Have you ever burnt RM100 before? (Part 3 of 3)

Continued from Part 2...

People were quiet in the lines. I bet they were confused and struggling on what is going to happen soon: Watching own hard-earned money to catch fire and burn to ash!

Looking at the doubtful crowd, I knew I've made a decision: No matter what happens, I WILL NOT BURN MY MONEY! I have full control and am held accountable for my own money, and thus my finance, and hence my own life for that matter of fact. Nobody is going to change, or can change, that. I know what I want, and I know what I am responsible for. I will not simply follow what other people will do without questioning the logic, feasibility and suitability for my own good. What good will it do to me if I burn my money? I am a hero? What benefits or values will I get in return? Does it help me to increase my wealth or other thing? NO! I'm just mere stupid and dumb if I do that...

Someone in the line was ready to burn his RM100 note. Everybody was holding on their breath...

"OK. Stop! Now everyone go back to your seat and sit down. This is just a hoax!"

Wow… the crowd cheered with mixed feelings. After everybody had been seated, the speaker asked if anybody would like to share how they felt before and after this exercise. Many people put up their hands, but due to time constrains, a few were being picked. Some people said they were confused. Some said they changed the RM100 note to smaller value when asked to burn the money. And some were excited about it.

"You will never ever burn your money," said the speaker. "Here are a few lessons we learnt in this exercise," he continued.

"First is about honoring. Money is just like a person. You respect money, just like you respect other people. You don't put anybody into fire and burn it. You don't burn your money either."

"Second is about the burning. This is a metaphor. If you would burn the money just now, you will be burning your money easily in your daily life too. That is, you spend money with no control. Rich people use money to invest and for their education, not burning."

"Next is about responsibility. You're responsible for your chosen choice. Don't blame other people for what you're today, if you are not wealthy yet. You should be responsible for your own financial account. If you wanted to burn your money just now and you always wonder why you are not rich yet, now you know why."

"The fourth lesson is about proving. Why did you choose to burn your money just now? Were you trying to prove to other people for something? Were you trying to show off? Because other people were going to burn their money so you wanted to prove that you could afford that too? They will be broke, and you want to be like them too?"

"Last but not least is about your integrity. Some people changed the note halfway. We are not burning our money in this exercise. But if you changed your note halfway, you broke your promise to yourself. You will be chickened out whenever something happens."

What have you learnt?

I was on wheelchair!

I really have no idea what is going on to me this month. First my right knee, now my left foot. Anyway, I'm still alive, gee gee gee!

It happened at Track 5 in my regular Tuesday's BodyCombat class, and I had chosen Girlfriend to be played. In this track, during the chorus section of that song, the two opposing teams will run toward each other and do a Plyometric Jump before moving back to where they were. This jump is a jump by lifting both knees up towards the chest and then land soft to the ground. The song was nearing the end, and I was moving around the room and giving few members double high-five when we jumped. Everything was smooth and fun, until I went to a makcik and jumped for double high-five. I landed before her after our jumps. Well, maybe I looked extra adorable on that day, or maybe she was just too excited seeing me, she actually jumped toward me and then landed her feet on my left foot!

Ah~~~ I felt the pain instantly and I nearly cried it out! But I knew I was in the midst of a class, so I just moved away from her to finish on the rest of that track. The song ended, and I went back to the stage and allowed the class for water break. While walking to the stage, I knew I had sprained my left foot. Before I continued the class, I told the class that I might have sprained my foot, but the class will still go on. I carried the second half of the class in great pain. During the cool down, I nearly fell off when doing the single-legged standing quadriceps stretch on my left foot. I dragged myself out from the studio with one leg, and walked that way until I reached home. Passersby at the shopping mall were staring at me when they saw me walking like a cripple.

I applied hot compression to my sprained left foot at night, hoping that it could help to promote the blood circulation. However, the pain didn't subside but extended to my ankle! I couldn't sleep well throughout the night with the tingling pain.

