Fraud is Creeping Everywhere

Fraud is Creeping Everywhere

Like it or not, Fraud is Creeping Everywhere and if this is not bothering you, regrettably this bothers me a hell lot because each time we wake up [and unfortunately even when we are soundly asleep], threats of fraud is creeping and threatening us way beyond our bank accounts, credit cards and e-wallets.  The hapless segment of our population who were the hardest hit by this pandemic are jobless!

Let's face it.  Millions are out there in the streets, jobless and are tirelessly going through the labor market at least to let ends meet for their daily lives.  It is unfortunate that recruitment fraud seems to be a part of the harsh realities in today's modern job hunting.  Preying upon the eagerness of candidates to find work, scammers CREATE FAKE JOB OPPORTUNITIES that trick applicants into

revealing personal information. sending money and thinking that they finally got the job in the bag.  Unfortunately, these scams have become more and more sophisticated.  How do we pre-empt all these?  Here are the most common tell-tale signs that you could be the next fraud victim:  WHEN MONEY GETS ASKED.  Simply put, don't send money for a job search service.  Employers asking for money up front are just NOT legitimate at all.

REQUESTS FOR SENSITIVE INFORMATION. Your social security number, your bank account details should NEVER be asked up front.  Eventually, your employer will need all those information but not onset at the early stages of your application.  Legitimate hiring managers want and need to go through your resume/CV and NOT your driver's license.

FRAUDULENT USE OF COMPANY INFORMATION.  Sure you'll probably think twice before answering a company you've never heard of that sends an email filled with grammatical errors.  But NOT all scams are easy to spot.  Crooks can be quite adept at producing convincing communications, even using [without authorization] the name and logo of a well-known company.  GENERIC EMAIL ADDRESSES.  That is easy to spot.  An address from a legitimate company representative must include the individual's company domain so when you receive an email solicitation from gmail.com, you know what happens next 📌📌📌

How is it When You Lend a Hand ?

How is it When You Lend a Hand ?

Given a choice.  Would you be UP THERE?  OR would you rather be DOWN BELOW ? Me thinks, no one wants to be down there, struggling, gasping for breath, clutching on straws, hanging on for dear life [figuratively speaking though].  Everyone wants to get the upper hand.  But have we thought How is it When You Lend a Hand ?

Oh man, life is tough.  Trust me.  Been there.  Done that.  But as the old cliche goes, there's always a light at the end of the tunnel [and oooops, it's not that of an incoming train though].  Point is, there is always hope even when we're marginally teetering within the precipice of failure.  BUT here's the BUT ?  What if someone needs a HELPING HAND ?  Here's my piece of advice.  DON'T turn down that need for help if you can.  DON'T miss out that opportunity to be a HELPING HAND, if you can.  Why ?  There's a lot of intangibles.

Remember those days when we wooed our fav damsel when we swooned heads over heels ?  Now, swing over to real life scenarios when someone needs help. How is it When You Lend a Hand ?  Whatever it is within your means and capability, I can assure you that the feeling right after you lent a helping hand will be so indescribable.  You can't buy that feel good stuff, that sense of fulfillment.  And as the old cliche goes, if you exert or spend this much to lend a helping hand, it will bounce back to you twice or even triple times the magnitude or extent of your help.  And BTW, lending a hand is NOT limited to financials.  In the tracks we're threading, there are one too many OPPORTUNITIES to lend a hand.

More often, we would hear a 'lost soul' who needs to get back on track.  And how do we LEND A HAND here?  Counselling and guiding the person.  And even before that, it is ACTIVELY LISTENING to his situation that can give traction to your attempt to lead a person back to the right path.  Or it could be a health issue [e.g. someone who can't avoid alcohol or smoking].  

Your helping hand can come in handy through your patient but persistent persuasions for the person to realize that he's got to "CUT and CUT CLEAN" from either alcohol or smoking if such habits have now become inimical to a health condition that is turning from bad to worse.  Or if it is a strained relationship by your sibling or close friend, you can give your unsolicited advice, hoping that you can still save whatever goodwill is left out of a dying relationship on the throes of a final breakup.  In the fewest words, your HELPING HAND can be the WORLD of DIFFERENCE between PASSED or FAILED academic grades, SURVIVAL or FAILED health, REVIVED or FAILED relationships.  Please give this your serious thought please, if at all ✅✅✅

When Are You in a 'FREE FALL'

When Are You in a 'FREE FALL'

When Are You in a 'FREE FALL' ?  This question has hardly stomped anyone because it sounds so mundane, just like a speck of dust scattered all over the place but when you pick it up, it's so intangible either.  Yet, the crux of the matter is that, like it or not, we must be sharp enough to detect and realize when we are in a 'FREE FALL'.  Failing which, God knows the impact that reverberates, all because of gravity.

