Dear Friends, BLOG Readers, Past Participants, Loyal book readers and critics,

I would like to wish one and all a very successful, fulfilling and happy 2009!

Another whole year has passed like the blink of an eye and another new year begins. It is that time of the year where I do a very important ritual-exercise and I would like to share it with you and encourage you to do the same

I believe that at the beginning of a new year, it is important to audit the year that has just passed. Time to reflect and write down all the key accomplishments you have made, the important lessons you have learned and improvements you have made to yourself. I’ve always loved to listen to the old christmas song ‘So, this is Christmas- by John lennon’ where the lyrics go ‘So this is christmas, now what have you done? Another year over, a new one’s just begun…’

Ever since I was 15, I have been keeping a SUCCESS JOURNAL, where I write down all my achievements and insights for every year that has passed in my life. My philosophy is that if life is worth living, it is worth recording. This allows me to look back at my life for the last 19 years, year by year to see how I have grown and what I have achieved so far. Success is a process of continuously moving towards the goals you have set for in your life. So, if you do not keep a record of how you are progressing each year, then how do you measure your success?

At the same time, keeping this success journal is a way which I constantly motivate myself to keep going further. That’s right! Yours truly Adam Khoo also gets demoralized once in a while, so I need to motivate myself by reading all my past achievements and read all the letters of appreciation that people have sent to me.

I invite you to do the same thing! I invite you to share in this BLOG (through ‘comments’), what you have learned, achieved, improved in for 2008! Maybe I can start the ball rolling by sharing what is in my own 2008 Success Journal. In 2008, I am proud to have done the following:
1) Wrote ‘Nurturing the Winner & Genius in Your Child’ that hit #5 of the National Best-Seller’s list
2) Conferred the NUS Business School Eminent Alumni Award
3) Successfully Launched the First Millionaire Business Academy(MBA) Programme
4) Wrote the book ‘Secrets of Building Multi-Million Dollar Businesses’
5) Wrote the book ‘Profit from the Panic’ where all royalties will be donated to charity
6) Adam Khoo Learning Technologies Group Sales Revenue Hits Over $20 million & Employees surpass 100 people DESPITE the financial crisis!
7) Received the Toastmasters International Communications & Leadership Award
Officially Opened one of the largest training offices and venues in Jakarta
9) Successfully ran the first ‘I Am Gifted’ program for students in Hong Kong
10) Successfully ran the first ‘ I Am Gifted’ program for students in Bangkok
11) Featured in Young Parents magazine, Executive Magazine and the New Paper
12) My group of companies trained in total over 55,000 students, parents, teachers, entrepreneurs and working professionals in 6 countries
13) Brought my family to Korea for a great holiday
14) Put on 10 kg so I look just right (I was too skinny before)
15) Brought my children to the zoo 6 times, swimming every month, science centre > 3x, playground countless times. Helped teach my kids how to read, count, add & subtract (my wife did most of the work though)
16) Read 65 new books (including ‘Snowball’-Warren Buffett’s autobiography which is damn thick)

The next step, is to set specific, measurable goals with deadlines attached to them for the New Year. I am not talking about New Years Resolutions, but GOALS! Let me tell you why New Years Resolutions never seem to work. First, they are too vague, general and non-committal. For example a resolution like, ‘be a better person’ will not work. To make it a powerful goal, t could be stated like, ‘Do one good deed a week for a stranger’, ‘ pay sincere compliments to the people around me’ or ’stop complaining and criticizing’.

The other reason resolutions do not work is because people only write them down and look at them once. The next time they look at it (if they ever do) is one year later! In the meantime, they get so distracted and sidetracked by all the day to day demands of life that their resolutions are always shelved aside! For goals to work, you must
1) Write them down on a big piece of poster
2) Stick it up all over your home, work area, computer desktop
3 Make a public commitment by putting it up on your BLOG, facebook or telling your friends about it
4) Reading it out aloud EVERY MORNING when you wake up
5) Reflect upon them EVERY NIGHT before you sleep
You have to develop this as a HABIT just as you would brushing your teeth or bathing everyday (I hope you brush your teeth ; ) )

THIS is what it takes to ever achieve the goals you have set. So again, I invite you to share your goals in my blog. I will start the ball rolling my committing and declaring MY GOALS. So, if I don’t achieve them by end 2009, you can write in and laugh at me! (that will be MY motivation). Here are my 2009 Goals:
1) Launch new book ‘Secrets of Successful Teens’ by April 2009
2) Launch new book ‘ Secrets of Learning Geniuses’ by Sept 2009
3) Launch second edition of ‘Secrets of Self Made Millionaires’ by March 2009
4) Launch second edition of ‘Secrets of Millionaire Investors’ by March 2009
5) Invest in 3 more rental properties to take advantage of the crisis by Dec 2009
6) Adam Khoo Learning Technologies Group to reach out to and train more than 70,000 in 7 countries (about 40% increase over 2008) by Dec 2009
7) Start the third ‘Adam Khoo Learning Centre’ in Singapore by June 2009
Launch the ‘I Am Gifted’ program in Amsterdam, Holland by Oct 2009
9) Bring my family on a great vacation Aug 2009
10) Read 65 new books on self-improvement
11) Spend as much time as I can teaching my children how to improve their reading, writing and Math skills a d build up their self-confidence
12) Write ‘Secrets of REal Estate Millionaires’ by teaming up with the top real estate investors in Singapore

So, those are my goals for 2009! I hope I have inspired and challenged you to do the same!

