Investment Stab: Others

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Sunday, 5 March 2023

ChatGPT says 'No' to NCMP Land Sales Proposal

06:49 Investment-Related, Others No comments

In the recent budget debate, NCMP Hazel Poa proposed an alternative source of revenue to be added to Singapore's yearly budget.

Current Framework (CF):

Keep proceeds from land sales in reserves and invest them.
Allow up to 50% of investment returns generated from the proceeds to be spent in the budget under the NIRC.

Alternative Proposal (AP):

Land sale proceeds are dividend equally over its lease period, with each portion added into the corresponding year's budget as revenue.
Invest the unused portion of the proceeds in reserves, with up to 50% of the investment returns allowed to be spent under the NRIC.

Needless to say, DPM Lawrence Wong rejected the proposal, citing that over the long term, the AP does not generate returns very different from the CF.

Recommended Read: Why We Still Need Insurance Agent

Introducing, ChatGPT

We figured, rather than rely on our brains, let's rely on an AI.

Hence we pit the CF against the AP in ChatGPT.

We screenshot the questions and answers we got below.

So, it doesn't seem ChatGPT is very pro the AP.

But, to make sure it is not biased, we also asked it what are the benefits of the AP.

Obviously, at this stage, ChatGPT started to contradict itself a little.

It first stated that drawing on land sales is volatile while NIRC provided stable funds.

Then it contradicts itself by saying that land sales are stable while NIRC is volatile due to investment risk.

Our conclusion is: to take the ChatGPT response with a pinch of salt.

Rationale of the Alternative Proposal

In personal finance, there are several schools of thought on how to manage money for retirement.

One of them is the "living off the interest" approach, which emphasises on:

Accumulate a large pool of capital (principal)
Spending only the returns generated by the principal
Never draw down on the principal.

This is the approach utilised by the CF.

Another school of thought is the "4% rule movement", which emphasises:

Accumulate a large pool of capital (principal)
Principal and the returns generated go back into the pool to form the portfolio
Draw 4% of the portfolio every year to spend

This is the approach utilised by the AP, but with a much more conservative twist: drawing only 1% instead of 4%.

Recommended Read: Trevor Noah Explaining CPF

Excel Spreadsheet

So we ran an Excel Spreadsheet just to see how much of a difference each framework would generate in terms of returns.

Below are some of our basic findings

By the end of the 99-year period, CF would have 75% more funds than the AP.
By the end of the 99-year period, CF would provide 57% more in annual NIRC contribution than the AP.
Over the full 99-year period, CF would have contributed 23% more than the AP, in terms of total dollar contribution.
In the beginning, AP would contribute more to the NIRC as compared to the CF. The switch will happen at the 35th-year mark, where onwards CF will start contributing more to the NIRC than the AP.
At the 64th-year mark, CF would surpass the AP in total accumulated dollars contributed to the NIRC.

Recommended Read: Why You Should Max Your CPF Retirement Sum Early

Conclusion

There is no right or wrong answer on this matter.

It is a matter of perspectives and personal preference.

Because at the end of the day, mathematically, both approaches still grow the reserves and contribute to the budget.

It is just whether we prefer the "living off the interest" approach (our current way) or the "4% rule movement" approach (NCMP's suggestion).

Personally, we're on the "living off the interest" camp, but that's our preference.

What about you?

Let us know in the comment section which approaches you prefer.

Recommended Read: Simplifying UOB's 7.8% Interest Rate

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Reasons Why the 99-Year Term Limit on Properties are a Must

07:05 Investment-Related, Others 1 comment

There are 3 (R)easons why Singapore set a 99-year term limit on public housing and most private housing.

2 of which have been mentioned by the Singapore Government multiple times on multiple occasions.

The last reason was one we thought of as a potential reason that was not explained/explored by people.

Recommended Read: Trevor Noah Explaining CPF

Reason One: Revitalise old Building(s)

Buildings deteriorate over time.