Why do we need to detect that we're in a 'FREE FALL'? Simple, when that 'FREE FALL' ends, we will be 'dead in the waters'.  And what does that mean?  That at that point, you have ran out kaput with just nothing else to turn things around.  That would be the last straw on the camel's back, the last nail on the coffin.  Whereas, if we are aware as to when we are in a 'FREE FALL', that gives us time, it buys us time to take a one last shot even that is a longshot to turn things around.

And BTW, the real life 'FREE FALL' is not akin to the 'FREE FALL' of the skydivers equipped with all the safety gears.  In our real life 'FREE FALL', we are bare and unshielded, equipped with nothing except our bare hands.  Tricks to figure out if you're on a 'FREE FALL'?  Failing marks in school are proliferating.  Or even if something's trending when you start to drop and skip classes.  At work, you can be culpable of one miscue to the next miscue.  In a relationship, a friction worsens into a spat till ending up with everyone screaming their lungs out [until the big quarrels repeat over and over again].  For entrepreneurs, your dwindling coffers is the best barometer that you're in a 'FREE FALL'.

In Finance and Economics, when the experts see the country's currency in a 'FREE FALL', the next immediate thing the economic honchos will do is to take DRASTIC actions to stop whatever 'hemorrhage' because any action that will be less than DRASTIC will be an exercise in futility. BTW if you want a synonym for 'FREE FALL' alerts, they are a.k.a. 'WAKEUP CALL' because those are the times when you need to wake yourself up because things have gone from bad to worse.

Instead, what should be our mantra in life?  It is to reverse that 'FREE FALL' because there should only be one end-result.  That is, to go against the law of gravity and take off for us to reach the next level in life,  To hurdle any of those turbulences out there and more importantly, to survive the most difficult grinds in life.  Next time we are on a 'FREE FALL', it should be because we are like those skydivers who are in CONTROL of their LIVES, at least for those moments 📌📌📌

Can You Be Like 'THE MATRIX'

Can You Be Like 'THE MATRIX'

This may be reflective of my age but that's fine if we still remember that 'THE MATRIX' science fiction action film a little more than twenty years ago?  Oh, that reminds us to ask Can You Be Like 'THE MATRIX'?  Wherein you can be in two or three places at the same time [in life]?  Yes sirrrrrs, we are NOT hallucinating here.  Instead, being in another location that there is nothing else you can do to compensate for your PHYSICAL absence by mitigating it with your VIRTUAL presence.  The harsh realities for that need to be present in a location gets magnified these past decades where there has been an unabated huge labor force diaspora from the Third World [that includes South Asian countries like India and Pakistan and Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia and the Philippines].

How do we solve the consequences of a huge problem like this labor force diaspora?  No quick fix but we can solve at least 50% of the problem.  How?  Oh well, let's ask ourselves, can we be like 'THE MATRIX'? That means, a working father can continue to be working over there in Dubai and yet his absence is not heavily felt by his family ten thousand miles away.

In fiction, the absence of the child's parents frees the child or young adult to follow their own dreams and adventures to become more independent.  In real life, though, children or even young adults usually suffer from emotional fallout due to the absence of parents in their childhood.  The absence of a parent becomes advantageous only if that parent has a toxic personality.  In most cases though, although the remaining parent may be loving and kind, the missing parent's absence will still affect not only the young ones but even an adult. 

Again, a parent may be absent for multifarious reasons.  In fact, NOT all absent parents are physically absence.  Some are physically right there but may be emotionally absence or they DON'T fulfill their parental roles.  And in some cases, it is the child who absences himself or herself because his/her parents are either emotionally, physically or even sexually abusive or harmed them in some way.  And even if a child decides to leave, they still experience the absence of the parent.

