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Thursday, August 10, 2006

Expect the Unexpected -- from Yourself !?! 

Whew~~~ Typed this wholesale from a newspaper column..me is beri silly hor..me would think likewise last time buden in recent years, me has come to realize that opportunity may though not knock only once buden it doesn't often come to knock on your door often so once you miss the chance, you may have to wait several years or even decades before it comes again -- jus like the way you chance upon this once-in-a-lifetime article which may inspire you and set you thinking..haha...

OCBC Bank chairman Cheong Choong Kong advises graduates to be contrarian, and to place integrity above all.

Life's journey:

On April 22, OCBC Bank Chairman Dr Cheong Choong Kong, 64, gave a convocation address to graduates of his alma mater, the University of Adelaide.

In it, he spoke about lessons he has learnt in life, and conclude that guarding one's integrity is the most important.

We produce extracts from the speech in today's Life's Journey.

" WHAT can I possibly say in 10 minutes -- for that's the time I'm given -- that would make the slightest difference?

I'm expected, I suppose, to deliver an inspiring message. I'm sure it's very important that you work hard, succeed and become a model citizen, but you've heard all that before, and you will hear it repeated many times in the future.

So, I'm not going to give a lecture: you've enough of those. And I won't even try to inspire even though that is expected.

That perhaps is my first piece of advice to you: Don't do what is expected. Be contrarian.

No one's ever achieved greatness by following the textbook or meekly obeying orders. And since you're expected to take my advice, that means you should not do so.

Sounds confusing? That leads me to lesson number two, which is: C'est la vie. That's life.

Outside the university, very little is plain and simple, black and white, and there is no all-knowing professor whom you can turn to for unambigious answers.

( Momentous Phrase )
In Life -- Real Life -- it's not neccessarily how much you know that counts, but how you apply your knowledge, in ways that vary from one situation to another, from one person to the next.

Are you academic and dogmatic, or flexible and pragmatic ?

Very often, IQ has to give way to E.Q, or emotional quotient. To those of you who are about to enter the coporate world. I have this advice ( which of course you are expected to do the unexpected by not accepting ): For a quick introduction to the real would and an accelerated development of your E.Q, ask for a posting to the Industrial Relations department where you have to empathise and negotiate with hard-core unionists.

Unfortunately ( or unfortunately, in another context ), there are not many companies in Singapore where unionists are sufficiently challenging, so one's EQ may not be well exercised.

But there are still some places where industrial relations is boisterous and dramatic, and one can develop one's EQ in an environment where Aristotelian logic, the type you are used to in university does not always reign superme.

Life is about balance and compromise. My view, the view of a 64-year-old which you young people need not accept ( and which you definitely must not accept unquestioningly ), is that success in life is measured not by the wealth you accumulate, or the rank you reach in your company and society.

Rather, it is about how well you balance the opposite demands of work and family, work and leisure, personal and official interests, spiritual and material, yin and yang.

In this regard, I am most unqualified to inspire, and the best I can do is to tell you what advice I would give myself if I could start all over again at your age.

I would certainly try to marry work and enjoyment by choosing a vocation or entering a line of business where I can have the cake and eat it too.

If you like travelling, join an airline; if high finance fascinates you, join an investment bank; if you fancy international relations and diplomancy, join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Everything else being equal, you will be less stressed and you will cause less stress. You may even be happy and contented -- not a neccessarily desirable state, but that's a subject for another occasion.

I would also advise myself, if I could begin life again as a fresh graduate, not to put off to the next year what I would enjoy doing this year.

( Momentous Phrase )
It is all too easy to say that we are too busy to do what we enjoy, and we are too busy to do what we enjoy, and we can always do it later when we have the time. If we don't make the time, it will be many years if ever we get around to doing it. We can always find the time if we try.

For over 2 + 1/2 decades, I told myself I could resume acting and dancing, activities that I enjoyed very much, any time except the present.

I did resume, luckily but almost 30 years after I stopped, and now regret the lost years. I could have continued acting and taken up serious dancing if I had made the effort, with little adverse effect on my careerm but I was preoccupied with work to the exclusion of almost all else.

I was not successful in striking the right balance -- all yang and no yin. It does not have to happen to you.

( Momentous Phrase )
The same is true of friends and family. They cannot be put on hold until career goals are met and more time is then available. Friends become distant for lack of attention, and children grow up.

A familiar excuse for taking friends and family for granted is that time is limited and one has to set priorities. In the exercise of setting priorities, work and career usually take precedence.

However, advancing one's career and nurturing important realtionships are not naturally mutually exclusive. How to balance one against the other is an essential lesson of life that you cannot find in the normal academic curriculum, but it is a lesson that must be learnt, a skill that must be mastered.

I am the last person to give advice on matters spiritual, but I have no doubt that the more devout among my friends will want me to stress the dangers of addiction to the material.

The material rewards of success are sweet, so far be it for me to discourage you from the pursuit of excellence in your chosen profession. The modern economy dangles incentives for hard work and achievement; the religious domain calls for restraint, donations and sacrifice.

It is little wonder then that the scale is heavily weighted against the spiritual; yet, here too it is wise to strive for a judicious balance.

Up till now I have been speaking about the wisdom of striking a balance between opposing demands. There are times when compromises are neccessary.

Let me now conclude with remarks on an issue over which there must be no compromise : the issue of integrity.

I can think of no better guidance to give fresh graduates about to make their mark in society than to stress the importance of integrity. You must be fair and honest in your dealings with clients, colleagues, business partners, suppliers of goods and services and yes, even compeititors.

A reputation for integrity will be an advantage in most circles, but that is not the reason to stay honest and fair. After all, some people have amassed enormous wealth and power through dubious means.

( Momentous Phrase )
You want to be a person of integrity not because it's a formula for success, although it's extremely helpful, but because succcess will be all the sweeter if you have not compromised your principles to achieve it.

On the other hand, success borne of stabbing a colleague in the back, or dishonestly using insider information, or misleading a client, is hollow.

If you must remember one piece of advice, discarding the rest, remember this.

Typed it out from newspaper June 9, 2006
He makes one big u-turn to broach about the same topic, but me feel it might be neccessary to inculcate in people how important it is and this is probably the neccessity of the superfluous.

By: QuaSarZ Aurora Honorable Thinker who thinks Fait Accomplis bore me silly !?!

0 cHAllengERS awAITing to FigHT AlkaiserZ the HERO !?!:

DECLARE a CHALLENGE !?!

+ !?! AlkaiserZ the Hero TRIUMPHS AGAIN !*! +

@ 8/10/2006 12:08:00 AM

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