of the traffic lights can
determine how far they can go. Making great choices is like everything else in life, which
requires practice and learning. I believe if I do not train to make good every-day
choices, I will not be able to make good choices in turbulent times of my life.
Allow the fake mathematician me to illustrate to you using the graph below. Imagine the
series of optimal choices, subject to your life constraints (e.g. income, age or location), lies
along the oval curve. The outcome to you and your life is the integral of your choices, or
the area under the graph. If you make an infinite amount of choices (very close to each
other) that are all optimal (lies along this curve), you maximise your outcome subject to
constraints. This is usually not possible as human do not make infinite amount of choices
nor that all of them will be optimal. Therefore, your outcome will instead look similar to
the blue or yellow area.

Show-case here in blue is the one who make slightly better, and consistently better,
choices than their yellow counterpart. They get more out of life, and well be gone when the
next traffic lights comes.

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If you have made it this far,

Thank you so much for your continued readership.
More posts to come on my website lequynhmai.com
Ill see you soon,
Mai

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