This could lead us all to a heavily opinionated debate that could reverberate for an extended period and lest I be mistaken, we are NOT against labor diaspora.  What we need though is to raise the awareness of parents ten thousand miles away from their family that You Can Be Like 'THE MATRIX' by virtually MONITORING, GUIDING and ADVISING children [even the adults] because that is the best way to compensate for your physical absence from your family ✅✅✅ 

We DON'T See What We DON'T Want to See

We DON'T See What We DON'T Want to See

Happy Sunday folks but hey, is this true?  Yesirrrrrs very true indeed many times in our life.  Mea culpa, I'll admit that I'm guilty of this many times in my list when I DIDN'T See What I DIDN'T Want to See.  Be it a threat, a risk, an opportunity or even danger itself or even any person or event.  More often, We ONLY See What We WANT to See.  Oh, when and where I did get this idea to discuss today?  From that Netflix movie 'THE WEEKEND AWAY' wherein the Syrian taxi driver uttered these words to the first-time American tourist in Croatia.

Did we notice why 'infamous' personalities like North Korea's late dictator Kim Jong-il continue to wear those super-wide specs? Simple.  He DOESN'T See What He DOESN'T Want to See.  Too bad all of us have been guilty of this 'misbehavior' at some points in life.  So the dumbing question is: WHY OH WHY we have this tendency to DON'T See What We DON'T Want to See?  Well, for decades now, Psychological Researches have always ended with that phenomenon called MOTIVATED PERCEPTION.

Oh we have to accept the truth that the world we live in is NOT an accurate representation of what it truly is because our perception is often BIASED, SELECTIVE and MALLEABLE.  Even our desires can affect what we see by impacting the way we process visual information.  In a 1954 case study by A.H. Hastorf, when students from rival universities watched the same football game, controversy and disagreement ensued as each side of the rival teams saw more fouls committed by the opposing team.

WHY OH WHY are we prone to see what we want to see?  Consistent researches demonstrated how our MOTIVATIONS and DESIRES can give rise to two biases namely:  PERCEPTUAL BIAS [that's when our motivations have a top-down influence on our perceptions] and RESPONSE BIAS [that's when we report seeing WHAT WE WANT TO SEE]. But hey, why do we need to spend time on this thread on a placid Sunday ?  It's because a lot of our conflicts and turmoils are triggered because We ONLY See What We WANT to See.  

A missed answer in your school final exams sometimes leads to a failed final rating.  A one-off hiccup at work gets blown out of proportion.  A casual and petty disagreement between a couple ends in a huge major quarrel.  A business enterprise tilting diminishing coffers would miss out opportunities for its revenues to rebound because the top honcho ONLY Sees What He WANTED to See.  Time to serious ponder folks.  We got to wiggle out from both our PERCEPTUAL BIAS and RESPONSE BIAS. Time to be fair to ourselves, PLEASE ❗❗❗

The Agony of a Fall

The Agony of a Fall

I'm absolutely sure everyone of us went into a fall or just like me, that FALL may have happened quite a few times in your life.  And boy, do we all agree with the agony of a fall?  When the impact is too much, it seems to crush us down to our bones?  And more than that, many spirited efforts were simply quashed by the magnitude of a fall's impact.  In school, receiving a failing grade.  At work, your performance being rated BELOW PAR.  In your relationship, when you partner walks away.  In business, when your credit pipeline seemed to have dried up, driving you to bankruptcy.

Or it could have been a freak accident when you were fixing a leaking roof and you ended up falling off from the roof.  Ouch that hurts.  But according to studies, while around approximately 20% of our falls in life are force majeure or simply beyond our control [God forbid, those natural calamities and disasters are terrifying no end.  But for 80% of those falls in life, yes there was no way to avert it but 80% of them could have been anticipated.

To your surprise, softening the impact of a potential fall or failure is NO rocket science.  How?  Why?  It all boils down to your safe and sound assessment of your chances to either succeed or fail on something you are so focused to achieve. ANTICIPATION & ASSESSMENT is the key.  Where it tells you that optimistically, you have a 60% chance of succeeding [and a 40% chance of failing], then that should have prepared your mindset of possible scenarios that could happen.

 If your ANTICIPATION & ASSESSMENT tells you of a chance bordering 50-60%, why be so cocky ?  That's the thing.  Cockiness is OPTIMISM GOING OVERBOARD.  We all encourage for optimism but not for shaky or baseless optimisms.  If towards year-end, you know very well that your work performance for the past year has been spotty at best, what will be your mindset?  