For some strange reason, I was taking a shower when this philosophical question popped in my head and got me really thinking. So, I decided to talk about it in this post.

How much would you sell 10 years of your life for??? If someone came and offered you the chance to sell 10 years of your life, what price would you ask for it. For example, if you asked for $1 million, you will get the cash RIGHT NOW and lose 10 years of your life. So, if you were 20 years old today, you would immediately fast forward to 30. If you were 30 today, you would immediately go to 40. So on and so forth.

What price would you ask for? Think about it. You are not allowed to say ‘not for sale’ or ‘priceless’. You must think of a price.

When I asked most of my friends, they gave huge amounts of money. One of my friends said, ‘ $10 million for 10 years of my life’. So, if we put so much value on the time of our life, are we treasuring it?

For example, for my friend, $10 million for 10 years equates to $1 million a year, which equates to $2,739 per day. This equates to $114 per hour or $1.90 per minute. Do the math for YOUR OWN answer. I bet it would be pretty high as well.

So, question is, are you living each hour as if it were WORTH $114? I am not saying that you must spend every hour making money. What I am saying is whether you are getting the very most out of the precious minutes and hours of your life? Are you enjoying the journey of your life, allowing yourself to be happy or do you keep getting upset over small things? Are you loving the people around you and allowing them to love you back? Are you treasuring each hour of your life and living it to the fullest or constantly procrastinating or doing things later?

WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT, YOU HAVE TO SELL
If you think about it, you are forced to sell the 10 years of your life (and more), whether you like it or not. Every day that passes in your life, you have just sold it. You are never going to get it back. Every hour that passes in your life, you are never going to get back.

When people attend my 4 day seminars, I tell them that the money they spent can always be made back. What cannot be made back is the 4 days of their life that they have exchanged for coming. So, they have to make the very best use of it.

So, before you go about living this new day, think of the price you have put on it and get your money’s worth!

In this post (which is going to be my longest), I would like to share a powerful insight that I have used to help thousands of people to understand themselves, create breakthrough changes in their behaviours (e.g. stop smoking, quit other addictions, resolve internal conflicts, motivate themselves) and reconcile relationship issues.

Have you wondered why it is seems so difficult to change our habitual behaviours? The reason is because our decisions and behaviours are driven by our emotions more than by our logic. Logically, we want to stop smoking or stop overeating, and yet, we still find ourselves repeating the pattern of behaviours. Why do we do this? It is because smoking and over eating meets our emotional needs.

At the same time, we all logically want to have a great relationship with our spouse or friends. And yet, we sometimes find ourselves getting into the same patterns of arguments and conflicts. Again, this is all caused by a mismatch of emotional needs between well-intentioned parties.

To change any kind of behaviour, you must first understand that as human beings, our decisions and actions are almost ALWAYS driven by the need to meet six human (emotional) needs. This is why we sometimes do things that don’t make any sense at all. We do it simply to meet these 6 human needs (by the way, this was developed by Anthony Robbins). So, what are these 6 human needs?

Human Need 1: Certainty

The first human need is the need for CERTAINTY. We all need to feel a sense of security that things will be okay. Certainty gives us peace of mind and assurance.

Although we all have the need for CERTAINTY, we use different behavioural strategies to meet this need. For example, when you feel stressed, worried, unsure and uncertain, how do you meet your need for certainty?

Some people use destructive strategies like over-eating, smoking or drinking alcohol. Don’t some people do these things to relieve the stress of uncertainty and get into certainty? Others get certainty by controlling other people (becoming a control freak) or by losing their temper. In one episode of Oprah, she interviewed a woman who handled her stress of being sexually abused by creating a multiple personality disorder.

At the same time, there are useful strategies to get certainty. Some people pray/use religion to get that sense of certainty. Some people, adopt empowering beliefs like, ‘ I know I will get through this’ or ‘everything happens for a reason’ or they simply have faith in themselves. Others get certainty through exercise, meditation or confiding in a friend.

So, think about this? How DO you meet your need for certainty? Is it constructive or destructive to you?

Human Need 2: Uncertainty

Now, here is the big paradox! As human beings, we have a second emotional need that is in direct conflict with our first need. We all have a need for UNCERTAINTY!

