Why choosing land is important

The government of Singapore announces that a total of 10 industrial land sites will be for sale in the first half of 2010. Now before you mobilize your army to start the bidding war, it will be worth your while to take a step back and re-consider some options that you have in your hands. The number one option is to consider proper land selection and the industry it will serve. What is proper land selection?

Just like all project feasibility studies, the first thing we need to assess is if the prospective piece of land ("the subject") is vibrant and full of energy. Is the subject getting into the "Growing Qi" phase or is it in the "Depleting Qi" phase? Are there any more vibrant Qi left for the occupants of the subject to tap on?

The next thing we want to know is timing. Has the timing for prosperity from this land past? Or, it is coming soon?

When the above is confirmed, you will want to know if the subject is good for the planned industry. For example, if the industrial site is to cater for metal industry such as metal sheets producer, hardware nuts and bolts, etc, is the piece of land good for such an industry? What we are looking for is to find a piece of land that supports the industry and allowing it to grow within a short period of time and create a boom for the industry. You can put wood carving, furniture manufacturing in that area but the growth will be never be the same. Thus, the key is knowing the real potential of the land and matching it with your industry to guarantee faster success.

Once you know that this land is good for the industry you planned for, now you want to strategise and plan the locations of your entrances, your executive management offices, and the flow of energy within the estate and the interiors of all the buildings. This is the time to maximise the available Qi we can tap from the surrounding area. If you are constructing the building to lease out to others, you should know the guaranteed take-up rate of 75% even before the completion. Don't know how? Talk to us.

It is only after considering the above, you can decide if it is worth your time and money investing in those industrial lands, or any land for that matter, that you come across. Perhaps, the next proposal that is laid on your desk before your eyes?

Why you need to understand people

All of us have come across various people from all walks of life. We interact with them and work with them in our daily life whether you like it or not. They will come with different personality and behaviour characteristics. Some are sweet, some are difficult, some demanding, some are helpful, some are unreasonable and some are pleasant. And the list goes on.

In order to get through our day with our sanity intact, we need to understand people, their personality and why they are who they are. When you understand why people respond as they do, it is often easier to be patient with them rather than becoming exasperated.

For example, Michael likes to focus one thing at a time. Having understood this will encourage you not to interrupt him unless necessary and to be less upset if he is impatient with you when you interrupt him.

At the same time, knowing how you come across to others may help you moderate your behaviour. For instance, just by understanding that you are a higher risk taker than others, it should help you understand that their negative respond is not personal but coming from their aversion to undertake additional risks. You may need to get your ideas clearly laid out and explain why the risks can be managed.

Taking the effort to understand others makes our life easier, be it working life, social life and personal life. Equally, understanding how others perceived us goes a long way to help us help others understand us better and eventually makes our life journey a smoother one.

Why use Feng Shui?

There were many occasions we were told of limitations whenever we give recommendations to clients. Typical constraint is the cost involved to implement the recommendations.

Many are worried as the property is on rental basis and any designs and structure put up costs money to install and un-install when the lease is over.

Hence, my question is, why use Feng Shui in your business?

When we use Feng Shui, we want is to see results, better results compared when no Feng Shui is used. For businesses, we want to see sales increase, more new clientele and make them buy more, willingly than they would. Isn’t this a good reason enough to implement the changes?

Using Feng Shui should be viewed as an investment, rather than as a liability. For every investment, we expect our asset to make more money for us and the company.

Our recommendations are always geared towards over-achieving the targets that we set. It is our job to create an environment that opens up more opportunities for better business. There is a saying, “money loss, can make it back. Opportunity loss, it’s gone forever.”

Thus, do not be too worried about spending a small sum to make way for bigger returns to come. This is probably all it takes to have a more successful business venture.

Disclaimer: before putting down your money and signature to engage any Feng Shui practitioner, please ensure you do your homework to find out everything you can about them and be sure you are comfortable with them and their services. Engage them at your own discretion and risks.

Chinese Metaphysics Tombs

Many, many years ago, I have ever come across a tomb where the family of their dear beloved crafted a life-size dog figurine that sits by the tomb of its late owner. The story goes that the dog missed its master so much that it died next to the late owner’s grave.

Up until a couple of years ago, I chance upon the following two tombs in Singapore. A group of us decided to checkout this place after reading an article that talks about such tombs.

What is the significance of having such a sculpture on top of a grave? Is it of a religious sect practice, for future descendants prosperity or merely for the love of the animal?

