I lived most of my life being proud that I’ve never really been addicted to something for a really really long time. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink a lot, I don’t do drugs and yes I was addicted to computer games for a while but I always managed to stop. What I never realized was that I suffered from a type of addiction that never seemed very apparent. Sugar.

I was addicted to sugar all my life but I never thought there was such a thing as a sugar addiction. People say I have a “sweet tooth” and that never sounded like a bad thing. Until one day I decided to try to severely cut down my sugar intake.

1. I stopped drinking sugar drinks. Coke, Pepsi, Milk tea, you name it. This was hard for me because I enjoyed my sugar drinks. It’s like a mini reward for myself in the middle of a hard day’s work. I walk into a 7-11 and stand by the fridge for a full 30 seconds looking at all the options there and carefully deciding which cold sugar drink I wanted.
2. I limited myself to dessert once a week. This one was harder than stopping the sugar drinks. Dessert was a standard and regular part of my meals. After dinner at home I open up my fridge and pull out a tub of Ben & Jerry’s and feast away. That again I treated as a reward for my day. I would eat cake, Famous Amos cookies, Krispy Kreme… any sweet dessert stuff I would come across.
3. I also started paying attention to the sugar contents of everything I took. The Yoplait mango yoghurt I used to take had very very high sugar. So I cut that out.
4. I stopped snacking on sweets or chocolates leaving my stockpile at home untouched. Instead I started snacking on nuts. Macadamia (which can be really fattening) but mostly pistachios because I googled around and that seemed to be a healthy nut
5. I also cut down my rice because rice turns out to be a big source of sugar in our diet. I started taking brown rice at home and if I’m out for meals I limit the white rice I take.

The first 3-4 days was difficult. I had to constantly fight the urge to go take something sweet and by the beginning of the 5th day I gave up. I justified to myself that I wanted to enjoy my life and enjoying my life meant eating what I wanted. Probably one of the main reasons addicts use to justify their addictions. My Dad once said that if you tell a chain smoker that he was going to die of lung cancer if he didn’t stop smoking today, he would stop cold turkey. No questions asked.

That was what I needed. Well that to a lesser extent. Last month I went for a medical checkup and they found a cyst in my pancreas. Doctor also found my sugar levels to be really high and she said a cyst is normally the result of an injury. An injury from my pancreas working too hard which meant all the sugar I took was making my pancreas work harder than it should be.

That was motivation enough for me. I tried the above routine again and this time I pulled through the point of not being addicted to sugar anymore.

So how does it feel to not be a sugar addict?

It’s weird. I still like ice-cream but I don’t crave donuts or cupcakes or sweet stuff like that anymore. I drank a Pepsi just a couple of days ago because it came with my fast food meal at the airport and I couldn’t finish it. For the first time in my life I found it way too sweet. For the first time in my life I’m finding all my sweet stuff I used to love too sweet for my liking. I never used to find anything too sweet.

I doubt this restriction on sugar would have a significant positive impact on my health so quickly but I think I’m on the right track and I think over time the results will show.

Most importantly this was the hardest addiction I’ve ever had to kick in my life and I’m glad I did it.

I still take some sweet stuff every now and then but now that addiction is passed my body seems to have a natural filter to tell me when something is too sweet or when I’ve had too much sugar. It seems easier now and I know both my Doctor and pancreas will be pleased.

For the past 5 years or so I’ve made a pact with myself that I would go for a full medical checkup once every two years and a dental checkup once a year. I’ve so far kept to that but this year something happened that gave me something to think about.

The medical checkup I went for was a full body scan. I do everything from the usual blood tests to an ultrasound of my organs to even running on a treadmill to test my heart. It’s a very comprehensive test that takes half a day.

I normally pass everything perfectly fine minus the bordering high cholesterol levels and stuff like that. This year though they found something more.

In my ultrasound they found a cyst on my pancreas. It’s a small cyst but a cyst nevertheless than spans about 0.6cm. The doctor immediately recommended that I go to see a gastroenterologist and get it checked out. She said it was probably no big deal but best to do it. I followed instructions and went to see one a few weeks later.

When I sat down, the gastroenterologist told me it was probably no big deal but he wanted to do an ultrasound endoscopy to check it out. An endoscopy is when they put a tube with a camera down your throat to check out your intestines but this one had an ultrasound in it so they could put the ultrasound right next to the pancreas and get a good look at the cyst.

Now a lot of people have done endoscopies and an ultrasound endoscopy is more or less the same except that the camera head is bigger so it’s more likely to cause a sore throat or a little bit of discomfort post op. The doctor said I would most likely have to do this every year to monitor that cyst.