Think about it. If you had absolute 100% certainty in your life where you knew exactly what was going to happen, when it was going to happen, how it happens, before it happens every single day, how will you feel? You will feel BORED TO DEATH. This is why there are multi millionaires who have all the money and all the possessions in the world, but are depressed! Their life is so certain that they have no more challenges or surprises. No more uncertainty!

This is also why a woman/man in a perfect marriage where everything is routine and predictable will eventually get so bored, that they will unconsciously start picking a fight, having an affair or leave the marriage. There is no more excitement and stimulation that we all need emotionally.

So, how do people meet the emotional need of uncertainty (i.e. challenge/surprise/variety) in their lives? Again, some people do destructive things like having an affair, starting arguments, picking up one-night stands, taking drugs, smoking when bored and drinking to get high (yup, smoking and drinking offer both certainty AND uncertainty).

Some of us do neutral stuff like watching a movie, playing sports, changing jobs, making new friends or partying. This gives us the stimulation and variety we all need.

Some constructive strategies would include taking on new challenges (e.g. going mountain climbing, traveling, starting a business, writing a book). So think about it, how do you meet your need for uncertainty?

Human Need 3: Significance

The third human emotional need is the need to feel significant/special/unique/important/needed. We all hunger for this need and again pursue it in different ways.

Some people feel significant by attaining qualifications (e.g. MBAs, PhDs etc..), achieving success, buying lots of toys (e.g. bigger house, bigger car, country club, Rolex watch etc…) or pursuing status symbols.

Others get significance by putting other people down, dressing in a unique way or tattooing every conceivable part of their body. Again, others feel significance by having children (and making sure they excel and do them proud) or flaunting their wealth. Some people get significance by being proud of certain identities they adopt like being a Christian, a Muslim, an Army Officer, a Vegetarian etc…

Many people have asked me why I continue to work so hard to write so many books, spend hours writing posts on my BLOG and speak at so many seminars when I clearly don’t really need the money anymore. The answer is that I am driven to all these things because it makes me feel significant (useful, special, needed) and provides me the uncertainty (challenge & variety) that I crave. It also, gives me the 4th human need, connection and love and the 6th human need, contribution.

Again, think about how YOU meet the need to feel significance?

Human Need 4: Love and Connection

The 4th human need is in direct conflict with the 3rd human need of SIGNIFICANCE. Think about this. If you felt TOTALLY significant where you were so unique, so special and so different from all the people around you. Would you be happy? No! You would feel disconnected from the people around you.

One of our strongest needs as humans in the need to be accepted, to be loved and connected to the people around us. Once we become so special and unique, we will start to find ourselves losing that connection to our peers. I can tell you that I feel that way sometimes myself. At times I find it difficult to really be myself, connect with people I meet because people keep expecting me to be this perfect guru, with all the answers.

Have you ever wondered why a superstar like Britney Spears with all the fame, money and talent in the world could end up screwing up her life by engaging in destructive behaviours like drink driving, drug taking that would lead to 2 divorces, losing custody of her children and ending up in a mental institution? My guess is that although she felt total significance, she felt unloved and disconnected from everyone around her.

She probably could not be herself, always having to put up a front and feeling that all the people around her were just using her. Her need for connection and love probably drove her to mix around with the wrong company (i.e. Paris Hilton) and engaging in destructive behaviours that would get her the love/connection and sympathy she was lacking.

We all need to feel love and connection and again get it through different means. Some people get connection by getting into a relationship, getting married, making love, joining clubs, playing with their children, having pets, prayer (connection to God) or hanging out with friends.

Sometimes, people even ‘try’ to get love and connection by self-abuse and falling sick (studies show 90% of all illnesses are psychosomatic). This gives them the sudden outpour of sympathy and love that they yearn for. How do you get love and connection in your life?

If Your Relationship is Not Happy, Here’s Why…

I have found after working with many couples that whenever a marriage breaks down, it is always because partners are not meeting each others emotional needs.

A man (or woman) often wants to leave the marriage either because he/she no longer feels significant, loved, certainty or uncertainty by his/her partner. What is a very very common scenario is that after a couple has a child, the man no longer feels the same level of significance anymore. It seems that his wife spends all the time with the kids, that he is no longer important. So what happens? He rather spend his time in the office where he feels more significant or find a girlfriend who makes him feel special again!

So, here is a point of reflection. How well are you meeting your partner’s emotional needs?

If Your Staff Are Leaving Your Company, Here’s Why…

As a boss of my own company and a person who trains other companies in bringing put the best in their employees, I have found that your staff will only be happy and motivated to give their best when they feel significant (they are praised often and recognized), certainty (sense of security of their future in the company), uncertainty (their jobs gives them variety and challenge) as well as connection (they love the people they work with and have a sense of belonging).

