Goh Tong defied the odds in building Genting resort

Lim Goh Tong, who built the Genting Highland casino resort from scratch in a place that no one would have dared to venture more than 40 years ago, arrived in the Malaya in 1937 from China after a 10-day voyage with only RM2 in his pocket but persevered to become one of the richest men in the world.

Born on Feb 28 in 1918 in the Anxi district in Fujian Province, he worked as a carpenter with his uncle upon his arrival in Malaya, sold sundries and started a scrap-metal business.

He saved up enough money and set up Kien Huat Construction in 1950, which remains his flagship private entity. One of his major breakthroughs was as a subcontractor for the Old Klang Road development project in Kuala Lumpur. He later worked on a RM300,000 project to develop a drainage system from the Kuala Lumpur city centre to Pantai.

His competence paved the way for Kien Huat Construction to become a government-licensed contractor, which resulted in him obtaining a string of contracts. Among the major projects undertaken by Kien Huat were Penang's Air Itam Dam, Kelantan's Kemubu Irrigation Scheme and the Cameron Highlands Hydro Electric Power Project. It was while working on the dam in Cameron Highlands in 1964 that he saw the possibility of developing a hill resort nearer to Kuala Lumpur.

His vision for developing Genting Highlands hinged on building a road to the resort site 1800m above sea level. He began work in 1965. Well-known for his hands-on approach, he was worker, project manager and engineer for the project.

In 1968, he founded Genting Bhd, which was granted the only casino licence by the Federal government. Lim completed the road and opened the casino in 1971.

He has tranformed the hill-top gaming and entertainment complex into the powerhouse of his multi-billion-dollar empire. His leadership also propelled Genting to emerge as a blue chip on the stock market, diversifying into plantations, paper, oil and gas and power.

In the late 1990s, his children gradually took over the operations of the Genting group due to his poor health. Lim Goh Tong, who is one of the world's richest men, died yesterday at 11.20am on Wednesday, 23 October 2007, at the aged of 89.

Richard Branson's million-dollar mindset

While on vacation at Beef Island (part of the Virgin islands), Richard Branson and his wife were trying to catch a flight back to Puerto Rico, but the local Puerto Rican was cancelled. There were no other flights out that day. As a result, the airport was full of stranded passengers. Instead of seeing it as a problem, Richard Branson's millionaire got him to see it as a challenging opportunity and took a very different set of actions.

Richard Branson made a few calls to aircraft charter companies and managed to charter a private plane to Puerto Rico for $2000. Knowing that there were many stranded passengers who needed to catch a flight out badly, he divided the price by the number of seats, borrowed a blackboard and wrote 'Virgin Airways $39 single flight to Puerto Rico'. Within an hour, with the blackboard in his hand, he had sold every single seat! As they landed at Puerto Rico, one passenger said to Richard: "Virgin Airways isn't too bad. Smarten up the service a little and you could be in business."

This is how Virgin Airways was started by Richard Branson. Today, Virgin Airways is a global budget airline and one of the most profitable in the world. The amazing thing about Richard Branson was that he did not use any of his money to solve his problem. He used his millionaire mindset to turn a problem into an opportunity which made him a billionaire today.

CASHFLOW 101

Many small business owners fail due to the lack of capital, real-life experience and basic accounting skills. Many investors think investing is risky simply because they cannot read financial statements. If you want to improve your business and investing skills, i strongly encourage you to play CASHFLOW 101.


CASHFLOW 101 is an educational board game that is created by Robert Kiyosaki, the author of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". Through this game, you can learn how to take control of my personal finances, build a business through proper cash flow management and invest with greater confidence in real estate and other businesses.




I like to play this game with my family and friends. Each time we play, we learn different lessons. The major benefit that I got from this game is that it expose me to the fundamentals of accounting, investing and finance. As a result, it increase my confidence in investing in the stock market and more open to business opportunity. Personally, i feel that CASHFLOW 101 is more than just a board game because this game can reflect the player's personalities and the way the player handles money, and more importantly it helps to change the way the player think about money on the inside.