Eventually, there will come a time to demolish and rebuild.

However, if no absolute deadline is set, the probability of the building being demolished is ZERO as people living inside the building will not allow it to happen.

Hence a rule (or law in this case) has to be set in place to mandatorily allow the buildings to be vacated for demolishing and rebuilding.

Recommended Read: Why We Still Need Insurance Agent

Reason Two: Re-purpose the Land

The second reason for the 99-year lease limit on public housing in Singapore is to ensure a sustainable supply of land for future generations.

By having a set lease period, the government can plan for the redevelopment and renewal of housing estates and allocate land for new developments, such as parks, schools, and hospitals, in a systematic and sustainable manner.

This helps to prevent a situation where land becomes scarce and unaffordable, which could lead to social unrest and economic inequality.

Therefore, the 99-year lease limit serves as a long-term planning tool to ensure that land remains available and affordable for the benefit of all Singaporeans.

Reason Three: Reduce Land Concentration

The 99-year limit is required to prevent the land from being concentrated in the hands of a tiny group of the population.

The Pareto Principle (80-20 rule) has been shown to be evident in most social and economic situations, be it investments, properties, wealth, productivity, or even crime.

Should everyone be allowed to freely own their home indefinitely without a "redistribution" from an external force, it is only a matter of time before 80% of the land goes to 20% of the population, and the rest of the people have to scramble for the remaining 20% of the land.

There was a research that dove into land ownership in Singapore before we had the Land Acquisition Act (LAA).

Research had estimated that the Hadrami Arab community had at one point owned close to 50% of all the land in Singapore, although they made up less than 1% of the population.

They were one of the major property owners in Singapore before the implementation of the LAA.

Had it not been for the LAA, it would be safe to assume that there would most likely be a lot less land today for public use.

Hence to prevent properties from concentrating into the hands of a few, term limits were set on properties so that the majority of the land would return back to the government for redistribution for the next generation.

Of course, this might be counterfactual as it has not happened.

But we definitely would not want to plan our policies in a way that would put this theory to the test.

Recommended Read: Why You Should Max Your CPF Retirement Sum Early

Conclusion

These are the 3 reasons why we think there's a 99-year limit on Singapore's lands.

Do you know of any other reasons?

Let us know in the comments below.

Recommended Read: Simplifying UOB's 7.8% Interest Rate

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Inflation Impact on the F&B Industry

06:53 Others 1 comment

1. Inflation is Real

Based on the Singapore Government statistics, food-only inflation is 4.5% in May 2022 compared to May 2021.

Straits Times published an article on 21 June 2022 stating that inflation may double to 8.2% in the second half of 2022.

While these numbers may be staggering, the actual numbers might actually be far worse.

Because the reported numbers are what end-consumers are experiencing.

But what is not reported as much is how much is being absorbed by the various importers, wholesalers, and F&B outlets.

Take it from someone who has been in the wholesale food product business for the past year, and I can tell you, that prices have been increasing insanely!

2. Price Increases

Over the past year, these are the price increases we as wholesalers experienced.

MSG: +47%

Dried Seaweed: up 47%

Dried chilli: +32%

Soya bean: +31%

Ee-mee: +31%

Plain flour: +28%

Cooking oil: +24%*

Instant noodle: +23%

Refined Sugar: +17%

Salt: +14%

Various canned food: +5% ~ +10%

These are the more commonly used items by F&B stalls, although other more "niche" items also went up 5% or more.

I only included dried goods because that is the industry I am in.

But the numbers from poultry and vegetables are not any better.

*On a side note, cooking oil prices have fallen a bit recently, but it is funny how my petrol prices have not dropped.

3. Cut F&B Outlets Some Slack

Cut the hawkers and coffeeshop stalls some slack.

If they raise your prices, understand it is not their choice.

A lot of my F&B customers who I have spoken to are all afraid to raise their prices because:

1) They get scolded by their customers for raising prices.