The thought of doing it one time was scary enough but the thought of doing it every year was something else. So I talked to my father who had to do the same thing 5 years ago and he said he regretted doing the endoscopy because when he talked to other doctors then they said

“What’s the point? We have cyst everywhere in our body, some which we don’t even know about and it’s not like you’re going to do this every single year”.

What my Dad does now though is a yearly MRI which isn’t intrusive.

My sister in law happens to be a doctor and I asked her what she thought about this whole thing. She said an ultrasound endoscopy is the textbook thing to do after discovering something like that but an MRI might do the trick too.

She said one thing that hit me though. She said
“This is why I never do full medical checkups because you sometimes find things that are not serious but that forces you to check it up and do things that stresses you out or makes it more serious”.

I was like “What? Really? You never do medical checkups?”.

And she clarified that yes she does do her blood tests and all but she won’t ultrasound her abdomen for no reason unless she’s facing some symptoms.

I can’t help but think perhaps she might be right. Sure in theory regular medical checkups are the most prudent thing to do but it’s not like they catch everything that is wrong with you all the time. Sometimes they catch the smallest things and you worry about it. Perhaps the best way to know if something is wrong with you is to trust the way we are built by nature. When we feel there is something wrong with us, then we know.

Now that I know about this cyst I’m going to have to go see another doctor for a second opinion and do at least an MRI. I’ll be spending money but it’ll be a lot less than the RM4K I was quoted for the ultrasound endoscopy.

So what do you think? Is ignorance bliss? Or would you prefer to do annual medical checkups and find out everything that might potentially be wrong with you.

After a decade of social media we’ve all started to understand that what we post on social media about our lives isn’t what it really is. We’re selective about what we post. We only post the best things that are happening to us (hey look I’m on a European tour) and not the worst things (I just got fired). Like in this viral video from last year.

So when you scroll through your social media feeds you can’t help but feel a little depressed when you’re having a bad day. Depressed because it appears like everyone else is having a much better day or life than you. While you’re slogging away alone in the office on a weekday night, at least one of your friends is updating your news feed of a beautiful beach holiday they’re having. When you just broke up and you’re heart broken, someone on your feed is posting pictures of a romantic date with his new girlfriend.

Real life isn’t like that though. For every great story to tell there is sometimes a bad side to it. A bad side that we often feel too vulnerable to share.

Today I’m going to do the opposite. I’m going to tell you all the things I have going for me and the truth behind them

1) Appearance: I sometimes wear designer stuff. I must be rich.

The designer stuff I wear are mostly gifts. I have really generous friends who give me nice gifts sometimes for my birthday. I just keep wearing them over and over again.  If I ever do buy any designer stuff I would have mostly got it on discount at an outlet store or a big sale. I don’t and can’t really afford to walk into a designer store in Pavilion and shop up a storm.

I have spent some money on some really expensive watches but I think that was a phase I went through two years ago. I haven’t bought any watches since and I kinda regret spending so much money on those watches.

2) Appearance: I’ve made it rich after our recent IPO.

Truth: Most of that wealth is in shares in our now newly listed public company. Shares that I don’t intend to (and can’t) sell. When it comes to real money I have a lot less than people think I do.

I feel insecure about whatever money I have right now too. Insecure for the fear that I might invest it wrongly and lose it and guess what… with the latest stock market meltdown I am losing money.

3) Appearance: My job excites me and I’m doing something I’m passionate about.

Truth: While my job does excite and I’m very passionate about what I do, I sometimes struggle with the stress that comes with it. I often don’t sleep well at night. Some nights are spent counting the hours away till morning so I can get out of bed and get back to work.

I also can’t fully take my mind off work on my holidays. Often replying emails and chat messages about work. My body is there at some of the best times and experiences of my life, but my mind is often too far away to savor it.

4) Appearance: I fly business class all the time.

Truth: I don’t. When I travel for work I don’t travel business class unless it’s a long flight. While I believe that flying business class helps me get rested better on the plane so i can perform better at work when I land, I’m cautious about spending company money on business class tickets.

When I travel for personal holidays, my business class tickets are either sponsored or redeemed with my many many frequent flyer miles I’ve compiled.

5) Appearance: I have many properties and only get richer as they go up in value.

Truth: I only had a couple of properties. A small apartment building I invested in with some friends a couple of years ago that I have since sold.

And a nice house near Mont Kiara. It’s fun owning property for a while. What’s not fun is realizing how much money you owe the bank, finding a tenant to rent the place and maintaining it. In the apartment building in London a storm once blew off the roof and cost us money to repair it.

In the house I own in KL I once had a leak that damaged an entire area and cost money to repair. Dealing with contractors to fix the damage was as painful as the money spent on it.