How Most People Lose Money in the Stock Market?

It's quite common to hear people talking about how much money they lost in the stock market. But have you ever think how majority lose their money? The answer is they just lack of financial intelligence! We have to know that when we buy a stock, we are actually buying a share, an ownership of an ongoing business. Instead, most people treat stocks like lottery tickets, buying and and selling based on predictions of whether the price will go up or down in the short term. They treat stock exchange like a casino. Without financial intelligence, how do these people make decision on buying and selling stocks? The answer is based on greed and fear.

Scenarios when people buying a stock out of greed:

• Everyone is buying the stock
• They receive a hot tip from a friend
• The stock is rated 'strong buy' by stockbrokers
• They see the stock price rising and other people making money.
• During economic booms or bull market where majority of stock prices are shooting up

Consequences when people buying a stock out of greed:

• Buying stock at a price that beyond its true intrinsic value
• Experience the stock price dropping the moment they buy it

Scenarios when people selling a stock out of fear:

• Everyone is selling the stock
• The stock is rated strong sell by stockbrokers
• They see the stock failing which triggers a fear of more loses
• During war or recession when pay is cut and jobs are lost

Consequences when people buying a stock on previous scenarios:

• Selling stock at a price that below its true intrinsic value
• Experience the stock price shooting up the moment they sell it

Is Investing in Stock Market Highly Risky?

Is it true that investing in stock market is highly risky? The answer is 'Yes' if you don't know what you are doing. The answer is 'No' if you know what you are doing. The risk is very much depends on your level of financial competence and thorough understanding in stock market activity. Likewise, if you have never gone for any driving lessons and have no idea how to read the road signs and don't know what is safe driving, then there is a high chance that could get yourself in accident. On the other hand, if you know how to read road signs and practice safe driving safely, then driving is a low risk activitiy for you.

Therefore, investing is like driving. If you have no idea how to read buying/selling signal, have no clue as to where and how to read financial reports that will impact the stock markets, have very little financial and accounting knowledge to value the worth of the company's shares that you are buying and need to depend a lot on blind luck, then your hard earned money will most likely get burned. To me, these people are not investor but gamblers.

In fact, high risk not necessary leads to high return. High risk can lead to low return or lose too. If you know what you are doing in stock market or with high financial intelligent, you can achieve extremely high return with very low risk!

The greatest investor, Warren Buffett

From a very young age, Warren Buffett had a very big and clear dream of becoming the world's greatest investor. Born during the time when his father was close to bankruptcy, Warren Buffett learn about the value of money and the importance of being financially secured at an early age.

Even before his teens, Warren Buffett knew that he wanted to be rich. As early as elementary school and later on in high school, he would tell his classmates that he wanted to become a millionaire before the age of 35. Inspired by his dream, he started researching on the secrets of wealth creation.

Through his readings, he found and memorized a book called "A Thousand Ways to Make $1,000". At the age of six, he started buying coke bottles at 25-cents per six-pack and selling them at 5-cents a bottle, giving him a 16% gross profit. At the age of 13, he got a job delivering newspapers and through innovative marketing and distribution strategies, he served five hunderd customers a day.

At the age of 11, he took all his savings and started investing in the stock market. Hist first investment was three shares in a company called "City Service". While most kids at his age were reading comic books, Warren spent his time reading company annual reports. By the age of 14, he invested in pinball machines which he installed in restaurants all over his town. He was earning US$175 a week, as much as the average 25-year old was earning in 1944.

Warren later mastered the art of investing by modelling two of the world's greatest investors during his time, Benjamin Graham (the father of Value Investing) and Philip Fisher (the father of Growth Investing). By combining the ideas of both geniuses and further refining them, Warren Buffet has become the most powerful investor in the world and also the second richest man in the world with net worth US$52 billions (just US$4 billion behind Bill Gates). What I am amazed by this man is that he made his fortune purely through investing in stocks!

He is also well known for his rules of investing. His Rule #1 in investing is "Never Lose Money". His Rule #2 is "Don't Forget Rule #1".