2) If they are the first to raise prices, customers will flock to their competitors. There is always more than one chicken rice stall in a given hawker centre, and it is a perfect competition scenario.

Prices had increased dramatically over the past year, and there are no signs of slowing down.

Because of war and covid lockdowns,

1) Supplies like corn, wheat, and other raw materials are not being farmed, processed, or packaged, and that's causing a low-supply issue.

2) Supply-chain is affected with docks closed or overwhelmed, leading to a lot of goods going out of stock due to delay or any available stock going to only the highest bidder.

3) Supply-chain issues also extend to containers, where there are goods to ship but no containers to load the goods onto for shipment. This is also another cause for "out of stock" or "higher shipping cost".

As an industry; importers, wholesalers, and F&B stalls have absorbed as much of the price increases as we can.

On a whole, the industry is surviving on breakeven levels or marginal profitability.

If a whole lot of items have increased by more than 5%, but inflation is only 4.5%, that means someone has been absorbing the price increase.

Hence, please do not scream at us if we raise prices, it just means we have reached a stage where we can no longer absorb the price increase.

We have families to feed as well.

4. The Consequences

Recently, several headlines of F&B stalls closing down have been trending on various social media platforms.

Source: Seedly

The few reasons for closing down that kept surfacing during interviews with them are intense price pressure for raw materials, labour, and rents.

As much as I am all for fierce competition for business, survival of the fittest, growing to achieve economies of scale, etc; please understand that if the industry consolidates to only a few major players instead of the current set of diverse players, prices will still go up because one, demand still outstrips supply; and two, buyers have fewer options to purchase from.

Recommended Read: Why You Should Max Your CPF Retirement Sum Early

5. What Can We Do?

1) For starters, we can be more understanding if prices have increased at the stalls that you eat or buy produce at.

Not scolding us, or even understanding that the price increase is our last resort is a great motivation for us to continue what we are doing.

2) Continue to patronise the stalls you like, even if they have increased the price.

You may complain online that the bubble tea you drink has increased in price, but you will still buy it and not scold the person serving you at the counter.

Please do the same when you are buying from the other F&B stalls - especially if the stall owners are old uncles and aunties.

3) Consider tipping if you can afford it, even at hawker centres or coffee shops.

Every cent counts and goes a long way in helping the industry stay afloat until the crisis is over.

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What I Learnt During My 1-Year SGUnited Traineeship - Part 1

07:42 Others No comments

About a year ago, I posted an article on what I've learnt during my 6 months as an SGUnited trainee.

It has been exactly 1 year since I left my 1-year SGUnited traineeship with a local bank to embark on a new career path.

And I finally have the time to sort out and list down Part 2 of everything I've learnt and experienced during the second half of my time at said bank.

Because it is so long, I am breaking it down into multiple smaller parts for it to be an easier read, and adding a more detailed story to every lesson.

Today's lesson is from a mistake I made a few months into the job.

1. The Story

I was a product officer in the local bank.

Let's call my team "Team A".

Several months into the job, I was tasked to run some spreadsheet analysis on a new initiative we were thinking of launching.

The spreadsheet contains the customers and their transaction data.

I was supposed to analyse the data based on a financial model/framework that was developed by another department in the bank.

Let's call that department "Team B".

I was told that I could ask a senior guy in Team B for help on the framework if I had any issues.

I soon ran into problems with the framework and started asking (more like spamming) the senior guy for help cause I had a lot of questions using the framework.

Eventually, the senior guy asked me what was I doing and why I needed to know all this information about the framework.

I told the senior guy what my team was planning on doing and he asked if I could send him my spreadsheet for him to take a look at and help with my issues.

Without hesitation, I was like "Great!", and proceeded to send him the whole file.

The next day at work, my mentor called me and asked if I sent the whole file to the senior guy.

Below is a rough recap of the whole conversation.

Mentor: Did you send 'senior guy' the Excel document you were working on?

Me: Yup.

