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What Happened in December…

December 31, 2010

Sorry for the hiatus! Usually, I try to blog when I’m free but December has been a busy month and so, I didn’t manage to update my blog as regularly as I had hoped to.

Bear with me now because this is going to be a long post. Don’t say I didn’t tell you earlier!

So Patricia, what happened in December?

Well, the first thing was, I was invited to speak at the NUS Entrepreneurship Society’s Enterprise Series as one of their guest speakers.

enterpriseseries

It was a really enriching experience and I felt that it made me more sure of the things that Calvin and I want to do in the coming year. All will be revealed in 2011. 😛

It was a milestone for me as I felt I managed to reach out to the people whom I wanted to help the most. Tertiary students who wish to set up something of their own but just don’t know how. I hope I managed to inspire at least a few of them.

Then we’ve been busy with our private coaching students who have been such great participants and learners at each coaching session. They come from a variety of backgrounds and certainly all have different commitments. It’s quite interesting to hear the things that they have done before and the goals that they have in mind. To our dear ABP private coaching students, you can do it!

Now, a few heartening emails came in via my personal email. One of them emailed me before and told me to inform him when we ran any of our internet marketing events and said he wanted to learn from us. It was nice of him to say that he has been wanting to learn from us for a long time but just never got the opportunity to do so. Well, hopefully we’ll get to see him at our next event in 2011!

Another one came in by a poly student who said she admires Calvin and I, for our work and achievements. One Facebook message by another girl said, she’s inspired by the things we do and she looks up to us for motivation to pursue her interests. Needless to say, internet marketers are forever so gracious to thank Calvin and I for our offers, our products, the work we do, our team etc. Now, when I get such emails I feel a sense of satisfaction and it is a great morale booster to keep on doing what we do. So I want to thank everyone who has dropped us your emails and as much as we have inspired you, you have also made an impact by encouraging us to be better people too.

What else happened in December?

Well, Christmas of course! We had a cozy Christmas meal with our ZGM team. A simple one to thank them for their efforts. Gift exchange was funny because I got the most interesting present ever – a TOTO ticket. Too bad it was not a winning one. 😛 Dinner on Christmas eve was also a cozy one prepared by my dearest mother who roasted a whole turkey which was so delicious! Facebook has all those pictures, if you want to check them out. 😉

The highlight was a telephone call. A call I made to my secondary school teacher who taught me Chemistry, Ms. Jo-Marie. Now, I haven’t met or spoken to her in 9 years. And the reason why I called her was to thank her. Because in secondary 4, I did really poorly for my Chemistry and my studies and I was just losing sight of my goals and dreams. I think I was just disillusioned because I didn’t know what to do with my poor grades. I was losing interest in studying too.

I did very poorly for a particular Chemistry test and Ms. Jo called me out from class and she said, “Are you a Christian? Because I don’t know why I wanted to tell you this, but I feel that God wants me to tell you that He is here for you and wants you to know He loves you. Are you attending church? If you aren’t, maybe you should go back to church.” I remember I teared. Not because she was telling me to go back to church but I felt the love of God so strong that He was sending his messengers to lead me. Because of that day, I felt that I couldn’t let God down. I needed to be a testimony of His goodness and set forth to be the best I can. Now almost 10 years down the road, I hope that I have glorified Him by being a witness and testimony of His love and goodness.

So anyway, I plucked up the courage to drop her a call. I got her number from a good friend of mine. And told her, “Thank You.” I felt absolutely blessed to have the opportunity to speak to her and to convey my thanks. Via the phone call, I could feel her joy and surprise but at the same time, nostalgia of the time almost 10 years ago.

If she’s ever reading this, I hope she knows there’s a student who is eternally grateful to her for being a messenger of God.

The last few days of December were really times to just sum up everything and I really am looking forward to the New Year holiday weekend to have a well-deserved break. After which, it’s off to a GREAT START to 2011!

I want to blog some more but my eyes are giving way to the Z monster. So I’ll continue later today on my conclusion of 2010!

In the meantime, here’s the snapshot from Facebook’s My Status in A Year! I feel has aptly summed up my year!!

statusinayear

Personal

Back in 2006, Singapore Didn’t Believe in Making Money Online!

December 10, 2010

Earlier I was browsing some people’s blog (mainly Singaporean internet marketers) and it’s amazing to see how many of them have accomplished something for themselves – running coaching programs, setting up their own profitable online businesses etc. I have without a doubt, respect for these people who have carved something online for themselves.

Back in 2006-2007, that was when Calvin and I started out and frankly the local internet marketing circle was much smaller because everyone was more cautious and fearful that everything’s a scam. Back then, we went on TV and the newspaper to share the concept of internet marketing and making money online and even publicly stated, we aspire to make 10k per month via the internet! Who at that time would have thought it was possible? Even the newspaper reporter said, “That’s inspiring!” but of course, she didn’t really think it was possible.

People thought we were just a “one hit wonder” and just felt that it was just a fad. Well, it doesn’t help that we both are quite *shy* people and we’ve just quietly worked on our business, letting our results tell our story. And we’ve never gone publicly about our business or done any form of coaching etc. until our Accelerated Blogging Profits workshop in October.

Fast forward to today, It’s 2010. Right now, blogshops are common. People are making money online one way or another, or at least, they are finding out how to. And we’ve established our internet marketing company for more than a year. 🙂

And to tell you the truth, now the Singaporean internet marketing community is getting bigger and getting more competitive. Like it or not, people are out there doing the same things, running the same courses and basically selling the same stuff. But it’s a matter of how they do it. And I’ve seen some pretty good stuff happening around.

