Aloysius Chan's Blog

Apple: We hire people to tell us what to do and not the other way round. Boss guide the team to great result. Candour: the quality of being open and honest; frankness. What motivates your team? To master the art of getting stuff done without telling people what to do. Listen Clarify Debate Decide Persuade Execute Learn Listen Conduct casual career conversation to avoid burnout or boredom. Life story. Dreams. 18-month plan. Reward rock stars but do not give them all the glory. Absentee management Hands-off, ears off, mouth off. Lacks curiosity. Doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t listen. Says nothing.  Is afraid of any details. Has no idea what’s going on. Sets no goals. Remains unaware of problems. Causes collateral damage by tripping on grenades unawares. Is ignorant of both the questions and the answers. Is unaware of context. Micromanagement Hands-on, ears off, mouth on. Lacks curiosity. Pretends to know all. Doesn’t listen. Tells how. Gets lost in the details. Asks for make-work...

Benjamin Graham's core principle Stock is an ownership of the actual business. The market is either too expensive or it overbalanced to too cheap. The higher the price you pay, the lower your return it will be. The risk of being wrong can never be eliminated. You can even take advantage on bear market. Successful investment come from identifying the likeliness for the industry to grow. Obvious physical growth does not always translate to investor's profit. Experts have no dependable ways to select the most promising companies in the most promising industry. Mindset: patient, disciplined, eager to learn and hardness emotions. The defensive investor must confine himself to the shares of important companies with a long record of profitable operations and in strong financial condition. The longer the bull market the more investors may thought a bear will never come. Price fluctuations of convertible bonds and preferred stocks Variations in the price of the related common stock. Var...

Bad things decreasing Legal slavery Oil spills Expensive solar panels HIV infections Children dying Battle deaths Death penalty Leaded gasoline Plane crash deaths Child labour Deaths from disaster Nuclear arms Small pox Smoke particles Ozone depletion Hunger Good things increasing New movies Protected nature Women's right to vote New music Science Harvest Literacy Democracy Child cancer survival Girls in school Monitored species Electricity coverage Mobile phones Water Internet Immunisation Cuba is the poorest of the healthy while the United States is the sickest of the rich. In Cuba, you must reject everything the government does and support what they rejects. Many refugees drown in the Mediterranean sea as European Council Directive from 2001 that tells member states how to combat illegal immigration. Risk to worry about now! Global pandemic: the coronavirus Financial collapse: too many financial bubbles World war 3: trade war and territorial led conflicts  Climate change: v...

1955: year of automobile. 1959: Ford suffered losses in automobile sales as their car isn't suited for general market salary range. Appropriate market understanding is a must. Increment of tax rate may result in drop of tax revenue. Tax is only effective when there are many wage and salary worker. The rich will try to avoid tax by setting up pension plans and tax-free foundations. Information is crucial to the securities market (e.g. politician health). State material therefore cannot be disclose frivolously. The weakness of unchecked currency is devaluation. Why cryptocurrency will not work? As the above statement on decentralisation, the currency will weaken along the way with rampant behaviour. It is too complicated and in order for it to work effectively, many layers have to be in place (e.g. additional blockchain to ease the main cryptocurrency and other blockchains to facility faster confirmation). It is like a country with many fractions versus an incumbent party. As long as...

2 systemes in psychology: the conscious and the automatic. Müller-Lyer illusion: 2 arrow directions but the same length.  Aphorisms were judged more insightful when they rhymed than when they did not. Example of cognitive ease. Sins of representativeness On most occasions, people who act friendly are in fact friendly. A professional athlete who is very tall and thin is much more likely to play basketball than football. People with a PhD are more likely to subscribe to The New York Times than people who ended their education after high school. Young men are more likely than elderly women to drive aggressively. Hindsight “The mistake appears obvious, but it is just hindsight. You could not have known in advance.” “He’s learning too much from this success story, which is too tidy. He has fallen for a narrative fallacy.” “She has no evidence for saying that the firm is badly managed. All she knows is that its stock has gone down. This is an outcome bias, part hindsight and part halo ef...

There is not best time to start. If you don't start now, next year you would have asked yourself why you didn't do it. Say no to average. You work is not done when your inbox is finally empty, it is when your boss stop telling you what to do. Before you do something, ask yourself would you do it tomorrow or in 30 days' time? Connect to the right person. Showing up on time is a basic promise. Tiny business Go where your customers are. Be micro-focused. Outlast the competition. Leverage. Respond. 8 important questions Whom are you trying to please? What are you promising? How much money are you trying to make? How much freedom are you willing to trade for opportunity? What are you trying to change? What do you want people to say about you? Which people? Do we care about you? 10 secrets of marketing process Don’t run out of money.  You won’t get it right the first time. Convenient choices are not often the best choices. Irrational, strongly held beliefs of close advisors shoul...

Enabling thoughts Time must be explicitly managed, like money. You can always change your plan, but only if you have one. Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things? Develop a good filing system. Rethink the telephone. Delegate. Take a time out. Relationship tips Meet people properly. Find things you have in common. Let everyone talk. Check egos at the door. Praise each other. Phrase alternatives as questions. Clichés Dance with the one who brung you. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right. How to live your live Dream big. Earnest is better than hip. Don't complain, just work harder. Treat the disease, not the symptom. Don't obsess over what people think. Look for the best in everybody. What what they do, not what they say. Be the first penguin. Get people's attention. Loyalty is a two-way street. A bad apology is worse than no apology. Tell the truth. Get in touch with your crayon box. No ...

Minimalist The more stuff you own, the more your stuffs own you. 7 Principles Be convinced Our actions follow our heart. Benefits Spend less Less stress Easier to clean Freedom Good for the environment Be more productive Example for my kids Financially support other clauses Own higher quality things Less work for someone else Make it work for you Rational minimalist We will intentionally promote the things we most value We will remove all clutter from our lives We will decorate in a minimalist style We will use our money for things more valuable than physical possessions We will live a counter-cultural lift that is attractive to others Jump right in Victory leads to victory: do smaller and easier tasks first to build momentum Minimalism encourages minimalism Sell your stuff so to reduce your emotional attachment Stop the trend Do not buy things that you will only use once or twice Possessions do not equal joy Consumerism encourages you to work harder Consumerism will create more make-t...

Motivation People want to play because they believe they are in control. Need for control is a biological imperative. Motivation become automatic when you can self-direct choices into a habit. Marine is one of the lower paid but high motivation trade. Explain to yourself why this task will help you get closer to a meaningful goal. Team Group norms play a critical role in shaping our emotional experience. Norms determine whether we feel safe or threathened,  or excited, and motivated or discouraged. Saturaday Night Live is successful because everyone know one another. It's all about leadership: how to make everyone come together. To make everyone feel included, the entire team is rooting for each other and everyone feels like a star. Focus Cognitive tunneling is overly focused on whatver is directly in front of our eyes, e.g. gluing to smartphone. You will lose focus in cognitive tunnel and latch on to the easiest and most obvious stimulus. Firefighters, nurse, commandos, etc. stay ...