Mentor: Aiyo! Why did you send him the whole file instead of just a few customers' data?

Me: Why?

Mentor: This morning he called to scold our director cause of what we were thinking of doing.

Me: Huh? What we were planning to do will affect him?

Mentor: Ya, the program we were thinking of launching is something that will benefit our customers and our team's P&L. But the side-effect is it will negatively affect his team's P&L. Of course he will call to scold us.

Me: But net-net the bank still makes the same (or more) money and the customers will benefit more. Isn't it better? And this is just money moving from the right pocket to the left pocket.

Mentor: From the big picture, yes. But the reality is no, cause our P&L will affect our bonus.

The next thing I know, I was off the program without any formal notice.

I was just tasked to do other stuff and never heard of the program again.

Either because Team A proceeded without me, or I had successfully single-handedly ended the program with my mistake (pretty sure it was the latter 😅).

Recommended Read: Why We Still Need Insurance Agent

2. Lessons Learnt

With every mistake made, there were lessons to be learnt.

Here are some of them.

1) Don't disclose too much information

I didn't ask around to find out that the Team B I was speaking to, was the "competitor" team, and that I shouldn't have divulged too much information,

Heck, I shouldn't even divulge too much information to another team, even if it is not the competitor team.

Sometimes, having a bit of secrecy helps, and this applies to work and personal life - you want to be careful who you are being transparent with.

2) There is no such thing as a 'One Big Family' organisation.

Even though we are in the same organisation, it is almost every department for themselves.

There is no right or wrong to be "every department/team for themselves", it is just the way the culture is structured, and every organisation is different.

It is just that in order to survive in this particular culture, one has to position themselves nicely to avoid getting into the cross-fire.

3. Final Words

I'll end off this story with one of my favourite scenes and the second favourite quote from a movie that I like - Cold War, 寒战.

It literally explains what I did wrong.

Translation:

"Every organisation, every department, every role, has their own set of rules, written and unwritten.

The first step is to always learn all of them. But most people are dead before they finished this step.

The second step is the find rules' boundaries are, and lines where when stepped on will trigger the rules' repercussions. Then try your best not to step on those lines. Learn how to play within those boundaries and you will be able to stay alive."

Needless to say, I was "dead" before I finished Step 1.

I didn't learn about the written and unwritten rules of the game I was in.

Recommended Read: Why You Should Max Your CPF Retirement Sum Early

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Corporate Strategy 1: Rundle, Recurring Revenue Bundle

07:30 Investment-Related, Others 1 comment

We are starting a new segment in our articles.

We are now going to talk about corporate strategies and business models, something we picked up when learning about investing.

Today, more than ever, business models and strategies are playing an increasing weight in how we invest our money, and we think it's only appropriate that we also dive into it when talking about investing.

And in our first-ever dive into this topic, we are going to be talking about "Rundle".

What's a "Rundle"?

The Rundle, or recurring revenue bundle, was the term coined by NYU professor Scott Galloway, to explain how companies can mix 2 business models (recurring-revenue subscription and bundling) together as one to grow faster.

"Recurring-revenue subscription" was the in-thing a few years ago. Any startups that had "subscription" as part of its business model found no shortage of venture capital fund outbidding each other to invest in the startups.

"Bundling" on the other hand, is an old retail strategy of combining several products together to sell as a package. Think selling masks with hand sanitiser in 1 pack instead of as 2 separate items. Customers buy more because of the perceived discount, while businesses get a higher transaction size.

The "Rundle" is the combination of the 2, where businesses package several products together and sell them as a subscription, offering a better value proposition, better value, and make higher revenue.

Recommended Read: 9 Things I Learnt from my Internship at GIC

How It Is Being Used?

While companies in the subscription business are working hard to find products to bundle into their subscription, companies in the bundle business are working hard to get into a subscription relationship with their customers.

Case in point: Apple and Walmart.