Then on yesterday, a beautiful and sunny Wednesday's morning, I drove myself to a private hospital for consultation and treatment. When I was dragging myself to the main lobby of the hospital, I was greeted with a wheelchair! The guard must have seen me walking lamely, thus offered me a wheelchair. I didn't accept his offer. I told him that I can still walk. So, I dragged myself to the emergency ward asking for treatment and X-rays on my left foot. The attending doctor examined my left foot, and lessoned me for using hot compression and thus making the left foot swelled. (The first treatment for any sport injury should be COLD compression, never ever apply hot compression unless we want the condition to get worsened.) He wrapped my left foot with bandage, at the same time teaching me how to do it myself at home for upcoming days. Then I was sent to radiology department for X-rays on my left foot. He said I have to restrain my left foot movement as much as possible, I have no choice but to sit on a wheelchair, first time in my life! A nurse pushed me on wheelchair to the radiology department. (I took the picture on my legs on wheelchair while waiting to take the X-rays.)

Because it took about 20 to 30 minutes to get the X-rays film to be developed, I asked the doctor if I can go for my lunch. He asked a nurse to push me to the hospital cafeteria, but I said I can do it myself. So, I rolled the wheelchair with my hands and there I went, ha ha!! I went to the cafeteria, ordered my food, ate my lunch, all on a wheelchair! I even made a phone call through public phone on the wheelchair as the battery on my handphone had run dry. (Forgot to charge the battery on the night before.)

The X-rays result came out and there was no fractures on my left foot. The doctor said it will take me over two months to recover if there were any fractures. "What about now?" I asked. "About two weeks," he replied. He then issued me a one-week MC.

My sexy and gorgeous left ankle on X-rays

Lessons learnt:

• I was a lucky and happy person on earth! Luckily the member only stepped on one of my feet and not both. It is great to be able to walk. And I'm still standing tall like always. Oh yes!

• I've never taken myself as a victim no matter what happens. I have never felt sorry for myself either. Some people might take this incident as being bad luck or whatsoever. But I don't take it that way. Remember this: Everything has no meaning until we give it one. And that meaning shapes our doing and being in our life. If you think you are great, you are. If you think you are not, then you probably are not. Think about how we want to live our life.

• It would be fun if the wheelchair was electronically controllable. I would have cruised around the hospital and have some fun then. Ha ha!!

• The hospitality service at the hospital was excellent. I was treated like a VIP guest. Well, I had been to private hospitals for countless of times, but those were all for visiting. This time being a patient by myself, it felt differently.

Have you ever burnt RM100 before? (Part 2 of 3)

Continued from Part 1...

"Guys, you rule money and money doesn't rule you? Talk is cheap! Show me you really mean it. You are going to burn your RM100 cash, one by one. Tonight! Here! Now!"

Wah... The crowd started to make some disbelieved noises.

"You're going to line up one by one, holding your money in your hand. When it's your turn, burn it!"

Wow... The crowd again expressed their mixed feelings. Burning real cash! Is that real? When we were still sitting there talking about what is going on, further instructions continued.

"Hold your money at one end while burning another end. Drop the side of the note that is going to catch fire lower than the side that you're holding. This way, the money can burn faster."

"When the fire has burnt about 50% of the note, drop the remaining part into the pail of water. Move away and allow the next person to burn his or her money."

"Because of some oil stains, older bank notes release black smoke when catching fire. Don't be alarmed. Continue to burn your money until at least 50% is burnt. Drop the remaining to the pail of water then."

"As you can see, our staffs have fire extinguishers ready by the sides. In case anything happens, they can help."

Oh! I'm going to burn my RM100 cash! Honestly speaking, I've never ever thought of burning my money before. Call me cheap. Although RM100 is not a huge amount nowadays, it's still money. I admit that from time to time I do spend money on unnecessary and useless stuff. But burning money? Am I out of my mind or what? Don't talk about RM100, even if just for RM1, if you ask me to burn it with fire directly, I doubt if I would do so. That's just mere crazy. I suddenly realized that sometimes the ways how I spent my money, it was actually no difference from burning money with fire directly. How many times have I actually spent on unimportant stuff? Those money, if not spent unnecessarily but use productively, such as invest into unit trust to grow more money, would have been more worthwhile. At least at the end, my money is working for me, and I'm that much richer than before. But if I've spent the money stupidly, I would have nothing at the end.

