If you come out of their torture chamber smiling and surviving, congratulations you made it through the '36 luo han chamber'. This is a very famous movie when I was a little boy. In Shaolin temple, if a monk or disciple wants to 'graduate' and leave the temple, they have to prove themselves that their kungfu are ready for the tough outside world. They have to fight their way through the 36 chambers and must be able to pass all of them before you can go and see the outside world.
Same for the monster boss, they will throw you the toughest project they can find or volunteer you to other siong team or project and see if you can swim out alive and handle the project well. Its either make it or break it. If you give up and throw the white towel, then too bad, you failed the test and you are not cut out to be the elite core management team. This is to me, means 'Plan for Failure'. The monster boss want to make you fail, screwup the project or make you quit or resign. If you survive the whole ordeal, congrats, you passed the test.
If you are very lucky to have those nice bosses who 'Plan for Success', congrats. If you are already earmarked to be the elite force, the nice boss will protect you, shield you and praise you infront of others to make you successful or make it a success. Its a much easier process then the 'Plan for failure'. You do not have to put a lot of efforts and things are pretty planned out for you. You just need to go through it and it will be a breeze.
So if you are the candidate, which one do you want? Do you want to take the easy way out of 'Plan for success'? I think majority wants the easiest way out or shortcut. But the truth is that you will not be as tough as the guy as the one who went through '36 luo han chamber'. But who cares right? its easier to be the guy who got the 'Plan for Success'. I also want haha
Ok, let us change the context. So what about your portfolio? Do you want to 'Plan for failure' or 'Plan for success'?
We definitely want our portfolio to withstand the volatility, economic cycles and weathered the ever changing business world. In our portfolio we 'Plan for failure' by asking ourselves questions like :
1. are we overexposed in a particular company which give us too much risk?
2. are we overexposed in a particular sector eg oil and gas sector is quite beaten down. do we keep loading up those energy stocks?
3. are we having too many small caps ?
4. are we having too many REITs, medium caps and blue chips?
5. are we overexposed in stocks?
6. What happen if there's a global economic crisis? am I ready to take advantage of it?
7. Stick to your plan! Make sure you buy those beaten down blue chips at dirt cheap prices and not watch it go up again with your balls shrink
Hi Jimmy L,
ReplyDeleteVery entertaining. Thanks.
Question for you: If a man tries to fail and succeeds, which did he do?
May I add one item 8. to your list?
8. are we overexposed to the Singapore market? And here I would count your job, your house and your investments in Singaporean companies. Geographical diversification might make all the difference in the long run.
glad u like it :)
Deleteits written in local context and glad you find it entertaining haha
if he failed and succeed then stick to it! the next phase is maintenance and ensure that he continue succeeding hee
we invest in SGX stocks but some of these stocks are big MNC with businesses or partners in malaysia, china, australia, japan, indonesia, etc
my opionion is that in a way we have geographical diversification :)