This is so cool! Just don’t pee in your pants if you bump into this at night in one of those late night cemetery excursions.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall….!

Mirror, mirror on the wall, what can Feng Shui do to make you feel AWE?!

In today’s new age Feng Shui application, the modern usage of mirrors is to ward off ‘sha’ qi or killing force or “poison” arrow. This mirror is also use by those who are more spiritually inclined to ward off ‘evil’ from coming into the house .

If you are a keen observer, you will notice that in some houses, the tenants would place an octagon-shaped plaque with a mirror in the center just above the main door. This super mirror is known as a Ba Gua mirror. Sometimes a regular mirror is used as a Ba Gua mirror.

The Ba Gua mirror comes in two shapes i.e. Concave-shaped and Convex-shaped. Typical application can be found in apartments or condominiums where the main door of two units is facing each other, divided by a corridor. If one neighbour puts a concave-shaped Ba Gua mirror, the opposite neighbour will put a convex-shaped Ba Gua to ‘counter-act’ the concave Ba Gua. Does this really help? We need to ask the two neighbours.

Put this into perspective. If one neighbour is antagonising the other to the extent that the other neighbour needs to counter-act its action, is this going to create a peaceful environment?

In another application, if you find a tree, a flag-pole, a road or a lamp-post located right in front of your main door, a Ba Gua mirror is used to neutralised the so-called sha qi as mentioned above. Imagine a mirror of about 3 inches in diameter neutralising a sha qi such a road, (if it is indeed a sha qi, but that is another story)…..? :-(

In yet another application, mirrors are recommended next to the dining table or somewhere near the dining table. The reason is to double or triple the amount of food for the household or to ensure that there will always be abundance of food on the dining table.

Sometimes we wonder how all these comes about……anybody wants to be in mirror-making industry?

Mirrors, in Feng Shui application, has its usage but not in the way the new age Feng Shui practitioner promotes it. How to use mirror to your advantage? This is a story for another day… ;-)

Feng Shui and Business

Today, our business in Chinese Metaphysics Consultation is very much focused on business entities. It is the most challenging and most rewarding, especially when you see skeptics turned ambassadors for Harmony Living

It is most challenging because clients expect us to work wonders to improve their sales revenue. The premises provided to us to work on is always difficult and every case that comes to us now is getting more complicated as we move from one project to the next.

It is also most rewarding because of the results that we produce for our clients. Most of our new clients are recommended or referred by our existing clients through the word of mouth. This shows that our clients have experienced the results and changes brought to their lives and business livelihood. It is always good to know that we have done something beneficial for our clients.

The key to our success rate is we always ensure that we produce the results we promise the client. We explained the limitations, if any, the capacity and the timeframe when the expected results will come. We are upfront with the clients if the expected results can be met or NOT.

We always focus on these two key performance index i.e. the customers we bring to them and the amount of dollars they spend. Achieve these for the client, it is already money well-spent for them.

For details of our services, please visit www.harmonyliving.sg

Bookshelf behind your back

Recently I was doing a Feng Shui assessment for a client and in the recommendation, I proposed that the child’s study table should be moved from location A to location B within the room.

However, the client was very concern when such a proposal was mentioned. She explained that she has been reading a lot of Feng Shui books and one of the big NO-NO is to sit with your back against book-shelf. According to the books she had read, the bookshelves behind you is a big Sha Qi and it is detrimental to the well-being of a person sitting there.

I explained to the client there is no cause for concern and that the Sha Qi does not manifest from the bookshelf. If it is, there will be no place in our home that we human can live in because there will be similar Sha Qi to be found in every corner of the house, not only bookshelf.

Also, all libraries and book stores will be deserted and empty because you will find more sha qi there than in your own home.

More insights on Sha Qi can be found on this link.

http://vinleo-fengshui.blogspot.com/2009/11/sha-qi-2.html

Fate-Calculation, Superstitious

I have always comes across people who would brushed aside Fate-Calculation as superstition and at the same time, there are people who are still fascinated by it. I would like to quote a paragraph from a book titled “ Chinese Mathematical Astrology”, authored by Ho Peng Yoke.