"OK guys. On your feet now. Line up and walk towards the fire. Let's burn some money!"

Are you also standing up now? Are you ready to burn your RM100? Are you set to go?

I stood up. The line was starting to move. Everybody was waiting for their turn to burn their hard-earned money...

Continue to Part 3...

Have you ever burnt RM100 before? (Part 1 of 3)

I attended a 3-day seminar called The Millionaire Mind Intensive over the weekend, co-conducted by speaker and trainer, also the author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, Mr. T. Harv Eker. The crowd size was enormous: a whooping 4,800 participants, with people coming from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, The Philippines, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Bangladesh, Australia, France, United Kingdom, and many other countries. It was a real nationality fest!

This 3-day seminar was, as its name suggested, intense! It started on Friday's morning at 9 AM and finished after 11 PM. Then on Saturday, it started at 9 AM again and ended after 10 PM. It ended slightly earlier because the next day, Sunday, we continued at 8 AM! (The seminar concluded at about 8 PM on Sunday's night.) Although I didn't get enough sleep for two consecutive nights, with less than 6 hours of rest per night, my mind was still able to stay awaken and clear during the day time. See, human mind can really do wonders when we want it to do so. Another thing I found out was that my body got dehydrated awfully fast at sleep for those two nights. On usual nights, I normally loss about 7.5% of water at sleep, even with urination in the middle of the night. For those two nights when I had lesser sleeping hours, I lost as much as 9.43% of water at sleep, and I didn't even wake up in the middle of the night to urinate. Scary!

OK, let's get back to the question: Have you ever burnt RM100, your own cash, your own money, right in front of your naked eyes, in your life before?

One of the topics that we talked about during the seminar was to realize our attachment to money. Is money important to you? What is the relationship between you and your money? You work for money, or money works for you? You are the master to money, or the slave to money?

(You can ask yourself about these questions too and see what are your answers before continuing reading.)

Because we were there to learn more about money, 4,800 of us agreed on the statement that "I rule money, money doesn't rule me." (I guess nobody would want to say or admit that they are slave to money and money is controlling or ruling them, right? What about you? Do you agree on this statement?)

Then, we were asked to bring out our RM100 bank note on the spot. (We were told to bring a RM100 bank note to the seminar beforehand.) We didn't know what happened at first, so we just reached out to our wallets for the bank note. Some people didn't have one RM100 bank note (hardly see people using RM100 bank notes nowadays), so they took out two pieces of RM50 bank notes instead. When we were doing so, we saw the staffs of the seminar showing up around us, some holding lit candles, some holding pails of water, and some with fire extinguisher in their hands!

Huh, what is going on? We looked at each other and asked. Are we going to burn our money?

Continue to Part 2...

Life starts at 30...

One of the most unique birthday cards that I had ever received was that from the gym that I first joined years ago. It was just a normal card in fact, nothing fancy. When I first received it, it read "A man's life starts at 30." I said to myself that I wasn't 30 years old, and thus didn't give it much of a thought. But when I looked further, the number "30" wasn't referred to the age but the waistline! Wow, I was impressed!

As years went by, this phrase has become my personal motto in fitness. Every time I workout, I always have it in mind. Some people drop out from exercising because they see no direction to where they are going. However, when we have a goal or direction in doing what we do, it'll keep us motivated and going, and combating, ha ha!!

Many of today's civilized diseases, or what we called "wealthy diseases" in life insurance, are caused by overweight or obesity. High blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and triclycerides, almost all of these diseases can be avoided or reduced by watching our weight. These diseases are not fatal by themselves. For example, no one dies because of diabetes itself. However, it's because of diabetes, if not treated, people become blind, suffer kidney disease, undergo lower limb amputation, have nerve damage and suffer heart diseases and stroke. Any one of these complications requires long-term financial support. To stay alive, one has to take consistent and regular medication and supervision, and this involves money. That's why we sometimes call them as "wealthy diseases," for we need to be wealthy in order to live together with them.