It has been extremely rewarding for me to see how the industry has evolved since late 2006. And it also marks a point of time for reflection for me on how I can do better in this business and to continue my journey towards financial freedom and abundance with the help of the Internet. 🙂

xxx

If you are also running your own online business/ in internet marketing and would like to share your own thoughts about the local industry or to network, do leave a comment here! 🙂 Would love to hear about your experience with internet marketing! Cheers!

Personal

The Lord Will Provide…

December 6, 2010

This is a really last minute post before I head to bed.

I usually like to source for soothing songs for worship before I sleep because I just like to embrace in the Lord’s love and goodness. I always like it that He always has something prepared for me, even within a site like Youtube.

Enjoy the video. Shalom.

xxx

Personal

To Upgrade WordPress or Not?

December 2, 2010

I have trained to manage my time better ever since I attended MMI, which explains my “unusual” frequent blog posting for the past week. I pray that this will develop into a habit and not just die off as it has done before.

So anyway, there has been something staring at me everyday when I log in to my blog account. And it’s this:

upgrade_wordpress

Oh boy, I hate it when I see this. I don’t know whether I want to upgrade my current version or just stick with this one. Now, to tell you the truth, I have built hundreds of blogs and I always have the solution whenever something crops up, especially with WordPress. BUT THE ONE THING I HATE IS UPGRADING.

I upgraded PatriciaLin.com once about a year ago and it messed up my entire blog. You can read more here. My categories went missing, so were my tags and everything else was just messy. Thankfully, the blog posts were still there which explains the presence of my blog archive. Now since then, I’ve always hesitated when it comes to blog upgrades. But now, not so much because I always back up my sites before I upgrade. It is still a little troublesome if I have to restore it when the new installation goes wrong.

So now, I’m pondering if I should. I know the new wordpress version is AMAZING  but I don’t know if I can afford the time to do that. Let me know if you think I should (for whatever reason you can come up with)!

Okay, I’m off for dinner now! 🙂

Personal

My Belated Father’s Day Tribute

June 22, 2010

Calvin knows that apart from him, there is another man in my life.

That man is my father.

I was heartened by my uncle’s photos of his newborn on Facebook. His adorable baby son was coincidentally born just a day before Father’s day. And from the photos that were posted, I could see how beaming he was and looking at his son with proud eyes. His son didn’t need to accomplish anything, didn’t need to know how to say a word and didn’t need to be the best player on the soccer field and he still looked on at his newborn son with such love and pride.

That’s exactly how my father is in my life.

We often forget how important our fathers are in our lives – come on, face it – you also forget about it sometimes. Our fathers have always quietly provided for the families and mothers have always been at the forefront to care for their children. I recently had a conversation with one of my best friends, HY and in brief this was what she said, “For the first time in my life, i saw my father smile. He has laboured all these years, being the sole breadwinner. Now that we are all grown up and contributing to the family income, he no longer feels the burden to provide.”

Calvin often laments how mothers are given all the credit (given the media’s portrayal of The Mother). He finds it funny that because children see their mothers at home, caring for them all the time. And so, they think that their fathers are too busy for them and do not develop a close relationship with them. Thus, fathers do not get as much credit as they should.

I think that it also boils down to the culture that we are in. Men are known to be the head of the house and have to provide for the family. It is not by choice that they provide for the family but it is a responsibility that he has towards his family. And because of that, people take fathers for granted, thinking that fathers “owe” them a living.

Well, thankfully, I’ve never looked at my dad in such a manner. My dad has always been a pillar of support throughout my 24 years of being on this earth. He is nicknamed, “The Shock Absorber” of the family – simply because whenever my mum and I are unhappy, he simply takes it all in by listening to us and our woes.   He is always quick to help, quick to listen and never fails to make me laugh or smile. When I was studying, he taught me mathematics ( he was my maths tutor ok!) and he always encouraged me no matter how badly/well I did at my exams.

The funny thing about my dad is, whenever I tell him that I did poorly in an exam, he will always say, “At least better than me when I was in school”. He always loved to use his own studying experiences to make me feel better about myself or my results. I’ve always looked at my dad with such admiration, simply because I know that he is putting in as much effort as he can for the family. Throughout the years, as I often helped him out at his toy shop, I know that he is putting in all he can to try to make the business work. He still has to manually labour to manage the toy store (which I did try out several times when I was growing up) and I know it is not easy. Apart from the shop, my dad is unlike many fathers – he helps out in house chores everyday.

As I look at my dad after all these years, if anyone were to ask me, “Does your dad love you?” Without hesitation, I know he does. Simply because he gives out of his heart to my mum and I, without complains.

If there’s something horrid about me, it is that I often talk back to my dad. The funny thing is, I do because I take it for granted that he won’t scold me if I did so (unlike my mum, haha). I also know that at the end of the day, it won’t make him love me less. But because of this, every time I do talk back, I always feel a sense of guilt that I’ve not been the best I can to him. Then again, I know he’ll forgive me. 😛

If there’s anyone who loves me for who I am, even if I didn’t accomplish anything, even if I didn’t know how to say a word and even if I wasn’t best basketball player in the world, it’s my dad. He still looks at me with such love and pride – simply because I’m his baby daughter.

The sweetest thing my dad said to me when I offered to celebrate Father’s Day last Sunday and take my parents out for a meal was, “Today’s Father’s Day? No… it’s not. 7 January’s Father’s day, simply because I became a father that day.. I’ve celebrated it already.. So don’t need to celebrate today…”

That is my father for you.

Happy Father’s Day to you, Daddy… even if you say it’s on 7 january. Just celebrate with the rest of the world lah~

You’re the best father that anyone can have and I love you and Mummy very much..

Thank YOU so much for everything. I know that you are a silent giver and you show and give your love in your own manner.

Just know that I know and I appreciate with all my heart.

God bless you always. 🙂