Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Wisdom on How to Live Life - Book Review

Book Review of "Wisdom on How to Live Life" on Amazon

5.0 out of 5 stars Best spiritual book I have ever read, June 26, 2010
By A. J. Bray "Adrian Bray" (lowestoft, suffolk)


It has been several years since I came across the concept of 'living in the now'; it appealed to me because I wanted to live a contented life and not continually worry about the future. So when I read of the book 'Wisdom on how to live life - transforming Earth into heaven' by Dr. Tommy Wong, I was hooked!


In my early days I used to attend church upto three times on a Sunday where it was drummed into me that heaven was something you went to after dying and everything would be alright once you got there. Somehow, this translated into my mind that living on the earth was, at best, extremely difficult or at worst, horrible. God was something 'out there', cut off from us. This author proposes the concept that God is really a 'Great Spirit' that is in everything in and beyond our universe, yet smaller than an atom, in fact, everything that is. He goes on to say about divine, physical and man-made laws and gives great examples of each. 'Success' in life is defined through conversations Tom has with Guru's Dick and Harry. One reflects the way things are today in modern life, whilst the other suggests a better, fairer, more satisfying way. This book is easy to read, will challenge you to think about how you are living your life. It is a life changer and one to keep. Meanwhile, I can not wait to read Bk2. In my opinion, 5 stars are not enough to rate Bk1.
 
"Wisdom on how to live life" can be purchased here.

Good value meals

Jonathan Chee contributed this writeup on good value meals available in Singapore.

Sale of my books

My books are available for sale at the following major bookstores:

1. Harris
2. MPH
3. Kinokuniya
4. Times bookstores
5. Popular

You can also buy them online at www.easysearch.sg/ishop. Click here to see the various titles.

Yield on life insurance

Some people wondered why I write about the bad points of life insurance, when I had headed a life insurance coperative for 30 years.

Life insurance can be a good financial product, if it provides protection and allows the policyholder to get a fair yield on the savings. It becomes bad only when the insurance company give a poor yield to the policyholder through high charges for commission, expenses and profit.

In my book, Practical Guide on Financial Planning, I gave a benchmark on the "effect of deduction" for various durations of the policy. If you find an insurance product with an effect of deduction that is lower than the benchmark, it is a good product. If it exceeds the benchmark, the products should be avoided.

So, what is good or bad, depends on the pricing of the product and the net yield to the policyholder. When I headed the cooperative, I made sure that the policyholder gets a good yield on their savings.

Tan Kin Lian

Success on the second attempt

Many people are afraid to try something new. They are afraid of failure. They worry too much about what could go wrong and the consequence of failure. They are not willing to try. They prefer to have someone else to take the decision and the responsibility.

Sometimes, we have to fail before we can succeed. I wish to share this story. During the early 1980s, the insurance cooperative that I headed wanted to launch a new product, life annuity. We made detailed plans, trained the managers, employees and agents and set aside an advertising budget. They was a well publicised media launch for this product. A lot of effort was put in for two months. The sale of life annuity was NIL. It was a total failure.

There were many reasons for the failure. One key reason was the unwillingness of the public to buy a product where they can lose their capital on early death.

Three years later, we relaunched the life annuity product and modified it to provide a guaranteed period of payment. The payout was lower, compared to a life annuity that does not have any guarantee. On the relaunch, it was a big success and created a dominant market share of life annuity for the cooperative for two decades.

I am convinced that if we had not tried and failed on the first attempt, we would not have got the big sucess on the relaunch. I hope that this story will encourage you to be willing to take the plunge and try something new!

Tan Kin Lian