Many people that we know are overweight or obese. Are they lazy people? Or are they immune to all these diseases? For me, I don't think so. Look at them. They work hard everyday in the office. When we are exercising in the gym or sleeping at night, they are probably still working in the office. To them, they have different priority in their life. They want to earn money, earn more money, and earn much more money. They say we don't work hard. We say them workaholics. Who is right? Who is wrong?

This is something that I personally think we should ponder from time to time. If you can't strike a balance between health and wealth, what good if you've lost your health and can no longer work for your wealth? Which company is so kind to employ a kidney failure patient who needs to go for dialysis 3 times a week and can thus work only limited hours in a week?

I've witnessed many cases where people work hard for more money, but at the end using that hard-earned money to pay their medical bills. Is that what we want? Is that why we work, working to pay future medical bills?

We are all lucky earthlings. There is no day in our life we ever need to worry if we have food to eat for that day. Rather, we are scratching our head as to what to eat everyday. We eat good. We eat sumptuously. But have we eaten right and balanced too?

Losing some weight is no longer a cosmetic issue. It's more of a health and well-being matter. I always say I'm fat because, well, because I'm fat. Yes, I'm fat and I'm fat, and I want to stay exercising.

I suddenly feel that this post sounds very heavy. I was supposed to make it read lively! My purpose of writing this post is to remind myself that being another year older is not an excuse to work lighter. And with you reading my humble blog, I know I don't walk alone on this road.

A little congratulation to myself for having a blog posting on my birthday at 12:00 midnight sharp, ha ha!

The right knee pain...

It has been more than a week and my right knee pain is still there to stay. Actually it is not very serious. I don’t feel the pain even when I walk briskly or walking up staircases. However, I will feel a light pressure on the right knee when I’m walking down the staircases. Yesterday when I did my class, I felt uncomfortable even when turning the heel up when doing some punches. Went to see western doctor and he only gave me pain killer. I guess I’ll have to see Chinese sensei if condition persists. I also hope that this weekend when I’m away from classes, I can get my dear knee some rest.

Due to the unexpected joint problem, and absence from classes for a weekend, I guess I'm unable to keep up with my average daily 800+ Calories burning this week. Sigh!

I still believe that it was the treadmill that caused my knee pain. Ha ha! Will avoid using the cardio machines for long long time! It's safer exercising in a class than on the machines for me, gee gee gee!

Fitness Basics

I believe nobody is born fit naturally and can remain fit without doing anything throughout his or her lifetime. Fitness requires persistent training and commitment. We will continue to enjoy the benefits of exercising if we stick to it. Once we stop, all the benefits will be gone. Age doesn't matter. It's never too late to start exercise.

If you've decided to start exercise now, or if you're new to exercise, here are some fitness basics that you might want to know:

• The best exercises for fitness are the ones that we can exercise continuously, those that are least likely to injure us and the ones we enjoy the most.

• We become fit by exercising vigorously enough to increase the circulation of blood. It makes no difference to our heart how we increase our circulation. We work harder at higher intensity, we become fitter.

• The best exercises for fitness use our legs because the blood vessels in our legs are so much larger and thus able to circulate far more blood to our body than other body parts. Arm exercises make us tire earlier because most people have weaker arms.

• Some exercises require a great level of fitness just to start. For example, to jump rope, we must spin the rope more than 80 times a minute to keep it from tangling. Many people can't jump 80 times a minute. So, choose exercises that we can take control of.

• For starters, the safest exercises are low-impact aerobics, walking, swimming and pedaling a stationary bicycle. Running causes lots of injuries, because the force of our feet striking the ground can be six times of our body weight, which can damage muscles and bones. (Read my post on Deep Impact on Knees for more information.) Choose appropriate exercise wisely.

• Exercises that don't keep us moving may be fun, but they won't make us fit. For example, the average tennis player spends 80 percent of their playing time waiting for the ball. (Read my post on Are all exercises the same? for more information.)

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