“…if we were to extend to some of these traditional Chinese methods of fortune-telling the same amount of tolerance that we accord to many of our modern efforts of predicting future events, such as weather forecasting, stock market futures, Gallup polls, etc. – none of which ever guarantees precise accuracy but nevertheless are accepted as legitimate exercises – it can be demonstrated that the Ziping method of fate-calculation is one of those methods worthy of our attention. The Ziping method does not use scientific instruments to observe temperature, air pressure, humidity and air movement as the weather forecaster does, nor computers to analyse the trend of share prices like some stock-market consultants, nor public opinion polls like the political analyst ….. but it is consistent with the same principles that explain traditional science. It does not involve the supernatural and hence the word ‘superstitious’ is not applicable….”

Something we can all think about.

Six Star Columbarium

Was just reading an article on Singapore’s “The Straits Times” newspaper today – Six Star Columbarium. It is going to be Asia’s largest luxury columbarium to be open by 2011. One of the investors is a Malaysian company which is investing SGD50 million to renovate the existing facility in Choa Chu Kang.

Read all about it http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_405918.html

Feng Shui Excursion

The last two days was one experience that any Chinese Metaphysics student would not forget. The students were exposed to a daily routine of a Feng Shui Master . The students get the chance to actually witness some of the Feng Shui techniques being deployed and seeing the results that Feng Shui promises to bring. The two-day experience was priceless . For all the money spent in other schools, students do not even have a slightest opportunity to SEE real Feng Shui at work and generating the results that is required.

During the course of two days, we visited the Columbarium at Mandai, the Ong Family tomb at Bukit Brown (one of the biggest tomb in Singapore), retail outlets, F&B outlets, residential houses, fund-managers office and apartments. The students were shown the different methods used in different settings as mentioned above. Imagine the Yin and Yang Feng Shui being deployed in the core of a city like Singapore!

Do we still need to see the dragon in China? Dragons are everywhere, if only you can find it!

BaZi Practitioner

We have just completed a 3-day BaZi Practitioner class for a group of students from Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. It was an eye-opener for some of the students as they have not seen some of the techniques that was used to read a BaZi chart. We have students who have studied from other masters before and it was refreshing for them that a BaZi could be read in a systematic and structured way. We provided clarity.

One student commented that one of the key components that are not covered extensively by other BaZi schools is the palace reading. A simple palace reading is able to convey much information than the so-called “advance” method of reading a BaZi chart . The “advance” method confuses many students that resulted being not able to use by new students embarking on this new study. For beginners, a positive reading builds confidence that will enable students to absorb advance techniques without much difficulty. This is our objective for all our students.

Any more classes coming up? Stay tuned.

Strange Opening

We were doing a Feng Shui audit recently in the city of Flat-Land Dragon. During one of the many audits we did, a really cool thing happened.

On one occasion at a client’s place, we were observing the altar and the position of the God’s facing. Under normal circumstances, one would place the Gods to face directly in front. But in this case, we could see that while it is facing the front, their faces were looking to the RIGHT!.

Now, this room is very quiet, serene and peaceful. All the windows were shut, with no possibility of strong wind blowing in. Next to this prayer room, there were two smaller rooms, one on the left and the other on the right.

While we were quietly observing the altar, a very soft and slow creaking sound came from the room on the RIGHT. The door just simply opened by itself! When the door was opening, we were expecting someone to actually walk out from that room. But there was none! It was like in the movies. The air was still and yet, the door just opened very gently, almost as if someone is coming out from the room.

Remember what i said earlier? The Gods were looking to the right.

Better use of time

A quick scan thru most popular blogs often shows the weaknesses of the blogger. A lot of these bloggers often exposes the weaknesses of others in order to bring themselves up “higher”, in accordance to their perception. This is indeed a waste of their talent and resources.

A better way to show how good they really are, is to show how well they do a job and that their skills are indeed top-notch. Most of the time, they are barking up the wrong tree. There is no point in writing fanciful stuff that only they can understand. Fancy but of no value.

Please make better use of your time.

New Blog Location

Dear Readers,

My blog is now back online.

Hope you enjoy reading them. Drop me a note if you need to know more about the articles I write.

Happy Reading!

cheers,

Francis M. Lim

Difficulties in Learning BaZi

Learning to analyse a BaZi chart can both be fun and tormenting at the same time. It is fun after you managed to decode the analysis using methods that can be applied consistently. It is tormenting to get to the part where you can apply the methods consistently.

The issue faced by all beginners is “Where do I start?”. Many times beginners looked at the chart and the chart looked back at them. How do I move from here?

