Personal Responsibility

In the building practices of ancient Rome, when scaffolding was removed from a completed Roman arch, the Roman engineer stood beneath. If the arch came crashing down, he was the first to know. Thus his concern for the quality of the arch was intensely personal, and it is not surprising that so many Roman arches have survived.

- taken from Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman (1991), who quoted Economist Paul Rosenstein-Rodan.

One of the reasons why I've always insisted on being personally responsible for my own endeavours.

SWEAT. I DONT KNOW WHAT TO SAY!!

This appeared in my email last Friday. I think the reality of not knowing what to say and the futility of attempting to smokebomb a panel of professors will only hit me when the weekend is over.

2011 International Real Estate Case Competition - Shortlisted for interview

Dear Jansen,

You have been shortlisted for an interview with the selection panel. You will be given 5 minutes to talk about “The most pressing issue or challenge facing the Singapore real estate industry”. There is no need for presentation slides.

Your allocated slot is: Thursday 20^th January 3.00 pm.

Struggles of An Aspiring Monster Man

This is a story of a climber who entered NUS with big dreams. Dreams of excelling in the rockclimbing competition circuit in Singapore and his pursuit of excellence in the sport. He would like to think that with the passing of age, his passion has transitioned from that of a burning flame to the gentle, unerring glow of a beam of light, but sometimes, a careless spark ignites a raging inferno.

Two factors played immense roles in shaping the child's development. First was the death of close friend who loved climbing. The friend succumbed in the fight against brain cancer and has since emblazoned an emblem of steely determination in child's heart. The boy channeled his elder's derring-do, and was constantly reminded to give his utmost in all his endeavors. To falter and give up in the face of petty obstacles would be a grave insult to his memory.

Second was the inspiration that was a climbing coach. Charmed by the very precise and graceful way with which his coach seemingly flowed through complex sequences, his curiosity was piqued. Starry eyed and eager to learn, he was a boy of 17 years when they got acquainted. The coach's ideas were powerful, yet they were never delivered in a way which was self sermonizing. He employed a seemingly magical way to cajole his students to perform beyond expectations. Beneath the stern facade revealed a person who was unfailingly gentle in his guidance. Under his tutelage, the young boy managed to win Intermediate Men with just slightly over a year of climbing experience under his belt.

Fast forward to his years in tertiary education. Fresh from his victory in the intermediate category, the boy resolved to make his mark in the open category. As a young novice competitor, he often stayed till the very end to watch his climbing heroes compete and never fail to be mesmerized by their feats of strength and skill. He aspired to one day to compete on the same level as his climbing heroes, as a worthy opponent to be reckoned with, and not as someone nobody takes seriously. Existing inherently within him was a clear voice telling him he needs to find his own path someday, for if he walks in the footsteps of his coach, he will forever only stay in his shadow.

While in varsity, he encountered an entirely different training system. Several obstacles stood in his quest for excellence. He has struggled with these issues and thought long and hard about his direction. These setbacks can be distilled into three points.

1. Competing Needs of Various Groups

Firstly, the climbing team is the only team within the school which has to cater to three different difficulty levels: novice, intermediate and open. The various groups have different competing needs. The novice climbers are new to climbing and require an experienced mentor to instill within them the right techniques and to guide them to explore their personal boundaries - as himself was a beneficiary of. The intermediate climbers, endowed with proper techniques but lacking refinement to execute harder moves, now needs a shift of focus to more strength based training. The open climbers compete on a whole new level. The focus has now moved to amalgamating technique and strength into finesse. Besides honing strength, the competitor also needs to sharpen his mind.

Here, it can be argued that even within the open men, there should be a further split into 'Open' and 'Monster'. The Open Men Finals event is a different ball game, where local climbers are pitted against international climbers. The emphasis is on route reading and the ability to execute the moves without mistake on the first attempt. The climbing styles are radical, and there is no better practice than actually qualifying for the finals and competing there on a regular basis. To succeed where others have failed, the character in our story needs to gather all his wits around him.

Unfortunately, the open men or the aspiring monster men only forms a small minority within the team. In an earlier post, his petulant self (one eager for change) has lambasted others for being blind to the needs of this niche group. He now realizes that it is unfair for the majority to accede to the requests of the minority. It would be plain inconsiderate to demand more from those who are already tottering under the gargantuan task of juggling competing needs.

2. Space Management Issues

The climbing gym is a small space which can only optimally house about 10 training climbers. On training days, the gym is often filled with upwards of 30-40 climbers, and space management becomes a dire issue. Optimal training requires ample space - space to move unimpeded around the gym doing boulder intervals, or space to jump from one station to another. Having been instilled from a young age against time wastage, he becomes jittery when forced to sit around and do nothing. But this is inevitable given the size of the team and the communal way around which training is structured.

3. Psyche, or Lack Thereof

To improve fast he needs to train with either climbers stronger than him, or climbers more psyched than him. During team trainings he often overhear peers droning on about being tired, or not wanting to push hard for fear of risking injury. Initially, he resented such people for being lazy and that they only have themselves to blame for being weak. Shortly after, realization dawned on him that people are motivated differently. Because of different backgrounds and personalities, he cannot ask of others the same he demands of himself.