My house in KL has been empty for two months now after the previous tenant had to cut short his tenancy and agents tell me it’s very unlikely I’ll be able to get another tenant soon. My house in KL hasn’t really appreciated by much too. Well it has on paper but if you factor in stamp duty, legal costs, agent commission and how much I’ve had to spend on repairs, if I sold it today I would hardly have made a profit.

6) Appearance: I spend a lot of time with my kids and they’re really close to me.

Truth: While I do spend a lot of time with both my kids and Fighter is close to me, Penny isn’t. She often cries when I carry her and would rather Shorty or my babysitter carry her instead. Clearly the time I spend with her isn’t enough.

I was in Jakarta this week for a short business trip. This is something some of my Indonesian friends find hard to believe but I actually think that I would really consider moving to Jakarta if I had a good reason to.

Here’s why I think Jakarta is awesome.

1) Sup Buntut

I LOVE SUP BUNTUT. A lot of Indonesian food is deep fried or spicy but sup buntut is neither. It’s rice with a braised meat and a very very tasty soup. On top of that you have those crackers that go so well with the whole thing.

In my short 3D 2N trip here I’ve had sup buntut twice. I would have had it again the day I left but I didn’t manage to find another one at the airport.

2) Bahasa Indonesia

Being in Indonesia is one of those times that make me really glad that I studied Bahasa Malaysia in school. Now Bahasa Malaysia is somewhat similar to Bahasa Indonesia but different too. Still I find that with Bahasa Malaysia I can get around quite well in Indonesia and it’s not hard to pick up the series of differential words between the two languages. For example we Malaysians say Boleh, in Indonesia it’s Bisa. Or instead of Kereta, it’s Mobil.

I also find Bahasa Indonesia really nice to listen to. It sounds really really smooth and polished but maybe that’s just me from an outsider point of view.

3) The convenience of a driver

In Malaysia having a driver is a luxury because it’s relatively expensive. In Jakarta though the cost of a driver is a lot less so it’s a lot more affordable. Also because the jam is so so bad, having a driver becomes more of a necessity for much of the middle class rather than a luxury.

Sure the jam here can be horrible but I don’t mind is so much if I have a driver because I can work in the car or make my phone calls or things like that. Perhaps I haven’t dealt with Jakarta jam on a daily basis yet but for the few days I’m here it seems pretty bearable.

4) Tolerance

The 1997 racial riots in Jakarta got me scared to come to Indonesia for the longest time. The Indonesia today though is really different. My Indon friends tell me that while some politicians try to play the race card, it’s increasingly becoming less and less effective as people know the motive for these things these days.

My friend told me about how the current Mayor of Jakarta is a Christian of Chinese descent and he’s doing a kick ass job. Some of his rivals have tried to play the race card on him but we see many other ethnic Indons come out in the news to defend him. I just get a feeling that modern Jakarta at least is maturing into a society that frowns upon racism or the race card.

5) The Opportunity

On my short trip I had 7 meetings with local business people in Jakarta and there is so much energy and enthusiasm for the future. Companies from the US, Japan, Korea and many other developed countries are pouring investment money into the Indonesian market to tap on the growing huge market of over 200 million people.

Things are especially exciting on the tech space because a huge population is expected to come online via their mobile phones in the next few years. Driven by the investments into Indonesia, there is a huge demand for talent now in tech and digital media so much that companies there are often poaching talents between themselves.

It has gotten so expensive to hire local talents in Indonesia that companies are even finding it worthwhile to bring it expats from India or other countries and pay for their accommodation and everything. So if you have experience working in a tech startup or in a digital advertising agency, Jakarta has some really bright options for you.

So these are the few reasons that I really like Jakarta. Sure there are some downsides too like traffic. I however believe that as Indonesia develops, Jakarta as its capital is going to get even more and more developed to be one of the best cities to live in in South East Asia.

I was watching the Republican debate on CNN that happened earlier this week. I’ve never before really made it a point to watch these early debates but this year I’m watching it because of Trump. I love watching Trump in these debates. Because he’s acing the polls and is the most popular candidate, everyone there somehow finds a way to whack him and the way he responds is hilarious.

For a good example of that watch this video. Trump was hilarious.

Anyway if you watched the whole debate you’d see a lot of different type of candidates there. Some had lots to speak, and some sadly hardly had a chance to speak. In fact almost every time someone got a chance to speak, he or she would speak all the way until the moderator would have to cut in to tell him/her that the time is up.

You also see candidates with little substance but really just try to fill up the gaps with popularist statements that go something like “It’s not about me or you but it’s about the people”.