There are many methods being taught in the market today. Most of the methods are based on images or pictorials to assist learners in decoding the chart. For example, Forest fire, candle light, huge tree, small plants, etc. The problem with this method is not many people can look at the same image and convey the same message. Each one of us are different in our outlook of life and our experiences will see things differently. As for beginners, it is even more difficult to learn because they simply do not know where to begin.

Before I begin to discuss the methods that can be use by beginners effectively , I would like to hear from you, your difficulties in the process of learning BaZi analysis.

What do you think can help you learn BaZi analysis faster and easier?

What kind of problems you encounter during the process of learning to read a BaZi chart? What did you do to overcome the problems?

Any other inputs that you want to discuss about learning BaZi.

Francis M. Lim

Selection comes first

There has been numerous occasions when client comes to us seeking for help after they have selected and completed the construction/renovation of their land/properties/offices/retail shops . This happens when their situation gotten from good to bad to worst in their life experiences, be it business, relationships, health, etc.

Property selection is the most important activity that one must embark on before anything else to follow. This is to ensure that the property is located in a “productive” surrounding and with the ability to harness auspicious Qi . If the surrounding area is not optimal, our advise is to look for a better place.

We want to start on a right footing. Of course, changes can still be done post-construction. But wouldn’t it be better if we can minimise the changes, changes that are usually costly, by getting a good property first?

Always keep in mind…Selection comes first.

Let your Strength flourish you

“You cannot be anything you want to be – but you can be a lot more of who you already are.” – Tom Rath, author of Strengths Finder 2.0

An interesting book that focuses on you working with your strengths to lead a better life. We have been told many times to overcome our weaknesses and turn it positively to our advantage. According to Tom Rath, this is the path of most resistance.

We should all be working on our strengths, fulfilling our passion in whatever we do. Our talents are already in us. Why work on things that we are dreadful of? By using our strengths and our in-born talents, the path of “least” resistance, we can achieve more when we do what we do best.

BaZi analysis is one method we can use to identify our strengths, what we are good at and capacity we can excel in. The Strengths Finder requires you to answer a set of questions to determine your talents but a BaZi analysis only needs your date of birth and time. Such is the wonder of our Chinese Art.

Strange Coincidental Day

It was kind of a strange day yesterday (Sunday). We went to view two apartments and the property agents for each of the property were wearing green blouse.

The two apartments, located at two different areas, were located on a “Fire” floor and the orientation was North-South facing.

The current owners of two apartments bought their units not more than 12 months ago and now looking to sell their property.

Both properties are also well-maintained and well-designed. For those of you who view houses and apartments regularly will know that it is rare to view two units of property in “good buying” conditions in a span of one hour.

Although it may not be anything at all, but it was so weird that both apartments that we viewed have similar “characteristic”.

It is telling us something?……

Cycling with the Dragon

It was an overcast morning on Sunday. Dark clouds were hovering above the sky and it looked like it was going to rain. We decided to go ahead with our cycling schedule and if it rains, so be it.

Originally we had wanted to cycle along Coastal Park Connector, a route that connects ECP area H to Changi Beach Park. While driving to area H, we found another park connector (Siglap Park Connector) that can take us to Bedok Reservoir Park from ECP via Bedok Town Park and Telok Kurau Park. We decided to take this route and leave the Coastal Park Connector for another day as I was interested to know what the route was like and where it would lead us to.

What is interesting about these park connectors is that proper bicycle and jogging paths are created for the public to use. It has proper lighting along the route and they are mostly lighted from 7pm to 7am. Most of these connectors are build along the main river/canal system in Singapore island.

Along the way, I discovered so many Big Water Mouth that one would missed it, even if looking from Google Earth or with a street map on hand. You could see where it all started, which underground tunnel it flows to and where it rises up again. You’d be surprise where some of these river flows underneath…

As we cycle along, we could see nice, huge bungalow houses, industrial offices as well as run-down properties. From a perspective of a trained eye, you could immediately tell why those properties look the way they looked. It is just a matter of whether they are tapping or not, or perhaps, situated on the wrong side of the equation.

Upon reaching Bedok Reservoir Park, we found out there is another way back to ECP. This is the Bedok Park Connector. We took this route to return to ECP but not before we had finished our morning breakfast at the nearby Bedok Reservoir kopitiam.

Overall, we did about 14km bicycle ride across two different Park Connectors. It was a really good exercise and I get to note down the location of the BWM. We will be exploring more Park Connectors in due time.