Apple & Apple One

Source: Apple

Even on their service website, the first sentence states that it's a subscription that bundles several of Apple's services.

Originally, you can subscribe to the different services (Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and iCloud) on their own.

Maybe you're already subscribed to Apple Music and iCloud, but now at just a couple dollars more, you can get TV+ and Arcade, instead of paying for the full price.

That "lower entry price" would entice customers who are on the edge to give the service a shot, and give Apple the slight revenue boost in its services segment.

This is the classic subscription model pushing for bundling to achieve the "Rundle".

Walmart & Walmart+

Source: Walmart

The sleeping giant has awakened and it's starting to face its toughest competitor (*cough cough Amazon) head on!

Walmart is a supermarket giant in the US, and while it has been growing over the years, the growth has not been spectacular and it has been gradually losing market share to Amazon.com.

Being a traditional supermarket, it is in the "bundle" business, that is, you get a slight discount if you bought 2 bottles of Pepsi instead of 1.

Businesses of such nature are one-off: customers buy where it is cheap and convenient, and have a low cost of switching to another provider.

Customers don't build an entrenched relationship with Walmart because if today another shop is selling cheaper than Walmart, customers are going to go to that other shop.

What Walmart has decided to do, is to start offering its customers a subscription service to entrench their customers into a relationship with Walmart (copying the strategy of Amazon Prime).

For a subscription fee, customers can get free shipping and many other perks, which attracts customers to do more of their shopping with Walmart because they have already paid a subscription fee (a sunk cost) and wants to utilise that fee to the max.

This is the classic bundling model pushing for subscription to achieve the "Rundle".

How It Shouldn't Be Used

Source: Inc.com

While most companies are innovating ways around how they can offer a "Rundle" service to their customers, not every company will be able to get it right.

To put it simply, a "Rundle" is only a value proposition.

It is a good way to accelerate growth IF there is a good Product-Market Fit (we'll explain product-market fit next time).

If there is no product-market fit, pushing out a "rundle" service is not going to grow your business.

Example 1: Bundling business pushing for subscription

You have a retail shop that uses the bundling business model currently, and you're pushing towards a "rundle".

However, the prices you charge before and after the subscription fees, are higher than your competitors.

In this case, what's the value proposition you bring to your customers to entice them to enter into a subscription relationship with you?

Why would a customer pay a $10 subscription per month to buy from a grocery store that charges higher prices than the supermarket across the street?

Is it fast delivery? Is it monthly promotions? Is it any other value proposition that can make customers find the whole "rundle" valuable?

If there is no strong value proposition, you might not have a product-market fit, in which case you should work on improving the product instead of pushing out a "rundle" hastily.

Example 2: Subscription business pushing for bundling

You have a software subscription business that has 3 software products. 1 of them sells really well while the other 2 barely sells.

You hope to bundle your 3 software products together as a "rundle" so that your customers will be enticed to get all of them instead of just the best selling one.

Of the 3 software you offer, only 1 is of value to your customers while the other 2 are crap.

You can offer a "rundle", but no one is going to continue that subscription because no customers will want to pay extra money for things that they don't use or are lousy.

After testing out your "rundle", customers will eventually drop back to just subscribing for just your best product if the other products suck.

A "Rundle" doesn't solve the problem of having a lousy product.

Recommended Read: Cannot Withdraw CPF Money If Never Hit CPF Retirement Sum?

Conclusion

A "Rundle" is a great way to accelerate the growth of your business. and build loyalty.

However, it is only one part of the whole strategy, and it only works IF your business has a product-market fit.

Recommended Read: What I Learnt 6 Months into My SGUnited Traineeship

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Closing my Standard Chartered JumpStart Account

07:25 Others 1 comment

Today, we are going to show you how to cancel your Standard Chartered JumpStart Account.

Personally, I had to cancel the account because I was past 27 years old and no longer eligible for the higher interest rate.

I found it hard to find a function/button on its website that allows me to delete my account.