Similarly, people leave a company not only for monetary reasons. They leave when they feel a lack of security (certainty), lack of challenge (uncertainty), lack of connection (they hate the people) or a lack of significance (unappreciated).

Reflection: if you are a boss/team leader, are you meeting your staff’s/colleagues emotional needs to bring out the best in them?

If You Have An Addiction that You Cannot Change, Here’s Why…

Finally, I have found that if you have a negative behaviour that you find hard to change, it is only because it is being used to meet two or more of your emotional needs. For example, if you find yourself constantly losing your temper, it is because it gives you a sense of significance and certainty.

If you find it difficult to stop smoking, it is probably it meets your needs for certainty (relaxes and de-stresses you), uncertainty (smoke when you feel bored), connection (especially if you smoke with friends to ‘fit in’) and significance (makes you look ‘cool’). Often, when a behaviour meets more than 2 needs, it becomes an ADDICTION.

In my patterns of excellence programs, I show people how to break limiting patterns of behaviours by first finding an alternative way to meet their needs. If you do not find a new useful alternative behaviour to replace it, you will find yourself going back to the old habit/addiction.

The Last Two Human Needs: Growth and Contribution

You are probably wondering what the last two human emotional needs are. Understand that the first four needs MUST be met by us constantly. It is what drives our daily behaviours.

However, to be truly fulfilled and happy, we need to meet the last two needs of ‘growth’ and ‘contribution’. We need to constantly grow by learning more and challenging ourselves to become better. The moment we stop growing, we start dying emotionally.

Finally, we all need to contribute beyond ourselves, This is why people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett make all the money in the world only to give most of it away to charity. contribution is what gives us ultimate purpose and fulfillment in life.

One of the most common complaints I get from people who attend my seminars is that they feel depressed all the time and find it hard to stay happy because their life is full of problems. Every time a problem is solved, another one seems to pop up.

They have money problems, family problems, work problems, health problems and relationship problems. They seem to think that people who are happy and successful in life are people with less problems than they have. In fact, one guy said to me, ‘Adam, you are so lucky to have everything going for you. You have all the money you need, a job you love, a successful business, loving family etc…’ EVERYTHING IS GOING YOUR WAY. No wonder, you are so happy with your life.

He got pretty surprised when I told him that I have problems everyday myself. In fact, many of my problems are so big that he would probably die of stress if he were to live one week of my life!

Face It… You Are Always Going to Have Problems

After meeting thousands of people in my life, rich and poor, young and old, successful and not-successful yet, I discovered that everyone has problems. Its just that our problems are different. The only people with no more problems are those people lying in the graveyard!

In fact, I have come to realize that successful people face more and bigger problems that anyone else! The more successful you are, the bigger your problems. Barack Obama may sure look happy winning the elections to become the new US president, but trust me, he has much bigger problems that you and me.

So, if life is going to be forever loaded with problems, how can we ever be at peace and happy? The answer I have found is to happily deal with our problems. Don’t take life so seriously. Learn to laugh at yourself and your problems and enjoy the journey.

We Need Problems. They Are There to Make Us Grow

So WHY is life full of problems. Why can’t everything go exactly the way we want? I believe that problems are there to make us learn and grow. Every time a problems comes up, it is a signal that we need to improve ourselves and change our thinking and behaviours. For example, if you are having a bitter fight with your spouse, it is a signal that YOU need to change the way you communicate and behave in the relationship (no matter whose fault it may seem to be).

If from this experience (i.e. problem), you decide to evaluate yourself as a husband/wife and choose to take some positive actions like appreciating your partner more, spending more time with them, listening with your heart, showing more love, forgiving, communicating with honesty, you would solve the problem and end up a BETTER PERSON as result. You would have grown.

Say, you have money problems. It is again a signal that you need to improve the way you manage your money. So, you start reading money management books, attend a money management program, start cutting unnecessary expenses, learn to invest prudently etc…Again, you would have grown into a BETTER PERSON as a result. So, problems are designed to make us grow into better people. only when we have GROWN, will life allow us to graduate to the next level of success, i.e. becoming a millionaire or having passionate love in our relationship.

Here is What Happens When You Ignore our Problems…

However, is this how most people deal with their problems? Nope. What many people do is that they avoid/ignore/or run away from their problems. For example, when they are having that bitter fight with their spouse, some people will just keeping blaming the other person, avoid them or leave them.

When some people are having money problems, they simply ignore it, letting their bills pile up and borrowing more and more money.

So, what happens when you ignore your problems? Well, they keep coming back, even bigger than before. If you do not learn the lesson that needs to be learnt and change yourself, that problematic pattern will keep repeating itself in your life UNTIL you do change.

