Inspiration – Page 5 – Greg Fok Advisory

What is your job?

June 18, 2020June 18, 2020
by Gregory Fok

Are you laying a stone…… or building a cathedral?

Two workers, when questioned at a construction site as to their job, responded in dramatically different ways.

One responded that he was laying stone. The other replied that he was helping to build a cathedral for people to worship God. Their job was the same. Their perspective was not.

What is your perspective towards your job?

To me, my job is using my life and work experiences to be used an instrument for building God’s kingdom!

Should I be my own doctor?

June 15, 2020June 15, 2020
by Gregory Fok

If you had an option, you could go to a part time junior doctor under going training and ask him to do a surgery on you.

Or you could go to a trusted experienced surgeon who has seen 1000s of patients and have been doing this for the past 15yrs and could immediately understand your problem, get a diagnosis and help you to draft a treatment plan.

Which will you prefer?

When it comes to family wealth planning and investing, you might unknowingly be doing the same.

We have seen consumers trying to DIY. They take an approach where they try to read the markets, trends, study companies and grow their wealth, protect their income, family and do all this part time whilst they are busy working in their main job.

At best, after all your effort you put in as a consumer, you become a part time surgeon with minimal experience to speak of.

Would you be confident to allow yourself to be operated by this part time surgeon, who does not have enough experience seeing enough patients to operate on you?

If you do not, please instead spend time to interview and look for a trusted advisor whom you can journey with on the long term and provide holistic financial advice.

It saves you lots of time, money and emotional pain. All that time and energy can be then converted to spend time with your loved ones and fill it up with your passions in life that are important to you.

Go and spend your time to live a life of possibilities!

Steward of wealth

April 28, 2020April 28, 2020
by Gregory Fok

Whatever we have is not ours to begin with.

When something is loaned to us, we tend to be much more careful with it.

For example, I remember when I was allowed to drive my brother in law’s Sports SLK Mercedes car, I was thrilled and excited! But compared to driving my own car, I was really very careful with it. As I negotiated turnings, I would slow down way before I reached the turning.

When it comes to wealth, it should be looked at from the same angle to achieve financial freedom and peace of mind. Whatever income or assets we have, it does not really belong to us. We are only in charge of it as stewards during that period of time. One day, we will leave this earth and we cannot bring all this wealth with us and will pass it on to someone else. Are we good stewards?

While we may be doing well and thriving in the good days, it is only wise to plan for unexpected scenarios that might come up along the way. And unexpected could come in various forms. It could be an economic crisis, a critical illness crisis or a business crisis.

Joseph in the bible shares that there will be 7 years of abundance and followed by 7 years of famine in interpreting Pharoah’s dreams. He also adviced this. In the years of abundance, we take out a fifth of it and store it away for when the famine comes, we would still have sufficient.

As one of my mentors, Benny Ong shares with me frequently, “If we don’t do good with our money, one day our money will not do us any good.”

I have been a steward of wealth over the past 15 years, helping families and businesses plan holistically in their overall financial planning.

Are we good stewards to see it from a stewardship perspective? Are we being responsible in the way we manage what is bestowed upon us at that time?

A person eventually wants to achieve financial freedom and peace of mind when it comes to wealth.

Go and spread the good news.

Creating a bigger future in the midst of chaos

March 26, 2020March 26, 2020
by Gregory Fok

Creating a bigger future for yourself in the midst of chaos.

There’s so much more negative than positive news out there with Covid 19. Be careful what you focus on because it might just become your reality.

Yes, I agree that things are bad out there.. We struggle, we cry and then, we use our God-given abilities to come out with alternatives to opportunities for a better outcome.

A coin always has 2 sides to it. The heads and the tails but it is the same coin.
Covid 19 has 2 sides to it. The dangers and opportunities but it is the same virus.

Here are some questions we can ask to bring out the opportunities in our lives.

What are the things we can control at this time and focus on creating opportunities for that. Let go of the things we cannot control because it will be beyond us anyway.

With the things we can control, how can we pivot in our lives and business model and turn things around?

What are the 3 things we can do now (within our control) that can propel us to a bigger future when the virus becomes a history?

Here is my personal sharing.

As an example, my business revolves around meetings with clients.

With the limitation of meetings and more notices to stay home, I have moved on to online meetings like using zoom or facetime to meet with clients “online”. This has created huge productivity for clients and myself as I can connect with more people in a day as both of us save on travelling time.

I have leveraged on technology to go online by sharing my thoughts and perspectives especially given the current market drops and clients need to know that they will be ok and their life savings will not disappear overnight. Most clients have the same concerns and questions as the ones I have personally.

On top of that, there can be additional strategies that can take advantage of this opportunity of a lifetime.

I also make continuous calls to my clients to just find out how they are doing and find ways to see how we can be of value or even just be there as a listening ear because business owners are highly stressed up now with no one else who can understand their predicament.

This is also a great time for learning so that I can be more creative to rub off positive energy to others in this time of doom and gloom.

This period also allows me more reflection time to understand myself better and where my sources of inspiration, gifts and gratitude comes from.

With a downturn this period, there can be only one way moving ahead, which is upwards in the future. Are you ready for the recovery ahead?

I hope to bring to you positive vibes in the midst of the chaos. Go and pay it forward to someone else.