So after I found it, I decided to make a guide so that it's easier for you to cancel your own account in the future.

Refer to the steps below. 😉

Steps to Close Your Account

1. Go to Standard Chartered "Contact Us" page

Which for convenient sake, here's the link:

https://www.sc.com/sg/help/contact-us/

2. Select the talk to a chat option.

3. Proceed with some verification

4. Then tell the person that you would like to close the account.

Recommended Read: 9 Things I Learnt from my Internship at GIC

The Process

The process is generally simple and fast.

Basically what I did above was all that was required.

I probably spent more time searching how to close my account than the actual act of closing my account 😅

Recommended Read: What I Learnt 6 Months into My SGUnited Traineeship

New Product Launch (Beta)

We are building a new platform to help you find people to share your family plan subscriptions with.

We help you find, match, subscribe and collect payment so that you don’t have to.

Convenience for you:

You don’t have to find people to share with you. We do it for you.
You don’t have to chase people to transfer you their share of the subscription fee. We do it for you.
You don’t have to remember to transfer your share of the subscription fee to that 1 person. We do it for you.
You don’t have to find it difficult to drop out of a family subscription plan because you shared it with your family/friends. We cover your share for you.

We like to know what you think about this service.
Let us know in the survey below what you think, and to be notified once we officially launch the product. 😉

SURVEY

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Dear Reader!
As we progress towards the next phase of our journey, we would like to find out what would make you like us even more.
We hope you could help us fill in a short survey of 8 questions (4 of them are MCQs) so that we can help tailor our content to you.
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What I Learnt 6 Months into My SGUnited Traineeship

07:02 Others 1 comment

It has been 6 months since I started my SGUnited Traineeship with a local bank back in August 2020.

It's a halfway mark and I thought it'll be nice to pen down what I have learnt or experienced so far.

Kind of like a good midpoint check on my progress and plan.

If you are currently working as a trainee and would like to share your experience, feel free to leave a comment below or reach out to us to share your experience.

1. Slide presentations the school never taught

I thought I was a good presenter until after my first couple of presentations to my boss, I realised I sucked at it.

Note: Everything the school ever taught you about presentation slides, throw it out the window.

I'm saying this as a guy who went to both a business school and an IT school.

I was considered a good presenter back in school, praised by most of my lecturers and scoring high on almost all my presentations.

Entering the workforce and having to make my first presentation to my boss, I was like "how hard can it be?".

Turns out it was really tough, simply because it was very different from how schools made us think about how a presentation should work.

Standard School Slides Format

The school slides generally fall under this format, in that sequence.

1. Start with a narrative or what you want to find (2 to 3 slides)

2. Explain the numbers you did/found (2 to 3 slides)

3. Give the conclusion/steps/actions to take (1 slide)

I did just that, and literally, I got the "so what? what's the purpose of this?" from my boss at the first 3 slides.

I literally went to the last slide, showed the conclusion, then got sent back to work on the numbers again 🤷‍♂️.

That didn't end up the way I expected.

Long story short, after a few rounds of such "so what?", I went to learn how professional people (like Mckinsey) did presentation slides.

It was completely different from anything the school taught.

I learnt from YouTube how to create consultancy-kind of slides and actually paid for a course on it (which BTW is not SkillsFuture claimable cause apparently it's not a "skill" the authorities find "technical" 🤷‍♂️).

Below is the video that I learnt from to create consultancy-kind of slides. Thought it would be useful if I put it down here for you to watch and learn.

Recommended Read: Why You Should Max Your CPF Retirement Sum Early

2. Slow decision-making

As with any organisations, once it starts to get big, bureaucracy and controls start to set in to rein in the chaos, which at times also meant that decision-making becomes very slow.

Although I had previously written that I think companies should follow Mark Zuckerberg's motto of "move fast and break things", I no longer think that this motto fits ALL companies.

Can you imagine that your bank account or payment stopped functioning because a bank was progressing so fast that some of its features/products were breaking down?