Haven’t you notice that some people keep experiencing the same problem in every relationship they get into or in every company they join. They keep blaming everyone else for their problems when they don’t realize that they are the ones that are creating it subconsciously or consciously.

Problems Are Taps on the Shoulder

Another way to look at problems is that they are life’s way of tapping us on the shoulder, telling us that we need to change something. If we ignore the taps, life gets our attention by hitting us with a bat. If we still ignore the bat and refuse to change, life hits us on the head with a brick. If we still ignore and refuse to change, life will send a truck towards us.

Haven’t you seen this occur in every area of life? Relationship problems start off with small arguments. Ignore it and do the same thing and it turns into a quarrel. Keep doing the same thing, and it turns into a fight. Pretty soon, the relationship ends. We jump into a new relationship and find that the same problem comes back to haunt.

Kill The Monster When it is Small

I have found that the key to avoid disasters in life is to immediately learn the lessons and change your thoughts/behaviours when the problem is small. Act on the shoulder taps before they turn into oncoming trucks.

Start learning and managing your money, the moment you have small money problems. Start changing your diet ad exercising the moment your body starts to feel lousy. Start working on your people skills the moment you have relationship issues. Kill the monster when it is small.

As a loyal blog reader, I just wanted you to know that you can download the 1st chapter of my book Secrets Of Building Multi-Million Dollar Businesses for FREE. Simply follow the link below to download your copy now:

www.MultiMillionBusinesses.com

In the 1st chapter alone, you will discover…

* The crucial difference between having an Employee Mindset and an Entrepreneur Mindset and the reason why 95% of people out there are doomed to FAIL in business.

* The real reason why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

* My journey as an millionaire entrepreneur - how I made my first million at 26, became financially free at 30, and at age 34, built seven businesses spanning seven countries grossing $30 million annually.

* How to make money turning problems into business opportunities.

* How I made $13,000 a night in my very first business.

* How I learnt the MOST important entrepreneurial skill… the hard way. (So you don’t have to yourself!)

* The 7 Millionaire Entrepreneur Life Lessons you MUST possess before you can become a successful entrepreneur!

* … and much more!

So if you haven’t yet downloaded your copy yet, simply head down to this web page and do so today.

www.MultiMillionBusinesses.com

Hope you enjoy the read!

Dear Friends

30 Days ago, I posted a personal challenge to write a new book from scratch in 30 days. Well, I just completed it with my two authors Conrad Alvin Lim and Ryan Huang (one of my Wealth Academy students and a journalist with CNA). The book should hit bookstores in 2-3 weeks after printing and production. We have all decided to donate 100% of our royalties to help out the needy in this time of crisis.

Here are some updates about the market and excerpts from the book:

Those of you following the market and news will know that volatility is still extremely high and the market is still on a downtrend, following more bad news every week

* Japan, Europe, Germany and Singapore are officially in a recession. The US is unofficially in a recession

* Unemployment rates have hit new highs

* There are news of layoffs everyday, with Citigroup cutting 55,000 + 20,000 jobs worldwide.

* The Big 3 Automakers FORD, GENERAL MOTORS and CHRYSLER are on the verge of bankrupcty

* More and more banks are failing, the latest victim being CITIGROUP. CITIGROUP’s share price plunged to a low of $3.80 and is now fighting for its survival (after the demise of Lehman brothers and the near collapse of AIG, Merrill Lynch etc…)

* Fear has thrown fundamental analysis and even technical analysis out the window, with US and Singapore stocks trading at such low levels no one could have imagined 12 months ago

* This has truly become the worst financial crisis since the great depression. Things like this happen ONLY ONCE in a 100 years. No one saw how bad this would get, including me!

Currently, The S&P 500 Index is at 828 points down 47% from its highs set in October 2007. Singapore is down 58% (at 1,600 points) and China is down 70%.

(STI chart screen captured from www.shareinvestor.com)

I think many people are asking questions like:

1. Will the market ever recover with everything looking so bad?
2. Which stocks will recover and which will not?
3. How long will the recovery take?
4. The FED is printing money like there is no tomorrow (investing $700 billion into the financial system. How will this effect the US economy?
5. How do I best take advantage of this to build my long term wealth

Let me answer these questions to the best of my ability:

1) No doubt, markets will always recover in time. Although this may seem really bad, it has happened many times before (quoted recently Buffett). IN fact, the US market dived close to 50% in 1974 and 2001 and even crashed 80% back during the great depression. The Singapore market dived close to 70% during the Asian financial crisis. At that time, people thought that things would NEVER recover, but they eventually did and the market went even higher than it ever did before. Economics tells us this will be no different. However VERY FEW people have that kind of foresight to dare to start buying LOW and making their fortune when the market sorts itself out.