When doing serious training, he morphs into a changed person, one with a darker character. That darker character - one that does not look down kindly at failures, one that will do whatever necessary to achieve pre-set goals, is requisite for improvement. No doubt this scares some people, and thus he cannot train with the majority of the team. Comments along the line of being stupid/crazy for locking off with so much weights in a bid for improvement goes some way into sapping the psyche. Receiving weird stares or silly giggles for screaming when trying to push through repetitions doesnt help either.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

Should the character in our story train with the team or not? He thinks he already knows the answer. In order to go where no teamNUS climber has gone before, perhaps he needs to walk the road ahead alone. Having better understood the complexities of humanity, he transcended the stage of being angsty with others for not sharing his training philosophy. Nevertheless, he refuses play second fiddle to his aspirations in a bid to appease others, and as a result live a pale imitation of life. In the famous words of Lance Armstrong, a 7 time Tour De France winner despite suffering from testicular cancer, Pain is temporary. Regret lasts forever.

Conversation with Mother

Before entering university, I applied for the interest-free loan from one of our local banks. Honestly, the loan wasn't required as my parents had already accumulated enough. However, using the $30,000 to generate returns of say, more than 5% a year would be brilliant use of that money, which would otherwise be accruing a measly 0.025% per annum in a current savings account.

Now, what to do with the $30,000? I considered the 'capital guaranteed' structured products offered by banks, but delved deeper and realised that they weren't as attractive as made out to be in advertisements. Dividends weren't guaranteed and worse, the capital could be compromised should a 'credit event' happen. Seeing how they lack the security of bonds and the capital gains potential of stocks, they could probably be called a worse-of-both-worlds investment product. Furthermore, the investor will still be slapped with fund management fees even if the manager underperformed benchmark indices, or worse, suffered losses. Shortly after, the subprime mortgage crisis erupted and the Lehman minibonds saga ensued. Unwary investors lost money buying into complex derivatives they didn't understand. Having read about the anguish of losing life savings and having carefully accumulated nest eggs smashed, I resolved to become financially literate and become responsible for my dollars and cents.

In January 2010, I started a trading account with Phillips' Securities using their online trading platform. I put in $1000 of my own money as the deposit, and my mother entrusted me with $15,000 to invest. The young impressionable me, foolishly thinking that after gaining some rudimentary knowledge on reading analyst reports, blindly bought into 2 counters. On hindsight, these counters were over-priced and violated the cardinal value investing principle of not paying more than 1.5 times book value and 15 times earnings, amongst other criteria. These counters have since gone on to lose 25% and 18% respectively. The lesson really hit me where it hurt - my wallet. It dawned on me that there often exists some conflict of interest, which must be duly considered prior to any purchase. For example, the brokerage house may well be vested in the counter, screaming buy calls publicly but acknowledging the company was thrash privately.

My mother gave my brother $15,000 to invest with shortly after. He deposited the money with me. He soon became consumed by his own work - a start up company selling fitness equipment, and left me to manage the 'Ko Family Fund'. Still smarting from being blindly led around by the nose, I plunged into reading investment classics. Coupled with endless hours of trawling financial websites and blogs, I was equipped with better knowledge. My coursework also exposed me to Real Estate Investment Trusts and their workings, of which the knowledge I used to provide an edge.

I was reporting the status of the portfolio to my mother recently, which sparked off the topic for this blog post, and subsequent reflections.

Me: I've managed to achieve absolute returns of about $3000.

Mother: Good job Son. But $3000 only?

Me: Mother, you have to put things into perspective. $3000 represents an 9.7%* growth in the portfolio. Furthermore, it was a year where I managed CAP scores of 4.00 and 4.25 in the respective semesters, consistently qualified for the finals of 3 prominent bouldering competitions and got myself ranked 3rd overall in the Singapore Bouldering League, did a 3 month internship in a bid to shore up my CV, dedicated time to help pen articles for the local climbing magazine (DYNO Issue 5 and 6), took up the mantle of Chief Route Setter for ClimbNus10, and helped coach a bunch of novice women within the climbing team. I hope I've done a decent enough job.

Mother: Good job Son.

*As of the time of writing, that figure has since grown to 21% given the surge in the stock market (even after taking into account the losses incurred should I choose to liquidate my non-performing securities).

In 2011, I hope to
1. Rebalance my portfolio by diversifying into other asset classes to spread risk. I am currently overweight in equities because of a lack of financial knowledge. I want to learn more about the other asset classes such as commodities, defensive stocks like utilities, bonds, gold, etc, and how I act to lower risk and maximise returns.
2. Attempt to win an Open Men bouldering competition
3. Pull CAP up above 4 (am currently at 3.98/5.00).
4. Be a better person. Be a better son to my parents, sibling to my siblings, boyfriend to my girlfriend, friend to my peers.