One candidate that really caught my attention though was Carly Fiorina. She stood out to me not because she was the only female candidate there but because her answers were sharp, to the point and very very intelligent.

For example when Trump was asked what he would do to get the Russians out of Syria he said.

I would talk to [Putin]. I would get along with him. I believe — and I may be wrong, in which case I’d probably have to take a different path, but I would get along with a lot of the world leaders that this country is not getting along with.

We don’t get along with China. We don’t get along with the heads of Mexico. We don’t get along with anybody, and yet, at the same time, they rip us left and right. They take advantage of us economically and every other way. We get along with nobody. I will get along — I think — with Putin, and I will get along with others, and we will have a much more stable — stable world.

Carly instead answered this:

What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic states. I’d probably send a few thousand more troops into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message. By the way, the reason it is so critically important that every one of us know General Suleimani’s name is because Russia is in Syria right now, because the head of the Quds force traveled to Russia and talked Vladimir Putin into aligning themselves with Iran and Syria to prop up Bashar al- Assad.

I WAS LIKE THIS.

So precise. So specific and how does she even know all this!!

Then I read this article on Vox about Carly Fiorina. They fact checked some of the things she said and basically almost everything she said was bullshit.

The Sixth Fleet is already huge, and it’s hard to say why adding to its capabilities would intimidate Putin — after all, America has enough nuclear weapons pointed at Russia to level the country thousands of times over. Her proposal for more military exercises in the Baltics seemed odd in light of the fact that President Obama is already conducting military exercises in the Baltics. And the US already has around 40,000 troops stationed in Germany, so it’s hard to say what good “a few thousand” more would do. And pushing on a missile defense system in Poland is a very long-term solution to a very current problem. In total, Fiorina’s laundry list of proposals sure sounded like a plan, but on inspection, it’s hard to see why any of them would convince Putin to change course.

Reading up more about her I realize this is not the first time she’s done this. She bullshits all the time and it tricks a lot of people (like me) who don’t bother to fact check or just don’t know better that she’s a bullshitter.

Somehow if someone is able to be specific or quote stats or data we don’t bother verifying the data (unless we happen to know otherwise) and immediately assume that that person is really really smart.

Thinking back into my past I have come across people like that. People who lie but are so specific in their lies that you don’t think they’re lying. So if you want to lie, do the opposite as human nature would tell you to. Instead of being vague. Be very very very specific. And perhaps nobody will ever doubt you.

It’s shocking how presidential candidates can so brazenly go on LIVE television and make up shit and have everyone believe and applaud them, what does this mean for the world. What does this mean for us when these people aren’t afraid to lie and we’re not educated enough to tell when they’re lying.

After you graduate from university you’re faced with a decision. Do you go out to the working world or do you do a Masters. Many of these decisions depend on a variety of factors from the financial ability to continue on studying a Masters to even the conditions of the job market.

Here are the reasons on why you might want to do a Masters after your Undergrad:

1) Out of interest and expanding knowledge.

Perhaps there is a new field that you want to learn more about.

2) You happen to graduate at a time where it’s not a good time to find a job.

The economy may not be doing so well and people are retrenching. Doing a masters buys you time to enter the job market at a better time and potentially get a better job.

3) The field you want to go into requires some educational background in it 

and you studied something completely different.

Amongst all these reasons to do a Masters, the conventional wisdom is that if you do a Masters, you’ll be able to command a higher pay when you graduate. That employers will value you at a premium.

In my experience though that part isn’t necessarily true. Yes employers would might value you more than another undergraduate but don’t forget you have to compare yourself with your peers ie people who graduated the same time you did.

Employers tend to value work experience more than they do Masters. I have a friend who graduated and decided to do a Masters. By the time he was out he went to work for a bank and reported to a uni mate of his. His uni mate was effectively his boss in the working world.The difference was that his uni mate went straight to work after graduating whereas my friend continued on with a Masters.

As an employer now I find myself feeling the same way. When you hire someone with 1 year work experience you’re paying for whatever that person has learned in that 1 year in a tough working world. That person not just knows more about the job or the industry, he or she has built some networks and has had experience working in a team.

Some employers might value someone with a Masters a little more than someone without however even then the premium you command will unlikely be significantly more than the tuition fees (or other expenses) you paid for doing that Masters.

One of my board members and investors in Netccentric is Kevin Tsai. When he graduated high school his father (who’s a successful billionaire in Taiwan) decided that instead of going to college he would learn more spending those years working in the business. That seems to have paid of. Today Kevin is one of the sharpest business minded people I know.

I’m not sure if I have it in me to tell my son not to go to college but I know that I’ll probably discourage him from doing a Masters unless he really really wants to (perhaps out of his own interest).