So companies that are dealing with serious mission-critical products/services should not adopt that whole "move fast and break things" mindset.

However, that's not to say "don't move and keep things."

We still need to make decisions, make bets, and bet on macro trends.

And instead of waiting for 100% of information clarity before making a decision, sometimes it's best to make a move even with just 70% information clarity.

Sometimes what causes lost opportunity is the time to wait for that 30% of the information to come in.

Like Jeff Bezos said, there are 2 types of decisions, and most decisions belong to Type 2.

But large companies have the tendency to use the Type 1 framework on Type 2 matters, which slows down progress and leads to frustration.

So it's important for companies to understand if their decisions are Type 1 or 2, and applying the corresponding decision-making matrix.

3. Too many meetings

Meetings can be packed end-to-end from the start of the day to the end of the day.

Real work can only be done after 6pm when no more meetings are schedule (if you are lucky)

How would it be possible to not work overtime (OT)?

I used to think that it was the lack of manpower that result in overworked staff.

Now I realised, we are not overworked, we are just over-meeting.

If we reduced the number of meetings we have, we might just have enough time to do some real work.

4. It's not about learning

I think a lot of people get into a job thinking "alright, I think I am going to take this job because I can learn a lot from this role/position/job/etc", and I personally don't believe in this kind of thinking.

I personally (it's just my opinion) think that it's better to pick a job that I can excel in, and then see what I can learn on my own during my time with the company.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean that you shouldn't learn anything on the job. You should still learn how to do your job right (the nuances and whatnot).

But join a few companies, and you'll soon realise the hard skills (systems, software, tools, applications, etc), are things that you can learn, and probably are not able to bring them over to another company because they probably have other systems, etc.

Instead, it's the things that are not in the SOP, like slides creation, or positioning of offerings, etc, that is portable across most companies, and are things that you pick up along the job, usually without someone guiding you.

1. It's a company, not a training institute.

I always think in terms of "what can I offer you?" instead of "what can you offer me?"

I think a better offer would be to go in with a mindset of "this is my skills, this is what I can do to help you grow your business. Let me try", than one that is "I know I am not skilled for the job currently but I'll work hard and learn and do my best.".

I'm not saying the latter is bad.

But I'm just saying, if I'm an employer, I would think that the former is a much better offer than the latter.

You do your best to push the company forward, and try and learn something on the side.

Not the other way round, try and learn something while pushing the company forward on the side.

Is this a hard and fast rule? Of course not!

It depends on situations, just like what Sir Richard Branson says.

2. Learning is personal

It's interesting how Singapore is now pushing people towards lifelong learning.

It's like once people graduated from school and entered the workforce, they immediately stopped learning - which I do think is true, due to circumstances (commitments) and the whole "That's it I'm done with school".

When actually if you look at really successful people, they are always learning.

We like to think learning has to be proper, it has to have a school, have a curriculum, and it better gives me a certificate at the end of my course.

But when you look at successful people of our times (Musk, Bezos, Gates, Jobs, etc), I don't think they take courses on the side.

But they are constantly learning.

It doesn't have to be from a school, and it doesn't have to be formalised at work.

If you are keen to learn, you will learn.

If you are not keen to learn, anyone who has been through school will know that nothing will ever get learnt.

Recommended Read: 9 Things I Learnt from my Internship at GIC

Conclusion

I like my current role.

It's a mixture of marketing, ops, analytics, programming (although added on subsequently without additional pay 🤷‍♂️).

It's a wide variety of things to do daily, which doesn't bore me, a key reason why I chose this role over other offers.

And I do think there are still quite a lot of things to learn (which is great).

But, as I always say, there are always rooms for improvement. 😉

And PS: to anyone from my company reading this, please don't not convert me after my traineeship ends 🙏🤣

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Investment Stab

Singapore-based financial blog that aims to educate people on personal finance, investments, retirement and their Central Provident Fund (CPF) matters.

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