If your relationship with your partner/spouse has been rocky to say the least for the past years, will you be shocked when one day your partner/spouse walks away? In brief, the agony of our [various] falls in life could have been, at the very least, softened if not averted.  ANTICIPATION is the key because that shapes our mindset.  It resets the previous unfounded optimism with the pragmatic realities, however harsh, in life📌📌📌

The 'NEXT' May Come Years After

The 'NEXT' May Come Years After

Is 'NEXT' one of most heard expressions or reactions ever?  Applying for that job NEXT time.  Taking my masteral course NEXT semester.  Going for vacation NEXT year.  Buying my first property NEXT time.   Taking care of my health plan NEXT round.  At work, completing an audit compliance task NEXT week.  Repairing my relationship NEXT time around [when that 'PRIDE' thing is gone].  Resuscitating a bankrupt business till NEXT time when another bank can lend you financing capital.  Can we imagine if we continue to swim in the immense sheets of oceans with 'NEXT' floating all over the waters?

ok ok ok, everyone we utter 'NEXT', take it that we have FORFEITED our chance for an opportunity at hand OR we have let things slipped beyond us OR we have turned a BLIND EYE on what was up for our taking OR we have gambled that we'll be better off to let go of such chances hoping that the next time it comes, such opportunities will be much better, more rewarding and overall be worth more than what you let slipped past through your fingers, which were all done at your own risk.

To be fair, everyone of us is guilty of procrastination.  Even Mark Twain was credited with a quotation sympathetic to the indolent: 'NEVER PUT OFF TILL TOMORROW, WHAT YOU CAN DO THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW'.  And further he goes: 'KNOW THE TRUE VALUE OF TIME:  SNATCH, SEIZE AND ENJOY EVERY MOMENT OF IT.  No IDLENESS.  No LAZINESS.  No PROCRASTINATION.  On the flipside of things, Mark Twain goes further: 'ALWAYS PUT OFF UNTIL TOMORROW ANY EVIL YOU CAN DO TODAY'.

Now, for the sales pitch.  Why is it important NOT to put things off for tomorrow?  Besides the obvious reason that it won't get done, it also creates a kind of momentum.  To reference Newton's Law:  'AN OBJECT THAT IS AT REST WILL STAY AT REST UNLESS AN UNBALANCED FORCE ACTS UPON IT'.  The opposite is just as important.  Avalanches start when just the tiniest of pebbles or snowflakes bumps into just the right spot.  All that pent up potential energy is released and gathers speed, strength and momentum.  By putting off until tomorrow, you are robbing yourself of that 'Mighty Mo' a.k.a. MOMENTUM.

Now, how can we apply this in our life?  A project to do, something to start doing, something to stop doing, some cleaning that is needed, some rearranging of schedule, some habits that need to be modified.  Choose one for now and you can go back and try it.  Can you create a breakthrough?  What we mean here is one push alone won't get it done.  You would need an 'AVALANCHE of GRAVITY' so that eventually, you will stop invoking 'NEXT' over and over again ✅✅✅

Come Out of the Gates With All 'CYLINDERS' Firing

Come Out of the Gates With All 'CYLINDERS' Firing

How often do we Come Out of the Gates With All 'CYLINDERS' Firing?  Maybe not so often?  Maybe rarely, if at all?  BTW, to ensure we are all on the same page, 'coming out of the gates' would refer to the very time we kickstart things, that's when we commence an initiative, a mission.  Akin to the horses in a race track or those F1 race cars, those may not be our domain but there are stable masters and F1 teams who ensure that when the races start, every entry Come Out of the Gates With All 'CYLINDERS' Firing.

So, how can we Come Out of the Gates With All 'CYLINDERS' Firing?  First off, have that 'TUNNEL VISION' wherein at that very point where we're about to kickstart our run, STOP the multi-tasking but instead keep our brain very focused to that starting line.  Research from the NeuroImage Journal found that subjects suffered a 29% drop in mental processing power when doing two tasks simultaneously and that brain activation for listening fell 53% when subjects were trying to process visual input at the same time.

Now, it might sound counter intuitive, but if your mind starts to drift during an important task, then DON'T try to fight it but instead, let it 'WANDER' for a while.  Researches have shown that allowing a little downtime during busy or stressful periods allowed subjects to return to work with increased creativity and greater problem solving ability.  Even better, go for an actual 'WANDER' rather than just a mental one to get some fresh air and clear your head.