So, where will the market go from here? Truthfully, NOBODY REALLY KNOWS in the short term (3-12 months). Some experts say that will be in for a major rally at the beginning of 2009 and the market will move sideways for 2-4 years before staging a new sustained uptrend. Some experts believe that for the market to truly hit a bottom (another 10-20% below where we are now), the market has to go through CAPITULATION.

Many past market bottoms have been created from CAPITULATION (it means ‘surrender’ or ‘give up’). Capitulation is a situation where there is INTENSE MARKET PANIC and the masses sell AT ANY PRICE (frighteningly, this has NOT happened yet). This usually results in a HUGE GAP DOWN or a HUGE DOWN DAY. What this does is that is flushes out all the sellers ONCE AND FOR ALL. Only when this happens will a bottom be reached and a new uptrend can start.

Again, nobody can know when the bottom will be. The good news is that you DON’T HAVE TO buy at the bottom to make money from this crisis. You just have to buy somewhere NEAR the bottom (where I believe we are at now) to position yourself for profits. What I am personally doing is to buy regularly (dollar cost averaging) every few weeks so that I get a low average price.

2) Many people I know are tempted to buy CITIGROUP that has hit a low price of $3.80 (now at $6) or even AIG at $1-$2, believing that eventually, this big brad names will survive and recover. While I was bullish on financials 12 months ago, I have come to realize that the DISCOUNTED CASH FLOW model of valuing companies CANNOT BE APPLIED to financial stocks because of what has happened in this crisis.

The Banks and financial companies WILL NEVER earn the kind of profits they did in the last 10 years. The profitable double digit growth investment banking model has been destroyed by this crisis and so, past earnings/cash flow mean nothing now. Goldman Sachs will never go back to $250 (it is now at $66), AIG will never go back to $70-$80 (now at $1.66) and CITI will never go back to $50 (now at $6). In fact, the truth is that these banks can never realistically pay back the BILLIONS Of dollars loaned to them by the government. They will take 1,000 years to pay it back with interest ( I am not exaggerating here).

So, in my opinion, there is no way to value any financial stocks intelligently right now and that any investment in them is a gamble. For example, a $6 investment in CITI may look great. Although I believe that the Govt will not allow CITI to go bankrupt, they may take over the whole company (in the case of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae) and wipe out all the shareholders! This means stock price = $0!!!!

The only bank stocks I believe could possibly survive and benefit from this crisis are BANK OF AMERICA and JP Morgan. As for financials, VISA and American EXPRESS are also relatively good investments as they do not suffer from any writedowns.

I think that the best thing to do is to just buy the INDEXES: DIAMONDS (DIA), STI ETF and FXI (China ETF). They are the safest and already offer a huge enough upside. As for individual stocks, look for non-financial stocks that meet the 9 step value investing criteria. You will learn how to do all this from PROFIT FROM THE PANIC

3) How long will the recovery take? Nobody really knows but I believe Singapore and China will recover a lot faster than the US in this case. I am overweight on the first two markets more than the US right now. Check out the chart below and you can see that historically , markets took 3 years to get from the bottom back to their peak!
This DOES not mean you must wait 3 years to make money. If you were to keep buying and averaging down the price at low price levels, you will be profitable in a year or less.

4) The FED printing BILLIONS of dollars into the markets will only mean ONE THING => SUPER DUPER INFLATION and the FALL OF THE US DOLLAR in the years to come. A falling dollar will mean that commodity prices (priced in US dollars ) will go even higher. I believe that although oil prices have come down from their peak of $120+ a low of now $50 (because of recessionary fears), they will eventually go up and up maybe even to $300 a barrel in the next 5 years. You can take advantage of this by buying the OIL ETF, oil related companies or inflationary driven stocks

5) They key to make huge profits from this crisis is to buy the right INDEX ETFs and fundamentally strong stocks whose share prices have been bashed back to the stone age. Learn exactly how to do the right research from PROFIT FROM THE PANIC.

In the last few weeks, my mailbox has been full of emails by people asking me questions like, ‘I have lost so much in my stocks, should I sell?’, ‘How much lower can the market go?’, ‘ is it safe to buy now?, ‘will the market ever recover?’,’ What are the best things to invest in when the market is down?’

To answer all these questions, I have decided to set myself a CRAZY CHALLENGE of writing a NEW BOOK in 30 DAYS. Usually it takes me 4-5 Months to write a book so this will be super stretch, given the fact that I am speaking every single day and traveling to two countries in a week. But, I believe that anything is possible when you are committed enough.

The book will be entitled ‘PROFIT FROM THE PANIC- ‘How to Protect Your Money and Profit from the Worst Financial Crisis Since the Great Depression!’

