TalentCorp's Semester Break Programme (SBP) Day 1!

For the record this is not the first time I heard about TalentCorp. I am not really sure where I found out about TalentCorp, but to anyone who does not familiar with the organisation, TalentCorp is an agency under the Ministry of Human Resource, and they have various interesting programmes tailored for Malayisan students, graduates, professionals, and employers which you can check at their  their website. 

But this is my first time participating in this SBP programme, though, as a participant/attendee, of course. The last time I did not get to join due to clashes of schedule; my new semester has started during the dates of event. From what I notice about this SBP event, it is conducted online for 3-4 days during the period in which most Malaysian universities are having semester breaks, and they have different modules each day, and you can choose which module you want to join, with the modules' constant theme seems to be about money management/personal finance and career pathway planning. The speakers seem to be from reputational institutions and also some famous personal finance influencers, which is cool; it exposes you to what institution you should recognize, the Key Opinion Leaders and Consumers in the personal finance/money management topic. 

So let's see what I jotted down about today's session!

Budgeting: Stay High During The Lows by Nirmala Supramaniam of AKPK

So truth to be told I joined the session late 10 minutes. But I roughly knew that AKPK is under Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), where they somewhat provide counselling and advises to debtors (check their website for legit info). 

• Do you know you can get financial knowledge from financial institutions' official websites? Ms Nirmala mentioned that you can get some knowledge and learning materials and tools from Bursa Saham, Bank Negara and Security Commissions official websites. I think that's interesting; obviously the knowledge there is really legit, right?
• Control emotion when investing.
• Review investment annually.
• "you invest in the marriage, not in the wedding" This line came up when she talked about investment, and what loan is considered good and an attendee asked if taking loan for wedding is good loan. I think the quote is good btw
• Take loan only for productive reasons (eg study, business), not for lifesty
• AKPK has debt-to-income ratio calculator on its website. I'd never knew that, I'd never check out AKPK website.
• She also mentioned about CCRIS and CTOS. From her I learnt that CCRIS is from AKPK, BNM while CTOS is from https://ctoscredit.com.my/. I also learnt that it is pronounced "c-kris", and not pronounced as how you would spell CCRIS LOL. 
• I'd never knew the difference before; CTOS captures legal proceedings regarding loan in its report, differing it from CCRIS.
• You can get free courses on https://power.akpk.org.my/. Interesting!
• You can also do trial runs on Bursa official website to practice or explore stocks.
• Don't be choosy in finding jobs in these times 😐😭

Making Money With No Money by Peter Young from MrMoneyTV

I've heard of MrMoneyTV but I did not consume their media before. Anyway Mr Peter started by introducing himself, telling his background on how and why he take interest in financial stuff. It was rather touching actually, listening to his personal and painful childhood told with laughs; he said his parents were bankrupt when he was a kid and as someone with a self-employed parent, I could somehow understand the effects of the deep low finacial moments. It kinda feel dark also lah honestly seeing him laughing while telling those painful moments, but in a way he radiates strong optimism. 

• "actually they are not so smart lah" 😆 I chuckled when he said this, regarding the inspirational and prominent figures after he read their biographies.
• Mr Peter stressed that the difference between a smart guy and a successful guy is whay one's do with their idea.
• Aim for the moon but reach one step forward. "what is the ladder in front of me that I can take" "when you take the first step you are taking the word (your idea) out"
• Identify passion (explore!) → craft story → define value → listen to audience (reflect) → repeat
• read The Lean Startup by Eric Ries if you want to start business
• "Your skill is a capital itself"
• Check out the book Psychology of Money and Dan Ariely and KC Chong's books if you want financial book recommendations.

I am also intrigued with what one attendee named Aishah wrote in the chat about passion, when Mr Peter ask about our own passion.

Also from the session I can say that Mr Peter is very interactive with the audience ya, which is vey cool.

Beginner's Guide To Investment by Helmi Hasan from Balkoni Hijau

I've read Mr Helmi's blog and I think his blog is very cool; relatable, chilled, and discuss the financial aspect of many things from investment, lifestyle to spending, even though it is rather a new personal finance blog. 

So this is my first time listening, or watching him talk, and he stated that he hates jargons. So this module is kinda like Personal Investmet 101, to those who does not even know how to start investing, in layman term because he hates jargons, right? He did not recommend, but merely sharing and thus exposing us to the various investment tools that exist. So his are:

• Gold
• Stocks - dividend investing "start with stocks from your own country"
• Roboadvisory
• Property
• Business
• Digital marketing & website

• He also said, for us students and fresh graduates who are avout to start investing, the sequence should be "make money → save → invest".

While I have read about them before (except stocks, business and digital marketing and website), the stocks part intrigue me, which I think I am going to read more about it later. His reaction was kinda amusing too when he reminisce on his property investment - investment is not always profitable, guys sobs

Anyway, if you are interested to watch the recordings of this session, you should be able to find them on TalentCorp's Facebook page. Also tomorrow they have another sessions about digitalisation and I am looking forward to it!