Oh there's this popular one-liner 'LEARN AFTER LUNCH'.  If you have to get to grips with something new, then do so in the afternoon.  Researches have shown that subjects who received training after lunch performed far better on subsequent memory tests than those who had been training in the morning.  And taking time to go over what you've learned before bed can help cement the newfound knowledge in your memory.

How to stay FOCUSED then?  DON'T Gossip.  DON'T multitask. Focus on one thing at a time DON'T procrastinate.  You need to realize that the best time to do something important is NOW. DON'T allow distractions to derail you. Email alerts?  Social media popping up notifications? DON'T seek validation from others.  Keep that singular focus on what needs to be done📌📌📌

Ask And You Shall Receive

Ask And You Shall Receive

I'm sorry this is not about that Bible Verse from Matthew 7:7 which says Ask And You Shall Receive but instead, this is all about our life.  Not bad to be on the receiving end but we have seen a zillion times when even without asking, people are given and handed over with all the blessings and goodies The downside of this outpouring and overflowing help trickling in even when not asked for is that our mindsets seem to have evolved and shaped towards a direction that unintentionally leads to a mindset that veers towards DEPENDENCY.  How do we arrest this downward spiral ? We got to change our thoughts and beliefs, no other way though.

Over to a typical workplace environment, many employees [WRONGLY] feel that it is up to management to offer them new jobs.  Career frustration may be due as much to the powerlessness employees to influence their career progress as the actual lack of advancement itself.  So, while companies have to be lauded for their paternalistic approaches to employee engagement, 

indeed, helping employees to further their careers can foster employee engagement.  But paternalistic approaches can make matters worse.  Employees need to engage themselves to feel SELF-RESPECT.  Without SELF-RESPECT, they blame the organization and disengage themselves.  Doing too much for people is a problem if it erodes SELF-RESPECT.

The other side of the equation has shown us that in life, when we become recipients of way beyond our expectation, it influences us from within.  So where's the key to changing things for the better?  It is changing your thoughts and beliefs.  As thoughts drive emotion, and emotion influences behavior, by changing our THOUGHTS and BELIEFS, we can have that to contribute to your dependence.

Two aspects of our thoughts we may want to address.  The CONTENT of your thoughts and the perspective from which you make judgments and appraisals.  Various beliefs you may have that suggest your own judgment or worth is less than what other people may be contributing to your dependent behavior.  IF you believe that you're inferior, IF you are helpless, IF you feel you can't live without someone else and IF you can't make good decisions, then you got a problem, and that should wake you up now 📌📌📌

Keeping Up With The Kardashians [Not the TV Series]

Keeping Up With The Kardashians [Not the TV Series]

No Senor, today's piece Keeping Up With The Kardashians is not about that very successful American Reality TV Series which ran through for about fifteen years.  Instead, we're referencing to the Kardashians as the iconic symbol of society's upper stratum.  So by Keeping Up With The Kardashians, we mean here is pushing yourself, your lifestyle, your standards up to that level of our society's upper stratum.

Simply put, we need to recognize that NOT everyone earns the same income. Therefore, not everyone can afford to spend the same as well.  It prescribes that rather than trying to keep up with the Joneses [and their lifestyle spending, WHEW !], we should live within our means.  Yet the challenge is as income rises, living 'within your means' can 

produce what is, to most, an outsized and larger than life standard of living.  In other words, while it might seem like prudent advice for those who are of struggling means, those who lift their spending up to live within their [much greater] means may be viewed with disdain. This then raises the question of whether 'live within your means' is 

actually the right advice for anyone [regardless of income] or if the reality is that the strategy breaks down as a prudent spending recommendation at some point.  A recent research even stated that there is a "HAPPINESS THRESHOLD" beyond a level of income and associated spending within its means, more income and spending doesn't appear to actually improve our emotional well-being. But people will always argue that those who earn might have a "right" to spend more.  And that as long as they're continuing to spend within their means, it remains reasonable and prudent.  

Nonetheless, the question remains: WHAT DOES IT REALLY MEAN TO "LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS", and is there a point where that advice is no longer relevant or prudent?  In the simplest equation ever, if INCOME Less SPENDING ends either in ZERO or in NEGATIVE, that is indicative of DEFICIT SPENDING.  Which means, with due courtesy, NOW is the time to turnaround and change overnight, if need be 📌📌📌