Remember that Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch and John Templeton all became billionaires in investing because they bought stocks at super low prices when NOBODY ELSE DARED TO BUY during the 1930s (great depression), 1973-74 (the oil shock crash), 1987 (Black Monday) and 2001-2003 (Dot Com Crash). Well, here is another opportunity of a lifetime… IF YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO

Understand that when the market recovers, NOT ALL stocks will recover. Some will DIE and never come back up. Those that do survive will go on to become more valuable than ever (since they have less competitors around). So how do I choose the right stocks? How do I invest and take advantage of the China Market that is DOWN 70%, the US Market DOWN 45% and the Singapore market DOWN 61%? I will reveal all this in PROFIT FROM THE PANIC

However, unlike all my other books, I am going to be printing VERY FEW COPIES of this book. Why? because the market won’t stay this low and attractive for very long. It is only valuable as long as the market does not recover fully yet. So, I am only going to release this book only when the OPPORTUNITY still exists to buy when the whole world is panicking. After taking 30 days to write, it will still take at least another 30 days for production and delivery to bookstores. let’s see what happens!

BY THE WAY!!!! My latest book, ‘Secrets of Building Multi-Million Dollar Business Has Just Hit All Singapore Bookstores!

he school holidays are coming up again and I am excited once again to be able to run the series of ‘ I Am Gifted, So Are You!’ Program for Primary & secondary school students in Singapore, Jakarta, Bangkok, China, Hong Kong Malaysia. Out of all the programs that I run, the children and teens program is still the one that is closest to my heart and the one that I am most passionate about.

The reason is because I was once labeled as a slow learner, unmotivated, lazy underachiever myself. I was expelled from St. Stephens Primary in primary 3 (for fighting) and rejected from 6 secondary schools after my PSLE. Those were times when everyone looked down on me and I had extremely low confidence and self esteem. I really felt hopeless and useless at that time when I had friends and cousins scoring straights ‘A’s in top schools while I was struggling to pass in a neighbourhood school. Who would have thought that I could become among the top students in NUS and 20 years later, be conferred the NSU Business School Eminent Alumni award for being the one of Singapore’s top business leaders.

I would never have turned my grades and my life around and be enjoying all the success that I have today if I did not have the right role models to help me change my limiting beliefs and giving me the right strategies to do well in my studies. To me, running my kids program is really not so much a business to me anymore, but really a mission. I feel that it is my mission to reach out to all those students out there would were told by parents and teachers that they are dumb, attention deficit, slow, hopeless and useless.

My mission is to tell them YOU ARE NOT YOUR PAST RESULTS. You have all the potential to achieve top grades and live the life you truly want. If I can do it, so can you! If I am gifted, so are you! I believe that every students need to be given the opportunity to realize and unleash the winner and genius within themselves.

What really keeps me going and doing what I do is the hundreds of emails I receive almost every week from students telling me how they have transformed their own lives and their own results. This post is dedicated to them and I will like to honour them by posting their achievements here. Let them be an inspiration to all the other students out there!

Dear friends,

My latest book, ‘Secrets of Building Multi-Million Dollar Businesses’ will hit all the bookshops in Singapore in 12 days. The interest in my latest book have been phenomenal. Already, more than 500+ books have been pre-ordered by past graduates of my program.

As Singapore officially enters a recession (Straits Times, Oct 10, 2008) and layoffs and pay cuts are expected to rise (see one of the many articles from Business Times about companies slashing jobs)…

… it becomes even more crucial for you to learn the strategies of how to build a profitable business. Here is why:

1) In my opinion, it is extremely risky to be an employee nowadays if you have no other source of additional income. When downturns come (and they HAVE ARRIVED again), your company will have to cut costs by reducing pay and laying off its employees. As an employee, you do not own your job or your income. It can be taken away from you at any time. To ensure your long term financial security, you have to learn the skills of how to become an entrepreneur just in case it becomes your turn to get the axe! (statistics show that when you have a 50% chance of being retrenched past the age of 45 because you become to expensive to keep. If your boss can find someone cheaper, younger and willing to work longer hours then you, they will not think twice to replace you).

2) It may sound crazy, but the best time to start a business is in a recession! In fact, I started Adam Khoo Learning Technologies group during the last major downturn in 2002. IN this book, I will show you how I turned an $8000 investment (not even my own money) into a $20 million a year business that operates in 6 countries.

During a downturn and a recession is when rental becomes really cheap, employees are much cheaper to hire and banks are much more willing to lend money at better interest rates! At the same time, as major competitors downsize and scale back on marketing, it will give YOU…the new business entrant the chance to grab market share! During bad times, consumers tend to be more discerning and tend to give newer businesses a chance as their costs are usually lower

3) Finally, if you want to ensure than you are able to not only keep your job during the recession (which could last the next 2 years) but to even have a chance to climb up the corporate ladder (as a director, senior VP or CEO), then you have to learn the skills and the mindset of a boss! In bad times, companies will get rid of those who cannot create value and retain those who can. To achieve this, you have to learn the skills and strategies of how to help YOUR COMPANY achieve higher sales and profits

In my latest book, you are going to learn the most effective strategies that CEOs and entrepreneurs use to build and manage highly profitable business in good times and in tough times. You will learn:

· Why 90% of Businesses Fail…and how the 10% Succeed
· The Mindset & Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs
· Develop the million-dollar idea that will blow away the competition
· A Step-by Step Guide on building a business system that works without you
· How to start a business with very little capital and turn in millions within 18 months
· Build a Powerful Brand & Establish Yourself As the Market Leader
· Powerful Marketing Strategies that Will Kill the Competition
· Build a championship team of employees and partners
· Master the Art of Cash Flow… How to Roll Millions with just a Few Thousand Dollars

Chapter 1: The Making of A Millionaire Entrepreneur
Chapter 2: The Success Factors of Millionaire Entrepreneurs
Chapter 3: The Million-Dollar Business Idea
Chapter 4: Building a Business that Works…Without You
Chapter 5: Multiplying Your Business Profits
Chapter 6: How to Generate Millions in Sales and Profits
Chapter 7: Building a Championship Team
Chapter 8: Mastering Your Money
Chapter 9: Growing Your Business Empire

To order your copy (you have only 12 days left before this offer expires) at a super discounted price of $23 (The retail price will be $31.90 at all major bookstores), call 62740105 during office hours (Singapore time: 9am- 6pm) or send an email to chris@akltg.com

P.S. Only Another 300 Books Will be Given Away At this Pre-launch Price and Only 2 Books Are Allowed to Be Purchased By Each Person

Dear Investors

What you are seeing now in the market is a PANIC!!!! People who have seen their stock value drop by 50% or more cannot take it and are just selling at whatever price they can.

Hedge funds, institutions and people who have borrowed heavily to buy stocks in the last few months, are not able to meet margin calls and are forced to sell. As individuals run to the banks and withdraw whatever money they have left, mutual funds are forced to sell their stock and raise cash to meet this withdrawls. So everyone is SELLING SELLING SELLING at whatever price they can get.

On the other hand, many people with cash are sitting on the sidelines not daring to buy anything for fear that it can go lower.So what happens when you have got millions of sellers and no buyers? Stock prices plunge like a stone! The Dow (8579 pts) is down almost 40% from its highs and the S&P 500 is down 42% to 909 points. This has happened in the last 12 months since the crisis erupted.

When fear and panic happens and people sell irrationally, fundamentals and intrinsic value are thrown out the window. This is exactly what we talked about during Wealth Academy. This is when good companies get dumped together with the bad. (metaphor: This is when people sell 20,000 square foot bungalows on Holland road for $1m). This happened in the 1920s, 1973, 1987, 2002 and now, it is happening again.

Even stocks that are NOT directly related to the financial crisis are being sold at ridiculous prices. Look at Health Care: UNH (intrinsic value (IV) $53) selling @$17.80 , WLP (IV: $95) selling @$36.50 Technology: AAPL (IV: $189) selling@$88.74 Agriculture: MOS (IV:$81)@$36.52 , POT (IV:$184) selling @$92.85, Consumer Staples: KFT (IV:$40) selling@$27.70.

We all know from history and common sense that the market will eventually recover and go to even higher highs. So, why do people still sell when the market is down? Well, because EMOTIONS always overcomes LOGIC in life, even in the markets.

People always fear that THIS IS THE END!!! It will NEVER COME BACK. Also, sometimes it is because people are forced to sell because they have borrowed money to invest or because they need to raise the cash to pay their expenses. This is why you should NEVER borrow to invest or invest with funds that you need for your daily expenses.

So, if you want to emerge a winner, then stay calm, keep your logic and hold and pick up SOUND COMPANIES which are NOT DIRECTLY AFFECTED BY THE CRISIS, have strong balance sheets (low debt, high cash), consistent earnings and a wide economic moat with a high future growth prospects ahead. Here is where you put all your learning s from Wealth Academy to the ultimate test.

If you can do this, you will be one of the very few (like me) who will PROFIT FROM THE PANIC. However, do BEAR in mind (no pun intended), that I personally don’t think this is the lowest point. There is still lots of possibility that the market will still GO LOWER. After breaking the 9000 support, the next support on the Dow is 7500. Meaning it can still go down another 17% from here. Plus, more banks are probably going to fail in the US and in the UK. The UK crisis has just begun and I see that taking a further toll on the market.

This is however, not going to stop me from accumulating strong stocks at discounted prices and accumulating more as it reaches the bottom in a few months. The most important thing is to focus on fundamentally strong stocks that got hit by the collateral damage and avoid the ones that really got hit i.e. Financials. The market will probably not rebound very fast immediately, it will take months or even years for it to climb back up so no rush.

For those of you who have attending my Wealth Academy Program, I will soon email a list of stocks that I am accumulating right now